How practical is Shotokan on the street?

Question

Does traditional karate cut it as a feasible self-defence option in today's knife culture compared to something like krav maga, MMA or wing chun?

Answer 1

THAT depends on YOU and your TEACHER.

Not all school, students and teachers are equal.

I have seen it work and I have seen it not work.  It all depended on the quality of the teacher and how well the student grasped the lessons and learned.

That is what makes ANY martial arts work or not. Not just Shotokan. I have a 3rd Dan in Shotokan and 5th in Kenpo and I find the Shotokan much more aggressive though I do use my Kenpo too.

(We are sure you do love Wulf but we know he likes woman not sheep so sorry try elsewhere)

Answer 2

Quite practical, but only if you do quite a bit of free sparring. Kyokushin is more effective.

Answer 3

I studied Shotokan for several years.

However, our Sensei would invite other teachers to host the classes for a day or so. This way we could also review other techinques and style and be able to keep not only an open mind but to learn how others work too. We would learn also weapon techniques used by other styles which tend to be similar to almost all hard styles. However, you will have to spend quite a bit of time studying the arts before a teacher will show you how to handle arms.

Also, with knives or guns or anything else. Do NOT be dumb, you will be better off going the other way. It doesnt matter how skilled you are. Our Sensei used to teach us of a saying that when two tigers fight, none will come out unscathed. Basically, avoid fighting or getting in the situation in the first place if you can manage. This applies to any martial arts.

Answer 4

In my opinion its not the martial art its the person doing the martial art.

I have been in traditional karate for nearly 20yrs now and traditional karate teachers all do the same thing they teach from a book they tell you that an opponent will hit you this way he will stab you that way.... RUBBISH!!

Have you ever seen 2 lads go at it late at night when vodka and beer is involved??? maybe a broken bottle or pint glass as weapons??

What if there was more than one??

I once heard a very wise man say that you dont need to go to the East to learn effective self protection... buy some gloves and spar with your friends.. a concept that most of todays "masters" would cringe at... they would have you do all these silly twisty things like that krav magda lad who is a spin off from the jeet kune do era...

Alot of people have forgotten what Bruce lee was actually all about... his ideas was to use what works...

look up Geoff Thompson and he will change your views on self protection, he has a very basic ideal on what does and doesnt work you dont need fancy technique or a fancy system because essentially they are all the same

So Shotokan or wadoryu or ishinryu or taekwondo or blah blah are all good its all about confidence and if you train hard enough you will get it in spades!!

Answer 5

Have you not seen the Karate Kid?!?

Answer 6

Shotokan has been altered ,the kata have been totally changed from the original,therfore the karateka who pratice shotokan are learning an incomplete art,without the brutal self defence applications,so best stick to jodan gyakuzuki with loadfs of useless oossing goin on

Answer 7

Spenny nailed!  Karate schools that do a lot of free style sparring really help to build natural instincts and in the street it will be all instinct.  You will never remember a partcular joint lock or something, but your body will naturally react to get out of the way of kick or something.  

The other guy that talked about deception with a jacket and shouting "cops are there"  also gave very good advice, we teach that as well.

End result is most "Real" Shotokan schools do alot of free style sparing and free style sparring is where you really learn to fight and defend yourself.

Answer 8

No. traditional karate, unless u went up to higher than black belt, its mostly to help with forms and correct techniques and has nothing to do with self defense.

Answer 9

Having trained in shotokan for 10 years, I can say from personal experience of such an event that, yes it works. However probably not in the way you might think as I wasn't throwing roundhouse kicks or spinning back kicks as you can imagine. Rather all those years sparring in lessons and competition has enabled me to:

-Stay calm, focused and constantly analysing in a real life situation  

-Have instinctive reflexes to get out of the way or block attacks (this also comes in the same section as being able to 'predict' an attack. For example you can see a punch coming from just a small twitch of a shoulder or change in expression or position etc..., I'm sure many martial artists and boxers out there understand what I mean by that.)

-And also the ability to strike an opening instinctively (without having to think about it) with power and precision.

Once you find yourself in a real fight, (and luckily for me there have only been very few cases) you suddenly realise that, although there are no rules and, yes, your life can be in danger, you are still very familiar with this situation and feeling due to hours and hours of sparring so you just act accordingly.

I have also done one year of ninjutstu which is quite a technical form of self defence and I have found that in a real life situation you can easily forget exactly how to execute all those locks and holds in the given moment so I still feel instinct is your best tool and I believe that came from my Karate training. But, of course, you can only arrive at this with at least a few years hard dedication because it will only work when it becomes second nature so you must attain muscle memory.

Perhaps if I had done self defence, mma or kung fu instead for 10 years, I would have also been able to defend myself.... therefore my conclusion is, any martial art is better than no martial art and Shotokan karate is certainly no worse than other forms of martial art today, even against todays really friendly knife culture. Although as others have already suggested running should ALWAYS be your first option.

Answer 10

Well, traditional martial arts like Karate or Tae Kwon Do and styles like that do have some practical applications. No fighting system is perfect but every style has it's strengths. The problem lies in the fact that it's tough to apply those traditional styles to a no-rules street fight scenario (where you would see a knife).

I wish I could say I've studied Shotokan Karate but I haven't, but I do train in Krav Maga, and honestly Krav Maga is probably your best bet for a feasible self-defense option. Wing Chun would also be a good thing to look at as some Krav Maga techniques are similar to Wing Chun. You could try other styles like Jiu-Jitsu or Hapkido also.

But you can rule out MMA. While MMA takes techniques from a bunch of martial arts, it's still a sport. MMA fighters train to fight one on one with a man of similar size in a controlled environment, they don't train to handle disadvantages like an opponent with a knife.

I hope my answer helps.

Answer 11

Depends on how well the student studied the art....A lazy, sloppy black belt will eat dirt, a dedicated green belt would be the wrong person to f with.

Answer 12

The question is a good one, im sorry to say but sports karate techniques very seldom work in a real life situation.I do agree with a previous poster that it does after a few years training give you better concentration.Have you got a few years.I would suggest finding a school that does reality training.These are often run by quite senior black belts who have adapted there training for reality.One springs to mind sensei russell stutely check him out on you tube some very good vids i hope this helps.Sorry to any sports karate practitioners out there im not knocking your art.It. does bring many health benefits and is a h**l of a lot of fun.

Answer 13

All martial arts are usefull as street defence.You wont learn how to defend a knife attack straight away unless you ask the teacher,most martial arts teachers if tehy are good ones will have knowledge of how to defend knife attacks.

I did kickboxing for many years and even though its not known for knife defence my teacher was skilled in more than 1 style of martial art and he taught me a few methods for defence against weapons.

The most basic defence he taught me was to take your jacket off if sombody is threating you with a knife and use your jacket to cover the knife or throw it at his face so he cant see then attack the attacker.

Kind of like a bull running at a red cloth

Martial arts is about deception for example you can make him paranoid by shouting "theres the police" so he looks away and then as he turns his head kick him in the groin as hard as possible

To the guy bellow me.How can you walk away from sombody that is coming at you with a knife ? So he can stab you in the back? You didnt learn very much.You cant always avoid confrontation if sombody is going to try and kill you

Answer 14

It is very practical. It's not like you are going to drop into a traditional stance and perform set katas against an attacker. Like ALL MARTIAL ARTS, Shotokan repetitive training will allow you to react on instinct should you need to defend. In all altercations I've had in actual street fights, they ended within 20 seconds. It's very quick and decisive.

If you see a knife, walk away. You'll either get cut or end up disarming them and stabbing them. Either way, it's not worth it to fight, although pick up a wooden stick or staff, then the knife isn't so tough anymore.