I’ve become interested in Kyokushin Karate over the past few months as I was searching around for a martial art to begin. I just wanted to know what some users opinions were on this martial art and if they have ever practiced Kyokushin or fought someone who has, and how they would rank it.
It’s a solid style of striking. It’s fucking brutal and very effective. It takes a serious toll on your body though, and there are other more modern ways to learn how to hit people out there.
It’s about the only style of Karate with consistent alive training I can really think of.
It’s a good striking art. One of the few Karate arts that are actually looked favorably upon by Bullshido. That being said, Muay Thai may get you where you want to get a little quicker. But if it’s what you are into, go for it.
KK is the only style of Karate that we offer a black belt tag for, because it is effective, more-or-less consistent from school to school, and verifiable.
I think Kyokushin as a base isn’t all that different from any other form of Karate and it’s mainly the method or the approach to its training that sets it apart from the rest.
I trained a style of Karate that was routed in Wado Ryu but the instructor also taught Muay Thai and he had the same alive full contact approach towards the Karate as he had with the Thai Boxing.
Which made it quite useful and effective. Though the problem being that this style of Karate was only trained that way at this particular gym and the other surrounding gyms trained it like any other standard Kroty. Lots of kata, little to no sparring.
I would imagine there’s a few select gyms out there like this but it’s not consistent.
Where with Kyukushin that aliveness is ingrained in its very foundation.
[QUOTE=submessenger;3022591]KK is the only style of Karate that we offer a black belt tag for, because it is effective, more-or-less consistent from school to school, and verifiable.[/QUOTE]
I’d like to protest the inherent racism in this position.
You’re not fooling anyone, Bullshido staff.
KK is just one K away from the group that all the moderators are secretly members of.
[QUOTE=Dr. Gonzo;3022597]I’d like to protest the inherent racism in this position.
You’re not fooling anyone, Bullshido staff.
KK is just one K away from the group that all the moderators are secretly members of.[/QUOTE]
The KKK are too moderate. Atomwaffen are the real chads.
[QUOTE=BJMills;3022754]I’ll play the slight contrarian. I agree that when it comes to kroty, in general kk is the best way to go for aliveness. Yes, there are school to school exceptions… Machida Karate is shotokan for instance. But about the only effective shotokan I’ve seen.
My caveat with most of the kk I’ve seen is their lack of head punches. If you watch their competitions they often end up standing really close and just wailing in each other with body punches. I think it’s a terrible habit to get into. Something you will actively need to overcome if you ever move into any kind of full contact competition.
If you don’t plan on that then it’s not a problem.
Also, as far as long term health goes, lack of head punches is probably a better way to train.
Edit:
I should add, my assessment of it mostly comes from having fought a few kk guys in amateur Muay Thai competitions back in the early 90s. I felt their shins were as hard and they kicked as hard as any Muay Thai guys I had faced, but would just get lit up by jabs all day.[/QUOTE]
I had a slight epiphany other day when thinking about this. Like I was wondering why they didn’t just put gloves on and allow head punches (I hear the reason why Oyama stopped punches to the head was after people kept breaking their hands, which seems believable). Though then I thought, well they already have it just evolved into full contact kickboxing. Because as soon as you had head punches, peeps are just going to learn to box… Because why wouldn’t you?
The kickboxing I was learning last year (though I’ve since split up with that gym, no pal If or hard feelings I just wanted to concentrate more on learning MMA) was primarily Kyokushin based but with the obvious inclusion of the boxing aspect.
IIRC K1 came out of kk or was started by a kk guy or something to that effect.
[QUOTE=BJMills;3022813]IIRC K1 came out of kk or was started by a kk guy or something to that effect.[/QUOTE]
Yup. It was started by the founder of IKO2 iirc.
The Kickboxing style I was doing was named “K1 Kickboxing” so it’s starting to make a fair amount of sense.
Though I think with few exceptions this pretty much happens to any traditional martial art once you add head contact and full contact sparring. It inevitably turns into kickboxing.