Realistic self defense - Boxing vs. Karate
- Budo Collective
- Sep 25, 2023
- 3 min read
To preface this - I think that proficiency in Boxing leads to a fantastic skill set - and I'm sure you'll agree, or at least understand this. Among the many advantages of training in Boxing, you would find yourself developing strength and toughness from conditioning, light
ing fast speed and reflexes (fast twitch muscle and nervous system development), and great footwork / body positioning. Not to mention the fantastic head movement skills you would gain.
It's no surprise, then, that many experienced martial artists assert that experience / training in Boxing is a core skill to have in your toolbox to really enhance your chances of being pragmatically effective in a real physical confrontation.
Now, we look at Karate - whichever "style", but not the sports side of it for this post. I don't know this for sure, but it seems that Boxers don't really pay much attention to Karate, or many other such arts steeped in culture from the East. I infer that the reason would be mostly because Boxers are training for a very specific goal, to very specific rules, for a regulated and controlled fight. So, they don't really need to know anything outside of Boxing to be great exponents of it. However, Karate practitioners ("Karate-ka") - outside of "Sports Karate" - are theoretically training for multiple possible scenarios, in what would likely be chaotic environments, and against unfamiliar adversaries (attackers, really). So, the minds of such Karate-ka start looking at any training or skills that could augment their effectiveness in a real life self defence situation. Well, at least I think that any proficient karate-ka should be doing that, anyway.
One important point to note here is that, by proficient Karate-ka, I mean at Black Belt level and above. It's important, for many reasons (perhaps something to go into in another post), to focus on proficiency in, and understanding of, one fighting art / system first, before cross-training,
Coming back to the point... Boxing, then, is viewed as a skill which has great practical applications in self defense; not just by Karate-ka, but also by the general public. In contrast, the perception of Karate by many is either as "something for the kids to do", or just not particularly practical in a real confrontation. There are several reasons for this (yet another separate post). There have also been more modern, forward-thinking, exponents of Karate who have been questioning the effectiveness of Karate in the form in which it was traditionally taught.
People question - as we all should - the effectiveness of the applications which are taught. Ww question, and pressure-test.
One of the criticisms is often about the "passive" hand during a punch. i.e. The hand that isn't punching at a specific point in time. Another frequent criticism is about the attacker leaving his/her arm out whilst the defender applies a counter or other technique. You often hear something along the lines of "that's not realistic"! I, too, have been known to criticise in this way on my martial arts journey.
But this made me reconsider...
Arguably one of the best Boxers of all time, Mike Tyson, coaching here:
In case you can't see the clip in the above link...
This also made me think that when boxers practise ducking punches using a line... That's basically the same thing as an arm sticking out and staying in place. One of the very things which Karate is sometimes criticised for!
What I take from this is that it is all about TIMING. (Isn't everything?) Leaving the arm out to demonstrate and practise the movements and positioning is the first step. We must use that method to build muscle memory, and only then start making things more realistic by adding speed and unpredictability. When things are done at full speed, the timing of things changes: For example, in the video linked above, the attacker's arm being left out has no bearing if Mike lands the body shot (which he invariably would).
What are your thoughts on this?
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