Karate is "Skeleton Kobudo"

[HanshiClayton]

Here's a thought that will reorganize some of your thinking.

Okinawan kobudo, as you know, is the art of improvised weapons. Kobudo experts are renowned for their ability to pick up a stick, oar, flute, grinder handle, sickle or horse bridle and fight with them. These "agricultural implements" are expedient weapons that a skilled person can use with lethal effect.

Karate is the Okinawan art of using your own skeleton as an improvised weapon. That's exactly what we are doing.

Your body is a bag of bones you carry around with you every day, everywhere you go. If you add a dose of skill and coordination to this sack of bones, you have weapons that can crack a man's skull, break his neck, rupture his organs. The key is the skill, but the weapon is the skeleton.

We don't hit people with the soft parts of our bodies, now do we?

The idea that karate is weaponless is wrong. The weapon is there, and it is just as hard and unforgiving as your nunchaku. It is just that the weapon is on the inside of your hand instead of the outside.

[milmascaras2]

Happy New Year! first of all. Dr.Clayton, given your views on skeleton kobudo, may I ask your opinion on the best way to approach conditioning the anatomical weapons for striking within a typical workout at your dojo.
Thank You

[HanshiClayton]

May I ask your opinion on the best way to approach conditioning the anatomical weapons for striking within a typical workout at your dojo.

Well, there's a good thing and a bad thing.

The traditional "hand conditioning" myths spring from makiwara scarring. The truth is that masters who relentlessly pounded the makiwara were not trying to toughen their hands. The scarring was just a byproduct. They were trying to refine and train their power, which cannot be done by punching air.

I'm surrounded by people who have never punched anything else. They have a severely inflated idea of how tough they are.

The makiwara scarring was noticed by non-karate people, and inevitably turned into legends of masters toughening their hands until they could pierce a man's ribcage and rip out his spine. These stories are fun but there is no evidence. Funakoshi wrote disparagingly of such stories.

So, you have to hit something, and hit it hard and often, but you should protect your hands with bag gloves at least. Some day you'll have arthritis in those hands, like I do now, and you'll regret every makiwara session you ever did.

Arguably, the Body Opponent Bag (B.O.B) from Century is a good compromise among three things: (1) soft enough not to damage the hands, (2) heavy enough (if you fill it with 150 lbs of sand) to be realistic, and (3) realistic body surfaces to hit. But you should still wear bag gloves.