Karate to Jiu-Jitsu

There seems to be two opinions regarding how much previous martial arts training helps a student of Jiu-Jitsu.

I can only speak to this from my own experience.

I trained in Shotokan Karate for 29 years prior to starting at Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, and continued for a couple of years after that. I hung up my old Black Belt once my knees made it obvious that to do so would be wise.

At first glance, there is pretty much nothing that Karate and Jiu-Jitsu have in common. Karate is hitting, and Jiu-Jitsu is grappling.

I did carry over attention to detail, and precision, but so would being an artist, or hairdresser.

Anything less general?

Actually yes, but I bet that for a less experienced Karateka it would have worked backwards.

At my low level, we have only been taught a single Jiu-Jitsu kick. Karate people

kick many different ways, and work on them constantly. However, the Jiu-Jitsu kick is absolutily nothing at all like any Karate kick.

In fact, prior kick training works against being able to do this different kick properly. Raw newbies have an easier time. Imagine a typist who is good with a traditional keyboard (asdfghjkl; home row) trying to switch to a Dvorak one (aoeuidhtns). It would be better to learn Dvorak from day one. A traditional typist would have to unlearn and retrain.

The new kick works that way for most kickers. As an old-timer in the Karate world, I utilized a strategy that I learned slowly over many, many years. I didn't try and relate this kick, which everybody compares to a Front Kick, to a Front Kick at all. I treated it as a totally new movement unrelated to anything I'd ever done before.

Doing this for years has worked greatly for me. If some boxer wants to teach me a Right Cross, I do not compare it to a Reverse Punch. I ask if there should be tension in my fist when starting the execution, or on impact, rather than assuming that the hand should be tight as in Karate. It is a totally new thing. What I bring to the lesson is understanding of principles. If the coach says that you launch the punch in a straight line, my fist will go in the precisely straight line that decades of Karate Punch practice has given me.

Granted, the kick was still a bugger to learn, but easier for me than for most kickers, and even easier than for non-kickers.

Karate gave me the knack of taking new things as totally novel, while making many of the components easier to perform.

Of course, this only applies to a very limited number of very specific Jiu-Jitsu techniques.

One area that has come very easy to me is understanding of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu standing distance. This certainly isn't true of most people.

The idea is to always stand outside of punching and kicking range of a potential opponent. This keeps you perfectly safe, and you try and maintain it if possible. If it stops being possible for whatever reason, or if you just get bored, you zip in licketty-split and grab the opponent prior to throwing or taking him down some other way. One does not linger between safe range and clinching contact. That's where you can get whacked.

You also don't necessarily want to be a little too far away, as it means you have to cover extra ground when launching your own attacks.

The long, safe range is exactly where Karate people spend 90% of their time when sparring. You maintain it going forward, or back, or sideways. Then, when you decide to attack, you blast forward as fast as possible to launch your strikes.

The only difference in all this for me is that instead of blitzing forward to strike, I now blitz in to grapple. Easy peesy.

There are other things as well, such as how to fake.

There is a Jiu-Jitsu double-leg take-down move where you start your blitz in, launch a fake strike to the face to get the opponent to think “high,” and then you drop, grab his legs, and dump him with you on top.

Almost everybody starts their blitz in, launches a ridiculous faked strike that looks more like a hand wave, while already looking down at their opponents legs. This in effect, tells him exactly what you're going to do next, which is drop, grab, and dump.

My long-trained Karate version is a little different. I lock eye contact while blitzing in and apply a lead-hand strike Karate style. A fake in Karate is a punch that you launch with full power and intent to connect, but that you don't expect to finish the fight with. Eye contact is maintained until after the fist connects, and then I drop, grab, and dump without ever having looked down at my real intended area of attack.

I'm also pretty good at relaxing while sparring, especially during a drill called Fight Sim that makes most of us tense up significantly. One partner puts on boxing gloves and plays the part of a non-grappling opponent who wants to punch their buddy's lights out. The punches aren't hard, but they land with a bit of psychological impact. I don't much care. I've faced talented, highly-trained people who have been trying very hard to smack me with unpadded fists.

Anyhow, these are the types of things that 30 plus years in Karate have given me to assist in my Jiu-Jitsu journey.