"What's the most important thing in karate?"

“What’s the most important thing in karate?”

“Distance!”

“Why distance?”

“I have told you too much already.”

This was an exchange between a low ranking black belt and a respected master, as reported in Stan Schmidt’s book, Spirit of the Empty Hand. If I remember right, the story is fictional but based on Shihan Schmidt’s actual experiences during his many trips to train at JKA headquarters in Japan. (For those who don’t know him, Shihan Schmidt is a hugely respected Shotokan karateka. During its peak, his skill and knowledge made him the highest ranking non-Japanese within the large, very powerful organization.)

I read Spirit of the Empty Hand soon after its release in 1984. Like the black belt in the story, I wanted to know the answer. Why did the speaker feel that distance was so important? I gave it a great deal of thought and a lot of trial and error over the years in an attempt to discover the full importance of distance to both combat and competition.

I don’t know if distance is the most important factor in karate. I’ve generally felt that having a good eye and the speed to deliver an effective technique or counter at the most opportune time would get my vote. But the ability to properly control distance can be critical in certain situations – where it is controllable – especially if an average competitive fighter hopes to defeat a faster or superior one.

In the 70s or early 80s, I taught many-time World and Olympic Shot Put Champion, Brian Oldfield. He was a huge guy, blindingly fast, extremely powerful, surely one of the greatest athletes of all time. A mutual friend sent him to me because he was thinking of going into full contact kickboxing. I’ll likely do a separate post or two on Brian, who had an extraordinary life and shared with me many fascinating incidents – including breaking the handcuffs whenever the police tried to arrest him for brawling. But one of the things he did at one point was fight an exhibition match with Mohammed Ali at Madison Square Garden, when Ali was still at his peak. Brian told me that during their match Ali did this thing where he slowly bent his knees and compressed his body, giving the illusion that he was moving away, out of range. Then, he would lash out with a jab and pop Brian in the face.

This gave me some food for thought relative to the subject at hand. The more I watched top fighters (especially after I became one of the national coaches and traveled extensively for international competition), the more I found that the very best in the world were masters at controlling distance, often using types of optical illusions and misdirection to their advantage. (When I competed myself in the late 60s and early 70s, I didn’t always fight smartly. I relied on speed, timing, fearlessness/stupidity, and a handful of basic techniques.)

The smartest fighters make their opponents think they’re safe, that they can’t reach them, when they can. And, they make their opponents think they (their opponents) can reach them, when they can’t. In the latter case, their opponents’ techniques will fall just short, leaving them open to counterattack.

I’ll talk more about this in my next post. Take care and thanks for your readership. (I’ve already had a few articles submitted by other instructors and will be posting more of those as well.