(Approx 1 minute 40 second read)

Taking the hit.
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Someone commented on one of my articles, a Kyokushin practitioner, and said that the best you can do for self-defense is to practice taking the hit.
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While I agree it’s important your training includes what it feels like to be hit, within reason and safety, the best you can do for self-defense? No, I don’t think so.
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He went on to say that in his style, they learn to stand there and take the hits – they don’t walk away. Yes, I have experienced Kyokushin myself and it is at times a brutal sport.
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And yes, we should all go through learning what it feels like to get hit. You have to prepare for that too. In Okinawan karate it’s called kitae (鍛え), which refers to body conditioning and hardening exercises, often used as supplementary training to improve strength, resilience, and pain tolerance.
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I’m not against hard training – it’s a process we all have to go through – but I am against confusing that method with the practical application of self-protection.
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Look, being honest, who the heck wants to get hit outside of the dojo?
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This is one of the problems we run into all the time when self-defense or self-protection is mentioned. People only talk about the fight. That should be the last thing we talk about, not the first.
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And even if we stay in fight mode for a moment, what if you’re attacked with a weapon? Is your hard stomach training going to stop a blade from piercing your skin or organs, or a hammer from smashing your skull?
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Come on, people. Let’s use some common sense.
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Real self-protection isn’t about enduring punishment or fighting through the pain – it’s about self-awareness, decision-making, de-escalation, pre-emption, escape, sometimes just survival, getting the heck out of there and home safely.
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Pain and injury may be part of the equation – but they’re not the whole. Inflicting harm without understanding context isn’t self-defense – it’s just violence.
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Conditioning has its place. But if that’s all you rely on, you’re preparing yourself for a contest, not for the unpredictable, chaotic nature of real-world violence.
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Self-defense is not about standing toe-to-toe trading blows; it’s about stacking the odds in your favour before the first strike is ever thrown.
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And in the end, it comes back to the old cliché – the best martial artist is the one who has never had to fight.
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Written by Adam Carter – Shuri Dojo