Karate Used in a Real Fight? | ART OF ONE DOJO

So this is a clip that actually has been circulating past two years maybe. I've seen it a few times. It's very popular and I thought it would be a good one to look at. So first we're just gonna go ahead and play the clip and then we will do some commentary on it. From what I understand is this was filmed from someone's apartment window and the guy on the left apparently was starting the fight with the guy on the right and it came to blows. So let's see how it played out. So the only audio that goes along with this is a commentary. People on the inside of the house laughing and joking but and of course here's the cherry on the top right here. You think the fight's over but nope boom final shot. Okay there's a lot to comment on this one. The first thing I noticed though is at the beginning the fighting stances. There's a big difference in the fighting stances. The guy on the left almost seems to be mocking the guy on the right. The guy on the right you can kind of see he's in his you know his neutral stance you know 50-50 weight distribution. His center line is turned away. His hands are up. He's obviously ready. The guy on the left appears to be mocking him. Now as far as to what art this is there has been a lot of debate and commentary online whether it's karate or taekwondo. What do you think? What are your first things that you've noticed in this? I mean for the very first opening it's hard hard to tell. It's when after they start moving can you start to get an idea of what he's doing. I'm and you've been brought this up before his kicks are really nice. So I'm leaning towards more taekwondo more than most karate based. I mean that's now but the the thing is what gets interesting for me is is the standard you know fight when you first start in the man of course wearing the black that has the martial art experience. You can tell in the beginning you know he his adrenaline is running. He's nervous. He's you know I don't care how many times you have you know you fight. When you first fight your adrenaline kicks in. You're nervous and everyone starts to you go up usually. That's kind of one of the common things that people do. They fight but you know their center of gravity is too high and you can tell it. They start fighting up and you start kind of almost reaching over over them but it's when after he hits the that kick that first good solid kick he kicks. You can see him where he's like he's calming. He changes his stance. He changes everything. Like he's a little nervous. He's panicking. Boom yeah then he settles down and it's bad. It's kind of and you can see and you can see that guy realize he was in over his head. Yeah after just a couple of kicks. What I noticed with the kicks now as far as being karate or taekwondo I'm leaning towards taekwondo as well. There's a lot of hand usage which you don't see in a lot of competitive taekwondo but there are the self-defense versions that will use it. What I noticed in particular is how well he gauges his distance. Yeah because you're talking about he seems very nervous at the beginning. This might like even people have implied this might be his first fight because you could see that nervousness whether it is or not I guess it's irrelevant but you're right. Once that first kick connects he's actually made pretty he uses punches to get the guy back within kicking range. Yeah and right there was a good kick and in the spin kick same he sets up he reswitches stances and he's gauging and like he's almost right on the spot with it. I mean it looks like he clipped the guy's hands but it knocked him back it disarmed him a little bit it gave him the upper hand in the fight. Yeah I mean I mean the spin kick is not a you know especially using it in a street fight that's just not a thing you throw out randomly you know not usually yeah so there's a lot of ways that can go bad but oh yeah it goes bad quick but you can you can see though that he's practiced that particular kick and right here I mean you were talking about gauging distance the guy's not giving up but he's in over his head and he's gonna come in for a shot and he stops but I like how he actually takes a step back he repositions and it just fires that I don't know if it's a liver shot or a rib shot but that's the fight ender right there. Yeah but he but he stopped like you said he stopped he settled he focused and he delivered that shot. I like this clip a lot just because you don't see this all that often. No no a lot of times even even but but even like people you know who train martial arts you know a lot of times it even you know it doesn't matter what art you get into that usually you end up your first fight you use too much hands you know you just fall into it and when you're you're nervous you're just you kind of have that just flailing you know sense to you at first you what happened at first. Yeah I think so too and Michael brings up a really good point he says I would say it's his first fight for several reasons one the calm right after he has the realization that he can do this so that's what you touched on once he makes that first connection he starts to settle in but he goes to spinning kick his reaction was this as if he'd only hit pads he's not ready for the sudden stop that comes with hitting the body so yeah like it doesn't follow through so when you're hitting pads in the air there's a very different reaction when you're hitting a solid body I mean how heavy is a pad especially if it's a hand mitt versus someone who's what 180 pounds 170 pounds that's a really big difference in the hit and you're right like that first kick it's solid but um this kind of a breath how it stops like it doesn't follow through it's like he hits and lands and he almost stumbles a little bit but he resets for the spin kick which also doesn't really connect quite well but it it did its job yeah I mean I mean it's a but if you play back the spin kick also notice the height he got on that oh yeah I mean for someone his age you know kicking that high in a street fight with the spin kick I mean if he didn't bring his hands up he would have nailed him right in the face oh yeah I mean that that is a beautifully executed kick and it was probably unexpected and that's when you see the guy questioning his life decisions yeah and then there's here comes the regret right there now um now what's interesting though is taking this into account about whether it's his first uh you know whether it's risky not to throw a kick in a real fight or whether he can gauge distance or he's expecting to follow through there is a second part to this video that a lot of people don't come across like this this one has been around floating around all over the internet if you google it or if you youtube it people have actually put street fighter sound effects and music and even life bars at the top it's actually pretty funny I didn't want to show that one but um this is the raw video but it's actually pretty funny that has cycled around but there is a second part the guy who took the beating went and got a stick and came back and I guess another neighbor got the fight from that angle so it continues um it's not it's not as impressive as the first but it still shows some more topics to talk about so he came back with a really big stick well actually no I mean I mean actually I think this this this part of the fight is actually the more interesting part of the fight than the than the first when it comes to breaking down because it's one thing to face someone in the street hand to hand but it's another thing yeah when someone has a weapon keep your calm keep to keep you know breathing but you know and he actually ended up disarming at the end there yeah no and also that his move there his yeah I mean I haven't watched as much but if you back up the kick where he he falls but I mean that's that's the one thing that that that actually shows the problem you know with you know actually doing street you know fighting you know and actually doing kicks is you know if they mess up they can really hurt you bad yeah well you're I mean it looks like his back foot slipped out from underneath him when you threw the kick too much momentum but yeah that's a bad position look look look at that position right there did he here play play that over again it looks like he slips like he threw yeah I've happened this this has happened to me in sparring you throw your you throw your front leg kick and your back foot slips on the ground and just goes with your momentum and you just kind of right end up sliding but I want to know see if the guy went right okay yeah but I was curious though it almost looked like for a second he actually got hooked nope okay I wasn't sure if he actually got his his foot kind of hooked on the guy and threw him off balance it's possible I think it's a slip now yeah I know every art's a little bit different um oh yeah and Tracy brings up and now the guy with no shirt he's enraged too though he just got a beating now he's mad so he's mad with a weapon and now he's coming back he's got something to prove at this point um what I want to point out now with Kempo and I'm sure every art's a little bit different with this but we've got when it comes to weapon defense our general principles are you want to kind of uh divert seize and control the weapon that's the priority you want to get the weapon off its path of attack towards you you want to seize it get control and then get control of it so they can't use it against you and then once you've secured it before you can disarm it you want to do some sort of distracting move you know whether it be a knee kick or something to get the weapon away from them he starts off doing that you notice this very first inclination is he goes for right here he does like a block against the arms yeah but then he goes into a flurry of punches and before doing that kick so I don't know if it was just adrenaline or if his training taught him something different because he goes right in it almost looks like um five swords a little bit in Kempo kind of at the first glance but what you mentioned about the risk with doing kicks in the street is when he slips that position right there what if that was a baseball bat what if it was a metal pole or an axe or a sharper weapon I mean that is a very very dangerous position to be in yes well and also too is you can tell he threw he threw the kick that if you watch it you can tell me he's throwing the front kick when the guy in the shirt is actually uh backing away from him and I think that's one of the reasons that caused him to over he's throwing his all into the kick you know he's trying to hurt him and he didn't connect so yeah his distancing was good at first until like you said until the guy moves back and where he does hit and where he does hit it's not it's like on the hip that's not really like a vital area either you can easily take that and keep on fighting yeah you know before that that liver shot that'll end the fight or in the face but that's not that in this particular instance the kick worked against him and for him and then it just goes into afraid and it just starts ringing but then he wrestles it away from him so being a stick is one thing but had that been a machete which you know you don't really see on the street that often but if it was a bladed weapon or a heavier weapon he could have had arms broken oh if yeah well rule one if if someone comes at you with a bladed weapon go the other way if you can don't yeah you know you know unless you're caught or you're cornered you know don't with all that open space yeah stay out stay you want to stay out of that range because that's just i mean yeah dan strickland says i'm not kempo trained but where's the storm techniques that's actually a good question that's actually kind of um the storm technique storm is uh the code word for stick in kempo so that means defense against the stick and that's what i'm like you come in here that right there or if i get the freeze frame of it the way he comes with that block is almost the beginning of it but then he kind of switches gears and goes into striking without securing the weapon so he does he does begin the motions of it like i don't know what art he's training but he begins the motions but he switches gears and i think he should have stayed closer range in this point control the weapon getting away from the guy and not risk the kick well but see i think that's the other reason why i think he you know lends more into a kicking art such as taekwondo is that he's comfortable with the kicks you know he's comfortable with that spacing he's comfortable with you know when he gets up close and in his face he's uncomfortable about that he's uncomfortable well that's scary yeah it's scary but it's just not what he's comfortable with so he's trying to you know the guy's going away i'm gonna i'm gonna kick him again i'm gonna i'm gonna end the fight instead of pressuring forward because yeah his options are to to step in and close and close the distance uh when the guy the shirt is uh off you know close the distance keep up with the hand try and control you know try to maybe control the stick there but instead he let he's letting him take a step back so he can do a kick yeah he let him gain the distance yeah uh correction i'm sorry dan strickland dan strickland is kempo trained yeah yeah but it like i said it is it is hard to judge someone if if this is their first fight oh it's hard it's hard to judge because so much so much of your training goes out the window yeah and it's also worth noting my observation too is that the guy on the left he actually seems untrained period like his he seems to be mimicking moves and like he throws a kick but it's like it has like no principles to it it's very like almost like a distraction and his he's leaning into his like his swings are wild he's leaning into he doesn't have the balance so i'm suspecting the guy's not even trained at all versus the guy in the black is trained and that right there might be the difference in the advantage oh yeah yeah i don't i'm trying i mean he doesn't even really throw that i mean other than the first floor at the beginning he doesn't really throw any strikes once once the guy starts defending himself like he does the one assault right here but the rest of it he's he goes on the defense yeah it's also too with the thing i like i'm kind of curious to know what the story is because he taps you know i mean so yeah he's like yeah he's like he's like tapping out here i'm done and he goes to get the stick and comes back at him yeah which goes to show it doesn't matter if your opponent taps out or not if you can you know leave the area you never know yeah you never know if his friends came or also too if this guy's drinking then that's true you know so if he's you know he may not be a good fighter but it also it also um you know your your blows don't hurt nearly as much when you start punching someone that's been drinking if you keep having a few drinks they'll keep coming at you longer than they should exactly both tracy and michael are saying that she's saying why is it that why is uh the shirtless guy in denim jeans and auto assume alcohol has been oh part of his day no it's not an assumption but it is his movements could be because there are people who are trained when they get drunk they do lose that coordination uh but michael says i don't know but watching this video like i can smell the alcohol so you're not alone so yeah well let's face it a lot of fights start with you know most you know start with drinking though yeah rarely rarely ever you have a fight going oh you know we went out and we're having a long conversation and then yeah well the truth of the matter is we don't know the context we don't know what started it we don't know what's being said i mean they could be exchanging dialogue here i can't really see the mouths too well and we also don't know what kind of time frame is between the two clips like did the guy come back five seconds later or was it five minutes later like we we don't we don't know a lot of the context all we have to go on is just watching the technique of what's playing out and that's a beautiful technique i mean you can feel that just watching it yeah but yeah please well he traded the stick for his jacket yeah i mean i mean in my book that's that's a fair trade i'll take the stick and lose my jacket and once he has the stick see it stops here too so we don't even know how it ends but just judging by what we see here once again the guy's rethinking his decisions now the guy in black has the stick yeah that's where i'm kind of i mean that's like that's kind of like time to go about your day at that point now now that that that's the that's the the the actual interesting thing is actually having people you know rarely do you train in martial you know mostly you train training martial art and most people train i should say martial arts training kind of in a sterile environment you know you're training on a mat you're trained on level ground you're training in gear or some sort of workout clothes rarely you're you're you know you're training on an uneven surface where there's you know rocks loose loose debris and also too is where your actual clothes are actually used as a weapon against you such as pulling the jacket over your face yeah you know and where they're fighting too there's another element that really could have changed the the dynamics of this fight too is what if there was a lot of traffic oh i mean they're in the middle of the street right now i mean that that's another hazard too so yeah this is absolutely not a training environment so everything is going to be different right exactly but it's yeah it would be interesting to see the how it how it went a little bit longer because i'm kind of curious to see if this guy has actually any weapon skills and that would be actually tell a lot you know how he's because right now it doesn't look like you know the way he's holding it it's hard to judge for two seconds but it doesn't look like he has any weapon training it's all wild swinging but no if anyone the man in the black you know oh once he once he gets it yeah once he gets it it would be interesting to actually see if he had any you know yeah took what stance he would actually have done with when he holds it yeah it's hard to tell it's hard to tell because he gets it points to him and then it cuts yeah it cuts too early so i don't know if there's any more existing video of this if anyone knows of it please we'd love to see it share it if there's any context that we don't know i have a feeling this is all we get but if anyone out there has any more information on this uh we're definitely interested in taking a look at it so this clip is an excerpt from one of our recent art of one dojo live episodes in which we talked about the martial arts and whether or not they should be allowed or taught in the prison system now i'm going to challenge you on this topic right here on your beliefs do you believe that the martial arts should be taught or should not be taught we look at it from both angles so you tell me what you think should the martial arts be allowed in prison