What should karate sparring look like?

Hey everyone! Another vlog talking about the best way to spar to develop all the skillsets found in karate! #combatsport #fighting #fight #selfdefense

[@Dangerous_Nerd]

Great video! The butt scooting BJJ guys had me cracking up! "MMA sparring gloves" are definitely the way to go.

[@KarateBreakdown]

@@Dangerous_Nerd you just reminded me I think I saw the sanabul ones for the first time when you visited! The things I’ve seen at BJJ tournaments 😖

[@landoftheninja]

Bro, I almost had my shotokan instructor sold on this. Then one round in sparring I went for a clinch and my gi scratched my buddies eye 💀

[@landoftheninja]

I'm not complaining too much tho, bc we *never* did point sparring. It was all free sparring.

[@KarateBreakdown]

Dude I remember the first seminar I taught, I was admiring someone’s expensive seishin gi and then the sleeve ripped in the middle of a drill 💀

[@landoftheninja]

@@KarateBreakdown the oof is real with this one 😅😂

[@cameronkacena197]

Definitely agree. If more karate dojos did a better job of realistic sparring (as realistic as can safely be done) karate would benefit in both popularity and effectiveness. Our go-to sparring is freestyle, light contact, at all ranges. We typically stand it back up after about 5 seconds on the ground. People are welcome to simulate "dirty" techniques. It's surprising how infrequent they are used. We do, however, opt for headgear with face shield and no gloves. I am a big believer that gloves, even mma gloves, change the way that people use their hands both offensively and defensively. People get sloppy very quickly with their punching techniques if they put on gloves, and they often defend with the backs of their hands. If you are punching (even light taps) to plastic with bare knuckles you make sure to do it properly. I certainly do not think that the headgear gives me anymore of a false sense of security than gloves do. When I hear an audible tap of the plastic on my face shield a couple times in a round I spend a couple of days thinking about what I did wrong. That being said, we are just light sparring, so I can see how it's different for Kudo practitioners going full out in a fight. I do agree that the range is different with the headgear, but I measured it and it's about 1.5" at my jaw and 1" at my nose. This isn't any different than the thickness of gloves, and let's face it, there are no perfect ways to safely spar. Anyhow, that's certainly not a hill that I'm going to die on, that's just my take. I really hope that more karate dojos implement effective and comprehensive forms of sparring. Great video!

[@officialblkreign9330]

Good video. In Hidetaka Nishiyama's book Karate the art of empty hand fighting, in the portion about Karate techniques he lists in this order-blocking techniques, attacking techniques, throwing techniques, and joint-twisting techniques. We are part of that lineage and I was always taught to learn enough ground fighting to be able to get back up. My uncle has taught this way for near 45 years.

[@tatumergo3931]

Since karate is mostly hand strikes than leg or foot strikes, I train it like boxing. Then when I start developing the leg/foot strikes, I use the Savate or muay thai methodology. And finally I end with mixing it all up with chancery pugilism and grappling.

[@ForHonorUSMC]

I also train 'dirty fighting', which makes it REALLY hard to find a sparring partner that wants to go through that. Never stepping in the ring, so if I gotta throw hands, I'm going to do damage.

[@KarateBreakdown]

Automatic DQ club 🙌

[@Mikegonzo0351]

Love this video! Been saying this for quite some time with a few guys in my Dojo. When I was a kid we would spar and we would get taken down and have to grapple a little. Now that I have return to the art, I can’t find where to replicate that environment. A lot of our guys use almost full boxing gloves or century karate gloves. I’m the odd ball using Hyabusa Hybrid open finger gloves because I like to grab.

[@barrettokarate]

In my opinion a rule set similar to kudo would be best, just not full-blown go for the KO level. You've got striking, throwing, clinching, grappling, headbutting, etc. Actor Jef Speakman's organization has been doing a similar style of sparring for years. Recent Jesse Enkamp and his pro MMA fighter brother Oliver did a video on kudo.

[@CristianoSadun]

I think you're being very nice to the modern karate "takes a long time" mindset. :) If karate was taught and explained for what it is - as you say, mostly as a method for get you in an advantageous position in a clinch and then do something, as all katas show - it would take no more time to get reasonably proficient at it, than it takes for any other comparable skillset. It would take long time to get _really_ good at it but that's the same for all the others. You "simply" need to build a degree of posture, coordination, muscle response and a bit of strength and understand what you're trying to do, and then try to do it drilling a few movements from the katas with a partner or the teacher, and then expand from there. All kata movements make good sense and are learnt correctly in a matter of minutes when you knows what you're trying to do, then of course practice with a partner gets you better. Sadly that's not how it goes: movements are boxed into meaningless labels, applied at a distance completely different from the one they're meant for and poor students are literally fed bs from day one in what the goals of these movements are. And the saddest thing is that most often that's done with good intentions - often the instructor himself has no idea and really believes that's the proper stuff. The good part is that the biomechanics remain extremely solid even as they're not applied in the right context, so practitioners still develop good body control, posture and power, only having no idea why and how to use them. :) As for sparring, there's probably no need to reinvent the wheel - kake-kumite is already there for friendly sparring.

[@lannelbishop3668]

You younger martial artist are so lucky. I’m a 60 year man karate ka. 36 years ago when I started training karate there was no internet to watch different karate styles ,learn katas and learn grappling just by watching your phone. You had to go to class learn all your basics then get promoted to level where you could attend intense sparring. Which is the best and safest way for novice to learn fighting. In Seido Juku karate you don’t spar until you reach 4th kyu. At this level you should be able to have some control over your body, your punching , kicking , blocking and break falls. It is my opinion that the best way to enhance one’s karate is to cross train in boxing and judo once you reach 4th kyu in karate. That’s is how I enhanced my karate. Judo blends incredibly well with karate. Judo sweeping and throwing techniques are vastly superior to those in karate. Boxing’s punching and jabbing has a lot to offer for a karate ka like ko power and movement. I say judo is better to learn than BJJ for a karate ka. BJJ or catch wrestling requires a lot of contact with your opponent. I don’t want to be nipple to nipple with a killer. I want to break him down from a distance using strikes then choke him out. I want to be on my feet the whole time.

[@krytycznyskaut3450]

In my club we are using mma sparing gloves and we are just fighting. I train traditional Shotokan, so there is not many clinch fighting, but we have some sweeps and some handfighting

[@robizu6321]

se a pessoa diz que Karate nao tem cotovelada nem joelhada , provavel que ela nem sequer sabe os primeiros kata, pois logo nos primeiros kata tem essas tecnicas de forma bem clara (ao menos na ordem que é apresentada no estilo que pratico , Shotokan)

[@ProdigiousReturn]

So… what we need is Kudo?

[@Helicondrummer]

I'm coming from a TKD, wing chun, and BJJ background and have been developing my own martial art which is essentially MMA in a traditional package focused on self-defense. I'm calling it Tae Sao Do and teaching it along side BJJ. The Tae Sao Do is meant to be a focus on striking with some clenching and throwing as well as "self-defense" which is essentially BJJ clench and ground escapes. The style has begun to look more like Karate and MMA than when I just taught TKD. I think Kudo has a lot they are doing right but nothing is perfect. As far as amateur level tournaments, I think the space helmet is a good way to go for Karate or any other traditional style. For the more adventures competitor, then there is no reason traditional guys can't just fight MMA if their style is well rounded. For Tae Sao Do I plan to require black belt ranks to have ranks in BJJ as well. I think of the two styles as being complementary. Structurally my classes are looking like this. "kata", then applications of the contents of the kata then the last section of class is "self-defense" (which is just escapes from holds) along with specific training with those positions. The self-defense section is replaced in the second half of the week with sparring concepts and sparring. There I have a rotating curriculum that focuses on a different aspect before free sparring. For example one week might be maintaining distance while another is closing distance. It also includes classes on clench fighting, throwing, and even some very basic ground positioning and transitions as well as a week on submissions and submission defense.

[@JustSomeGuy69420]

Is there a name in Karate for the technique you do at 9:33 that looks like Iriminage?

[@KarateBreakdown]

Sorry I’m not great with specific names for techniques, I know I was going for a neck crank takedown but couldn’t get my hands together so I pulled on his tricep with my right hand and still was able to turn him over with the pseudo neck crank with my left hand

[@JustSomeGuy69420]

It was very slick. I work similar techniques a lot. I think takedowns and throws that are based around head control are excellent. Great video.

[@theflamingone8729]

Did BJJ change your understanding/interpretation of kata?

[@KarateBreakdown]

I was lucky my sensei had a very practical interpretation of kata, I feel training BJJ allowed me to pressure test the katas to know what worked and what didn’t

[@theflamingone8729]

@@KarateBreakdown sometimes when I'm rolling I think "That feels familiar" or watching a technique being demonstrated and recognising movements. I recognise a lot more applications in ground work that we were shown.

[@KarateBreakdown]

@@theflamingone8729100% we always said the applications is discovered after the round cause then you can go back and reassess and say “hey this felt like this move in kata” etc. then it’s about drilling to make it repeatable

[@theflamingone8729]

@@KarateBreakdown they were clever cookies to develop exercises that refine and strengthen applicable movements without a specific application in mind. Fair enough our bodies have a limited range of movement, and there is a limited number of ways you can attack someone, but the combinations of those two, become too numerous to cover with specifics.

[@raccoonmyroom6861]

Dude, I completely agree with this. I know so many Karate guys, including myself, who started doing BJJ and it made their Karate Skyrocket. In a lot of ways, I think BJJ was one of the best things to happen to Karate.

[@dv3413]

Wrong, tell that to a kyokushin practitioner