Even before the popularity of MMA, most people with a shred of common sense knew that Karate, (Tae-Kwon-Do, Kempo, Tang-Soo-Door whatever you want to call it) is of little use in a real fight. There are exceptions to this rule though. Some Karate schools will actually teach you how to defend yourself. But with the decades long spread of corruption, and crappy training methods those types of Karate schools are a rare gem indeed. How did this happen? Allow me to explain...
One-Steps (and all other choreographed "fighting") = Useless. We've all seen it before. Student A throws a long arching punch toward student B... and then leaves his hand hanging there. Student B then counters the punch with a seemingly d3@dly move. A move which would never work in real life because the move is too ridiculous, and a real person would throw a quick powerful punch. Not some labourous lunge. At some schools students have to learn up to seventy of these horrible things. Their time would be better spent in the weight room or hitting a bag.
Belts are the Karate student's crack, and they are handed out based not on fighting skill, but on indoctrination. Want a blackbelt? You don't have to fight. Just learn fifteen dances.... err I mean forms, and twenty or so One-Steps. Poof! Blackbelt. It doesn't matter how fat, and out of shape you are, or how horrible you are at sparring. You get a blackbelt. Want a high ranking blackbelt? Attend the same school for twenty years and just slowly move up the ranks. Don't worry. Jimbo McAwesome there will never even come close to outranking you or being a college (even though he kicks your ass in sparring practice, and is better at everything than you are). You started ten years before him and will always outrank him. There's no opportunity for him to skip a rank or anything. He must slowly crawl up the abusive belt ladder just like you did.
Sparring is almost always unrealistic and ridiculous. "Timmy you're not allowed to punch to the head!" "No Sweeping!" "Timmy stop throwing him!" "This is suppost to be No-Contact Sparring!! Stop actually hitting him!! That's what you would hear from 99.9% of instructors these days if you engaged his students in proper sparring. Often times there are so many **** rules in place that the "sparring" is anything but.
Most students are weak,fat,and completley inflexible. This is because nobody teaches them how to stretch, workout, or eat right. Nobody demands that they do this for the next rank. Nobody is waiting to kick their ass in a ring a few months from now.
There are fifteen billion martial arts which are essentially Karate yet call themselves something different for the sake of originality (TKD is one of them). There are also fifteen billion forms of Karate which claim to be totally different than the next form of Karate. Guess what? They are all the same thing. Just different forms, one-steps, and sparring methods. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Boxing were this splintered? Too bad boxing has something to unite them and determine skill levels. It's called getting in the ring and fighting. Something you will almost never see Karate guys do.
So anyway for the most part Karate is dead. MMA, and Boxing have completley taken over. Don't gloat Kung Fu guys because you're just as bad. I suppose there is hope though. A type of Karate called Kyokushin Karate is supposed to be tough. They actually get together and fight in tournaments that remind you of the Karate Kid. No fluffy foam pads. No point scoring system. Just a good old fashioned fight.
