I also practiced Shotokan Karate for a number of years and value the principles and spiritual teachings much more than its teachings as a defensive art. But it is not true that you can’t learn aspects of Shotokan and apply them to MMA. Anderson Silva already does this as do many high level boxers and kickboxers. The difference is that level of understanding of the stand up game is almost intuitive to high level practitioners of other martial arts but is rarely ever isolated, categorized and taught the way it is in Shotokan Karate. For example, all good boxers know there is a time when an opponent can be attacked and they cannot defend, it is a moment when the mind is in reset mode so to speak, and in Shotokan there is a name for that moment. In boxing there is not. I remember training zanshin, and training how to measure and time a strike or counter strike not just based on physical moments, but by your opponent’s breathing, his eyes even would tell you when they are ‘blanked out’ or in ‘reset mode’ and can be attacked. I remember kyo as Machida put it.

Top level athletes can learn these elements or at least learn how not to give themselves away and be such easy targets for someone like Machida. Very much how in the early UFCs, after some basic training people were learning to sprawl and basic defenses against BJJ practitioners. The person that wrote the above e-mail is right, it takes years and years to be able to strike and fight like a high level Shotokan Karate black belt, and it is not attractive to most emerging athletes, but elements of what is TAUGHT in Shotokan are intuitively understood by other striking arts if not articulated well. What I believe will happen is this higher level of striking will be articulated better and implementations will be made in the game of the modern MMA athlete. And Shotokan will lead the way here with Machida being the standard bearer.

Is that fighters stop lifting their back heel to throw a punch. Or at least realize the perils in doing so. At least Shotokan might be able to get rid of the horrible habits taught by boxing and kickboxing that it is ok to pivot your backfoot or get on the balls of your feet when throwing a strike. Those are serious compromises in center of gravity and weaken the potential power in your blows.

There’s another limitation with regards to TMA’s, and that’s the MMA ruleset. No groin, eye and throat strikes dramatically changes the game for arts that depend heavily on them. One can still extract useful techniques and principles, but he would also waste time learning stuff he would not use in MMA.

Maybe 80% of this art is useless for MMA….

we dont know because no one else has used it successfully yet in MMA. Machida has studied and practiced all of the major MMA skill sets so only he knows.

If he can isolate the most potent aspects and replicate it in another fighter then yes it will become mainstream in MMA – but until then this is not about Karate

IT IS ALL ABOUT HOW MACHIDA USES KARATE ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE TO KICK ASS.

His opponents can bring all the Karate Masters they want and it will make little difference because they dont know and use all of the other skill sets Machida does.

He has morphed this thing into something else and until someone else can replicate his success I consider this being Machida and not shotokan.

Watch his face lately as he lands a punch in slow mo. Ive never seen anything like that in real life. Its like he has mastered his CHI.

As everyone knows — there are several aspects of stand-up — distance, timing and technique are probably the most important. All three of these are emphasized to a great degree in A LEGITIMATE shotokan school. One of the reasons it takes so long to learn is because they teach to fight at a longer distance — this is much more difficult to learn. It is important also to remember that there are few legit karate schools in the U.S. It is also important to note that Lyoto is not the first ‘karate guy.’ George St. Pierre and Bas Rutten have been extremely successful — one may argue that GSP does not use much karate anymore (I would disagree) — it does not matter — karate is great to start out with when you are younger, since there is so much emphasis on developing technique.
If you have someone young — put them in a legit karate class and they will easily adapt later to Boxing, MT and the standup portion of MMA (technically speaking — you can never teach someone to be tough, to have a work ethic or to take a punch). If you are 22 and want to get into MMA - better take some boxing and BJJ.
Again, though-it is important to distinguish between legit karate schools and really bad karate schools (there are so many in the US). That is what is missing from your article in Sherdog.

The main reason why Shotokan could not be highlighted in MMA until Lyoto is there weren’t really many if any Shotokan stylists that had any background in wrestling, muay thai, BJJ, etc. Shotokan needed the right context and the right application and the right person to make it shine. But the fundamentals were always sound and imo supersede what is taught in most boxing and kickboxing classes on multiple levels when it comes to striking. I’m not saying you can’t hit with power or can’t be effective in a fight if you train boxing or kickboxing, I’m saying you compromise a lot of power and your center of gravity in those arts way too much AND you take way too much damage. Even if you win a kickboxing match you beat the shit out of your legs. Cro Cop talks about the beating his legs take after fights in several interviews. Boxers fuck up their hands and elbows all the time.

Royce’s family had already spent years adapting their jiu-jitsu for challenge matches so when the UFC started, it was created very much in the way the old challenge matches were carried out in Brazil. Of course, Royce excelled. But in time, MMA/UFC fighters will have to learn what it is about their striking technique that makes them so vulnerable to Lyoto the same way UFC fighters had to learn what made them vulnerable to Royce. And the only way they will learn this is by understanding Shotokan. Traditional boxing coaches and Muay Thai coaches won’t be much help all they can do is generalize and say ‘Lyoto has great timing’ but they say it as if it is an uncanny physical skill. They don’t really know why his timing is good, what components of his striking technique give him an edge and what aspects of their technique make them vulnerable. They will never figure that out on their own they need to understand Shotokan.

Daniel Larusso is coming to kick Machida’s ass… Mr Miagee knows how to handle this shit.

This is an example of the sports karate that Lyoto grew up doing. Ask any legit instructor and they will say that this is only a small part of shotokan. THis is not the end all be all — but still much better than what most see in the states.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkGP0AM14F0