Which karate style is the best

Okinawan kata was also transformed with wider, longer, and lower stances, making it more appealing and aesthetic for competition. In sport Karate, the techniques are more quick, light and reactive, and are designed for sports fighting, not for self-defense. Because in sports Karate, there are weight classes, protective equipment, and rules, the state of mind of competitive fighting whether point-based or full-contact is different from the one required during a self-defense situation or personal protection scenarios.

As a result, sports Karate practitioners develop attitudes, habits, and reflexes that are dangerous to use in a personal defense scenario. There's nothing wrong with the sports Karate, but as you can see, its objective and purpose are oriented towards competition and not practicality. A lot of people say that you should choose your Karate style based on your body type.

Personally, I don't believe you should limit yourself to a particular style because of your body type. Your body type will definitely influence the way you practice Karate.

I don't care what anybody says that's just how it is. An individual with a large build is not going to spar or even do self-defense or kata the same way a tall and slim individual would. The very nature of their body is influencing not only the way they move but also their psychology towards movement and its application. That being said, we should not see body type as a reason to practice or not to practice a specific style.

During practice, your body is going to change and adapt anyway independently of the kind of body that you have. Don't create imaginary reasons why you can or can't practice a particular style. Please remember that there is nothing in Karate that wasn't meant to be practiced by everyone. In other words, whether you are small or tall, large build or frail, you will make your Karate work for you.

We have already established the fact that what makes "the best Karate style" is its level of practicality and effectiveness in real life scenarios. Now, let's discover what this means. As we saw, Karate was created for self-defense, that's the essence of it.

Without efficiency and self-defense in mind there is no Karate, so for me, "the best Karate style" has self-defense at its core. Of course, like every other style, it includes kihon, kata, and kumite. More than 25 years ago, after a class, a woman came to me and told me that she was raped weeks before and she's looking for a school that can teach real self-defense.

That meeting with this woman reinforced and solidified in me, even more, the desire to give my students practical tools to defend themselves. I'm talking about teaching kids and adults, men and women, real practical Karate that can allow them to protect themselves if their physical integrity is compromised.

The "best Karate style" understands the reality of self-defense, it recognizes the nature of an actual violent assault. It understands that sparring is entirely different than self-defense.

Katas and sparring are a means to an end, not the end itself. Go on YouTube and look at some videos there you understand pretty quickly what real aggressions are. The "best Karate style" understands that efficiency starts in your mind.

When you're training, whether you're doing drills, kata or sparring, you should always keep in mind that whatever you're doing has to be effective in a real life confrontation. That should be the state of mind in which you train. Don't let it slide, don't allow techniques or applications that are not suitable for the streets. It takes a lot of courage to observe ourselves during training and see if we are doing it realistically or not.

Sometimes we get caught into patterns that can, unfortunately, be detrimental to us in terms of practicability. So we have to be honest and humble enough to observe ourselves, observe our practice, and adjust if needed. The "best Karate style" teaches you to be comfortable in every range. What does that mean?

Well, it means that in reality, the distance at which you are going to defend yourself from the opponent is not always going to be the same. Maybe that's the case then training in the dojo, but not on the street. Sometimes the opponent is going to be close, sometimes he's going to be far sometimes he's going to start close and push you, sometimes he's going to start far away and come close to you.

During a real confrontation, the distance between you and your opponent will vary and change. You have to be able to deal with those ranges. Because yes, grabbing range existing Karate! The "best Karate style" practices sparring. That being said, it's essential to understand that you're never going to defend yourself the way you spar in the Karate dojo.

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And why not another martial art? Each master played his part in this evolution, for various reasons: efficiency, morphology, personal feelings, opinions of other experts, experience of other martial arts, desire for democratization, adaptation to competition… In my opinion, no style is better than another.

What matters is to benefit from a coherent , open, considered, comprehensive, adjusted, and continuously enriched teaching. In , a Chinese military officer and expert in martial arts was sent to Okinawa. Bare hand striking means no punching to the face. However you will find some more modern shidokan schools allow their students to wear gloves and punch to the face during class. Here are a couple of videos of a shidokan sparring session with gloves and headgear. Kyokushin is probably the most well-known full contact karate style , thanks to well-known fighters like Georges St.

If you live in or near a big metropolitan area, chance are you will find at least one kyokushin school. There are three around where I live. Kyokushin has a reputation of turning out really tough fighters. GSP famously said in a post-fight interview that he's been hit harder in kyokushin than in his fight.

That's not a lie. Kyokushin training regimen includes a lot of body conditionand that means standing their and letting your partner kick and punch you repeatedly within shin guards or gloves on your leg or sternum. I remember not being able to walk straight for over a week after my first kyokushin class.

Mind you, this is when I was still actively training MMA. In addition to body conditioning, every kyokushin school makes hard sparring a regular occurrence. Of course the only drawback is the tournament ruleset says no punches to the face so the majority of the time, kyokushin sparring is done without punches to the face. Of course, some schools do allow it when you put on gloves to spar.

Kyokushin encourages meeting in the middle to trade shots so you will develop pain tolerance fast, but also learn really good punching and kicking techniques to inflict maximum carnage.

And because much of the sparring is done without punches to the face, advanced kyokushin students have really sneaky head kicks that come out of nowhere. Although I have fought in the cage and consider myself a trained fighter, I would have been knocked out by many of the black belts in the class had we gone full strength in our sparring sessions just by virtue of how many sneaky head kicks they were able to land against me.