No Pads, No Limits – The Way We Trained.

 

Posted by ADAM CARTER on FEB 01, 2025

No Pads, No Limits – The Way We Trained.

(Approx 1 minute 40 second read)

Those of us who have been around in the martial arts for a while remember a time when there was no equipment. We never wore gloves, helmets, or protective gear of any kind when we fought. We had no pads to hit - we hit each other.

We didn’t wear gear, but we understood control. We pulled our punches but not like todays "tap and scream"; it meant full contact to the body and a lighter touch to the face - just enough to make an impact without drawing blood.

In the dojo, we drove punches deep into the body, while the face was met with a ‘push’ rather than a full blown punch trying not to cause unnecessary damage. But every so often, whether during grading or a club challenge, things escalated. Sometimes, nothing was pulled.

My first black-belt grading was one of those times. It was held in a large sports center hall, with about 50 club members and their families watching. I was the only one grading that night as I was not expecting to grade - I was told I was.

After all the basics, drills, kata, and bunkai, it was time for sparring - or more accurately, fighting.

There were no rounds. No time limits. No stopping. I was told to keep going until I was told to stop.

At one point, I was ordered not to fight back - only to defend, move, and absorb. Several opponents surrounded me, just constantly attacking me. There were no water breaks, no chance to recover - just relentless pressure. By the end, I felt like I was going to die. I successfully passed, but boy did I hurt.

Training back then was very different, we had no equipment. We folded our karate-gi jackets and used them as striking pads. We did push-ups on the concrete floor to toughen our hands and wrists, punching anything solid - not to toughen our knuckles, but to refine our control, ensuring our fists closed on impact. The floors were unforgiving - lacquered concrete, no mats. We ran bare footed and our feet were tore apart with burst blisters.

Injuries were a normal part of training. Getting hit in the head and walking away dazed was just another Tuesday night. Bruises, black and blue, dislocated fingers and toes, broken ribs, damaged joints - these weren’t rare occurrences. They were just an unfortunate part of the training at the time.

Could you imagine the lawsuits today if this kind of training were common in the dojo?

I’m not saying it was perfect. There were far too many injuries, and some of them have left lasting damage. But something about those days felt real. Raw and honest.

I miss those days. Do you?

Inspired by Steve Rowe.

 Photo Credit: The late Ken Wittstock Shihan fighting Yoshiharu Osaka in the 1973 JKA World Championship.