How Competing Can Make Your Karate Better
Competing in karate tournaments offers numerous benefits that can make your karate better. Your technical ability, your kata, your fighting skills, and your instructing capability can all improve thanks to the time you put in to prepare for the competition and the...
Best Fighting Stance: Going Beyond Physical Form
"What is the best fighting stance?" is a common question that karate practitioners and other martial artists have. In this article, we cover the characteristics of a good fighting stance, what fighting stance you should adopt in street fights vs competition bouts, and...
How to Build a Strong Fighter Body
Building a strong body should be an essential part of a karateka's training program. No matter how good your techniques are, at the end of the day, size and strength do matter a lot in a fight. This post covers six types of training that can help you build a stronger...
What Is Kiai and How Should You Do It?
This post covers what kiai is, its purposes, whether it can improve the power of your techniques, and how you should do it in your kihon, karate, and kumite practice. What is kiai? Kiai (気合) is a shout, scream or battle cry that martial artists make when they perform...
Why Is Kihon So Important in Karate?
To many people (especially beginners), kihon training in karate is boring and they would rather work on kata which is way more interesting or kumite which is practical and a lot more fun and they can see some value in it. In this post, I will argue that kihon is the...
Motobu Choki’s Notable Students
Motobu Choki trained many students who went on to become influential karate masters in their own right and played significant roles in shaping the development of karate. Amongst them are Hironori Ōtsuka (the founder of Wadō-ryū), Nakamura Shigeru (the founder of...
“Karate Belly” and the Physical Activity Paradox
If you train in karate or in any other martial arts, you probably have often seen martial art instructors with big bellies and are puzzled about this phenomenon like I do. They train regularly and they train hard so why do they still manage to develop those big guts...
Who Were Motobu Choki’s Teachers?
Motobu Choki's teachers were who's who of the pioneering Okinawan karate masters and not many were fortunate enough to study under such caliber of teachers. This post covers brief information about those karate masters and their impact on shaping Motobu Choki as a...
Motobu Choki’s Training Methods
Fighting science in Motobu Choki's time was pretty much non-existent but he was a martial genius and way ahead of his time in many ways. In this article, we will explore how Motobu Choki trained to become what many regarded as the best karate fighter of his time in...
Seven Cardio Karate Workouts
This post gives you seven cardio karate workouts that you can use to improve your heart health, endurance, and overall fitness and potentially burn off some extra calories to lose unwanted fat. Karate-Inspired Cardio Workouts and Their Benefits Cardio, also known as...
Why Kata and Bunkai Should Be Consistent
It bugs the hell out of me when we learn kata one way but then are taught bunkai or kata applications another way. In this article, I'll argue that in order to get the most out of our kata practice, kata and bunkai should be consistent. First, let's talk about the...
Is Karate Good for Weight Loss?
If you are thinking of taking up karate to lose some excess fat, you will be disappointed because the chance of it helping you lose weight is pretty small. Karate can help a small minority of people to lose weight for sure, but, judging from the number of overweight...