Practical Karate Isn’t Pretty

I love watching people do flips and crazy spinning kicks amidst their forms as much as Red Bull loves its wings (and its annual tricking showcase). Although, one thing I don’t like as much is after telling people I do martial arts, they ask me if I can do a backflip. Maybe I’d feel differently if I could in fact do a backflip…but it’s also important to understand flips and martial arts don’t go hand in hand. Don’t get me wrong, tricking and other gymnastic feats are very impressive and require a lot of skill and practice, but they shouldn’t be lumped together with martial arts. After all, most traditional martial arts have an emphasis on self-defense, and let’s be honest, how and why would you do a flip in a fight? Unless you’re Spiderman, it’d be very impractical.

One reason why people associate the two together is because of the media. Movies, tv shows, viral videos, etc, show people doing insane feats that relate to martial arts. After all, you’d have to be crazy to say it’s not cool seeing Deadpool do a B-twist to dodge bullets. This is how people begin to see fighting and training as, since it’s the closest thing to martial arts that they’re exposed to. It’s the same on social media such as Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube; you can find compilation videos of “Best Martial Artists Around the World!”, filled with people kicking their leg vertically in the air, dropping into the splits, completing 900 degree spin kicks, so on and so forth. These videos are really fun and hard to look away from, and if it’s something you want to learn, by all means safely go for it! However, again, these techniques are not practical in a self-defense situation and shouldn’t be considered as such.

Practical martial arts aren’t aesthetically pleasing, it’s not very exciting to watch. Sure, we aim to kick as high as we can to practice mobility and test our limits in class, but there are very few instances where you’d actually want to throw a high kick in a street altercation. There’s a reason a good handful of traditional martial arts don’t kick higher than the waist. It’s awesome watching Chloe Bruce do her famous Scorpion kick above and over her head, but what’s practical martial arts is the video of the middle-aged sensei practicing blowing out kneecaps as he does a flow drill. Keep an open mind about what you find impressive!