For beginning students of karate, fighting for the first time can certainly be a daunting prospect, especially after spending a year or more punching only the air and foam pads polite enough not to hit back. And for most people, getting hit is the scary part. These days, with mixed martial arts gyms flourishing and UFC fights on several nights a week, many people who would otherwise benefit from karate training are probably turned off by the idea of no shirts, no shoes, just gloves combat to the mat styles of fighting that pervades the martial arts culture today. Having personally dabbled in those things, I think they have great benefits for people with the right disposition. However, Seido Karate is about inclusiveness, and every student can benefit from kumite, controlled sparring, regardless of their physical ability, size, or gender. At Seido Honbu, even some visually impaired students take part in kumite fearlessly.

Fighting, in many ways, is the ultimate test of the skills we develop in the rest of our training. From kihon (basics) to kata (forms) to tameshiwari (breaking), the spirit, technique, and strength we develop in other aspects of karate all come together to improve our ability to fight and protect ourselves. Kumite is an excellent test of these skills, because it allows anyone, children to adults, men and women, to compete with each other in a controlled setting where people can build confidence and improve physically.

The first thing many people find about fighting is that the opponent doesn’t beat you; your lungs do. Kumite is an excellent way to improve our aerobic capacity. Even in a no-contact sparring match — which we practice often as a means of developing control and awareness of our techniques — students can find themselves winded from the constant movement. After several classes, our stamina improves dramatically. Furthermore, the movement skills we develop in kumite cannot be emulated in any drills. We can break them down as much as possible in training, but the only way to truly improve our coordination for fighting is to gear up and match up. Fighting ultimately shows us which karate skills have become second-nature, because only in fighting does our training take over in the split-second reactions and subtle changes in strategy that allow us to prevail.

Finally, though we train in a way that is safe and void of hostility, getting hit is an important way to get feedback on your ability to protect yourself. It makes our blocks faster and raises our awareness of an opponent’s range. Most importantly, in my opinion, it tests our resolve and ability to focus our minds. Nothing is more distracting or disorienting than getting jostled by an opponent, but in karate some of the most important skills we develop are mindfulness, self-control, and perseverance. If you get hit and become angry or upset, you become erratic and everything you learned is likely forgotten. Instead, karate and kumite give us an opportunity to gradually condition ourselves against this kind of reaction, which in turn improves our ability to work through any other daily distractions we face in our lives.

Osu!