(Approx 2 minute 20 second read)

A comment on one of my recent articles said that they don’t train throws in karate until students reach black belt. Really? Why?
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I’ve never understood this mentality as a teacher. I’ve been teaching a long time, both in martial arts and outside of it. If I only taught a narrow set of fundamentals until a student reached an advanced level, I would be flawed as a teacher, and I would certainly fail the student.
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It’s like teaching someone to drive a car, but refusing to show them reverse until they’ve been driving for years. It’s a crazy idea.
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Now, don’t get me wrong, there are more advanced principles and techniques that are built on with time and experience. But you build on knowledge, you don’t withhold it. If a subject is part of the foundation, you teach it early. In school you don’t wait until university to show children how to add and subtract.
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You start with the basics, and from there everything else is built.
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Karate is no different. Throws, locks, and takedowns were always part of karate and kata, not some optional extras to be handed out later like prizes. If they are withheld until black belt, what are students actually practicing in the meantime?
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If you’re teaching self-defense, I mean practical and pragmatic self-defense, not the token gestures many use, how long do you make someone wait before showing them how to throw? Four years? Six? More? Wouldn’t that be negligent? Real assaults don’t wait for you to pass a grading.
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When I teach, I don’t hide fundamentals and then suddenly reveal them years later. I show students the basics early, then help them build on them over time.
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You guide them step by step at first, and then let them find their own timing and flow. You introduce a skill in simple form, and then keep returning to it with more depth as they improve. That’s how real progress happens.
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The idea of withholding throws or other fundamentals until black belt doesn’t come from good teaching practice. More often, it’s a modern invention, linked to the way some karate organizations structure their gradings, influenced by sport karate, or sometimes even for business reasons. It makes for a long path to black belt, but it doesn’t make for well-rounded karateka.
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In my opinion, this is a flawed method of teaching. A black belt, let’s say 1st dan, shodan, should have already grasped the fundamentals to a good standard, moving with flow, technique, power, and function. If you’re only introducing a fundamental skill at that point, what foundation have they been working with?
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Are they still practicing karate at sport distance? Are they avoiding close range, where you unbalance, enter space, and take control? If so, then their skill level is not black belt standard.
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And perhaps this is the issue these days. I’ve seen senior dan grades, 4th, 5th, and higher, moving like a sack of potatoes, with a great deal of knowledge and fundamentals missing from their development. If the fundamentals were never introduced, no amount of years or grades will fill that gap later.
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Ask anyone who has been grabbed from behind, with an attacker’s intention to rob or assault them, if they think waiting years to learn a throw makes sense. I don’t think they would.
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Written by Adam Carter – Shuri Dojo

Photo Credit: Two non-black belts students from my dojo.