Magic

I've been able to train with a great many Karate instructors over the years. Some like to include Eastern Mysticism, and some like to include bad Science. I prefer no Mysticism, and bad Science gives me the willies. Never ever has a Japanese instructor included this stuff around me.

Japanese instructors always make perfect sense to me, as do the instructors that teach in that vein.

For many years, a certain pudgy American has been running around claiming to know death touch tecniques, as well as saying he could beat people up without touching them.  Fox news finally got one of this guy's elite students to show them the magic on a non-interested target.  Nuttin'.  The explanation was, "he didn't believe".  Got that? To avoid magical martial arts, just don't believe in them. There was also mumbo jumbo about how the non-complient victim must have lifted his tongue at the wrong time, or a big toe.

Karate is Science, Physics to be exact.  Fists and feet delivering kinetic energy. I remember learning this stuff in high school.  Good old Newtonian physics, about 400 years old.  Stances, physics. Hip rotation, physics....

Crashing a car into a tree doesn't require the tree to believe that the car will hurt it. Neither does fighting.

Hints to detecting a martial arts fake.  If he says he's a master, he's a fake. If he wears a red belt, and claims it's higher than Black, and he's not a Judo Instructor, he's a fake. If he claims to have created the style he teaches, and he's under 60 years old, he's a fake.  Hair in ponytail, probably a fake. Claims to be a champion, and Google can't find him, he's a fake. Teaches Kung Fu, and wants to be called Sensei, he's a fake.