karate is good for hard strikes. but a styel does not make a fighter.
Shotokan
Hello,
While I have the utmost respect for anyone who can make shotokan work in a fight I do not believe it to be even close to one of the best options. Greendragon pretty much covered my points…thanks…
Oh, I could say why I think this way…your questions have been cordial and intelligent, so I will try and do you the same courtesy…
1.fluidity-they have none -PERIOD-
2.Power-they have only external power, which can be extremely lacking in comparison even for good players (yes its obvious from observation if you are hitting something/someone)
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Its not good for your body, especially over time. Ive even seen old karate masters revert to being loose, but the students could not figure out why they were so powerfull.
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Too rigid which creates a number of problems…see numbers 1- 3, also doesnt help sensitivity much, and allows their center to be sensed and taken from them very quickly upon contact.
5 “creativity and freelancing is not rewarded” This brings me to my next point. If one is not able to adapt by instinct, feel, and do it without thinking, then no set of pre-programed 1-300 responses will save you in a fight, some statements made elude that you are aware of the reaction thing, but your logic is extremely flawed. What You really want is to program the right principle of movement, the right sensitivity, and right explosive and violent acts it takes to eliminate said attacker without having to do your dojo move perfectly*, ive got news for you, it will hardly ever go perfectly no matter how hard you try, an attacker is not usually very cooperative in this manner. (soo endeth the rant)
Kind regards,
Gary R.
wow - a lot of posts here since last night! 
JFK: I trained in Shotokan since i was 8 up until i was 20/21 (i wasn’t one of those 12yr old black belts either… i stayed at 1st Kyu since i was 15 :p). For the last 5 years of my training or so, i also did a few different systems at the same time. The main ones being Boxing/Muay Thai, Aikido and Shorinki Kempo.
The thing was, i was and still am a real skinny guy (5’11" and around 147lbs). I couldn’t ‘meet force with force’, so was using more tai sabaki and things like nagashi uke etc. when i sparred. This is what led me to boxing and aikido etc. The idea of footwork and body movement to get out of the way of things 
It just generally wasn’t stressed so much in class, which is why i spent a lot of time in other systems and working on Kata Bunkai.
Well, when i saw my Sifu (pretty much by accident), i realised that wing chun was what i had been looking for. It doesn’t use force against force, uses footwork and positioning, close in distance which is useful, and uses relaxation and sticking as well as flowing/natural principles. (not that shotokan doesn’t have any of those of course). That way i don’t need to be strong and tough, coz i’m definately not!
Actually, after competing a lot in the past (with Karate, Boxing and MT), i’ve kinda just changed. Nowadays i mainly train in Qigong (coz i really love it and want to learn more about it) and Wing Chun (to develop my skill).
Anyway, like i said - i think Shotokan is great, it gave me a really stong base, a real foundation in MA. But then i just moved on to what was more ‘me’ i guess…
good luck with your training
david
The question is subjective, depending on wheter you are talking about good Karate, or bad Karate.
I have seen Karate that is strong, powerful, fluid and not at all linkied with the X-Y syndrome.
I don’t know if it was Shotokan.
On the other hand I’ve seen very bad Karate. 90%of what I’ve seen is “bad” Therefore the statement “Karate people can’t fight” is true about 90% of the time.
Hey, all this talk about Karate made me do a web search and find the school I trained at when I was in high school in the mid 80’s----glad to see they are still going strong:
http://pages.slic.com/ichiban/
I trained Karate for 3 years in high school, and go my 2nd dgree green belt. The system we did was based on Shotokan, but it was an American system, and we were encouraged to use anything that worked. I remember for one of my belt tests, for the self defense section we would stand at attention and one of the black belts would circle you and then come at you full speed, grabbing your wrists or lapels or something, and you had to get out. For one of the wrist grabs, I used chin na that I had learned from Willy Lin’s book, and it worked out well and that type of thing was encouraged. We did a LOT of heavy sparring–full protective equipment, light contact to the head, full contact to the body.
As far as the “rigidness” of Karate, I would tend to disagree a bit. I would certainly agree that in my CMA training, relaxation has been emphasized more, but in Karate no one ever said “tighten up more!”. If you do a lot of hard sparring, you learn pretty quick that a relaxed body functions better. I think it’s more a case that a lot of people (maybe most) are not particularly naturally athletic. I’ve played a lot of sports, and you see people who are stiff, akward and unfluid in EVERY sport. I don’t think this is much more so with Karate. Just look at the percentage of kids in high school who are top athletes, and look at the smaller percentage who reach a high level in college sports, and the even smaller amount that play pro. People who are wonderfully relaxed, powerful, coordinated and skilled are VERY rare in any physical endeavor.
But, the difference I’ve found in CMA is that everthing has been analyzed, explained and pondered at a MUCH deeper level–at least in my experience. The way power is generated, the different types of jing, the coordination of breathing, relaxation, focus, body mechanics—the whole “qi” paradigm----I"ve found to be IMMENSELY useful and profound. I used to find Karate katas rather dull—but CMA forms I find really interesting, and they just feel good to do.
I don’t really have a negative opinion of JMA, though. And I think you have to be really careful making any generalizations. I studied Karate for 3 years, and CMA for almost 5 now, and that’s not a lot in either art----also, I"ve only trained at 2 schools. There is so much variation between styles, schools and individual teachers, that I’m a bit dubious when people are satisfied with their conclusions on the differences between arts----when their opinions are based on experience from a VERY tiny percentage of teachers and schools.