Reality Over Fantasy.

Our Karate, we are told, is battlefield tested, it is ancient.

Most don’t buy that crap even today. 

Karate is a twentieth Century invention and we are told it is based on a mix between Chinese Quan Fa and Okinawan Ti.

What does this even mean?

Karate, as our bias would have us believe, is central to trade and cultural exchange between the Okinawans and Chinese.

It would seem that more cultural exchange would be focused on actual trade and other things, like education.

Maybe not so much, but the Chinese felt it necessary to send their performance artists and low level dissidents than their actual Military heads.

Seems a practice that has continued to this day.

Jumping forward a bit… Why would an occupied country want to give up their secrets to those they view as an occupying foreign force?

They wouldn’t, if they were smart, and even today there is a movement in Okinawa that views both Japan AND America as occupying foreign forces.

Karate at its’ present stage, as it is presently taught, is exactly what it is meant to be, benign.

Although there are many MMA practitioners who count on Karate as their base, from Bas Rutten, GSP, Machida, and even Connor McGregor… They show Karate has effective roots, but they miss out on the entirety of the effectiveness of Karate.

I have never met Jan Dam in person and am hardly an expert on Ti, I left Jan’s group due to an Illness and the expensiveness of his seminar, but Jan introduced me to another side of the equation.

Thanks to modern technology I was able to learn from this man.

Ti is not Karate and Karate is NOT Ti. The flow of entry has a place and a study, it has nothing to do with technique or set Bunkai. It has nothing to do with X versus y answering with z.

No. That is not how boxing does it either, no getting hung up on techniques, forms, or how it SHOULD look because violence is never calculated, it is always messy.

This falls short as well.

Do you learn to use your window reflection? Are you trained to hear the extra sounds around you? Do you look for extra shadows, are you trained to hold your head on a swivel? 

There is even a smell. Do you know what it is?

How about the timeframe of violent interactions?

Two to three movements. Kata is a whole slew of movements. What about the variables? The struggle? Where will you flow to next?

Violence is the game. Prevention should be the name.

Most schools focus on when prevention fails, they do not address anything else. Head block? Failed self defense. Reverse punch? Failed self defense.

What do you do when your assailant doesn’t just stand still?

Also a failure.

Fairbairne is a good starting point. Forget styles and Organizations if they do not have your well being at heart.

Rank means nothing if you cannot defend yourself.