You did a good job

"Every man thinks he can fight until he gets beaten down and humbled." Wise words.

Spot on, sir. I've never been to a boxing gym where we "light spar" or "tech spar". We'd straight up *fight* almost everyday. I'm not saying that's healthy or the right way to train, but in the context of this question... the boxer is GENERALLY just tougher through more ring time.

It took me decades to realize that boxing is way more "martial arts" than most things normal folk would consider "martial arts." I had no idea boxing had all the stances, special moves, strategy, grappling, and footwork that most martial arts claim, but on top of that, getting strong, fast, and competent at actually using your skill against live opponents comes built into the curriculum.

My father was a boxer. He taught us to box at a very young age. I actually cannot remember when I started, but I know when a used it in real life, it was beyond effective. In fact, it made fighting seem quite easy. But, against other boxers, it was much more difficult to land my shots. The didn’t fall for my wonderful tricks as often. They didn’t just fall down when I hit them all the time like regular people did. Sometimes, they would even stay very low, so I couldn’t just crack them at will. Even too low for my stellar uppercuts. It was very frustrating. So I decided to do kick boxing. That would fix those pesky short, strong, stocky guys wouldn’t it? I can just kick their legs out from under them, and knee them when they came in low. Then these judo/wrestler type guys, you know the ones. Well, they are just short of being animals. No talent at all. No. They are just strong. No technique at all. Why they would sometimes be able to sneak in there, tie me up, grab me, and throw me down. Completely uncivilized if you ask me. Not Queensbury Rules at all. So, I lifted a lot of weights and took Hapkido/Judo/Aiki Jujitsus. That will fix those heathens. Then, these people started chocking me. WTH I thought. This is ridiculous. Choking people just isn’t fair. It really isn’t. So, I had to take that too. Wait a minute…where was I? Oh yeah. You need some exposure to it all.

Martial Arts doesn't Make you a fighter. Fighting makes you a fighter. I don't have any delusions about what lane my sport bjj puts me in.

I boxed and studied a bit of Shotokan as a youth. The plain fact is that boxing accustoms you to real fights, with the taking punches and adrenaline surge. Your capacity to slip and avoid punches only comes after getting hit. Your body adapts. It isn’t just the actual fights, it’s the wars in the gym where no one wants to back down and there’s no referee.

Having done karate and TKD as a kid, then boxing and later muay thai as an adult... the major difference isn't even technical. There was a very good 'karate' guy training MMA at the same gym, and his striking style worked quite well even in that context (adapted to incorporate and defend wrestling and BJJ). The difference is that, when you spar at a pure karate dojo, they have the mindset that "if I hit you hard enough that it hurts, then I won a point, and if I get enough points then I win the game" and boxers have the mindset of "If you hit me hard enough that it hurts, I hit you back even harder. The game is over when one of us can't stand up anymore."

Here’s something to consider. Boxers not only spar often but they also train only in punching pretty much. If you spend 100 hours learning 30 different techniques, you will often lose to the guy that’s been training 100 hours on 10 techniques because more of their hours are going into each technique they train.

Shortly after I got my black belt in Karate, I moved to another University in a different town and got involved in full-contact kickboxing. It was considerably different from what I had learned in Karate and I had to start over almost from scratch. Since then I have started over a number of times in various martial arts. This was the 80s and martial arts styles didn't cross over, and it was a serious problem. It still is an issue but thankfully people are starting to understand that in order to win every time, you need to know everything, not just one thing.

Before the video starts, my first thought is that most karate practitioners don't train against a fully resisting opponent in a fairly open ended environment. While a boxing environment is inherently limited, they typically train against legitimately resisting opponents AND a lot of boxing gyms have a very small gap between fighting and sparring.

Kicks are longer,stronger,less precise and 3 times slower,you lose balance and defence as well

Competitive boxers train, and fight, full-out to win, even in a sports environment while, in karate the first rule, even in competition, is "don't seriously hurt anyone". Mindsets, particularly reinforced mindsets, matter a lot. Like John Wayne says in The Shootist - "it isn't always being fast, or even accurate, that counts... it's being willing". The guy who is willing to mess up the other guy and then worry about it later is more apt to win than the guy who isn't. Boxing, as a martial art, is often very underrated in terms of difficulty, complexity and effectiveness... but it has a killer mindset really not seen in other arts/sports - and that's why a lot of people have been killed doing it. Nobody "plays" boxing.

I was almost always the smallest boy in class when I was growing up. Some of the other boys would pick on me because my size. My family taught me a little dirty boxing for self defense. I'll be honest I probably learned more from fighting and wrestling with my brother. One day a taller boy who had been taking Karate wanted to show off his skills to his friends. He picked me as his example. Well what happened did not go the way that he wanted. My dirty boxing was superior to his white belt Karate. He went home with a couple of bruises to his body and his ego. On the bright side, I never got picked on again after that.

I agree with you. I studied old style karate(pre-sport) in Okinawa for ten years. I fought a lot and found the most challenging opponents were boxers. Modern karate is well removed from the original combat oriented karate of old.

"Every man already thinks he knows how to fight" Yes. And "everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth" is my counter argument to that. A great quote by a great man 😀

Your spot on RD It's more about actual, real sparring and real fights. Boxing, far above most other fighting style, uses advanced footwork, feints, traps, angles and combinations. Plus a boxer is trained to adapt to the situation at hand practicing combinations rather than a set of katas that probably don't fit the actual fight

My first Karate instructor, back in the early 1980's, used to have a saying. He would say, "Kick for show, punch for dough". I was lucky to have an instructor that wasn't in it for the money. He always encouraged cross training. This led to me getting into kickboxing and now at 50 I'm doing BJJ. Well, more trying to survive than doing...

I'm ranked in two style of karate and have extensive experience as an amateur and professional boxer. The karate made my boxing much more balanced and powerful and the boxing taught me much better reflexes and movement. The two can compliment each other if one is well grounded in the basics of both. Unfortunately, very few people know how to properly teach either properly these days. One must also be careful about the concepts of power in each because if one doesn't it can ruin you for both.

Boxing is not just about using the hands, the feet and legs are also a part of boxing. Your stance, how well you can move, overall speed, and how you position yourself are just some of the ways legs contribute to boxing.

Boxers have better footwork, rhythm, conditioning and they're more fluid. Also, Boxers spar more.

”If you don’t know how to win the fight with just your hands, you don’t know how how to box - and you don’t know how to fight”. Well put Sir, indeed! Thank you!

For me the biggest difference between the two is definitely the training. In boxing everything revolves around preparing you for a match so the training constantly builds towards a central goal. In karate unfortunately everything revolves around either staying true to historical/ traditional training methods or just being good at the aspect of training.

Going from karate to kickboxing was an interesting transition. I certainly had some things to learn but a fair amount of my karate practice carried over. Point sparring is pretty good at teaching realistic timing and speed of real sparring, and hitting bags can give you real power on your techniques so putting them together for kickboxing wasn't super hard. However, I was also lucky to have had a karate sensei who taught us more practical sparring tips rather than just pure controlled drills. I also practiced sparring with my friends. At the end of the day, there is nothing inherently wrong with traditional martial arts as long as you find ways to pressure test your abilities in realistic scenarios. In fact, American kickboxing is partially derived from karate. The problem is that most traditional practitioners don't ever do that.

Because of icons like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and wushu cinema in general, people tend to think of Martial Arts as this ancient form of hand-to-hand combat that once mastered makes you close to super human in just about any fight you can imagine, when the reality is nothing could be further from the truth. Most marital arts, eastern martial arts in particular, do indeed have ancient roots, but those roots are tied into much more than just "combat". In the Eastern world where the likes of kung-fu and karate were created, philosophy was just as important as the movements themselves, it was spiritually significant in the way one should live one's life. Sometimes a Martial Art was about achieving harmony between mind and body, sometimes a Martial art was about self discipline and willpower, Martial Arts could be about any number of things but the common theme through most of them is they have a focus on life and spiritual improvement of one's self. This is the primary purpose for Martial Arts in the east, historically speaking, particularly those that were taught and practiced by common people. Boxing is not based or designed around a life philosophy in mind, because its not a Martial Art... its a form of hand-to-hand combat, and its purpose is purely about dishing out and managing damage. Hand-to-hand combat and Martial Arts are not the same thing. One is a means of enlightenment, health, and fitness, and the other has a basis in war. That's not to say Martial Arts, even eastern martial arts, can't be dangerous or deadly, quite the opposite in fact. There's a lot of techniques in many different "Martial Art" styles that are very effective means of real combat, but many of these styles were based in a form of combat that was typically taught to military of the time, not common people. Judo and Jiu-Jitsu for example were disciplines taught by Samurai to kill other Samurai in combat, and most of the moves are originally intended to be used in conjunction with actual weapons of war. Judo hip throws originally came from a technique designed to ground an armored opponent quickly so they could be finished off at the neck or eyes with a Tanto that, like modern soldiers and their KBARs, all or most Samurai carried with them into combat. The problem is, even an effective hand-to-hand combat system is no use if you don't put it into actual practice, and putting a hand-to-hand combat system that was designed to kill people into actual use isn't exactly practical or... ethical. Boxing and Kick-Boxing are somewhat special in the fact they focus entirely on strikes, and with proper padding and endurance training two fighters can go at it at relatively full force and have limited risk of actually killing each other. This is not universally true of all hand-to-hand combat systems, and in fact, most have very little means of sparring at full force that would not result in terrible or fatal injury. If you don't fight for real then you won't know how when you actually have to, plain and simple. No amount of sparring compares to the real thing, now matter how hard you think you're going at it, and even if you think the way you're training is pretty intense, sparring in a bubble is of no use to you. If the only people you fight are other people who know the same moves you do, you're not fighting, you're playing a very physical form of chess, which is a game. If a combat system has any worth, it has to be used on people who fight completely differently than you do, and that simply doesn't happen in a bubble, even to the really skilled and experienced. This is why 80 year old dojo masters who should by all rights be absolute beasts of their field often find themselves on the ground with a bloody nose when they get challenged by someone as simple as an amateur boxer... fighting and sparring are not the same, and its a rude wake-up call.

You shared such a basic truth about every guy knowing how to fight... until he fights. Great video, like always.

The great advantage of Boxing over karate is that Boxers can take full contact blows and understand how to deal whit it, while most karate guys doesn't

I became a third degree black belt in TaeKwonDo and I must say that there's almost nothing I learned in the process that would actually prepare me for a real fight. In the 15 years of doing TaeKwonDo I never once took any actual shots. I'm not saying it's a waste of time, but it most certainly is not something that I would rely on for self-defense. For the last 5 years I've trained boxing and Muay Thai and there is no comparison. We are pushing ourselves to the limit non-stop for an hour per session. In TKD our session would typically involve 15 minutes of stretching, 20 minutes of forms, 15 minutes of punch/kick drills, and maybe only 10 minutes of light sparring. We had 60 year old women getting through the class. I wish I would have started boxing at a younger age.

Everyone tries to beat everyone else in their own game. And by beating someone else in their own game, proves that your style and skill is better even in their game.

This has always been something I've noticed. Taking karate in my younger years and then becoming a boxer later on, I realized it's because of they way they spar. Kyokushin guys are tough as nails but they aren't used to getting hit in the face. We would punch and kick to the body all day but getting hit in the face is different. The hand skills are different, don't be surprised if Gabriel Varga dominates Karate Combat for this reason.

It depends on your story and your experiences. Im a 80's/90's Shotokan 2nd dan, ex doorman with training under Geoff Thompson. Using his method it was pretty easy to adapt to a shorter way of using karate more directly. Not only that, our sparring was supposed to be points sparring but it was way heavier if you compared to today's point sparring. I have sparred at boxing clubs and as long as they had a ring that wasn't a phone booth, I was a look ways ok.

My father was a boxing coach, we had amateurs and pros, we use to destroy karate guys. We sparred very hard, they were not use to the pressure, or getting hit hard.

I've been training Taekwondo WTF for 4 years as a kid. No guard, only kicks. When I started doing Muay Thai, my every sparring partner asks me if I trained TKD, because my kicks are pretty decent. However it was in the begginers group. When I went for advanced group, the guys started picking me apart with thise punches. I really don't know how to keep my guard up and how to defend, I most often just lean backwards or take a step back. It really sucks, because relearning new habit of keeping your hands up is very difficult.

Currently training TKD in my mid 50s. In teens I trained gym contact amateur kickboxing. You're one hundred percent correct about kickers. I've had the wind knocked out of me in kickboxing, but the fight didn't end. You just keep going and events you start to breathe again. Kicking is good to close the distance. But Olympic TKD guys I train with more think that TKD is complete and that they're fight ready, despite never sparring full contact let alone punching to the head.

Love your Stuff Ramsey.. You have a brilliant way of putting the basics across...

I’m glad my dad put me in boxing instead of karate

1 more comprehensive conditioning regimen 2 punches to the face 3 full-contact sparring

Nice video coach. Last time I sparred Kickboxing with my friend who later became pro boxer, he told me I needed to work on my boxing more cause I focused more on the kicking

I think this applies to more than just karate fighters. If you're used to one style of fighting, with training partners who fight the same way you do, it can leave you unprepared for someone who uses different tactics and techniques. ... Also, I would argue that it's inherently easier to press forward and crowd an opponent than it is to be evasive and create distance. That's one reason why pure grapplers with little or no striking ability did well in the early days of MMA. A wrestler can close with a boxer as easily as a boxer can crowd a kicker.

Absolutely spot on and all with the vocal talent of a top level voice over guy. You got my sub brother 👊🏻

Kickboxing originated from and is often described as 'full contact Karate'; kickboxers generally being quite effective, and usually / certainly know how to fight.

I remember my first live sparring match with a real boxer. Threw everything i had for the first 1 minute, while he just kept dodging and defending. Then he said, “my turn” ... turned out i didn’t know how to defend against his attacks. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

I’m not a huge mma fan, but I do like to watch on occasion. I’m not really familiar with Ramsey, but I am impressed with his honesty on this question. I will be looking forward to hearing more from him...

I know a boxer who got whooped on the streets by a Karate dude. It's not the style it's the individual. Both styles are good. they both have advantages and disadvantages.

I'm so glad that I watched Baki the grappler as a kid and learned the importance of not being tied down by style, tradition or martial arts dogma.🤣

Omg this is so true! I'm not trained in karate, but Chinese Kung Fu and when I was in basic training we had lots of martial artists who would spar on Sundays in the barracks. One of them was a golden glove boxer, and when we sparred at first he was dominant. Then we started talking martial arts and he showed us lots of stuff that he did differently than us. We all learned head movement. And spacing from him, and we got loads of experience actually pressure testing our technique, and by far the most common weakness thenother martial arts had was that we just did not have as much actual fight experience as him. Sure, my master sparred with me for hours a day, and we trained 4 hours a day every day, bit sparring is not an actual fight. We were all outclassed my him until we got used to the pressure.

Thanks for the honesty😁

After a couple decades of taking any fight I could get and training my ass off (out of love for prize fighting), I found myself amazed at how tough other people were. It’s VERY important to know that.

True. I was lucky enough to figure that out for myself, without getting smashed. I was a quite good traditional Karate practitioner in kumite point fighting in my younger years. We did much more randori (sparring) than the average karateka, and also included included simple throws out of the clinch and falling (Judo), because it was the time Raphael Agayev had his first successes. We also used also extensively handpads in our training. At one time we did a demonstration, and at the same event some young amateur boxers also took part. We talked to each other, and they showed us their work with the handpads. At this point with my own experience, I knew that my chances in a full contact fight with one of them would have been very slim! :-D The guys were quite nice, and they said they were very impressed with our fast high kicks. But all in all, I think we on the other side were much more impressed with their fast combinations and the power of their strikes.

"There's really no excuse not to be a well rounded fighter these days". Yes. 1000% this.

Great video. Honest man telling the truth and not boasting about his exploits.

If you don't know how to win a fight with just your hands... then you don't know how to fight. THAT is f-ing gold. Thanks for being my newest subscription!

I left my Karate class after I heard the instructor say "All you need is one good punch and you can finish the fight. You don't need to go to the ground or do any of that Jiu Jitsu bullshit." I love Karate, but if these modern, boxer-fighting Karateka want it to keep up with modern times, they need to evolve (or devolve, depending who you ask) it.

Well said. I have been following you for a year or so. Having an online coach has helped me up my boxing amd kickboxing a great deal, thank you, Ramsey! I tend to stick to focusing on boxing technique during my workouts, I work on legs and some kicks; you have to keep ALL of your core nice and strong! My dad was a golden gloves in the 60's, showed us a few things, works in street fights. I got bullied ALOT. Im a skinny guy. Then i learned to box. Wanna know the secret to quickly gettong your eye hand cooridination, together, fast? Stack pennies on yer elbow, as yer hand is resting on your neck muscle, palm up is wayyyy harder, and try to fling yer hand down to catch them ALL. You do this until you can catch 2 stacks of 10. ALL OF THEM. pops told us this is how you box, do this and you will not get beat up anymore. He was right! I have started learning some prating mantis, just for the forms; I STILL box my heavy bag, every day. For hours! Bless ya'll, COACH!

Absolutely right. Wise Man, great video.

That was so great!!! I loved the idea of your experiment.

I really think it comes down to how restrictive the combat sport you train for is. Sport Karate is an extremely restrictive sport, and it's what most karate schools base their sparring around as well. You can still develop extremely impressive skills within that framework, and those skills can even serve you well in full contact fights, provided that the person takes the time to prepare for that transition. Machida is probably the best example of what the sport Karate framework can do for a fighter when they actually adjust it to full contact fighting. However, if you just drop a sport Karate guy, even an extremely good one, into a full contact bout, they're going to get picked apart because they've never prepared for that context. Boxing is much less restrictive even though it has fewer permitted striking techniques.

They never sweep our legs

Great answer with real world insight. Thank you 🙏

Jesse Enkamp showed how Karate did lose an exhibition to boxers the first time it happened.

I'm a karate guy and love traditional marital arts and honestly all marital arts. This question can be boiled down to why do point fighters lose to contact fighters. Honestly I think that it is leading question considering the growth of MMA and how many people do great in it with a back ground in traditional marital arts and yes karate. Marital arts is a tool bag you still need to learn how to use the tools.

Great video as always. Just for fun, I'd like to add my own thoughts on this subject as I've often pondered this exact topic. I have about a decade (in total) of Judo training and about six years of Karate training (Shotokan specifically, so I can't speak for other schools). The obvious answer to most of these questions is the lack of pressure testing in Karate, but I want to dig a bit deeper than that. In Judo, the techniques we practice are later used in fighting (i.e., randori and shiai); i.e., there is congruence between the techniques and the fights. Even the Kata, for the most part (with the exception of a few more 'colourful' Kata like Ju no), are fighting Katas. In Karate, this is not the case at all (at least not in any of the schools I've seen). The techniques practiced are for the most part incongruent to the more 'pressure tested' kumite part. The blocks, the punches, and so on are done almost religiously in a certain way, then once applied most of it goes out the window. The stance changes, the guard position changes, the movements change, techniques are no longer allowed, etc. In fact, Karate turns into a game of fencing with your hands and legs (which is what it should be, honestly). On top of that the Kata, which are interesting, but pretty much useless for a fight, are often sold as something that will somehow unlock your fighting potential. This has been debunked, but is still repeated (for me, the Kata in Karate are great stretching exercises and good for fitness, especially as we age, nothing more). These are just my humble thoughts, I'm not trying to make anyone angry, it's just an observation.

as usual ramsey great video allways worth listining two my friend

2:53 I like that instead of saying something longer, you just said it as it is, "Guy who has experience fighting versus guy who doesn't. Who wins?" Because that's all that really matters.

Oh, yeah, absolutely true. I'll never forget when during practice (as a teen) I was put together with a person one head taller, so I felt like zero chance. Decided to move within the person's range, body-to-body distance. I got "slapped like half a dozen times with zero effectiveness (it was bothering, but I shrugeed it off), landed a full-body-force punch on the person's stomach. I won so fast...

I made the same mistake when I lived in Huizhou City, Guangdong Province. I was a Taekwondo instructor. Got into a sparring match with one of the guys from the Sanda school next door. Thought I could finish it with my kicks, and I got punished hard. Hands, low kicks, standing grapples and throws. Still taught Taekwondo after that and still do in Australia, but with added elements. I’m actually grateful now, 15 years after the fact, that I got thrashed. It showed me some of what I was lacking.

I didnt even have to watch the video. The most obvious reasons is boxers are use to getting hit in the face and body continuously and still maintain their composure due to repetitive training everytime they go in the ring.

No one is commenting on the training. Boxing training is grueling and builds you up to be a fighter. Boxing gyms put a large emphasis on physical conditioning. 99% of Karate dojos are daycares, for kids and/or adults. Just hobbyist stuff, even the black belts are rarely in any kind of actual fighting shape in karate dojos. Karate is mostly a hobby, while boxing is a combat sport and the gyms reflect this.

One thing I’ve always seen as a problem with TMA is they are so focused on big powerful “fight ending” moves but ignore the weaker a quicker shots that are IMO more important. Power shots don’t mean a thing with out setups.

Nicely stated. Very astute observations. One additional thing I might offer is that kicks are most effective at long range, but once the opponent is in close, like a boxer, the kicks are ineffective. Again, I think you made some excellent points and have a really practical and pragmatic outlook on the viewer's question.

Started my martial art career with karate and taido, then struggled against a smaller boxer. Started doing boxing, then I struggled against a smaller jujitsu guy. That's when I picked up jujitsu, but then I struggled against a wrestler of the same size, so I started doing wrestling too and to this day I mix all of them into my workouts and sparring, hahaha.

I've told the story a few times, but, gonna go ahead and repeat it anyway. I'm a really bad boxer, I can't even call myself that to be honest, I literally just hit the sandbag somewhat regularly. I don't like violence since I've had way too much if it back in middle to highschool. I've only spared for fun with a few friends. I was picking up a friend's brother from Karate practice. And one of his teacher's assistants thought he could use me for a demonstration in front of the kids. Gave some weird half glove things, and told me to come at him and hit him however I wanted, and that he would defend himself. Now, despite my fighting skills being barely existent, and the fact that he was training in fighting daily... I was over 10kg heavier. It made no sense to me, i didn't know what was the point of it. I practically just jabbed his chin and he was down. After he got up, he wanted a repeat and he came on the offense. I don't know what's allowed in Karate, I don't know the rules. But, when he got all up in by business actually striking, I elbowed him pretty hard because that was all that I could really do. He cursed at me pretty bad afterwards.

In the 70s I and my brother studied karate from James Harris in KC, a champion and of a claim. Excellent instructor but always was honest to his students when explained learning karate will keep you out of fights from the confidence it instilled in you. He stated at that time a skilled boxer would defeat a skilled karate trained because most were not used to being hit,hurt and continuing to fight! I appreciated his honesty from the man you were paying to learn karate from!

This dude is awesome and I’m glad he’s back in my feed

Solid logic. I've had 30 competition matches and it's very different now vs my first 5-10. And I've been the first for a few competitors, and I've seen the panic in their eyes. If you've seen real panic, you know the look. This is especially true for dance arts like karate vs combat arts like boxing.

Number 1 reason, imo, is that they do NOT keep their hands up

As a man who has trained in western style boxing, and also trains in judo, I'll share my opinion why I believe western boxing is the best hand to hand defense. First off foot stance width. In boxing, a shoulder width foot stance allows for better lateral movement which keeps you from absorbing damage. Then it's shorter punch angles. I've sparred against muay Thai practitioners and I can see their punches from a mile away. Also my high hands and parries kept me from eating damage. Now a good stiff jab which I think all boxers should utilize came in handy against a kickboxer that I sparred on occasion. I would spam the jab relentlessly which kept him off guard and would keep him from being able to load up any effective kicks. A boxer is also taught to use his shoulders as well to deflect incoming blows simply by turning in slightly. Which brings me to another point. I feel as karate, Kung fu etc have very exaggerated movements where as in boxing everything is very compact, head movement is short and precise which allows you to stay in the pocket. Lateral movement allows you to create an angle and doesn't take you out of the fight for a reset. Boxers in my opinion are also able to generate power which much shorter punches. And my main reason for believing boxing is better is because I believe that many eastern martial arts are way to restricted by form and tradition. There's not enough street fighter mentality. In the movies it's ok to have super respect for your opponent, but in the real world. Tradition needs to take a back seat to survival. And boxing allows for that. Dirty boxing, clinching, using the crown of ur head under an opponents chin when up close. Subtle head butts to cut an opponent, short elbows when in close, punching low on purpose once or twice to let your opponent know you're here to demolish them. Eastern martial arts there's too much bowing and respect. Which has its purpose but not in a survival situation.

Without saying anything about the actual content of the video; absolutely love this guy's way of talking and delivery. Measured and deliberate. He doesn't waste words, he explains his points simply and in a way that's easy to follow and hard to refute! It's rare that I have such a good first impression of a KZfaqr

Thanks for the analogy . You do good work .

One of the first conditioning drills I did as boxer was taking punches to the body and head. The ability to take punches gives a fighter the advantage over someone who hasn’t.

Back in Highschool I had my second degree blackbelt in Tang Soo Do. I got together with some buddies to spar with people who had other training, or in some cases no training at all. One of my friends was a boxer, and that was the day my ribcage learned what a "swarmer" was. He ate a kick with his guard coming in, and as soon as we were toe to toe my mind went blank. I had to relearn a bunch of things that day.

Excellent narration and video.

I'm smiling, and thank you for discussing this topic

I created my own fighting style that uses a combination of elbows, knees, head butts, thrust kicks and targeted punches. It's very difficult to counter and works perfectly for me. My advice is for everyone to develop their own unique fighting style and throw the rehearsed moves out the window.

I have been boxing for 12 years, and I can honestly say, it depends on the Karate. I have a friend that studied karate in Cuba that gives me a run for my money every time we spar full contact. He isn't a tournament karateka, he learned legitimate karate from a WWII immigrant in Cuba.

That's exactly what Bruce Lee has said 60 years ago, "it looks good in class but does work (on the street)!"

At last , I found some one worth the respect of a fighting martial artist like. I learned a lot from you. Keep up the good work s

Being a black belt in karate and a purple belt in Japanese Ju Jitsu, training in BJJ has been a very humbling experience for the last year. The level of physicality, especially during sparring is very different to traditional martial arts and suspect if you don’t spar in the style you do you won’t be prepared for a real fight situation. I remember my Sensei in karate telling us that if we ever had a confrontation with someone you know who boxed, the best thing you could do was get away. This struck me as very surprising as we were constantly being told karate is the best all round martial art and to stick with it. I’m proud of my black belt, but wish BJJ had been more available here in the U.K. 20 years ago.

I took TKD when Tyson and Holyfield were making headlines so I had a sense of reality. My dad would teach me how to move like Ali after TKD classes and he made sure I had a good punch. I was also big into Bruce Lee and sparred strong side forward. I plowed through other kids my age and paired with teens and adults after. We had a rule about kicking below the belt and I remember being paired with the tallest most talented teenager. He went easy on me and let me practice hitting above his hips which as tall me! But without my dad, I would not have been the best in my age group and I moved up very quickly. Unfortunately I got pissed off when I didn’t make black belt and instead of continuing to train, I quit to do something else. It was probably a good thing. I still have the same flexibility and do Thai boxing now. I can’t fight strong side forward in that though. It took me 20 years until I found a gym where I lived that I liked. I wish I could have started kickboxing at 18. I remember begging my dad to let me join the local boxing gym and he wouldn’t let me do it. He wanted me to focus on going to college. So I put martial arts on the backburner and coincidentally spent many years depressed, reckless, and suicidal.

Thank you for you insights & experiences.

Dang, I like you and your frank honesty. It's obvious you have a large well of experience. What a great teacher you must be in person. Hope to meet you some day....outside China, mi amigo.

Well, my first judo sensei was also a karate sensei, but with the little sparring I did in freestyle I found the de-ashi-barai of most utility - once you learn how to perform it without needing to look where your adversaries foots are. The objective is not to finish the throw, but to break balance. The de-ashi-barai has the advantage that it does not to be telegraphed - it does not to be strong, just correctly timed. Very few adversaries can move in a way that does not telegraph their foot positions. Original Karate also includes throws so I think Boxers are on average in advantage because of more sparring with seriously resisting partners.

I joined boxing in high school and then joined karate associated with JKA. I like to combine both of it. Karate is great for distance management. Boxing is great for close encounters and combos. Why limit yourself with a particular style if you can grow and learn the strength and weakness of other styles.

Very well thought out and reasonable take on this. I think it has a lot to do with what you said towards the end about closing distances and not having answers for that once that has happened. Most fighters tend to start grappling a lot when they're inexperienced on what to do after getting lambasted by punches. There's not much else you can do once the distance has been eroded for landing kicks. It's all about not letting boxers close that gap of space and getting into your guard. Which is very difficult. Like you said, there's no reason not to be well rounded in this day and age. I'm going at this the other way around. Trying to improve my limberness for higher kicks, coming from a boxing background.

Thank you for your long learned insights.

I'm a traditionally trained karate fighter. Adding boxing to my skill set was the best MA related thing I ever did.

When I was in the Marines we did some "boxing" and some "hand-to-hand" training, pugil sticks and such, and much later I found out that 90% of it was to make sure everyone had actually been punched in the face a few times, and believed that they could fight so they wouldn't freeze up in combat. Our grabass psuedo-MMA in the barracks was much more effective fight training, but knowing you can take a few real solid hits and keep fighting was probably just as valuable.

Love the personal storys here!

I practised Karate for almost 30 years. I never once expected it to work in a real situation. I treated it as art, body and mind conditioning, nothing more, nothing less.

There is also a problem of misunderstanding which kicks are most useful against a boxer, when people coming from "pointfight-based" Karate styles or Taekwondo but also Kickboxing Rulesets: They get used to fight opponents who are also want to use their "long range weapons" and not someone who prefers punching distance. Because of that habit most Karateka and Taekwondoka often focus ther training too much on long kicking techniques and to less on the most basic front kicks, which can be used way faster and both agressive and defensive. I mean, everyone in Savate, Muay Thai, Dutch/Japanese Kickboxing, but even Kyokushin knows how fast front push kicks are really more important to keep or create distance, than powerful acrobatic kicks.