Tag Archives: odd karate

It was Unique Karate Back Then

Unique Karate, that is the name for it

The reason it was unique karate was because it hadn’t flipped for the solely physical.

I remember going to class and doing karate exercises. I was quite fascinated when I had my first student go out on his on and tach, and when I visited his class I found him teaching calisthenics.

Robert J. Babich

Bob Babich

Push ups and sit ups. Running around the room.

I don’t think I ever did a sit up or a push up in karate class. Karate was a calisthenic in itself, you didn’t need to do calisthenics to do karate calisthenics. Heck, lifting the knee to do the kick a few hundred times was better than sit ups, so why not just do the kicks?

Karate got americanized in there somewhere.

People started thinking about how they wanted their body to look, instead of what they could do with their body. And they certainly lost sight of the mind and the spirit.

It became calisthenics and fighting.

This isn’t true for all, of course, but virtually all have been corrupted in this fashion.

I guess we had push ups and sit ups in PE in school, so we figured we’d make this karate thing better with good, old American know how.

Didn’t work.

And the result has been a downslide in such things as timing, speed, and things that the karate calisthenics build naturally.

Instead, we have people taking supplements so they can beef up.

What does that have to do with Karate?


My advice, to somebody who wanted to learn karate the old way is simple.

Stretch, and do the classical forms.

The only other thing would be to study Matrixing, because that would help you understand what you are doing.

Well, it’s interesting. Because if somebody did actually manage to learn karate the old way they would find that other arts didn’t work too well against them.

You’d find Karate making a come back in mma training. You’d find people studying the linear, hip twisting loose-tight punch of Karate.

If somebody could get over how they looked, and would start obsessing on creating a unique karate again.

unique karate