First post yay! Being one month away from going for Shodan (Thats 1st Dan Black Belt for the unordained) in Kyokushin I think I might be able to give an opinion... From what I have learned everything in Karate has a purpose. The reason you probably find the kata and self-defence techniques boring or unrealistic is because they are unrealistic. But not in the way you think. They work, they just work REALLY WELL. For instance its quite unrealistic to learn choke people out and/or snap their neck and come back to a ready position as if it's no big deal . That's what kata teaches you. Control. From my experience (which may be different as I don't know your instructors) I get a well rounded amount of fight training and the above cool stuff in my classes. That being the case I haven't ever done a tournament so if you just want to fight/spar in a unrealistic ring situation ( ) and you definitely feel the classes are eating your time then you might find it best to train on your own if you can't find an MMA specific gym. Most places except maybe boxing won't teach you how to fight in tournaments. But seriously I would make the time to do the classes they're very good (at least where I am) and I totally agree with Spider-Dan about partners and I think being taught by someone is the best way to learn. In any case good luck training! PS: For getting the best of everything or the "mixed" part of MMA my 2 cents is: boxing classes/resources (See Art of Manliness), Tae Kwon Do or Muay Thai for Kicking and Knees (see youtube) and also Brazillian Jujitsu or some similar wrestling style for ground work. At least thats the feel I get from what I know and have been taught.
First post yay! Being one month away from going for Shodan (Thats 1st Dan Black Belt for the unordained) in Kyokushin I think I might be able to give an opinion... From what I have learned everything in Karate has a purpose. The reason you probably find the kata and self-defence techniques boring or unrealistic is because they are unrealistic. But not in the way you think. They work, they just work REALLY WELL. For instance its quite unrealistic to learn choke people out and/or snap their neck and come back to a ready position as if it's no big deal . That's what kata teaches you. Control. From my experience (which may be different as I don't know your instructors) I get a well rounded amount of fight training and the above cool stuff in my classes. That being the case I haven't ever done a tournament so if you just want to fight/spar in a unrealistic ring situation ( ) and you definitely feel the classes are eating your time then you might find it best to train on your own if you can't find an MMA specific gym. Most places except maybe boxing won't teach you how to fight in tournaments. But seriously I would make the time to do the classes they're very good (at least where I am) and I totally agree with Spider-Dan about partners and I think being taught by someone is the best way to learn. In any case good luck training! PS: For getting the best of everything or the "mixed" part of MMA my 2 cents is: boxing classes/resources (See Art of Manliness), Tae Kwon Do or Muay Thai for Kicking and Knees (see youtube) and also Brazillian Jujitsu or some similar wrestling style for ground work. At least thats the feel I get from what I know and have been taught.