Self-Protection

“Karate at its heart is not about sport or beauty. Karate is about SURVIVAL.”

Many people are in denial of the inherent benefits of kata for self-defense, partly because its performance is seen solely as a succession of moves. Without understanding the combative applications they contain, the importance of kata has diminished. If people don’t understand what and why they are doing something, they won’t invest the necessary time […]

“Karate at its heart is not about sport or beauty. Karate is about SURVIVAL.” Read More »

BAD GUYS DON’T STAND STILL.

“Kata, as a demonstration, is but a shallow and limited usage of kata” – Donn Draeger (1922-1982) . If you promote your martial art as self-defense, or pragmatic with combative real-world methods of training, then you MUST demonstrate and include high intensity realistic training….. Obvious right? . But….. BAD GUYS DON’T STAND STILL. . If

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You must take failure into account.

Is the demonstration of techniques by your instructor successful….. every-time? . Why this could be a problem?….…. Because those techniques will often fail, more often than you think….. and students need to understand this, and practice and prepare for failure. . The success of any demonstrated technique is largely dependent upon having predetermined knowledge of

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“Do not think of attack and defense as two separate things.”

“Meotode” (夫婦手), an uchinaaguchi (the native Okinawan language) principle literally meaning “husband and wife hands”. In the case of an actual fight both hands should always be used together, which is essential in close-quarter pragmatic karate. It is a way of maximizing strategical advantage in a physical altercation by utilizing both arms and hands equally,

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Know which battles to fight.

Know which battles to fight. The real skill is not how to fight. It is knowing which battles to pick and which to walk away from. . If your response to all things is to fight, this is bad thinking, bad practice. After all, life isn’t measured by how many times you stood up to

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“Sport sparring is not self-defence and has very little to do with it.”

If you’re like most people, you probably hope you will never find yourself in a self-defense scenario. . As a general rule, self-defense only justifies the use of force when it is used in response to an immediate threat. The use of force in self-defense generally loses justification once the threat has ended. Any use

“Sport sparring is not self-defence and has very little to do with it.” Read More »

Your bunkai needs to be effective, it must be applicable to real situations.

When you analyze kata, breakdown the movements within, your bunkai needs to be effective, it must be applicable to real situations. The kata were created for this reason. . Some of the applications put forward as interpretations of kata movement vary from the wonderful to the ridiculous, and unfortunately it is often hopelessly inadequate. .

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Do you only know one way?

Do you only know one way? Have you only been taught to fight? . For all the importance we place on learning how to fight and defend ourselves, the martial arts should at their core, teach that it is best NOT to get into a fight in the first place. . There are dojo and

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