Post by GJEC on Apr 21, 2016 3:12:34 GMT -5
The very words still increase my heart rate.
I quite often talk about this but lately it's become obvious only the old school know what I'm talking about. So I thought I'd explain.
When I started in 1971 we only had one main competition a year, fought under the old 'Ippon Shobu' rules. These were supposed to be controlled but in those days Kyokushin fighters were used to blood and pre HIV no one bothered that much. If you got caught no one put a claim in, you just laughed, said "Osu!" and decided to block next time.
Clearly, with one competition a year, most sparring was not competition based but EFFECTIVENESS based. That lovely word that everyone wants but few can define. Street fights at the time had not yet descended to the gutless level we see today. It's common now to see crowds all battering some helpless victim, but back then a lot of disputes were still settled with a 'square go'. Friends rarely intervened except to say, "He's had enough" and I remember people in pubs and factories going outside for a sort out. Sounds Victorian but this was common 50 years ago.
So in the dojo we knew how fights were won. You put the bloke down or hurt him until he'd had enough. That's how we trained and that's how we sparred. If someone kicked too slowly, we grabbed their leg and took them down. We grabbed and hit repeatedly. We threw or swept people. We hit hard enough to wind people and get them to turn away. This was called dojo fighting and it was rough. To start with you dreaded it, but the instructors urged you to stick in there and show spirit. Eventually you learned to take blows without flinching and attack with constant pressure until your opponent turned away.
I miss those days. I dropped in to watch a friends club a while back and watched the sparring at the end. The skills were superb but nobody hit the floor and nobody turned away as they couldn't handle the contact. While it's easy to argue today that fighters are more skilful, many lack the killer instinct that dojo fighting developed. They have learnt to compete rather than fight.
If karate is to be taken seriously as a combat system, I recommend forgetting about tournaments now and again and getting back to putting people on their arse or hurting them enough to make them turn away. Maybe this came easier in the 70's as we didn't wear pads or fist mitts, just groin protectors. Pain transferred more readily - just like outside - so fights had to be decided quickly rather than slugging away for ten minutes at a time. I believe this gave us a ruthless edge and a truer sense of how to win.
Would it help today, where mobs can't enjoy a Saturday night without putting some innocent kid in hospital? I'm not sure, although I'm convinced mental attitude is the vital ingredient rather than complex point scoring skills. While dojo fighting cannot guarantee success against a mob I seriously doubt any sport system will fare better.
Gary
I quite often talk about this but lately it's become obvious only the old school know what I'm talking about. So I thought I'd explain.
When I started in 1971 we only had one main competition a year, fought under the old 'Ippon Shobu' rules. These were supposed to be controlled but in those days Kyokushin fighters were used to blood and pre HIV no one bothered that much. If you got caught no one put a claim in, you just laughed, said "Osu!" and decided to block next time.
Clearly, with one competition a year, most sparring was not competition based but EFFECTIVENESS based. That lovely word that everyone wants but few can define. Street fights at the time had not yet descended to the gutless level we see today. It's common now to see crowds all battering some helpless victim, but back then a lot of disputes were still settled with a 'square go'. Friends rarely intervened except to say, "He's had enough" and I remember people in pubs and factories going outside for a sort out. Sounds Victorian but this was common 50 years ago.
So in the dojo we knew how fights were won. You put the bloke down or hurt him until he'd had enough. That's how we trained and that's how we sparred. If someone kicked too slowly, we grabbed their leg and took them down. We grabbed and hit repeatedly. We threw or swept people. We hit hard enough to wind people and get them to turn away. This was called dojo fighting and it was rough. To start with you dreaded it, but the instructors urged you to stick in there and show spirit. Eventually you learned to take blows without flinching and attack with constant pressure until your opponent turned away.
I miss those days. I dropped in to watch a friends club a while back and watched the sparring at the end. The skills were superb but nobody hit the floor and nobody turned away as they couldn't handle the contact. While it's easy to argue today that fighters are more skilful, many lack the killer instinct that dojo fighting developed. They have learnt to compete rather than fight.
If karate is to be taken seriously as a combat system, I recommend forgetting about tournaments now and again and getting back to putting people on their arse or hurting them enough to make them turn away. Maybe this came easier in the 70's as we didn't wear pads or fist mitts, just groin protectors. Pain transferred more readily - just like outside - so fights had to be decided quickly rather than slugging away for ten minutes at a time. I believe this gave us a ruthless edge and a truer sense of how to win.
Would it help today, where mobs can't enjoy a Saturday night without putting some innocent kid in hospital? I'm not sure, although I'm convinced mental attitude is the vital ingredient rather than complex point scoring skills. While dojo fighting cannot guarantee success against a mob I seriously doubt any sport system will fare better.
Gary
