This is Karate Training. Are You Learning Karate – or Just Sweating in a Karategi?

 

Posted by ADAM CARTER on OCT 08, 2025

This is Karate Training. Are You Learning Karate – or Just Sweating in a Karategi?

(Approx 2 minute 15 second read)

Someone messaged me the other day saying that he was unhappy where he was currently training because most of the class is just fitness.

We all know that the role of a good instructor is pivotal to learning and understanding. A skilled karate instructor goes beyond simply demonstrating techniques for the next grading, or at least, should do, right?

I get where he’s coming from. Students have limited time to practice and train so spending most of the class doing push-ups and running is not improving karate skills.

If I was paying my hard earned money for lessons, I would want those lessons, not something that quite frankly should be practiced away from the dojo.

Of course there are times when conditioning is necessary, but not for the majority of the class time which was his complaint.

To me this says a couple of things. That the instructor’s depth of knowledge isn’t high enough, so to supplement this he adds exercise to the lesson. And from that he just doesn’t know what else to teach once a threshold has been reached.

If you spend an hour and a half lesson mostly doing exercise wouldn’t you be fed up?

Now don’t get me wrong, fitness and conditioning is something I advocate, but in my dojo, I spend 10–15 minutes at most with my students warming up, stretching, getting the body ready for the rest of the class. I also emphasize that your training away from the dojo should incorporate your own fitness and cardiovascular training.

Also, as a responsible student it is up to you to get to class early and start warming up yourself, getting ready for the class ahead. Saves time, you’re warm, less injuries, let’s get on with the learning.

Now before someone jumps in with “conditioning is part of karate”, I agree. Okinawan karate has always used hojo-undo – for example, chi-ishi, nigiri-game, kongoken, ishi-sashi, makiwara, etc. etc. All of these things directly support the techniques found in kata and kumite.

They build bodies for striking, gripping, and resisting force.

But hojo-undo is not the same as jogging laps around the dojo, endless burpees, or circuit training that looks like something off a boot camp DVD. That’s just generic fitness, useful, yes, but it does not teach karate. It just fills time.

The complaint in the message I received was that he signed up to learn karate, not attend a budget gym session disguised as one.

At the end of the day, if you’re teaching karate, then teach karate. Don’t hide behind fitness drills because you’ve run out of material. Don’t make students sweat so much that they don’t notice they haven’t actually learned anything.

And if you’re a student stuck in that kind of dojo, don’t convince yourself it will eventually change. It won’t. If you want to get fit, join a gym. If you want to learn karate, find a place that teaches it.

Time is too valuable to be spent confusing effort with progress.

Are you training karate, or just sweating in a karategi?

Written by Adam Carter – Shuri Dojo