For the record, MMA champ Lyoto Machida is an awesome fighter. Yes, he is a Shotokan stylist from Brazil. The thing that gets me is how now everyone thinks that is how all Shotokan guys fight.
There are different organizations that fall under the umbrella called Shotokan karate. Only a few fight with the techniques and skills used in World Karate Federation (WKF) competitions. This is the style of karate sparring that Lyoto Machida uses very successfully in MMA fights. WKF encompasses all karate styles but is centered around Goju-ryu, Wado-ryu, Shito-ryu, and Shotokan. They style of fighting they all use for competition is the same which you can see in how Machida fights. So it is not just a "Shotokan-style" of fighting. As a matter of fact, I have seen a lot of Shotokan fighters that look more like American point-style karate than what most traditionalists are used to. I also know of some Shotokan fighters that don't move hardly at all as they engage their opponent and they don't look anything like Machida.
I just wanted to clear up this little fact that most folks in the media don't understand. Machida doesn't necessarily fight like a "Shotokan fighter" he fights like a "WKF fighter." There are a lot of non-Shotokan WKF fighters who fight like Machida that probably take offense at those statements.
Related forum discussions:
Machida, Karate, and Closing The Distance
Karate and MMA
4 comments:
Machida is awesome! We all knew he was different when we first saw him. I never knew that his was a karate-way of fighting. How is the WKF different from the Shotokan in fighting? How are they similar?
Johnny J.
Cameron, AZ
The media always gets something wrong or intentionally biases its stories one way or another. I don't know a lot about karate fighting but it is good to know what the real story is when I hear about Machida's shotokan fighting.
Karate would definitely be the most fun to watch of all the other traditional martial arts in the Olympics. It is very exciting with all the takedowns but I don't like that you have to stop the action to score a point. Would karate kata also be included or would it just be kumite?
Could karate really be an exciting spectator sport like MMA? I think they would have to do a lot of reengineering to get it that way.
Post a Comment