I know there will be people who are not going to like what I say, but I was there forty years ago, and I know the truth. The truth is that the karate fighters of forty years ago, students of such arts as Shotokan and Wado Ryu and Uechi Ryu, and especially Kyokushinkai, could have taken todays mma gladiators apart quickly and easily. There are quite a few reasons for this, and I will go over just one of the main ones right now.
Before I tread into an area most fans have no real understanding of...let me say that yesterdays culture was full of physical cultists, drug free, and we had our share of martial maniacs. We did things in the course of our training that todays martial artists would shiver at. All of the things that we did were done with a degree of fanaticism far beyond that shown by todays UFC combatants.
One of the most important things was that we didn't stop our training and do something else just because we thought we might hit a plateau. Cross training was something you did outside the dojo, take a bike ride into the country for a picnic, or something like that. No, if we were going to have the toughest strikes we would just stay in the dojo and pound the fists relentlessly, and know that when training got tiring was when the fists got tougher.
Toughening the fists, contrary to todays scared cat take out lots of insurance types, was done with relentless dedication. We would hit soft, but continually, taking the time to massage the fist and flicking it to keep the energy from locking up. Eventually the fist, without becoming injured or insensitive, would become so hard and tough that the famous one strike one kill punch was a reality.
Heck, you see some vague hints of this type of conditioning today, and it is always effective. You see people who can break tons of bricks, boards, and whatever is lying around the lumber yard. These people have touched upon the true power that dedicat and intense training can result in.
The only MMA fighter in recent years who showed any touch of the degree of mental toughness required for true Karate, a fellow name of Luke, was shown pounding upon boulders with his hammerfist. In the ring, he showed a doggedness and determination above his fellow competitors. More important, he showed a fist that overcame any lack of ability and threatened to do some very real damage, if he had just concentrated his training in that direction for any year or so.
Have you heard of Mas Oyama, or other old martial artists? They would stand under freezing waterfalls in the dead of winter, commanding their bodies to an enduring toughness that would be frightening to todays fighters. In Mas Oyamas case, he disabled or outright killed half a hundred snorting, steaming bulls, and I haven't heard of any MMA fighters dispatching any bulls lately.
You think that big, high school wrestler bully type is tough? If you train with the dedication and fanaticism of the old time fighters found in martial arts such as Wado, or Isshin, or Uechi, or Shotokan, then you would know that todays grappler is nothing compared to stepping into a ring with a live and snorting old bull. And the only way to deal with those old bulls was to snap the horns off their boney heads, or just kill them dead.
Author Resource:
Al Case has studied martial arts for over more than more than 4O plus years, written dozens of articles for the magazines, and written the ultimate book on having The Most Powerful Punch in the Universe ! Visit him at Monster Martial Arts .
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