When you are attacked, you don’t really want to deal with an attacker that is throwing a barrage of punches at you–you want to stop their attack as quickly as possible. Limb control is one way of accomplishing this, and is a very important aspect of old Okinawan karate but, like many important aspects of old Okinawan karate, it has […]
Hand trapping is an aspect of Okinawan karate that has been lost in many dojo. So many, in fact, that it is not uncommon for karateka to comment on videos of Okinawan trapping techniques with things like “looks like Wing Chun”–they simply can’t believe that it is a native aspect of karate! Of course, if you search “hand trapping” on […]
Over the weekend, I attended a Seiyunchin bunkai seminar via Skype with one of Taira Masaji Sensei’s senior students, Paul Enfield. Although I am a Shorin-Ryu practitioner, I have picked up some other kata throughout my karate journey, and Seiyunchin is one of them. The version I learned was a bit different, though, and I have been working on making […]
Recently, there was a UFC event here in Phoenix, which was headlined by a very competitive fight between Junior dos Santos and Stipe Miocic. In one of the earlier fights during that event, a minor thing happened that caused some interesting discussion on some MMA forums. One of the fighters stepped on the foot of his opponent. Normally, this would […]
A “traditional karate” example of hikite (pulling hand) while punching Sometimes, I forget that the wider karate world hasn’t moved on from formalized, impractical, block-punch-kick kata applications. I was reminded when, just a month or two ago, a relatively new karateka posted on a martial arts forum that I moderate, asking about hikite (pulling hand). He commented that it didn’t […]
Many martial arts utilize tactile sensitivity (the ability to respond to what your opponent is doing based on touch), and train it with a wide variety of drills. Most people think of Chinese martial arts and their push hands, sticky hands, and listening hands drills, while some also think of Okinawan karate’s kakie and kakidi (hooking hands) drills. As you […]
A valuable training tool that many traditional karateka choose to abstain from is the punching mitts, or focus mitts. These come in many different styles, from very basic to high-tech, but all of them facilitate the same thing–a way to turn a training partner into a mobile, modular platform for practicing full-speed striking combinations to various targets without injuring that […]
