Your views on karate/taekwondo?

[Amazinger]

Karate and Taekwon do do have tournaments they participate on.A black belt may have some tournaments under his/her belt.In which you can equate as either fighting or serious sparring.Your friend does not not know the names you mentioned since he does not follow them. however he probably follow other fighting organizations or techniques such as Muay Thai,Kungfu or UFC,Bellator etc.
Tae kwon do practicioner is not very effective in a street fight against a person who is a very good boxer. And vice versa.

[NChristo]

i think he did say somewhere along the line you do have actual contact in some sparrings, but you hold back ur punches & kicks or something like that. hes been doing it for 12 years so im sure hes done just about every karate thing under the sun.

Stopped reading.

He's only 19 years old and has only been doing it for 12 years, how on earth has he done everything under the sun to do with Karate ?, you do know it doesn't end at Black belt right ?, I'm sure he hasn't touched on 'everything' to do yet and especially as seeing that he won't even do full contact sparring.

Taekwondo I see as particularly useless in street fights, it's not full contact, but a lot of forms of Karate are and they do teach you to punch and kick to the best of your ability as boxing does, if you're good you could easily take out more then your average 'street thug', they don't have to fight out of a silly stance to stay calm in a fight and hit hard enough to put your average joe down, you seem to think that in a street fight they would ask the opponent to stop and run off too go get their Kimono on before they fight.

[Amazinger]

he was aware of foreman/ali, not pacquiao.

hes not a fan of muay thai thats for sure. not so sure about MMA.

for sure you could say some dude thats boxed for like 2 months or whatever is more than likely going to get beat by a world taekwondo champ. but if you put a world boxing champ in with a tkd champ... IMO boxing wins just about everytime. kicks leave you too open and vulernable for too long. punches are the most effective method of dishing out punishment fast and damaging.

I only mentioned those just to tell you that he's not dumb for not knowing some famous boxers name.Since I practise both I find that I find most helpful is awareness and positioning when you know you may get into a fight.And the "element of surprise". "Element of surprise" is very important. either you will strike without their knowledge or you have the knowledge (of martial art and boxing) without their knowledge of it.

[F l i c k e r]

well for one, they do truly spar.

Kyokushin Karate even spars without padding and protection.


It really depends on where you go to learn. If you go to a fake place, you'll learn all kata/forms and hardly do **** else besides scream loud.

You go to a credibly teacher, you will learn real stuff. Spar for real. So the martial art would come into practical use.


<--- A person who practiced both karate and taekwondo.

[squealpiggy]

Karate will teach you how to punch without hurting yourself, it's good for self development, it's good for getting and staying in reasonable shape, and it boosts your confidence. It doesn't make you a boxer though. Squaring up as a karateka against a boxer will simply mean getting knocked out to the left or the right instead of straight backwards.

[jessica@rhboxin]

i done taekwondo it screwed up my knees, and my friend actually needed a knee operation.. kicking the way we did was a unnatural movement, and stupid for us too cause we were never going to do any flying spinning heel kicks in the middle of a fight.

if i had to do it all over again, would of started with boxing.. its simplier, more effective, and gets straight to the point no b.s. it really is the sweet science.

[McGoorty]

There are guys who are training in MMA who assume they're bad-asses, or you're intimidated by them, just because they're doing so.

My opinion is the training means nothing if you ****in' blow at it! If you don't have any aptitude, I don't care what the hell you're being shown.

Absolutely... only the talented can be successful fighters..... it's the man not the school

[McGoorty]

nchristo - i posed the question about ali/foreman something to the effect of 'who would win in a fight between your sensei and..." if ali/foreman fought ANY 145 lber, in the street, i think its painfully obvious they would destroy the smaller man. the boxing ring no one can debate. in a dojo - i havent been in one since i was 11 or so and didnt participate so im not too familiar with the goings on, but if they were wrestling or whatever, simulating a real fight (where they could also punch, even if they could only kick), do you think they would get beaten? i have a very hard time believing that.

i think he did say somewhere along the line you do have actual contact in some sparrings, but you hold back ur punches & kicks or something like that. hes been doing it for 12 years so im sure hes done just about every karate thing under the sun. he didnt accept sparring but he also doesnt compete in tournaments. this was another thing he had against boxing - he said it was all a competition. i was like ok? hes all about not using what youve learnt unless you have to - and hed rather defuse the situation than really 'hurt somebody.'
like you said, they do spar but they never go full out, punch or kick with full power. how much can you really learn, or know, when the fight is so controlled and regimented?

look at this world championship karate fight. this just doesnt look impressive to me at all. the guys bounce around for like 75% of the fight. look at the first point scored at 2:07. look how they pull just about all their punches and kicks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRCQ0...eature=related
it seems to me like you could land/pull a punch in karate even if its not gonna hit clean and get the point (to pretty much cheat). even if it would hit clean, and you let it, so what? a real fight isnt stopping there... thats my problem with karate - it doesnt seem like a real fighting art.
thanks for the fight suggestion, ill look it up.

mcgoorty - im only 21 myself. i think youre right about losing the 'martial' and getting up their own arse about the 'art.' i agree with what you and jabsRstiff are saying - its definitely a lot about the individual. im sure there are karate guys out there who are tough and fight pretty good. but like i said earlier, in a sport/'fighting art' where they reset the round if someone lands a half-assed punch... how much of a combat situation is that, really? it seems like itd almost be setting up people to fail.
anyway, blackpool at 2am eh? thats a pretty rough place. im a kiwi but i lived in sydney for some months last year.

medved - i agree. i CANT STAND when people can look you in the the eyes with a straight face and say bruce lee would beat the top boxers today, let alone heavyweights like ****in mike tyson, ali, foreman, frazier, holmes. lee was a decent actor and a good martial artist well ahead of his time... THATS IT.

interesting vid i found - boxers vs karate(ists?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNxaNAm_fWQ

BLACKTOWN.... western Sydney... streetfighters galore there in the 70's and 80's,.. can't speak much about the place nowadays,... but I remember a couple of times when I was young, we used to see scores of skinheads trolling around the suburbs. Well I was with a few mates when I see these Skinheads lookin as if they owned the place, within a couple of minutes about 6 carloads of the Blacktown boys in their uniform of huge mullets and flannelette shirts arrive and then all 25 or so of them just waded in amongst at least 50 odd skinheads.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FMdead, the Blacktown boys beat the whole lot up, most vicious **** I ever saw, skinheads having their skulls smashed into the ground (or pavement)..... we got the hell outta there sooooooo fast, lucky we had long hair eh !!!!!... bro. ------------------------------------------------ I am twice as old as you mate (unfortunately), but I have seen some amazing stuff go down over the years. The guys I talked about wouldn't have been seen dead at a tournament, they train behind closed doors... no novices allowed. As for Martial philosophy, try reading Bob Fitzsimmons book, contrary to some modern opinion..... it was NOT ACCEPTABLE for a boxer of that time to engage in streetfights,.. Bob said that a real boxer can walk away from an idiot, safe in the knowledge that it was in his power to teach the fool a lesson, he would only react if things went too far. Bob was very strict on this, boxing is meant to be an even (as possible) contest between two willing opponents..... professionals should be above the thug,.. and Bob proved beyond doubt the superiority of boxing over the wild brawling street thug. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By the way, none of those skinheads could box to save themselves, those blacktown boys were different, some very handy skills they had, best streetfighters I've ever seen,... they were not simple brawlers that's for sure.

[T.Horton]

BLACKTOWN.... western Sydney... streetfighters galore there in the 70's and 80's,.. can't speak much about the place nowadays,... but I remember a couple of times when I was young, we used to see scores of skinheads trolling around the suburbs. Well I was with a few mates when I see these Skinheads lookin as if they owned the place, within a couple of minutes about 6 carloads of the Blacktown boys in their uniform of huge mullets and flannelette shirts arrive and then all 25 or so of them just waded in amongst at least 50 odd skinheads.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FMdead, the Blacktown boys beat the whole lot up, most vicious **** I ever saw, skinheads having their skulls smashed into the ground (or pavement)..... we got the hell outta there sooooooo fast, lucky we had long hair eh !!!!!... bro. ------------------------------------------------ I am twice as old as you mate (unfortunately), but I have seen some amazing stuff go down over the years. The guys I talked about wouldn't have been seen dead at a tournament, they train behind closed doors... no novices allowed. As for Martial philosophy, try reading Bob Fitzsimmons book, contrary to some modern opinion..... it was NOT ACCEPTABLE for a boxer of that time to engage in streetfights,.. Bob said that a real boxer can walk away from an idiot, safe in the knowledge that it was in his power to teach the fool a lesson, he would only react if things went too far. Bob was very strict on this, boxing is meant to be an even (as possible) contest between two willing opponents..... professionals should be above the thug,.. and Bob proved beyond doubt the superiority of boxing over the wild brawling street thug. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By the way, none of those skinheads could box to save themselves, those blacktown boys were different, some very handy skills they had, best streetfighters I've ever seen,... they were not simple brawlers that's for sure.

i enjoyed reading this, great post!

[F l i c k e r]

I read that someone hates when people act like Bruce Lee would beat top boxers.

Well, I also hate when people automatically assume a top boxer is some bad ass on the street. Zab Judah, a boxer known for knock out power, couldn't even knock out some street punk with a sucker punch in a street fight over a craps game.

So it works both ways. Martial arts works, it depends on who's using it and who you learned it from. If you learn bullshit, your gonna be bullshit. You learn practical stuff, your gonna use practical stuff on the street. If your a timid weak ****, no matter what kind of training you have, your not gonna be successful on the street.

Martial Arts is causing the most damage possible, in the shortest amount of time and getting out of a dangerous situation while taking little if any damage at all. If that means not engaging in fights, so be it. If your attacked; groin strike, eye gouge, throat jab; followed by multiple hard strikes and getting the fuck out of there.

That is true martial arts. Not standing there, squaring up and trying to fight like combat sports.