(Approx 2 minute 45 second read)

For those of us in the UK old enough to remember going into Woolworths with a little paper bag to make our own pic’n’mix of sweets (candy), karate today isn’t that far off, is it? Everybody picks out the bits they like and then somehow assumes the finished assortment must represent ‘the whole thing’.
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Like the pic’n’mix analogy, some people seem to believe that combative ability will simply emerge, despite never deliberately training for it. That assumption comes from a widespread failure to differentiate between contexts.
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Asking whether all karate “works” for self-protection – and then criticizing it when it doesn’t – is like putting a pair of football boots on a swimmer and then deciding the boots are useless because they don’t work in the pool.
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That’s not to say there’s no crossover – you might go into the sweet shop specifically looking for a chocolate toffee, but still end up with a plain toffee in the mix. It’s not exactly what you were after, but it’s still a small part of the same thing.
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So what I’m really saying is simply this: we need to clarify the context of what we’re doing.
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Sport does not work particularly well for the full spectrum of self-protection – but it works very well as sport.
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Self-protection does not work particularly well in a competitive environment – but it works very well for self-protection.
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The problem is that martial artists often fail to distinguish between those contexts. Worse still, they assign superiority to one context and use it as the “gold standard” by which everything else should be judged.
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I’m often asked, ‘Does it work?’ But that’s an incomplete question unless we also ask, ‘Works for what?’.
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There’s nothing wrong with modern karate when it’s practiced for health, enjoyment or cultural preservation – so long as people remain honest about that. It only becomes a problem when it’s presented as practical, which it clearly isn’t. I believe that’s a reasonable and necessary distinction.
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In my own dojo, beyond the practical and self-protection work, we also practice techniques that would be completely inadvisable in a real self-protection scenario. That’s perfectly fine – as long as I explain the differences and the reasons behind those practices.
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We do them because they’re part of the art and tradition, or simply because they make sense in certain controlled contexts. I don’t expect – or want – others to limit themselves to what we focus on.
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The key is that the training should align with the purpose.
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As long as the training is honestly addressing the stated goals, I don’t see any issue. No single approach is inherently superior, because there is no universal standard by which all contexts can be measured.
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I know people who are completely sport-focused. They train for sport and never claim it’s effective for self-protection. I also know people who simply enjoy the art for its own sake. Again, they train for that and don’t make any other claim.
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Both are entirely legitimate pursuits.
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At the end of the day, we can all choose whatever we like from the pic’n’mix bag – sport, art, culture, self-protection – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem only comes when someone insists that their chosen sweet represents the entire bag.
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Choose what you enjoy, train with conviction, and even mix things if you want to – just be honest about what it is and what it isn’t. Otherwise we end up arguing over things that were never designed to do the same job in the first place.
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The only time I feel the need to speak up is when someone starts making claims that simply can’t be justified.
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Written by Adam Carter – Shuri Dojo