8 Ways Point Karate Improves Your Fighting

Is point-Karate just a game of tag, or can you learn how to fight with it? In this video we look at 8 ways point-based sparring can actually improve your martial arts, even in MMA.

BATTLE OF THE MARTIAL ARTS:

#karate
#karatesparring
#martialarts

[ronnieteulon]

I trained for continuous sparring but point sparring help me a lot with timing. Keep competing as long as you can

[npsavat]

that Florida Expo in November looks quite tempting. I love Martial Arts, and I hate travelling during the Summer, so this looks perfect for me..

[Fratm]

Hey, I have that shirt :) Also, I don't mind point sparring, but my system had such strict rules when it came to sparring that it ruined it. No spin kicks, no jump kicks (not like you would), light to no touch only, if you knock the head back, you lose a point. Was lame. My school has since closed and one of these days I will start a new system and hope to get some real sparring in.

[TheSuperGringo]

I like it, because it teaches you to overrun your opponent. Watch a point fighter, they'll be more aggressive than someone who's afraid of getting knocked out. They'll Advance through their opponent, canceling out their offense. You couple those with someone who's throwing some heavy hands, one, you're jamming up their offense, and two, cutting down on the reaction time. I've done both, I prefer full contact, but point fighting has its strong suits as well.

[honigdachs.]

You're absolutely correct. I did point karate for a few years when I was young and it instilled some things in me that I still benefit from to this day. I learned to be very explosive and developed very good eyesight and quick reflexes. I'm faster than my opponents most of the time, I'm pretty hard to hit and I'm often able to surprise people by covering a very long distance quickly and hit them at a range where they usually feel safe.

[jaredberryman-hivelead]

This was an eye-opening take on point karate. I never considered how much it could actually contribute to real fighting skills. Thanks for breaking down the benefits so clearly!

[Tamales]

Point fighting is great if you actually HIT with your strikes. It's great.

[brycekeeney]

I have done MMA and Karate point sparring. I have recently dove into combatives and when it comes to real world violence neither mma or point sparring prepare you very well for an ambush by 3 people with weapons. That said MMA teaches you how to take a hit. Point sparring is good for landing your strikes. The best part of point sparring is there are usually no weight classes or a very broad range in a weight class with division of over 160ilbs or under. This helps you learn how to deal with different body types and the attributes that come with them.

[camiloiribarren]

Always good to do some Ju-Kumite/continuous sparring to understand the scary outcomes that sometimes people won’t stop with just one or two hit.

I do like these points because they are more laser focused and decisive when moving. Be more cautious and that’s good have in mind

[Knight]

Great video. Lot of good points to think about. Was never a fan of point sparring in my late teens and early twenties when I was coming up in Karate. Since I started training Shotokan last year I've been really thinking about getting back into competition again. Now in my early 40s, I think my attitude towards point sparring has changed a bit. Makes for good practice and it's not like I was ever trying to be in the UFC anyway

[erickeblesh]

Man i understand alot of your points and maybe due the nature of how we train but i feel like it builds bad habits. Pull punches and develop bad habits especially footwork. I personally feel you spar how you fight, if you dance and play tag it could translate in the streets. Not everyone but most ive seen. Thank you for your perspective sir 👍🙏 keep it up 😁

[cpiper]

What you and many folks in the comments here are referring to as "continuous sparring" is what every karate instructor and every school that I know of does in every sparring class. Students pair up, or are paired up, and spar for 2 or 3 minutes straight, understanding that it's up to them to acknowledge each other's techniques.
However, when we try to transfer that to a tournament situation (Sport Karate), too often the fighters go at it for 90 seconds straight, never acknowledging each others strikes and it starts to look more like a cock fight. Very little display of defensive or counter offensive technique.
I agree with most of your 8 points but I think you left 2 important ones out. Because you are fighting another person who is moving and also trying to score, point fighting (all sparring, actually) also teaches timing and distance (range) that is lacking in controlled one-step (2-step, whatever) sparring training.
IMO, any school that doesn't teach free sparring (and I know a few) is doing a disservice to their students.

[ElbertTreble]

Sparring I didn’t like at first scared to do but now I do excited 😆 to do it at red dragon karate. These are good tips

[alleymaneupndisbih]

Heyy man!! You look great! Keep competing!

[blockmasterscott]

I always felt that you need both full contact no protection and point sparring. You’re really lacking if you do only one of them.

[Brandonthelion]

I was wondering if you could do a more detailed video on Ninjutsu. After watching your Bujinkan video it leaves me with more questions.

[MG-bimq]

My Kung fu teacher would enter his class in point karate and taekwondo tournaments to see how many times we could bite our opponents before the judges disqualified us. My record was four chomps to the arm.

[ajshiro]

The Wall. So if you were a fighting game character, you would have armored moves with hard hits.

[Brandonthelion]

One question I have kinda something similar to last video. If two people a teacher and a student have 8-12 hours of time a day to train do you believe they could progress faster in ranks due to more training time and dedication?

[gailvalleymartialarts]

Can you upload your fights with commentary?