Your views on karate/taekwondo?

[VIPrice]

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[jabsRstiff]

It's great for physical conditioning, coordination, and I imagine just feeling good about yourself.

As for its effectiveness in terms of fighting? Better than nothing, but due to the lack of testing against an unchoregraphed opponent- it fails miserably.

[NChristo]

2 Completely different types of combat, put his sensei in the ring with gloves on and he can hang with Ali or Foreman ?, no, but put Ali and Foreman in a dojo and his sensei where they don't know what they're doing and the results would likely change.

Karate and Taekwon Do do spar / fight, not quite sure what you're talking about unless what your friend participates in is different to what I've seen, the Kata is not just a 'dance' it's there to perfect your form which is why you do it many many times over to drill the movements into your body.

In all honesty your flatmate sounds like an ignorant fool, I've been in a few Dojo's and know a lot of people who do Karate (Particularly Shodokai (Spelling?)) people would jump at the chance too spar as they would do in the boxing gym (even get a few MA coming to the gym to spar), you don't train for that many years to only use it for 'self defense', that is why you're able to participate in tournaments.

If I was you, get a tape of McCallum vs Toney I, strap him to a chair and force him to watch it over and over again, if he still thinks boxing is a caveman sport, keep him in the chair and take him to the highest hill / mountain you can find and throw him off it.

[McGoorty]

skip to boldened to view the main question, otherwise read the prelude.

so i just had this debate with my flatmate (who is a black belt, been doing karate for 12 years and is around 19) about karate. he was under the impression that karate is the more disciplined, skillful sport. he basically believes boxing is just 2 guys getting in the ring banging away at each other until the other guy drops. he describes it as "all offence," whereas karate, you see, is 'self defence.' apparently boxing is not, as he disagress boxing is self defence. he doesnt seem to agree that boxing has many defensive maneuvers, and that if you dont know them, you wont get far.

he believes if he boxed for 6 months, he would beat a boxer whos been doing it for 2 years. i offerered him $500 if he could prove it. when asked why he thinks he could beat a 2 year experienced boxer, even though it is according to him people with no technique in which the bigger puncher wins, the answer was because of his skills learned through karate(?). he also believes his sensei, a 60 year old man, roughly the same size as my flatmate (around 145 lbs) could at the very least hang in there or beat the likes of george foreman or muhammad ali (i asked him about pacquiao but he wasnt aware of him, and simply shrugged at the aforementioned fighters). i found it hard to conceal the laughter when i heard this.

i tried to explain the incredible discipline, desire and heart you need in boxing. i tried to explain smaller fighters can beat bigger, stronger fighters through technique, skills and intelligence e.g. pacquiao-margarito, marquez-katsidis and countless others.

this brought about a question which ive thought about quite a bit before, and thought i would post here. what is your opinion of karate/taekwondo and all these 'martial arts' where they dont truly fight, or spar?
as far as i understand it and as far as he explained to me, even a "full sparring" where you need '100% concentration' or some ****, you still dont hit you opponent, you merely pull back ur punch/kick a few inches away from the target, and this apparently scores you points. how can you really know about fighting, or that what you do is effective, if youre not even hitting the guy? there so many variables that arise from being hit, what you will do after and how the other guy reacts. how can you think you can fight if youve never been battle tested, if youve never really taken a punch?

its so self-righteous to me to think your form of fighting is the best when you dont even truly fight. when you pretty much go through a dance routine(he even likened it to a dance) where how the person responds is pretty much textbook. it doesnt even seem like fighting, barely self defence. if you get in a fight on the street, is the other guy gonna do the ****in karate waltz with you? i tried to point this out to him in vain.
to even suggest a 60 year old man of any weightclass, let alone 145 lbs, could hold his own against the likes of muhammad ali, or george foreman, who could damn near kill a 145 lber with a single punch just seems too far. these guys are battle tested, warrior hearted, ****in legends.

what have your experiences been with karate etc people? do they all seem to come off with a profoundly undeserved sense of self rightousness, despite their supposed humbleness and 'we shall not fight unless our life is threatened' (which really boils down to 'our style is so powerful we will not fight you or we will kill you, so therefore we are better') mantra? i also notice they seem to think punching through pieces of wood or ceiling tiles, as my flatmate has, is very serious business. who the **** cant do that with even a half decent punch?

btw, i offered to spar him but he says something like karate is not for that kind of sparring or some ****. its 'self defence'.

He's a kid for a start. I have done both Karate and tae Kwon Do, and had a fair bit of experience in them. Trying to turn both into sports has destroyed the "Martial" aspect, yes they concentrate on art to the detriment of the other half. He obviously knows nothing about boxing so he just is not in the position to comment. I tried a few tournaments but just wasn't happy with the way the "art" suddenly disappeared as being Australian, the crazies appeared and we'd sometimes get fights that were more streetfight, (should'a seen the faces of the Japanese/Koreans present at these..lol)...--------------------------- Dem's was the day's,....... But back to the thread. Having said all that, I got to meet on occasion "the REAL McCoy" martial artist, like Ernesto Presas the Filipino Arnis master.... F***MeDead was that guy something, he and his 7th degree assistant were incredibly hard,... they were as hard as granite from tip to toe, and not only were they incredible with weapons, their hand to hand ability exceeds anything I ever witnessed..... If they had caught the boxing bug when young they'd have been awesome boxers,... it was as if they trained eight hours every day of their life, they were real bare-knuckle fighters......... any boxer who saw these guys would BE IMPRESSED, maybe learn something. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I also met a few Karate and Tae Kwon Do guys near to that level of excellence... and I don't think they took part in any tournaments, but were willing to fight anyone, these guys could accept the bumps and bruises without complaint. In truth people, IT IS THE MAN,...... NOTHING ELSE...... If he's for real, he's for real,....... forget the name of the martial Art,... if you look hard enough, you will find them,... they are out there,... and always will be, but they are outnumbered by fakes by a large degree.......... I've seen them,... out there in a scout shed,... with a class of a dozen little kids (some with black belts ????).. a couple of sheilas and a few middle aged fat blokes (puffing and wheezing during the initial stretching),.... all doing star jumps to a bespectacled 40 year old Geography teacher who makes a few quick bucks two nights a week (the only training HE gets that week). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But as I said, there are "real Mccoys" out there, and quite a few of them can and do wipe the pavement of the odd boxer, I've seen it happen sometimes (at 2 am in Blacktown on a Friday night),.. there's a primary source for that right there, so be careful who you call a cu*t on your nights out.

[McGoorty]

2 Completely different types of combat, put his sensei in the ring with gloves on and he can hang with Ali or Foreman ?, no, but put Ali and Foreman in a dojo and his sensei where they don't know what they're doing and the results would likely change.

Karate and Taekwon Do do spar / fight, not quite sure what you're talking about unless what your friend participates in is different to what I've seen, the Kata is not just a 'dance' it's there to perfect your form which is why you do it many many times over to drill the movements into your body.

In all honesty your flatmate sounds like an ignorant fool, I've been in a few Dojo's and know a lot of people who do Karate (Particularly Shodokai (Spelling?)) people would jump at the chance too spar as they would do in the boxing gym (even get a few MA coming to the gym to spar), you don't train for that many years to only use it for 'self defense', that is why you're able to participate in tournaments.

If I was you, get a tape of McCallum vs Toney I, strap him to a chair and force him to watch it over and over again, if he still thinks boxing is a caveman sport, keep him in the chair and take him to the highest hill / mountain you can find and throw him off it.

Or just show him some prime Willie Pep if he thinks there is no ART to it..... I rest my case.

[McGoorty]

It's great for physical conditioning, coordination, and I imagine just feeling good about yourself.

As for its effectiveness in terms of fighting? Better than nothing, but due to the lack of testing against an unchoregraphed opponent- it fails miserably.

In the old days they always tested each other,... it was a very Japanese thing to do, they called each other out all the time..... some of these arts were tested in WAR... not a ring with rules...... There are just some that have diluted it all.... but there are some out there as I said.... They are not so good with gloves on, gloves have also added to decline of true martial arts.

[jabsRstiff]

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.

[GOAT86]

**** all those names. All you need to know is how to taser dat azz.

[Chups]

It's great for physical conditioning, coordination, and I imagine just feeling good about yourself.

As for its effectiveness in terms of fighting? Better than nothing, but due to the lack of testing against an unchoregraphed opponent- it fails miserably.

i think if youre a black belt or been doing it long youll take out the average street thug, but not too much more.

Exactly!

[Medved]

99% of these Asian sports are = DANCING

They teach you nothing about fighting and will never help you win in a street fight.

I laugh at all these Karate losers and people like Bruce Lee.

Yea lets have a street fight, oh wait you need a 30 foot mat so you can have some space? My BAD.

Karate + Co are joke sports meant for 40 year old losers to own their own "dojo" so they can scam suburban kids once a week.