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Tau
Tau's picture
The Karate of 2050

This is from conversations over the weekend at a residential. Partly serious, partly tongue-in-cheek.

What will the Karate of 2050 look like?

The masters of old didn't use equipment that we have today, such as focus mitts, because they didn't have it. I have visions of the Karate practitioner of 2050 sitting at home using virtual reality. The conversation may go to the effect of "I can't believe that back in 2020 they had to travel to a dojo. They actually used to hit, throw and choke each other!"

Admittedly, that's the tongue-in-cheek bit. But I can certainly see technology being more of a factor. More devices such as striking or grappling dummies of increasing sophistication.

Here in the UK I wonder if we will need to increase the prominence of material such as knife or firearm defence.

I hope we don't lose kata, even the less relevent ones.

Marcus_1
Marcus_1's picture

The dawn of the "smart gi"; a traditional gi but with embedded smart tech to tell the wearer who efficiently they are working, how hard they are punching, kicking etc and most importantly how good their form is.

Added to that, lots of "smart dojo's" with camera's all over the place (replacing mirrors) so that the student can overly critique themselves at every stage of training, makiwara's that actually give verbal opposition about how hard you are hitting

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

I don’t think that much will change in what is relatively short timeframe. The main thing that can change quickly is technology. Better protective equipment is therefore possible i.e. thin enough to permit relatively free movement, but also able to disable meaningful impact. We've not got anything like that at the moment. There are many fields where such materials will prove useful, so the resources and potential market are there in a way they would not be if something was martial arts specific.

Tau wrote:
Here in the UK I wonder if we will need to increase the prominence of material such as knife or firearm defence.

We can’t know, but the if we look at the long-term picture, violent crime in on a downward trend from its 1990s peak. It was in 2011 that unified knife crime stats started being collected, and that needs kept in mind when people talk of it being “at the highest level since records began”. The Office of National Statistics are also keen to point out that crimes involving weapons are low in volume and hence trends are difficult to state in any meaningful way (small increases or decreases show large percentage changes):

“As offences involving the use of weapons are relatively low in volume, the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is not able to provide reliable trends for such incidents.”

We therefore need to be careful about short term changes and basing future expectations on them.  

All the best,

Iain

diadicic
diadicic's picture

2050 is here only missing some sensors for impact readings.

https://speargear.myshopify.com/collections/high-gear

Dom

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Most studies on fitness trackers have yielded less than impressive results. I would expect a Karate data-glut to be similar, lots of data, most of it useless.

I -hope- what continues is simply better and better online sharing of information, leading to a more informed, functional applied Karate world. Really, the improvement in the past 20 years or so is huge. I think there is a ceiling on what communication technology can improve here, but we haven't hit it yet.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Hi Dom,

Iain Abernethy wrote:
Better protective equipment is therefore possible i.e. thin enough to permit relatively free movement, but also able to disable meaningful impact. We've not got anything like that at the moment.

diadicic wrote:
2050 is here only missing some sensors for impact readings.

That was the reason I put “meaningful” in bold :-) It’s among the best kit we have, but my experience is that good hitters can punch through it in such a way that the person underneath can still be KO’d and injured. What we ultimately need is a that kind of kit, but with a material that better dissipates force. Such a material could be used as protective equipment in industry, for motorcycle riders, horse riding, security, sports like hockey, etc. I’ve therefore no doubt that, if such a material is possible, that it will be developed. I don’t think we have it yet though. That’s not to say we don’t have useful kit now, just kit that the we have now is not able to absorb hard contact in a way that guarantees the safety of the recipient; especially when we are talking about blows to the head. In 2020, strikes can’t be delivered with force comparable to actual conflict.

All the best,

Iain

AllyWhytock
AllyWhytock's picture

I think I asked that question, or similar (2030) for Iain's year-end Q&A.  I'll be 82, about the same age my father is now. He's fit, relatively healthy albeit with the onset of that scourge called dementia.

I was thinking that learning from our, not just his, journey into his dreaded unknown, how he regularly reverts to his experiences of his younger life. Ask him anything about the 50s/60s, playing football, in the army etc he'll be spot on. Ask him about yesterday and it's gone. Ask him to kick a ball he'll easily play a few tricks with the ball. 

For we Karate-Ka, practicing regularly, will we by 2050 be able to recall Kata?  Will this regular practice, focusing on movement, thinking deeply about applications help our brains to be more robust to dementia? 

One lesson is his type of dementia. As a young, junior footballer, he would header that heavy leather ball. As recent studies have shown, there is a definite relationship. So we should learn from this that recurrent head contact, even light head contact can have a detrimental impact? By 2050 we will have a greater understanding of the brain and perhaps countermeasures to offset these effects.

Karate in 2050 will have a greater scientific basis for learning, training, and practice. The charlatans who continue to impose the detrimental training practices will be gone.  For all these questions I think so and I hope so. In summary - prepare for the worst and hope for the best.