The Art of Karate

There are many forms of self defense and one of them is Karate. This system makes use of the hands, elbows, knees, feet for kicks and blows to body parts that are vulnerable. This unarmed self defense orignated from eastern Asia and often confused with ju-jitsu, judo and sumo which are totally different Asian sport.

Karate during the seventies was referred to as an acrobatic boxing. Karate involves a little personal contact and the opponent becomes immobile because of powerful and well directed blows which are delivered far from the opponent as possible. Experts in Karate can crush a large block of ice using his fist, he can splinter a six inch thick pine wood by a single kick and he can shatter stacks of tiles using his head or an elbow.

The three main areas of karate training are calisthenics, kumite, and kata. Calisthenics are rigorous and build up acrobatic flexibility and speed. Kumite is training in specific karate blows, kicks, chops, and blocks, involving the use of knuckles of the fist, the blade of the hand, the ball and outside edge of the foot.

This can strengthen the extended fingers which can be very effective when used like a spear point. Katas, which is the third area in karate involves acrobatic forms of kicking, punching, blocking, turning, leaping, dodging and are often practice with an imaginary adversary. Those who are trained in karate school or dojo are barefoot on the wooden floor without mats when they do their training.

In karate, pieces of equipment like punching bags, weights, boxes or corase sand for strengthening the exnteded fingers of the hand are used frequently. Gi is the traditional costume in karate. This includes a loose fitting pants and jacket and a belt or a long cotton sash.

The color of the belt denotes the wearer's rank. Beginners wear white belts, and experts black. The belts in between are yellow, green, and brown in this respective order. The black belts also have various degrees or dans, based on skill and teaching ability. Most schools go no higher than the eighth dan.

Karate peaked during the 70's. Because of this, many movies were released based on this system. Bruce Lee is the most popular actor during the 70's when it comes to this form of martial art. Movies like Game of Death that had Bruce Lee and Kung Fu with David Carradine. Today, Karate is still very popular and many movies are still patterned using this theme. The most recent movie using this is "Karate Kid'' which was just released last month that starred Jayden Smith and Jackie Chan.

About the Author

Then came another popular movie martial art character, the Japanese assassin, the ninja ninjutsu. How would you like to learn this ancient Japanese art? Buy an instructional DVD or take ninjutsu classes and acquire the ninjas' skills and discipline.

Author (clientarticles@seoarbiter.com). Submitted on Sun, 8 Aug 2010 Time: 9:32 PM

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