Kyokushin Experiences?

I have always wanted to pursue kyokushin karate and was wondering if anyone has had any meaningful amount of experience with the martial art. Did you focus on sparring or kata. My background is in boxing, but I always thought kicks were cool.

One of the hardest, if not THE hardest karate style.
T-Nation brethren Blazin Dave is a serious Kyukushinkaikan, as far as I know, but he’s offline for many months to come.
If you’ll happen to practise it with regard to competition and tournments, be warned: it’s a painful road to go down.

I consider the style very incompatible to boxing, since in Kumite you strike at the body only. However, in contast to Tae Kwon Do and most Karate and Gung Fu styles, we’re talking about full force punching. Many Kyokushinkai fighters I knew had a nagging injury because of this.
The posture is very compact and you learn to guard your body well through rolling, blocking and sheer toughness.

As for your boxing skills, that means your ellbows will never flare out again.
But also your head movement and defense will get sloppier without extra training (like a boxing session per week).
And as for kicking, you definitely learn more beautiful kicks in TWD and Karate styles like Goju Ryu.

Kyokushin kicks are economical and practical for the most part. The “brazilian kick”(look up Glaube Feitosa) is an expert solution to kick forcefully and deceptifully to the head without exposing your standing leg to a lowkick too early.
I have had little direct training in Kyok., so as for the Kata, I find it pretty much useless like all Kata.

Bottom line:
Don’t expect to practise sommersault kicks. Expect brutal training that can border on sheer madness (depending on your sensei, of course).
That means:
Give it a try!

I was never really interested in karate, but man, you caught my attention :wink:

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
One of the hardest, if not THE hardest karate style.
T-Nation brethren Blazin Dave is a serious Kyukushinkaikan, as far as I know, but he’s offline for many months to come.
If you’ll happen to practise it with regard to competition and tournments, be warned: it’s a painful road to go down.

I consider the style very incompatible to boxing, since in Kumite you strike at the body only. However, in contast to Tae Kwon Do and most Karate and Gung Fu styles, we’re talking about full force punching. Many Kyokushinkai fighters I knew had a nagging injury because of this.
The posture is very compact and you learn to guard your body well through rolling, blocking and sheer toughness.

As for your boxing skills, that means your ellbows will never flare out again.
But also your head movement and defense will get sloppier without extra training (like a boxing session per week).
And as for kicking, you definitely learn more beautiful kicks in TWD and Karate styles like Goju Ryu.

Kyokushin kicks are economical and practical for the most part. The “brazilian kick”(look up Glaube Feitosa) is an expert solution to kick forcefully and deceptifully to the head without exposing your standing leg to a lowkick too early.
I have had little direct training in Kyok., so as for the Kata, I find it pretty much useless like all Kata.

Bottom line:
Don’t expect to practise sommersault kicks. Expect brutal training that can border on sheer madness (depending on your sensei, of course).
That means:
Give it a try!

[/quote]

Osu.
Thank God university has internet :smiley:

All i can say about kumite (sparring) is that it’s basically a blinking contest on who will succumb (sp) to the pain first.

Osu!

yea i like pain. lol. my dad did some okinawan karate while stationed there in the marines, and told me about the bare knuckle sparring on wooden floors and such. kyokushin looks petty much like what he described. its just gonna be a chore to sort out a dojo to go to. and plus my favorite k1 fighter was andy hug. he was a kyokushin practitioner wasnt he?

All i can say is its brutal, i switched from TKD to Kyokushin after realising the short comings of TKD. I hav’nt looked back, as mentioned before its compact fast and lacks head punching. I went to an MMA and submission wrestling class on top of KK to help round out style flaws (mainly use of elbows/knees and clinch). What i most like about KK is most instructors are grounded (no chi/qi bullshit, value of patterns isnt considered vital, ware of the short coming of the style)"

Are hand strikes to the head allowed?

[quote]Therizza wrote:
yea i like pain. lol. my dad did some okinawan karate while stationed there in the marines, and told me about the bare knuckle sparring on wooden floors and such. kyokushin looks petty much like what he described. its just gonna be a chore to sort out a dojo to go to. and plus my favorite k1 fighter was andy hug. he was a kyokushin practitioner wasnt he?[/quote]

He was.

A very good one at that too.

Karate has it’s origins in Okinawa.

You can check this out, it’s a pretty interesting watch:

“Fight Quest” documentary on different martial arts. They have muay thai and everything. Pretty cool.

[quote]Enjoy The Pain wrote:
Are hand strikes to the head allowed?[/quote]

No. Wikipedia can explain much more eloquently than I, so:

“In the earliest Kyokushin tournaments and training sessions bare knuckle strikes to the face were allowed but resulted in many injuries, and, thus, students who were forced to withdraw from training. Mas Oyama believed that wearing protective gloves would detract from the realism that the style emphasizes. Therefore, it was decided that hand and elbow strikes to the head and neck would no longer be allowed in training and competition. Furthermore, many governments don’t allow bare knuckle strikes to the head in sanctioned martial arts competitions. The vast majority of Kyokushin organizations and “offshoot” styles today still follow this philosophy.”

I find this to be a problem because those who tend to have better legs usually have an advantage. If i could punch to the face i would win many more fights :stuck_out_tongue: Case in point, 6 foot tall 17 year old kid yesterday with freakishly long legs, owning my head.

It’s a great fighting style and definitely very intense but if you’re into MMA, i suggest you also implement some boxing and some ground work.
If not, just the mental toughness and the “never give up” attitude it brings is well worth it.

Check out kyokushin4life.com and ask them for a dojo in your city on the forums, they might be able to guide you.

Good luck

Osu