Karate Athlete's Basic Needs

Introduction
By Julian Forbes

There are 6 basic qualities a karate athlete must posses to be successful. These are: good Technique, Speed, Flexibility, Strength and Power, Explosive Energy and Endurance. Beyond these, balance, timing and distance control are also traits to be nurtured and perfected. While some of us are born apparently klutzy by nature, this is most definitely reversible through training just as someone who is not flexible to start with can, with proper training and regular stretching, be able to do a splits with time.

Technique

Good technique is essential for several reasons. Good Technique:

• Ensures clean delivery for maximum effect
• Reduces risk of injury to yourself
• Is generally quicker and more powerful

While this site seems to focus on the athletic side of training, it by no means implies that one can do without a good strong traditional technical foundation. If you are starting out or looking for a school for your child to start in, you should seriously consider the teacher's credentials and do a bit of research. This is not only important in order to ensure the best development possible but also to avoid injuries and picking up bad habits. If you are experienced and have just relocated to a new city, it can sometimes take a bit of research and footwork to find the right school for you.

As a rule of thumb, hokey as this may sound, if the teacher is from Japan, the chances are you'll be in good technical hands. The Japanese are meticulous about technique. While I don't agree with a lot of Japanese Master's overall training methods, finding many of them antiquated, I have yet to meet a Japanese with poor technique. Its drilled into them and somehow becomes a part of them. Can't find one? How about someone trained by a Japanese Master (for longer than a day...)? Can't find that? Work your way back from the WKF to your home country's official organization and ask them. In the U.S. it is particularly difficult to weed out the trash due to the fact that there is no universal organization for the country that controls testing for all styles and organizations, unlike in European countries. People in the U.S. take a few classes, move to a different town, buy a black belt and award themselves a fresh Dan every few months... Very sad. Having said that, there are legitimate organizations and instructors. You just need to be careful and not believe everything you're told.

I can't go into every technique here and describe how to perform it perfectly. You need to find a reputable dojo with a great teacher. Keep in mind that a great teacher isn't necessarily the highest ranked or most successful fighter. Teaching is an art in itself.

I can however give you one very useful tip: Work techniques in slow motion. It may seem boring and a useless exercise but it is not! If you can do a technique perfectly in slow motion and maintain perfect balance doing it, then doing it fast will be a easy. If you always do it fast you may be covering up imperfections with the speed which might actually be costing you speed and power. Good technique is essential!!

Speed

This is a bit of an obvious one. The faster you are, the easier it is to close the distance, hit, and exit without getting clobbered yourself. In addition, speed adds power to techniques due to the laws of physics. So how do you improve your speed?

There are a number of ways and exercises. It is important to keep in mind that you must be fast in several different areas of your body. This often requires separate exercises for those different parts. E.g. you need arm/shoulder speed to launch, deliver, and retract punches or to block incoming attacks. You also need quick legs and hips to launch explosive attacks and adjust distance according to your needs, or possibly to deliver a kick or two.

Sprints are great exercises for developing speed. In addition many of the exercises described in the Circuits section are designed to increase your speed. Things like "pattering" which again, may be mistakenly perceived as boring and ineffective fillers, are, in fact, great exercises for foot, legs, hips, shoulders and arm speed if done correctly. Many other Plyometric exercises will create explosive energy which can be translated into speed.

Flexibility

This is again, not something that requires a lot of expert thought to figure out. Whether your level of flexibility permits you to stretch like Elasta Girl and do the splits in every which way, or just allows you to move fluidly through your techniques, it is obvious that the more flexible you are, the less friction to executing your techniques you will encounter. This most commonly translates to speed and better execution of techniques. The obvious benefits are being able to execute kicks to a tall opponent's head. However, the less obvious speed and quality of technique factors by far out weigh this benefit.

I've encountered many excellent fighters that were unable to kick to the head due to lack of flexibility. They were excellent nevertheless for three reasons. First, while they may not have been flexible in their legs, they were flexible in their upper bodies up to a point. Second, they stuck to techniques they knew they could execute well given their flexibility limitations. Lastly, they learned to compensate for their reduced speed by increasing their level of timing and distance control. I can only imagine how good these fighters would have been with a bit more flexibility...

Increasing your flexibility is a simple, but by no means easy, process. It involves stretching daily, and doing it correctly as described in the Stretching section. See also the section on Flexibility.

Power and Strength

Without these your techniques are ineffective. Power and strength comes from proper execution of techniques and a well thought out conditioning program. Plyometric exercises and many of the exercises in the Circuit Training section are designed to increase strength and power in the right places for karate athletes. Depending on your individual level physically, you may need to supplement your training with some Weight Training to build up your muscle mass to a level where you can then "mold" them and condition them to a point where they are able to deliver the optimal equilibrium of power and speed.

Explosive Energy

This is what starts your technique off when you see an opportunity to strike or need to evade an attack. The quicker you are getting yourself from a standstill up to full speed, the better chance you have of being successful in whatever you're trying to do (attack or evade). This also allows you to switch directions and techniques in mid flow more quickly to surprise your opponent. Sprints, Plyometrics, and Circuits all develop this tool.

Endurance

All of the above is useless if you get tired too soon. When you get tired the first thing to go are your legs. What this means is that they suddenly start feeling like they are made of lead and you find yourself standing flat-footed, unable to move with the same agility you did at the beginning of the fight. This makes you a "sitting duck", an easy target for your fit opponent that studied the pages of KarateAthlete.com religiously and worked out like Carl Lewis daily!

Any fighter with any experience will tell you that your endurance diminishes not only as a result of your throwing kicks and punches for an extended period of time, but when you've received body punches or kicks. This is very important. Your endurance level drastically diminishes when you are kicked or punched to the body! How much endurance you lose is also a factor of how hard you got hit and where. In addition, if you hit your opponent hard, it also drains your level of endurance.

Your endurance level can be repleted during a fight if you are fit enough. Remember, don't confuse endurance with fitness. Fitness is not how long you can prolong an exercise but rather how quickly you can recover from it to be at peak performance again. I can not stress this enough. Understanding of this simple concept will lead to an accurate assessment of what exercises you need to incorporate in your routine given your current strengths and weaknesses.

So, what you need to do is to train the different aspects of this tool. Obviously, running is good, if it is not too far a distance which then starts developing the wrong type of muscles. I recommend Fartlek Training. An alternative to this is skipping rope. Next you need to condition your body to go rounds of hitting someone hard and not tire. (I say round"S" because as you near the finals you need to be able to recover more quickly and may need to go several rounds with little rest especially if you find yourself in overtime and semi-finals.) For this I suggest either Focus Pad work and/or heavy bag work.

Lastly, you need to condition yourself to be able to take punches and kicks to the body with little effect on your endurance and performance...UGH!! < Caveman-like grunt... I still remember our barbarian methods of doing this in the old days... yup you guess it! Stand there with your arms out and let a buddy kick and punch you in the stomach and ribs.... I also remember doing sit-ups and having someone punch my stomach during each like in Rocky...

I'm here to tell you that there is a more civilized alternative that boxers have been practicing for decades... It's called the "Medicine Ball"... A medicine ball is usually made of leather, round like a soccer ball only larger and heavy. You can drop it on someone's stomach, throw it at someone and have them catch it (which inevitably means it hits the chest or stomach area), or use it in drills where two athletes stand back to back and twist to pass the ball and receive it alternatively.

A general note here folks... There is a lot to be learned from other sports that can improve your performance in karate.

What always amazes me is that Martial Artists are more willing to embrace that concept than the possibility that they might be able to learn something from a different style of Martial Arts than the one they usually practice. The prevalent philosophy is "my style is the best!"... A tip for those of you who think like that... most great Martial Artists and World Champions have at some point tried other styles and "borrowed" a technique or move from them which suited them.