Sport Defense

CVV, a good response. I'll try to address the points. I sincerely hope that I don't cause any offence to competition guys, as that's my intention!

In Geoff Thompsons book, "The 3 Second Fighter"...He recounts a story of a competition Karateka who got into an situation on the street, automatically threw a punch out of instinct and it landed. However due to the fact that his body was conditioned to "pull" the punch due to the rules imposed on him because of his sport, landed an ineffective punch. His opponent took it on the chin, and returned fire and gave him a pasting. Geoff was asked by the guy what went wrong, and he explained it was due to what he was training for.

Obviously I can not put this over anywhere near as eloquently as Mr Thompson but I'll try. When training we condition our bodies through repitition to make our techniques a reflective action. Competition sparring rules dicttates that excessive contact will result in a disqualification, therefore Compettion stylists have to train there bodies to automatically reduce the contact. They have to train their bodies to automatically reduce the contact of their strikes, because in the heat of competition they simply don't get the time to do it mentally.

I'd like to add the point that I am generlizing majorly, I'm just trying to convey the point of we get what we train for. I have never personally taken part in a competition, but I have sparred plenty of points fighters over the years. One thing I have constantly found is that once they land ippon (correct term?) they pull away, which generally ends in chasing them all the way into the wall, when we take them straight to the floor, and stamp on them. Under their rules, I get trounced. They're bloody quick.

With regards to the Kata, which I really don't want to get into a kata debate, these actually allow you perform the movements to their full motion. When you come to practice the bunkai obviously you can't twist someones arm out of its socket, but practicing the kata solo allows you to perform the full movement.

I have seen and personally dealt with alot of people with alot of intent, and although a huge part of the puzzle, intent is nothing without the ability to use it.

As I said previously, I hope I haven't offended anyone...just offering a point of view for the discussion.

Gavin, I am not offended that quickly

I have a problem with the pulling punches theory.
In WKF point sparring, rules on contact for seniors (+21) is set to no injurie. However it is expected that a trained athlete can pack a punch on the muscular parts of the body
(abdominen). As such, mid-level punches are mostly executed full-out. On high level (to the head/neck/upper chest) and to the back moderate contact is allowed, on throat no contact is allowed. This does not mean that the technique itself should be executed with less force, just that the zone of impact is set to a few centimeters before the target resulting into skin touch or no-contact.
In the case of your example of the book, it was intend that was missing. I have seen point sparring competitions end in deliberate brawls ending with broken noses / broken bones / ko ... and the only difference was intend to hurt, to set control at level "punch through the target". This is what I mean with fighting spirit and overcoming fear to fight wich is in my opinion the most important asset for self defense.
In general though, karate's randori and jyu kumite fighting systems have the tendency to stop after delivering a controlled "effective" technique. This is I think because of the shiai kumite infuence (point sparring) and is in my opinion bad practise coming from a one technique/one kill phylosophy imported from kendo. But an old Okinawan saying points in the right direction regarding karate : true mastery lies in the fact that the outcome of a conflict can be decided with one technique, one should train towards this goal. As such kata should always be practised with full intent and it's study should be taken very seriously. Point sparring competition does not intend to decide who is the best fighter but evaluates a technique on technical aspects eventually awarding a score to the technique in regard to it's possible outcome.
If one trains with the intend to be good at point sparring the intend is not self defense. In free sparring the distinction in shiai kumite and jyu kumite should be explained. If somebody is only trained in shiai kumite and never experienced anything else, changes that he can handle himself in a continous fight will depend on his ability to adapt. The more he experiences the SD logic (fighting to end the fight) the better his changes get.
To my knowledge/experience, most of the +18 karate students come to this experience and gradually progress in it.

CVV, gotta say I agree 100%. I think my general experience of points karateka is against people who only have the intent to score a point against me. Me coming from a club where the sparring is usually pretty tough against guys whose intent is specifically trying to hit me, its no wonder why we generally walk through the points guys.

Going back to some of the original points about full contact fighters, their intent is to deliver hard shots, whch on the street is what they are going to do. Points guys are going to score points, as that's their intent!

So I think what I should have said, What we get out of training depends on the intent we train with?

If this is right, can everyone ignore my previous points and concerntrate on the above statement. Makes me look clever and wise!!!!

Cheers CVV!

You know what I mean, English isn't my native language and I lack the subtle differences in meaning.