Point Karate for self-defense?

[Mister X]

How all of this can be made to apply to self defense is hard for me to know...I am certainly no expert, but more efficient and effective defensive techniques can and really must evolve over time.

And that’s the real question for me. What’s truly truly relevant for self-defense. And I would add the caveat that it can be done safely. Risking destroying one’s health supposedly preparing for a low probability possibility always seemed counterproductive and misguided to me.

I started martial arts as a kid just wanting to learn some self-defense and as a hobbyist, but eventually got pulled down a bizarro path I never intended to go on. I started training BJJ in the 90’s and have what I believe is a solid foundation and understanding of the fundamentals that are applicable to self-defense, same as my wrestling background. Never an interest in competition and didn’t allow myself to be talked into it, so I did that much right according to my initial goals.

What many martial artists call self-defense seems to be something altogether different. I’m getting up in age now, but remember being a testosterone fueled twenty something who engaged in some very questionable behavior myself supposedly under the banner of self-defense. That foolishness is gone and I would change a lot of that if could do it over. Teaching my wife unarmed SD skills, hard or heavy contact is a complete no-go, nor would I ever try to convince her such a thing was wise or necessary. I like her beautiful face just the way it is. And nor has my son who wants to be a physicist ever taken any head shots. Protecting that beautiful brain is a top priority.

BJJ no doubt has a lot to offer(although I probably lean towards wrestling offering more for SD), and it is probably relatively safer, although that depends on several individual factors, but it’s not without its own risks. I know plenty of folks who have suffered pretty debilitating injuries just rolling. It boils down to why your training and your true goals.

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

[45dotACP]

I tend to believe in judo or wrestling as the better base for a system of self defense as well tbh...it's just hard to find an adult judo or wrestling program and damn do my knees and shoulders feel it after a few days a week.

The best place to develop wrestling/judo skills for adults is, ironically, a BJJ school most likely.

What BJJ has done as a strategy is actually rather brilliant in that it has tied itself to some of the best aspects of many grappling sports. In return, some parts of those sports have grown into the "sport BJJ" culture in ways that are nearly comical.

Case in point: Eddie Bravo's "Truck" position is basically just a wrestling cross body ride and the Twister is actually a pin called a guillotine in wrestling.

Now people use the truck to set up all sorts of back takes, submissions and even will look to get "twister hooks" (basically the cross body ride's leg control) from a berimbolo to complete the back control.

The sportiest sport BJJ move there is in the berimbolo being used to get into a wrestling specific hold is the type of cross pollination I wish I saw karate doing with arts like boxing or Muay Thai.

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[Mister X]

the type of cross pollination I wish I saw karate doing with arts like boxing or Muay Thai.

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Many karate schools do exactly that. My first “Shotokan” school in the late 80’s was very eclectic and the instructor actually encouraged his students to visit others schools and explore different methodologies. He had no problems if you incorporated boxing or other striking arts into our sparring, judo and wrestling as well. A lot of local high school wrestlers were enrolled, so we were pretty good at stuffing takedowns as well as scrambling back to our feet. I loved that school.

He lost his job and had to move away. I kept the school going, but then got an offer from the President of USA karate, which I accepted. It was pretty much straight sport Shotokan and I was supposed to eat, sleep and breath it since he had high hopes for me competitively. I was absolutely miserable and left after 6 months. Most of the larger competition oriented karate schools are the same, but it’s understandable why. It’s what the mainstream wants and unlikely to change anytime soon. They want colored belts, certificates, trophies and medals as a measure of their progress and to show to their friends. Self-defense training simply isn’t as rewarding to most, but I’ve always loved it.

[Deaf Smith]

Point karate is essentially just a combative game of tag, but fighters who are good at it do excel at certain things, most notably the ability to effectively measure and control distance as well as develop footwork that is very evasive. We’ve seen some of these attributes translate pretty well over into MMA for certain athletic and highly mobile individuals, but does any of it applicable or translate over to self-defense?

It has it's place. Just like light contact sparing.

But by itself it is not good at all... with no contact under a tense situation you may very well not connect with your technique but they do connect with theirs.

[Mister X]

I came across an old Q&A with Dominick Cruz discussing footwork. A pretty good read overall focused on MMA, so relevance to self-defense is debatable.

He discusses Lyoto Machida, who has been mentioned a few times on this thread. Here’s an excerpt..

“With Machida, it looks like he's blitzing, but actually he's doing that next step of footwork that I was explaining to you earlier. He's steering people into his punches. I've watched tons and tons of Machida tape covering him as an analyst on FOX. I've actually stolen tons of angles from him because his angles from karate are complete opposite of any angle you see in boxing, kickboxing or anything else.

Stuff that would be off limits is not off limits in karate. He hits weird angles that nobody's seen before and he's able to do that because he's able to switch his stance. Machida literally circles towards the power side of fighters to switch to a southpaw stance in the middle of the movement and blitz forward with a straight left hand and a straight right hand. That's completely non-fundamental.”

Source…

https://www.mmafighting.com/platform...ce-of-footwork