Functional Karate: Girl Guides subject Martial Artist to Vicious Beat-down.

5 May 2010

Girl Guides subject Martial Artist to Vicious Beat-down.

Yes - I got beaten up for money yesterday.

Thats a joke. Somewhat.

Yesterday I taught an introduction to Self Defence to a group of Girl Guides. There were two session of approximately forty minutes, with 16 Guides in each session. The number of students was pretty big for the topic, but that aside I managed to cover some of the essentials, and to dispel a few commonly held misconceptions. Hopefully they had a little fun too.

Forty minutes is not much time to go over the soft skills AND to provide some fun, physical practice. The danger is that you might resort to demonstrating crowd-pleasing (but ultimately useless) strikes or escapes purely to keep their interest levels up. I erred on the side of caution and perhaps the session came off as a bit dry and dull - but I'd prefer that than to be remembered for something that didn't work when the chips were down.

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About Mike

Though he studied Judo for five years as a junior, it was not until 2001 that Mike began training in Kusano-ha-Shitoryu Karate with Paul Ferris (at that time 5th Dan and Chief Instructor of Kenshikan England).

Mike was awarded his 1st Dan in 2004. and the rank of Shidoin-Ho in 2005. He taught classes in traditional Karate weekly during 2006-2008 and is still in contact with some of his students and fellow training partners from Kusano-ha.

Mike trains regularly with other martial artists and focusses on the practical applications of Karate for self defence purposes.

Introduction to Functional Karate

Developed from Chinese boxing and Okinawan wrestling systems, Karate was originally called just "Te", meaning hand. It is likely that Karate's original pioneers were well educated and respected people such as law-enforcers and the bodyguards of dignitaries.

The meaning of the term "Kara-te" was changed from "Chinese hand" to "Empty hand" in the early 1900s and, in a modified form, the art was introduced to the Japanese school system as a way of developing fit and healthy, disciplined students. It was this transition from the backyards of Okinawa to the schools and dojo of Japan - and ultimately the western world - which ensured Karate's survival as an art, but relegated many of its most effective techniques and training methods to obscurity.

Modern trends for reality-based martial arts are now helping to boost the profiles of those karate practitioners who look closely at their own art, are not afraid to question tradition and who have discovered the brutal effectiveness held within.

In this blog I put into words some of my training notes and also I include links to other karate-ka who are helping to bring functional Karate back into the world, albeit with modern training methods.