Despite the differences in origin and style, most martial arts consist of similar techniques and skills that form a base for the art.
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Most people believe that karate is a strike-only martial art. Wrong! Karate contains a whole arsenal of grabbing and throwing techniques in addition to striking. Traditional kata are full of it, but most people don’t know this, mainly because they don’t understand how to breakdown and analyze the principles which contain the movements and techniques.
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With time and experience, your understanding of karate will get richer. Maybe you’re not improving as fast as you want to, but give yourself time. Real understanding comes from patiently practicing so you understand deeply what you are doing.
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You may feel that you want to change or modify your karate because there are things that don’t make sense to you, or that are not logical to you. But the longer you practice, with patience and asking the right questions, the more you will understand karate, and the less you will feel like you need to change it.
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Funakoshi Gichin said; “Beginners must master low stance and posture. Natural body positions are for the advanced.”….. My belief is that this precept from Master Funakoshi could also be interpreted as the less experienced must be patient, learning how to control yourself and move, creating a stable center of gravity, balance and posture. Only when that is accomplished the student will begin to understand the more advanced training.
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As you advance, hopefully as you approach ‘shodan’, you will start to question what you are doing. Your perception of your training can be distorted as you begin to question, and with experience, you will realize that the most important part of your training really is the basics. Advanced karate is nothing more than mastery of those basics.
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It’s like listening to a beginning music student and an accomplished professional musician play the same piece of music. There are a specific sequence of notes to be played and even playing the exact same piece, there are profound differences in the musicality of the sound. These qualities take years to develop from training and practice.
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Try to see the continuity across all of the movements in your karate, the underlying connections between seemingly different techniques and movements and apply them in your practice….. “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
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Like anything in life, karate takes a lot of practice to master…. so be patient. 
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