How to Learn Basic Karate Yourself

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This article was co-written by Yvonne Mo. Yvonne Mo is a fitness and health coach and martial artist. With more than 21 years of experience in the field of fitness and martial arts, she specializes in combining and teaching Eastern and Western health practices, including Tai Chi, acupuncture techniques, Chinese medicine. Country and cupping. Yvonne received her personal trainer certification through the National Association of Physical Health and Development and the American College of Sports Medicine.

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The philosophy behind karate is vast and complex, developed thousands of years ago through unarmed and armed battles. The techniques were perfected hundreds of years ago but have continued to be perfected through the generations. Buddhism, Taoism, and martial arts all played a part in the development of the philosophy of this martial art. Modern Karate was developed about 400 years ago in Japan, originating mainly from Chinese Gong. See Step 1 below to start learning the basic techniques of karate.

Table of Contents

Introduction to karate

Meditation. (5+ minutes) Get rid of all thoughts in your head; focus on breathing, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth; Keeping the breath steady and the mind clear is a preparatory step to learning Karate. There is no time limit, but a minimum of 5 minutes of meditation is enough to clear away all distractions and help you focus. Yes, meditation will definitely help you improve your fighting skills! ^{[1] X Research Source}

Forget the lessons. Forget about work. Forget about family and troubles and everything — imagine it all evaporating before your eyes. When everything is gone, you will see an empty room, and in the center of the room is a fireball that begins to burn out of nothing. This flame of power and energy represents anything you hope to achieve by self-studying karate. When the meditation time is almost over, the room is completely engulfed in flames.

Warm up the body. (10 minutes) Start by jogging in place or running around the block for 5 minutes; plus about 5 minutes (or 20 reps for each exercise) push-ups, long-range crunches (or short-range crunches), leg raises, and reverse pushups.

Warming up is important for your muscles’ ability to work. If you don’t get your muscles to loosen up ready for training and stretching, they’ll work against you and even basic movements can be difficult to get right.

Muscle relaxants. (15 minutes) Stretching all major muscle groups before exercise is very important for a relaxed and flexible body; Look for stretching manuals if you don’t know stretching exercises. In karate, leg stretching is essential to prevent injury.

Stretching is done after warming up. When the muscles have warmed up, that’s when they are most receptive to stretching, and also when the stretch is done safely and most effectively.

Learn the philosophy behind karate. In the eyes of people who don’t know about karate, karate seems to be all about violence. It’s actually the exact opposite extreme. The core of karate is peace, and more than that, it’s peace of mind. In life, conflict is inevitable. When this happens, conflicts need to be handled quickly and forcefully. As a result, karate learners have an innate confidence mixed with modesty.

It is an art form where the mind and spirit are as important as the body. All three must be developed simultaneously for the practitioner to master the sport. While the body must remember the movement, the mind must remember how to remain still.
Karate always begins and ends with chivalry. In karate, there is rarely a point of selfishness. It is believed that you will be rewarded for your chivalry.

Learn stances, develop balance and strength

Practice mastering basic postures. Yes, you always want to speed things up to learn cool moves. Unfortunately, kicks, hits, and defenses won’t work if you don’t have the right posture. You wouldn’t be a good baseball player if you held the bat the wrong way, would you? Of course. Basic technique is really the foundation of a good karate fighter.

There are different schools of karate. You will find there are different stances depending on the karate school you are studying. Most schools of karate have the following three stances, but with slight variations: ^{[2] X Source of Research}
- The natural stance (shizentai-dachi) is when the front foot points forward, the back foot opens at a 45-degree angle pointing back. The feet are separated by a natural distance as when walking.
- Front stance (zenkutsu-dachi) ^{[2] X Source of study} is the same as the natural stance but the feet are further apart and the body weight is mainly on the front leg.
- The cat’s paw stance (nekoashi-dachi). The position of the feet is similar to a natural standing position, but the body weight is mainly on the back leg. If you want, you can raise your front heel.

Start with a prepared stance. The stances above are combat stances. However, at the beginning of the match, you must stand prepared. You have three basic options:

The preparation pose in the Fukyugata series requires placing the heels together and the tops of the feet open to a 60-degree angle.
The preparation position in the Pinan series requires placing the feet shoulder-width apart, the table top pointing out and forming a 45-degree angle.
The preparation pose in the Naihanchi series requires placing the feet parallel and close together.

Pay attention to your balance. Karate is not exactly something that a drunkard can do, for one reason it requires a great deal of balance. This also explains why stances are so important! They help you keep your center of gravity, smooth and powerful strikes. But the strength you feel in the standing position can’t go away once you start kicking!

Always think about your center of gravity. If you extend your legs, which means your body is lowered, this provides greater stability and power. But if you lower your body too low, then the flexibility and speed are gone. When it comes to balance, you need to find the ideal balance.
While balance is important, when starting to defend yourself, you also need to be able to shift that balance quickly. If you maintain a pose for too long, your opponent can easily attack you. Therefore, the transition between poses is also important.

Learn the moves

Practice hand attacks and defense. (15 min) There are some important hand moves that you need to learn to attack effectively. Some of the hand moves can be mentioned as straight punch, hook punch, side-hand, side-hand, index, and back-punch. Practice these moves in sequence and alternate hands.

Defense is also very important! When you practice defense you imagine yourself being attacked. Experiment with a combination of defense and counterattack. Defend, attack, defend, attack etc..
Remember that of the knuckles, the first two are the strongest. They can align with the bones of the forearm (radial and ulna) to increase strength. The most common mistakes are bent fists, high punches or shoulder punches.

Rock practice. (15 minutes) 10 free kicks is enough to develop leg strength. Aim high to maximize power, but you should practice kicks with continuous motion to create smoothness between movements.

There are five basic kicks in karate: ^{[3] X Research Source}
Kick first. Essentially, you imagine your feet darting forward as if tugging at a towel. In a natural stance, bring your back foot, bend your knee, and kick (top of your foot forward) your foot forward, then return your foot to the original position.
Horizontal stone. Same as the previous kick…only the direction is to the side.
Horizontal rock. Raise the kicking foot to the level of the opposite knee, kick and rotate the hip forward. In a regular side kick, the upper body is kept straight. For the horizontal kick, the upper body falls almost in line with the kicking foot, putting strength into pushing the kicking foot up.
- The person pictured above is performing a side kick. See how he dumps people?
Back kick. It’s like a side kick, but you look behind and kick in the direction you’re looking at.
Round stone. In the cat’s foot, swing the kicking leg toward the elbow in the same direction as the kicking leg. Push your hips forward and rotate your body to kick your feet in a “circle” line. Then bring your legs back as quickly as possible.

Start practicing together. (15+ minutes) Find a practice buddy and use all the techniques to beat them for 15-30 minutes. After learning some defensive and offensive techniques, practicing together will help you increase your endurance and ability to coordinate attacks, defense ability when being attacked continuously or attacked by many people. labour.

Practice all the exercises over and over again. Focus on one exercise in a class. Once you have mastered it, you can move on to another lesson. It is important that you focus on low-level as well as higher-level martial arts to gradually improve.

Remember to practice after you’re done! Once you’ve learned many moves, you connect them together and combine in a way that becomes more difficult as you progress.

Advice

When fighting/practicing, always make eye contact with your opponent.
Be confident when practicing with classmates. While practicing martial arts with others, you should focus on arm and leg strokes.
Remember to change into damaged or worn training clothes. Your safety comes first in all martial arts lessons.
Make sure to have good control of the lower body.
Take pride in your physical appearance. Always have some new karate uniforms ready.
Always keep calm and gentle when playing, respect your opponent, never underestimate them because they can beat you easier if you have that mindset.
Gymnastics to learn acrobatics and add to karate moves.
Continually attack the opponent’s weak point so that they get tired and defeated more easily.
Remember that karate is a peaceful, non-violent martial art. The karate moves appear to be violent but are mainly for self-defense.
Practice all the techniques you have learned so that when you fight for real, you don’t need to think, just act.
Practice with a mannequin after warming up.

Warning

Remember that your teammates are real people, not punching bags. Therefore both people should wear protective clothing and exercise caution at all times.
Remember to stretch the whole body . Muscle strain or ligament strain can be excruciatingly painful!
When blocking a punch or kick from a partner, always remember to block with your forearm.

Steps

Introduction to karate

Learn stances, develop balance and strength

Learn the moves

Advice

Warning

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