“Karate doesn’t work”…… I hear this all the time. This is a meaningless statement without a qualifier.
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Works for what? You have to define the goal and from there seek the solution.
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For you, is it a martial art (culture, health, personal challenge, etc). Is it fighting, competition, tournaments (consensual). Or is it civilian self-Protection (non-consensual violence)….. its original design.
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Karate – through its evolution – exists in different formats because of different goals. They all do what they were designed to do. All have value when judged against their own goals. The issue only arrives when people are confused in their thinking about what they are actually practicing.
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For me karate has to be practical, I have no interest in sport, therefore in order to apply it effectively, you have to be proficient at it (like most things). If you try to use it when you’re not proficient, it may even be a disadvantage, because doing everything wrong is going to be probably worse than just instinctual brawling.
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Karate is complex and it does take a long time to become proficient at it. I hear people say all the time; “if you want to learn actual self-defense that you can use in practical application, then learn Muay Thai, Boxing, or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Karate doesn’t work in a real situation”.
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Why do people believe this? Well as an example, many schools in the US, a typical karate class would consist of a short stretch, some calisthenics, a few basics, kicking a tire, a few kata, and then some sparring of various degrees. Every lesson.
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Testing through the ranks would involve a couple of kata, some basics, and a few rounds of sparring or pseudo 10 man fights. But how does this line up with your objectives? Regrettably, one size doesn’t fit all.
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90% of people who try karate quit before achieving any decent level of experience. There are a myriad of reasons why, ranging from discovering karate just isn’t for them, to finding out the karate they are practicing doesn’t match their goal, to finding out that karate takes much longer to learn.
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In my humble opinion, karate is a much more complete self-defense system… and therein lies the caveat, because of how much there is to it, that makes it much harder to use without a great deal of training in the right context…. and you have to train in the right context.
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However, “Karate doesn’t work” is actually true for many people. Why? Because it doesn’t satisfy most peoples goals. Many adults don’t want to learn tournament karate, or they quit before they have the chance to get to a level where they are even slightly proficient at it.
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You have to give karate many years of dedication, but for most people, they don’t want to put in that kind of time or effort. And that’s fine; to each their own.
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The statement “does it work” or “it doesn’t work”, is a very much misunderstood area.
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Promoting a martial art as superior to others is dangerous – it gives new students too much confidence in their abilities, and they believe that they can ‘win’ every confrontation because of their “superior system”.
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If you join a karate class to learn how to just fight, you’re missing the point. Karate not working? The solution to that is found in the mirror. Karate is only as good as the practitioner, and how it’s taught and trained.

Photo Credit: Tomer Gabel – Flickr
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