There are many reasons why people start karate, they may want to keep fit, they may be looking for a hobby, self defense, socialising, or they have simply been fascinated by the whole history and mysticism surrounding karate and the martial arts.

Most people, in my experience, are not very fit when they start karate, fitness seems to be one of the main attractions, for a lot of people.

When a karate-ka (a karate practitioner) has been training for a certain amount of time, they will sometimes, naturally, supplement their karate practice, it may be running, swimming, cycling, weight training, etc, etc. Of course, there will be senior karate-ka who only practice karate and nothing else. But these karate-ka are normally very serious and are practicing five and more classes each week. But what of the person who only trains once or twice each week?

There’s 8 million things to do!

So what do the majority of people do?

They do a bit of this and a bit of that, but not really a lot of anything.

So what do they get good at?

Well, they get quite good at this and quite good at that, but not really good at anything.

Not just in karate, but all martial arts, people will practice karate, enjoy it, but for some reason, stop.

There’s never a lack of excuses and stories as to why they had to stop, if you ask them, ‘did you enjoy karate?’ There normal reply (in my experience) is, ‘Oh yes, I really enjoyed karate’, they then go on to explain why they have had to stop, to busy with work, hurt my back, just no time, I have a bone in my leg! The following week, there they are, playing golf, tennis, soccer, football, etc, etc. On with the next thing.

Today’s society, is one of ‘instant gratification’, people want things NOW, not just food, everything. That includes karate, they want to be Bruce Lee TOMORROW!

Everybody’s different, some karate-ka like high kicks, some like low kicks, but which one is better?

Tae kwon do, perform very high kicks, that are fast and powerful, some karate groups only practice kicking below the belt and some practice both high and low kicking.

I believe it’s all down to the individual involved. I personally wouldn’t recommend high kicks in self defence, but then again, I’m sure there are people who do recommend high kicks.

Really, it doesn’t matter what someone says or doesn’t say, because when it comes to self defence, you will do, whatever you practice! So if you practice head kicks, day in day out, there’s a high chance, that if you kicked whilst defending yourself, in a self defence situation, the kick will probably target the head.

i was wondering if anyone could help name this technique or have practiced it

im gonna tie the question to a kick so bare with me...

you know how we have a staight kick, outside round house and inside round house??

we have a staight punch, outside roundhouse punch, is there an inside roundhouse punch?

kinda like a backfist action with fist but with a punch feeling??

any know if this or am i just playing aroun tomuch with my waza

I've recently seen a video of my net friend with yellow belt doing kata Heian Nidan. For yellow belt kokutsu-dachi is a new stuff and as I watch many advanced karatekas, also a very hard to perform even for advanced. I tried to remind myself having a yellow belt but it was so long time ago that my memory reconstructs only my belt

But to the point.

I had decided to work on my kokutsu dachi, then in the evening I was training Kanku Dai at home: the part with mae geri and manji uke. Kokutsu dachi wasn't the main part of my training but my attention naturally was focused a bit on it because of the earlier decision.