Karate

 On YouTube my viewers know me as the Filipino Martial Arts guy but I have been training in Karate for almost as long as FMA.

It all started when a high school friend taught me a Karate form that his father taught him. 

His father had black belts in multiple styles of martial arts and studied a variety including Shotokan Karate, Ninjitsu, and several Korean styles.  

The Kata taught to me was a cheat form that was designed as a two person partner drill that consisted of many of the iconic moves taught in Karate. 

Many years later in college I experienced several styles of Karate including Shito Ryu, Shotokan, and Soo Ryu. 

I forgot all the other forms and only stuck with the first one, the one I learned from my high school friend.

This was fine by me because I believe that one form takes a life time to master so there was no need for me to learn a bunch.  

I really liked that Karate had a completely different approach to training compared to FMA or Boxing.

Karate was all about the Kata for me and that was different from single and double stick training or Shadowboxing.  

There were definitely similarities and differences between Karate, FMA, and Boxing. 

I had to start with the similarities to make sense out of things and then work my way towards differences as my understanding grew deeper. 

I learned from Karate that a single technique can be interpreted in multiple ways and all of them are correct. 

It's just a matter of choosing the right one for the right time. 

For instance the Jodan Uke (Upwards Block) can be literally an upwards block, a joint lock, a pressure point attack, a forearm strike, or a punch. 

I'm sure there are even more interpretations. 

This realization helped me in FMA because the techniques taught in FMA are designed to be used with various weapons. 

So the same technique like the Heaven 6 can be done with single or double sticks, knife, machete, and empty hand.

The empty hand can be broken down into punches, open hand slaps, palm strikes, chops, and clawing. 

It also helped in Boxing when I learned that a technique like a Jab can be done different ways. 

There is a lightning fast jab, a jab designed to lift the chin up, a jab combo, and a power jab.

So I quickly learned that there are similarities between styles and when cross training, there is a way to train in one style and it helps you get better in a completely different style and vice versa. 

 

Many years later when I went to Japan, I was able to appreciate the differences that Karate brought to the table. 

I was meditating under a mini artificial waterfall in an Onsen (hot spring). 

This Onsen also had a cold water section.

I never truly understood why Karate people did Yama-Gomori (mountain training) and did stuff like meditate under the cold waterfall. 

However on this trip I got a little taste. 

To put it simply the cold water and waterfall induces panic.

Obviously cold water can make you freak out. 

The waterfall makes it difficult to breathe it's almost like drowning. 

I can only imagine that under a real waterfall you have to be careful of large branches or even a log falling down on you. 

The panic and fear that these methods of training cause are a great simulator for real life combat.

We don't have to go to a waterfall, we call experience this from our shower. 

Make it cold and practice breathing as the water flows down the front of your face to make it harder to breathe.  

I also really like how in Karate the techniques are broken down into steps. 

This really works well with the way I like to approach things. 

Boxing has a more of a put it all together and let's see what you got kind of approach which is nice at times in it's own way. 

However Karate leaves no stones unturned by dividing the components for your body mechanics. 

They really isolate the different parts of the technique so that you get to work on each part before putting them all back together for actual application. 

So if anyone thinks that the way a Karate person punches is unrealistic, they don't understand that it helps you understand and work individual components first.

It's called step by step training. 

Another thing I really like about Karate is doing the Kata under tension. 

You flex all your muscles and breathe like a hissing cat. 

This may look extremely unrealistic but to me this is genius. 

In a real life situation one of the worst things that can happen is that you freeze up. 

Training like this gets you use to freezing up and essentially you are learning how to fight while in such a state. 

I think that is genius.

I mean we all know that we want to be fighting while we are in the zone but that cannot always be attained, so it only makes sense to learn how to work out of the worst case scenario so that you can survive and then get to a more relaxed state and hopefully the zone!