Karate? Jiujitsu? It's all sleight-of-hand

My first true love in the martial arts was Karate and while I do dedicate the absolute majority of my training time to jiujitsu, judo and yoga, I will always consider myself a budo-ka: a martial artist first and foremost. Karate will always be a major component of that and my black belt is one of my proudest moments.

All that seriousness apart, I recently found myself sketching traditional Karate hand formations and thinking, in a very un-serious way, about what they could mean in a jiujitsu context. The result was nine nice sketches and a humourous take on an otherwise (too) serious subject.

Nukite: "Stop!"

Nukite is as mysterious as a karate technique as they get. Traditionally, this was meant to be aimed at the oppornent's soft tissue such as the throat or solar plexus. More recent interpretations call for protecting the fragile fingers and shooting us as a sideways palm heel to the jaw instead. 

In modern jiujitsu, however, the most often I've seen this gesture is by a referee stopping the two competitors and then calling them onto the tatame.

Local Karateka gets a taste of the skill of a Royce Gracie Jiujitsu Blue Belt

I've visited Royce Gracie Lancashire, aka Força Combat Academy a couple of times, taught there and trained with their head instructor my good friend Ross a bunch of times. Over this time, I've come to know and really like the team there so when Ross told there had been a "situation" with one of the Jiujitsu students, John, I had to do a piece! The altercation was of a friendlier nature than good ol' Gracie challenges, but there was still some foul play and dirty tricks. Read below to see for yourself how Royce Gracie Jiujitsu did. 

Does Brazilian Jiu Jitsu work in real life self defence?

Hi John. How long have you practiced jiu jitsu?

I've trained Royce Gracie Jiu Jitsu for two years at Força Combat Academy. I received my blue belt from Royce Gracie a few weeks back.  

Cool. I believe you've recently been involved in an incident. Tell us in your own words what happened.

I went for a workout at the gym (ed. note: this is a separate leisure centre and not Força) and on the way out noticed a small number of guys getting changed into Gis, one was a purple belt and one was a two stripe brown belt along with a couple of guys with them who must have been starting. Interested to see what martial art they were doing I decided to watch them for a while with my brother, who also trains Gracie Jiujitsu. I asked the Brown belt what martial art it was and he told me it was Shotokan Karate, he then explained that they would do some body conditioning (which turned out to be him battering the other students with different strikes), some techniques (calling them everything when they got it wrong, such an inspirational instructor...) and then some "ground fighting". To which I said "can I watch?". I watched for a while all of their different techniques and then came the ground-fighting. 

BJJ / Grappling Back Take Tips: Successful Armdrags and the way Roger Gracie takes the back

One of the newer BJJ enthusiasts at the Labs comes from a Karate background. The particular style of Karate he had trained featured an important aspect in their sparring called Sabaki.

Sabaki (捌き) simply means management or handling but it's often translated to "movement". The reason I like "management" is because it indicates movement with an intent or purpose. In modern Karate, Sabaki* aims to take you out the opponent's line of fire and into a position where you can attack with less/no chance of getting hit back. I was having a short chat with my new friend and the more we talked about Sabaki the more it reminded me of this article I wrote a couple of years back on taking the back with an armdrag.

BJJ / Grappling tips: stances, movement and great techniques from Eddie Kone, head of EKBJJ

Your basic BJJ / Grappling moves are defenses, escapes, transitions and attacks. Here are a few fundamental ways in how we use our bodies in the initial moments of a match / round / fight:

First the stances*.

Your stance (the way you stand and distribute your weight on the mat) is your base and grounding. They are snapshots of movement so don't imagine that you will be spending any more than a second (even less) in each fixed stance:

'Although there are a hundred kinds of stances, they all exist for the same purpose: to defeat the opponent' - Yagyu Munenori (1571 - 1646)

Get your stances strong and solid and learn to move from them in relaxed manner.

The most important stances are:

Free-movement stance: This is your most prevalent stance and the launch pad of everything else. From here you establish contact with your opponent using your hands, feet, hips and sometimes even head.

Two top level judoka making contact

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Importance of Recovery - Wise Words from Kyokushin Karate Instructor Shihan Cameron Quinn

"Don't get injured. Don't get a cold."

As soon as I heard the above words of advice uttered by Shihan Cameron Quinn, who in turn attributed them to Sosai Mas Oyama founder of Kyokushin Karate, my ears perked up!

One of my favourite podcasts to listen to is Martial Arts Weekly by Sensei Duval Hamilton. The show brings in a wide range of instructors and practitioners of Martial Arts (including BJJ) and, once you get over the hosts obvious dislike for MMA, is very entertaining and educating. As some of you know, Karate was my first love and I still see combat thru the eyes of a karateka. Recently, however, the defining lines between karate and jiu jitsu are slowly fading away but more on that in future blog posts.

The show I was listening to was from the 7th November 2010 and the guest was Shihan Cameron Quinn. Shihan Quinn has an esteemed background in Kyokushin Karate and was for many years the personal translator for the founder of the art, Sosai Mas Oyama. He spent several periods in Japan under Sosai's guidance and the above quote was something he remembered him giving as advice to trainees at the home academy (often referred to as the "Hombu")

While the advice is great, Shihan Quinn went on to explain why it was great!

1. Don't get injured:

Injury is the number one enemy of all martial artists. We all love the art that we practice, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Thai Boxing, Karate..e.tc. One thing that unites all practitioners is that they love practicing and enjoying getting better and learning more. We might differ in our approach, but our passion is the same.

While training smart will help save you time and energy, you STILL have to put in the hours on the mat to get better at BJJ (or Karate). Lots of hours. Some say 10,000 hours if you want to reach world class level! from this it is logical that our number one enemy as martial artists or athletes is injury. Sosai Oyama simply wanted his students to train safely so they could train more!

2. Don't get a cold:

At first glance, this struck me as odd. What a strange this to say to a Karate (or BJJ) practitioner! Shihan explained. Getting a cold is a sure sign of having over-trained, or at least getting run down by a combination of factors:

• -training
• -nutrition (food and supplements)
• -work
• -life responsibilities
• -being under unhealthy amounts of stress
• -bad / insuffecient sleep
• -substance abuse

and other causes. Initially, I thought this wouldn't be as relevant to us Part Time Grapplers as we - per definition - don't train as many hours but the more I look around me the more I realise that everything chips away at our recovery. Your body doesn't know, nor care, why it's tired or why it has been losing sleep or why the nutrition it's getting is very "on-the-run". Exercise, whether BJJ or running or swimming, places demands on our recovery ability (or recoverability) and so does staying up late with a baby or stressing over a work report (or nowadays - redundancy!). If you are not looking after your health (eating a balanced diet, drinking enough water, getting enough hours of quality sleep...etc.) then it will most definitely take longer to recover from the demands of an hour or two of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Karate, MMA or anything else. Getting a cold can be an indication that you are not looking after number one: You.

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Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

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BJJ / Grappling & Karate Stances: Cross Benefits

Karate is a great martial art of Okinawan heritage that spread throughout the world thanks to two main events: Japan inviting the Okinawans to Tokyo to demonstrate and teach their native martial art and the presence of United States Military forces on bases on Okinawa. These events shaped what was originally a very individualised and effective method of self defence and protection into the multitude of things that today fall under the umbrella term of karate.

One of the most visually captivating, and often misunderstood, features of karate is its stances. The simplest way to define a stance is simply as a way to stand, i.e. a pattern of distributing your body weight over your feet* and when put like that we immediately see a relevance to any system of fighting or indeed interaction.

The way we stand (or relate the ground) affects at least three attributes often used in grappling, BJJ or any martial art: