Did i do a bad thing in my karate class?

Question

me and a buddy were practicing bear hug escapes and i tried improvising one, i grabbed his pant leg and dropped him really hard flat on his back, the sensei was pissed and told me not to try that anymore. We were on mats and my friend said he was okay but i don't think he was. What do you guys think, he dosent act like hes hurt and more he just said i knocked the wind out of him, was i being mean or is he just gonna have to get tuff, after all it is a karate class?

Answer 1

My son is in karate, and here is his answer:

I'm not sure what the bear hug escape is exactly, but what my karate teacher does is make sure that all the kids dont get hurt-for example, the kids sometimes have play fights, but the teacher tells the kids to put on gloves and not have any real physical contact. (you cant even hit each other lightly) You might not get hurt from a light punch, but still the teacher is a little nervous that you can make mistake.

When restling, the karate teacher makes the class be careful with each other, and if there is a bigger guy with a smaller guy, the teacher tells the bigger guy to try not to hurt the smaller guy.

Answer 2

Hey, if you don't ask, you never know, right?  When you're in class, you should do and practice what the instructor tells you to.  If you start jerking around and making stuff up then you are throwing a minor insult at the teacher.  

Your friend should just suck it up though.  And you shouldn't be such a pansy about it: this is a karate class after all.

But, after class, you could talk to the instructor and ask about alternate techniques to the ones you learned in class.  Just a thought.

Answer 3

I can understand your sensei being upspet . Yeah, you may have been on mats, but even then, your friend  could've gotten hurt, maybe paralyzed.  

I think your sensei wouldn't have been upset if your friend was experienced in doing breakfalls--there would be less chance of his back ending up injured.  

I like to improvise techniques, too--but I'm not going to throw someone who doesn't have experience in ukemi

Answer 4

I think you should quit karate and join a real martial art

your probably a black belt right??

thats what I HATE ABOUT KARATE, TKD exc.

everyones a blackbelt in like 2 years f.ucki.g rediculous

Answer 5

Improvising is good cause in a real life situation or even in sparring those moves aren't gonna come off peferct like in practice. But you shouldn't just go for random stuff becuase u could have seriously hurt your friend, remember the human body is really stong but has an incredible amount of incredibly weak points. Next time you improvise don't do something way random, do somehting that makes sense but might be a simpler version of the original move or something liek that

Answer 6

I am affraid, if I say yes.................

Answer 7

The dojo isn't a place to play around. You do what your instructor teaches you and practice it over and over on each other until he tells you to stop.

When you improvised the technique, you lost control of what you were doing, which is how you hurt your friend. Your instructor doesn't hate you, but I would suggest apologizing to him for disrupting the class by playing around. I'm positive that he'll forgive you and move on.

Answer 8

I'll relate this to what I know. In Hapkido we use a lot of joint manipulation (arm bars, wrist locks, etc) and this stuff used full speed and full power would really ruin someones year. You have to have respect for your uke (throwing partner). If the person you are doing this technique to doesn't know whats about to happen to him then he can't prepare to protect himself when the fall or throw happens. What I think you instructor was most upset about was the dangers to your partner. That was disrespectful to them, if you meant it or not. You are only going to be as good as your partner allows you to be, meaning.... If he throws lazy punches or kicks for you to defend, you are going to get used to blocking lazy strikes. If he is weak or half hearted about the bear hug he put you in you will become used to that and only develope your skills to that level. Respect you training partner. Aside from your teacher he is the best training tool you have.

Answer 9

It's just a karate class; if he says he's fin, trust him. But seriously, don't improvise anything while practicing. You can do some SERIOUS damage even if you don't mean to.

So don't be worried, it's not a big deal.

Answer 10

You didn't do anything "bad", but it's not really about whether or not your friend got hurt, it's about what kind of behavior is appropriate in the dojo

Keep in mind your sensei is responsible for the safety of everyone in the dojo (and probably has h**l to pay anytime anyone gets hurt)

He probably wouldn't care if you and your friend did that stuff outside of class, but he's got to have pretty tight control over things in class if he's going to teach anything

Respect your sensei, learn what he has to teach,  and save the "tuff" stuff for the back yard

Answer 11

There are a couple of good answers already so I will just elaborate a little. You didn't necessarilly do anything bad per say, but what you did was wrong. I do not know what belt you are at, but your instructor has probably taught you what is appropriate for your level. Moves like this should not be done on someone unless they know how to breakfall safely, even on mats. As stated above by doing something that you have never been shown in class, you did insult the teacher slightly. You also took a chance on hurting another student with a move you have not been trained to do properly.

Remember your Sensei is liable for whatever happens in his school or class. If you have not been shown the proper way to perform something, you should not do it in class, no matter how cool it looks in a video.

Answer 12

Are you o.k.?  I suppose it could have hit you once the words were actually written,.."improvised while practicing a escape",..a "technique" I presume.  I would save such things for after the warning words of "let me try this",..just my thoughts.  You see, in my Karate Dojo we have a saying,..after your done it's my turn!  

It's not "them" it's "you".

Meany!