does being strong help in karate?

Shotokan_Fighter · Green Belt

i was wondering what all of you though of being stong like being muscular and strong my club talked about it last class and he said it does but ut doesnt beacuse in karate you can be small and be strong and powerfull i say it helps alot if a small person fought a muscular big peson more than likley the stronger will win
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DokterVet · Green Belt

Strength is ALWAYS an advantage. But size does not always equal strength. Assuming identical technique, a stronger persons' techniques will be more powerful. That said, sometimes a weaker person will have much better technique and therefore generate more power than a stronger person with poorer technique.
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BKJ1216 · Black Belt

I think you need to renew your idea of strengt. Is strength how much you weigh or how much you can bench. Or is strength how good and effectivly you can do the techniques. It's kind of like the scenario of a 150 pound woman knocking a 300 pound man on his back because she had better technique than his(yes this also means he coudl have had no technique). So I think muscle mass and brute force don't play an important roll, it's more how well the preson and perform what's needed to be done.
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DokterVet · Green Belt

Shotokan_Karate0,
just to clarify your question a bit more,
are you asking whether strength improves your ability to fight with your karate techniques, to do well in sparring, or to excel in kata?

As for fighting ability: strength is DEFINITELY important. No doubt about it. The stronger you are, the better.
For sparring, it is still helpful, but won't make AS much of a difference. Generally you are not trying to knock eachother out, so the strength difference mainly affects the ability to block techniques or force techniques past blocks.
Strength is inconsequential for kata.
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Formerly Wado-Kai Karate

dark_adjudication · Yellow Belt

If everything else is equal then stronger, faster, smarter always beats weaker, slower, dumber!

When it comes down to it the stronger spirit wins...
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Guest · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 12:27 pm Post subject:

I agree with DokterVet -- don't let anyone tell you a 135 pound person who practices martial arts is going to kick the tar out of a 250 pound guy with no martial arts experience. Be practical about it. The 250 pounder only needs to get his hands on you once. The 135 pounders only safe bet would be to evade the initial attack to the best of thier ability and get the hell out of there. Don't buy into that nonsense about how size doesn't matter.

Radok · Brown Belt

just to let you know, Bruce Lee was 135 pounds. Size doesn't matter, strength does.
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Guest · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 11:01 pm Post subject:

Bruce Lee's fighting prowess is debatable ... but that is a completely different topic. I was using weight as a measure of strength because it was convenient.

ninjanurse · KF Sensei

As a small woman (113lbs) I have experienced competition and practice with people of all sizes and weights and have never found it to be a disadvantage other than it hurts more when a big guy hits you (my theory-don't get hit!

). I have grappled many strong people and can use my size and knowledge of counters and center of gravity to keep from being "killed". I have also been a law enforcement officer and have never been at a disadvantage because of my size/weight. Proper use of leverage and joint locks have allowed me to physically detain large men without difficulty and affect many challenging arrests.
This being said...I do believe that there are people out there (trained or untrained) that could kick my butt under the right circumstances and it would definitely be better if I weighed more and was stronger....hopefully I will never put myself in a position were that would happen. In the meantime I keep on training!

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omnifinite · Purple Belt

Kudos ninjanurse. Since I weigh 135 myself it's good to hear that correct technique can overcome those "disadvantages".

I haven't had many problems so far with my 200 lb. kempo/jujitsu partner that technique couldn't fix, but then I don't quite know how much he's holding back sometimes either. I'm glad he's bigger and stronger than I am, it forces me to learn things properly.
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