The world of Mixed Martial Arts striking is dominated by Boxers, Kickboxers and Muay Thai Fighters. The traditional arts such as Karate, Tae-Kwon-do and Kung Fu, to be truthful, don’t bring the correct level of experience to a fighter stepping into the cage. The modern sport forms are based on semi contact point sparring, which just doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to MMA whereas some of the traditional forms claim to be too deadly to be used in the real world.
Just for the record, I am not among the camp claiming that traditional martial arts are too deadly for the real world. For me, anyone who claims what they know is too deadly for the real world, is just hiding behind a convenient opt-out fantasy and is too conceited to acknowledge the fact that any human has to ability to kill another or that there is nothing special or mysterious about any martial art – neither modern nor traditional. A kick is a kick, a punch is a punch and the human body has vulnerable target areas, that when hit, can lead to death or serious injury.
While I’m off subject here, I was chatting to a guy recently who asked me about MMA and what I thought of it. He was a traditional martial artist (from the same shotokan background as I). He succeeded in making me quite angry by claiming that any of the Japanese Black Belts in the upper echelons of Shotokan Karate would simply walk through any MMA fighter – that they’re power & speed would just be unstoppable. His evidence?… The only justification that he could offer was that he himself was unable to offer sufficient defence against attacks from the Japanese Black Belts he encountered. As I looked this middle aged, overweight man up and down, I thought to myself “It’s no wonder full contact martial artists don’t respect traditional martial arts”… If he had said “I’d like to see how a top level Shotokan Fighter would do in the cage” or “If one of the elite black belts of Shotokan did some grappling training, he might do well”, then that would be reasonable. Instead, he gauged their brilliance on his own amateur, weekend warrior, club athlete, 2 night per week standard and made the monumentally insane deduction that if someone could be beat him, that they would stomp all over professional MMA fighters.
But, sadly, the snobbish, pig-headed attitude that is passed down from some insecure traditional masters had already taken hold of him… he couldn’t be saved… I just had to bite my tongue and bid him farewell.
I am a traditional martial artist. I have trained in Shotokan Karate since I was 7 years old. I have trained with Japanese Black Belt Masters and Top Shotokan fighters from different parts of the world. I’ve been punched by them, kicked by them and I’ve witnessed the power and speed that can be generated first hand. I am happy to report that there are some truly spectacular strikers out there (some are Japanese Black Belts, other were Europeans or Latin Americans and not necessarily Black Belts). Karate, as a striking art, truly does has a lot to offer Mixed Martial Arts as long as you keep your head out of the clouds and be realistic.
I would like to plead with any traditional martial artists out there to get up to speed with the 21st century, to stop making stupid unfounded claims about how deadly the traditional martial arts are and accept that that every style of fighting (be it karate, shin-kicking or hand-bag swinging) can be deadly or useless. It simply depends on the individual fighter, their physical size, skill and their intelligence.
Ok, that’s my rant over with. Now back to the subject at hand!
A lot of the top fighters in MMA have a traditional background. Just to pick on the ones that did karate at some point in their career, you have Georges St. Pierre, Frank Mir, Anderson Silva, Seth Petruzelli, Chuck Liddell, Bas Rutten, Yuki Kondo, Ryo Chonan, Takanori Gomi, Jeff Newton, Neil ‘the Goliath’ Grove, Ausserio Silva, Vitor Belfort and a few more obscure ones. A more comprehensive list can be found on Sherdog here.
To be fair, almost all of these fighters have transitioned on to specialise in other striking arts and only show flashes of their karate background once in a blue moon. However, one fighter has kept his traditional style (Shotokan Karate) and adapted it to achieve phenomenal success inside the cage. Of course, the man I’m talking about is Lyoto ‘the Dragon’ Machida.
For many years, his opponents struggled to figure out his footwork and timing. He’s been described as being illusive, hard to catch and lightning fast. When he won the UFC Light Heavyweight Title, Joe Rogan screamed “Welcome to the Machida Era”, such was the mystique surrounding his fighting style. However, Karate-trained MMA fans worldwide recognised exactly what he was doing. The light footwork, the quickness at which he closed distances, the chin up – hands down stance and the hand-foot combinations. That, my friend, is Karate as practiced by millions around the globe. There is no secret and it’s not exactly rocket science either but because Karate is a traditional art, it has long been brushed aside as a viable foundation for the MMA fighting arsenal – until now!
So how does it work? What are the unique characteristics of the karate style which can benefit MMA fighters? Why do karate fighters stand in that stance? How do karate fighters cover distance quickly allowing them to hover just outside reach? How do Karate fighters seem to move out of the way so quickly? Well, if it was just a matter of a few paragraphs of text, it wouldn’t be worth learning, would it?
I don’t claim to be as slick as Machida or to be a great MMA fighter. However, I do know the answers to all the questions above and I am preparing a seminar to show and teach them to anyone interested in seeing how karate can be applied to MMA striking.
So now it’s your turn. Are you a traditional martial artist who feels that your art is unfairly discounted as a viable foundation for MMA? Are you offended by my earlier rant? Do you think that Lyoto Machida’s style is boring? Do you think that traditional Arts are old fashioned and out-dated? Do you think that real martial artists don’t need to prove themselves inside the cage?
I’d love to hear your opinions!?
Liam-Og Griffin 