Karate, meaning "open" and "hand", was developed in Okinawa before being exported to Japan and then the rest of the world. It is one of the most widely practiced martial arts and one of the most difficult to master. Learn about it in this episode.
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Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff Works dot com. He and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, just Charles W Chuck Bryant, and Jerry and this is stuff you should know the Kata Day edition. That's pretty good. I looked up a bunch of these pronunciations for once because we get the random email. Still, it's like, it's really lazy that you guys don't pronounce things right. I had a guy the other day on Facebook said that he's brand new to the show and it's a big turn off for him, and I just said, you are in for a long, frustrating experience, my friend, because it's kind of a hallmark of the show that we botch pronunciations. Don't try we botched pronunciations. That's good stuff. Check. Thanks. You do you know a need karate? No, I never took any of that stuff, did you. I took taekwondo for in it. Yeah, And then I was like, yeah, I'm surprised I didn't do it after the Karate Kid movie because I was the age where I should have run right out to the nearest dojo and signed up. But um, I think I remember even back then thinking I don't ever want to get hit in the face if I can help it, which is the same reason I've never been in a fistfight. I don't. I don't think they hit you in the face. I think, as a matter of fact, if if you do go to a dojo or a karate school and they hit you in the face, you should tell somebody, because I don't think they're supposed to do that. Well, yeah, you're right. I just didn't want to be hit at all. And once you see karate kid, all bets are off, you know, because if you you never know, if there's a cobra kai next door. They don't play by the rules. No, they really don't. You know. They don't have sleeves to their g now they well, they're just bad kids. They sweep legs, injured legs all like like I bleedingly blonde. Yeah, um, yeah, they're bad guys. Did you watch that recently? I watched some of it today, I did. I watched a little bit of it. Um last week it was on And I have to say that there's no bigger disappointment in life. Well, of course there are, but the more disappointing things in your cable TV watching life than when you're scrolling through and you see, oh, karate Kid and you turn it on and you see Will Smith's son. Whoa, it's such a letdown. I can't imagine you know that it was at all enjoyable. So I've been burned. No, I didn't watch any of it. I've been burned a lot lately with that. And so the other day, Yeah, the other day I saw karate Kid and I was like, I'm not even gonna try, and I did, and I saw Ralph Macchio and my heart just burst. That's the real karate Kid. They should put on the cable list karate Kid sucky version for the other one, I still say to that moment where um Pat mur Da has been training him with all the unknowingly training him with all the tasks he performs, Yeah, like wax on, wax off, sand floor, paint, fence, paint, house, jump on. When he finally has it, the big climax of that part when he's like, that's it, I'm out of here and he tells him to show me all this stuff and then he just starts in on him and he blocks all the stuff. I'm getting chill bumps just thinking about it all these years later, you really are Yeah, Wow, it's it's powerful. They do that zoom in and he just goes and he just starts wailing on him and he blocks it all and then they bow and that just should have been the end of the movie. Oh no. I watched the end of the movie today and I was like, hoping this is still good, like the whole montage with the best around, you're the best around. Uh and then the of course crane kick at the end where he sends Billy's avka, Yeah, sprawling ye great stuff. Yeah. And if you want to feel super old, last year, Ralph Mancio turned the same age that At Marida was when they shot Karate Kid. What yeah, oh wow, because he was rob Macho was old when they made that movie. He was playing sixteen. But he was like, yeah, he's much older. Wonderful actor then he had met. I worked with Pat Marida once on a music video. He was awesome, which one I can't remember actually it might have been uh Alien Aunt Farm there they were banned. Okay, they weren't very good, but they had a video with Pat Marida and it and he uh, Pat Marida drank white wine all day long. Yeah, in his trailer he had like a couple of bottles of chardone on ice. I thought that's my only story. Was he in the Karate Kid three with Hilary Swank. I didn't watch any of the sequels. Actually, the second one was pretty good. It had at Peterson Tara song in it. Yeah, I didn't see that one. Good one he goes as he goes to Okan. Now, all right one and there's like the hurricane and the bad guy who turns out to be a good guy in the end. And he probably has a Japanese girlfriend in that one, right, he falls in the love over there. Yeah, I'm not Elizabeth Shoe. No, no, I don't. I don't even know if she made an appearance in the second one. But anyway, Chuck, you realize we've just dedicated it eight minutes to talking about Karate Kid. Well, I mean, you can't not. Every other line in this article made me think of the Karate Kid movie. It's funny you point out this article because reading this article made me laugh for a different reason. Every time I saw martial arts expert or karate Master, I thought of like Napoleon Dynamite. I couldn't get past that. So if you're if you want to real treat, read this article and just think read it in the voice of Napoleon Dynamite. It works really well. Uh, and just a bit of c O, a real quick with a lot of things like chess and things that people are really into. This is a very broad introduction to kadate. This is uh. We should even call it kata te for non practitioners, kada te for people who pronounce it karate right be because this is gonna be a nice overview and a nice introduction. But um, please do not think we are kata te experts or masters, because we are not. Let's begin, Yes, so chuck. It turns out and you're pronouncing it correctly, kata t. It's actually two words, and I guess okinawan because that's where it was originally invented okinawa. Um. And basically the whole premise of I am forgive me everyone who's appears, but karate. That's how I was brought up to say it. Yeah, we'll just say it like that, yes, um. The whole purpose of it is to basically manipulate basic physics to your advantage. So no matter how big or small you are, you could conceivably win a fight or thwart an attack. That's right, um. And like I said, the whole the whole thing began in Okinawa, and most martial arts came out of India, Japan or China. And Um, karate is, from what I could see, the second most widely practiced martial art, so after taekwondo. Interesting. I I saw it like in a couple of places, but it wasn't necessarily verified. And then, um, that's really saying something because over the years of the last few millennia, since people started practicing martial arts, um, there have been thousands of variations on the theme. But karate is definitely its own thing, and it arose out of this these periods of strife where the peasantry often had their weapons forcibly removed from them by the ruling classes so they couldn't rebel. And so the o'kanawan said, you know what, Um, fine, We're going to teach ourselves to use our bodies as weapons, and thus began the groundwork for karate. That's right. And there's a father and son who are credited as the uh sort of the father of modern kata te um. The father was Funa Kochi gi Chin Chichen and he wrote the original twenty guiding principles of kada Te. And his son they developed the Shoto Khan style. And the son his name g I g O. What is that? Gijo, Gijo? Where do you see that? Well? That was his his His full name is Funakoshi Yoshitaka, but I think he went by Guijo, Uh, Funakochi. It would probably be gi Jo because name is chi Chin, which I verified with my wife by the way, okay, and she knows much more than me. So uh, that's the father and son. The son started doing kada te because he had tuberculosis and you know, well, as we'll get into this krid, he's very much about breathing and so he did to help with that, which it did. But he did dive tuberculosis at thirty nine. But they were the modern founders, and Dad was a little more aggressive than son. He was full contact. And the sun came around and said, you know what, I believe in a more peaceful application of this and this karate dough or the karate way is more of approach to life and um than just like a combat style. Right. He took it from like being a like a kind of a lunghead, like just like his old man, right, just beating people up kind of things too. You don't really have to actually hurt anybody. You don't even necessarily have to land a blow on another person to be a karate master. And that's what he came up with, Like you said, the karate dough, um and this is this is all fairly recent. I mean we're talking like the early twentieth century. Yeah, um and the dad uh Funukoshi ji chin he took it from Okinawa to Japan. But his son, um Funukoshi Yoshitaka what did you say, his nickname was sure he uh kind of introduced it to the world, made it a lot more like two guys like you or like I don't want to get kicked in the face. Yeah, he said, no one's gonna kick you in the face. Let me teach you the karate way, and he did. But a way to really know you're not getting kicked in the face is to never take karate. Let's just watch from the sidelines. Yeah, to be a student, and the students are called a kata taka um or karate ka from the American South, And like you said, that's actually two words in Japanese. It means a kada is open and ta means hand, So it means open hand and reference to your body as your weapons. And there is the weapon and then openness. It's all about being open to the world around you and very observant um for many reasons, but one reason is so you can be aware of when the street thugs are coming after you, right the Yeah, you're open to your roundings. And I didn't realize that they were, that they signified two separate things. I thought it was open hand, like you know, like slat fighting or something like that. I knew it wasn't. There wasn't a lot of slapping in karate, but um, I thought open hand meant that you had no weapon in your hand. But that's just what the hand meant. The open part was I'm aware of everything right now, and I'm open to changing possibilities and options, which is a huge fundamental part of karate. Yeah, your spirit is open as well. Yeah this, uh, this UM article gets kind of esoteric at the end. It does, but I think that's part of it for a lot of people. So we'll cover that. So if you are a non cobra kai member of a karate school, you're gonna wear what's called a G in white. It's the loose fitting pants in the robe that's pulled together by a belt. It's not a black muscle shirt. I know that's disappointing with a cover on the back. Uh, that's right. And you are ranked by your dawn d A N and these are the rankings in ascending order, from ninth to six Q. That's your skill level. Right, you can mean novice. You can just give a little white belt. Your your belt is gonna match your g You're gonna feel silly. It's a little white uh mess of a six year old. That's probably when you're gonna do kta tell these days. The fifth que is you're gonna get the yellow belt. You can feel a little bit better about yourself because you have color now. Then you're gonna get your orange belt at the fourth level. You're gonna get your green belt at the third, your blue belt at the second, the brown belt at the first, and then from first to eighth. Don you're gonna get that old black belt, which I always thought was the top level. Apparently there's a red one after that, did not know that ninth and tenth dawn And it even says in quotes rarely awarded. Um, but now that you mentioned it, the bad guy from Karate Kid, I believe we're a red belt man. What's his name? I don't remember. He was from the pac Man headroom. Yeah. I was gonna say Mr Lawrence, but that was the kid because he's the one that said you have a problem, Mr Lawrence. Oh yeah, with sweeping the leg just since. Yes, everybody knows him as since. But yeah, I think he had a red belt. But boy he got his come up and send the parking lot. He sure did. Spoiler alert. But the Q actually the k, the kyu, the different levels. Um, that's not just used in karate. They use it in flower arranging, ichibanabana um and tea ceremonies and basically any Japanese pursuit where there are masters and there are novices. Maybe I didn't see that, but I wouldn't be all that surprise fly catching with chopsticks maybe. So, Um, you go through queues. Interesting, that's pretty cool. They really take that stuff seriously, Like it seems like I don't know, I just appreciate the culture. Of like if something's worth pursuing, it's worth pursuing, like with all you got right exactly. They don't do things halfway like we do here in the United States. Like I'd stop at the green belt, right, you'd be like, I'm at the green I'm doing good now you you you. They definitely do pursue things all the way. Um. And there was another point that I went and clarified with your cue with going from like a white belt to a yellow belt to an orange belt. It doesn't necessarily mean like you are like a karate master or even like a tea ceremony master. What it means is, um, you are capable of performing certain um acts that are expected to be performed by somebody of that level. Okay, because I wanted that, because I'll see on Facebook, like a friend's like eight year old son is a black belt, and I'm like, really, like really, I mean that means that they can do like X kicks or something. It doesn't necessarily have to do with talent, although I'm sure a lot of people dispute that. I think it's more like your technical proficiency is described by your belt. I think, all right, oh man, we're gonna have a murder for that one. I can already hear the keys, the hands on the keyboard. So we're gonna talk about physics and probably a lot more about the karate kid right after this. So physics, buddy, If you're moving and doing anything in this office, it's going to be described in terms of physics, because that's what we do here. And when it comes to katte or any fight, really, um, you've got potential energy going on, and uh, just because you're a big, strong dude doesn't mean you're gonna necessarily win a fight against someone smaller and weaker, because there are different ways of applying that energy, and karate exploits all that it does not exploits, but I guess well, it teaches you to exploit it because if you've got your energy and you've got somebody else's energy, if you can figure out a way to put them together, then you have just doubled or done whatever to your energy. By adding theirs to yours, that's right, you create an advantage for yourself. And that's kind of the key to being a little guy like Ralph Maccio and still winning the tournament like a broken leg even that's right, Um, so the first stuff you want to focus on is learning to concentrate your energy. Um, I think manipulating your opponent's energy. What we'll talk about next. That seems to be like a possibly a more advanced step. First you start out on yourself and um, there's a couple of ways to do this. By concentrating your energy, we mean you're concentrating the force that you're delivering with a punch or a kick to a very small surface area of your body. Like if you come up and you shove me, and you're like you got something to say, huh, and your hand displayed, Um, like you're gonna push me backwards, but you're not gonna break my rib because the force of your shove is distributed across your palm, your fingers, your fingertips. Um, you know all the jewelry you wear, all of that is going to be spread across my chest. If you took that same amount of force and put all of your fingers in your thumb together, I delivered it all form basically a point um with your with your fingers and thumb, then all of a sudden, you are going to break my ribs. You probably would punch right through my chest and out of my back, I would rip out your heart and like a street fighter, right. Um. Yeah, and you can do that on your own body. If you take like your five fingers and just kind of pound them on your chest and then with the same amount of energy put them all together, it's gonna feel much different. Yes, very simple concept. You're you're diminishing this the s this area of the point of impact and thereby increasing the amount of damage you can do to an opponent. Yeah. And in case of punches and kicks, you're you're probably reducing that to a bony area of your hand or your foot. And uh, a lot of training goes into strengthening those areas of your body. Um. And that's your technique because uh, you know, if I just went and flailed at someone and punched them, I'll probably break my hand because I don't know how to do it. But it's all about technique and karate. So um, you're you're gonna have those parts of your body ready to absorb that impact on your end as well. Yeah. And apparently up until not too terribly long ago, UM kata techas which are karate students again, UM would in their training once they said Yeah, I think I'm gonna get serious about this. Yeah, they would break their middle fingers of their own hands and larger knuckle. Yeah. Crazy, As as it healed back, the knuckle would just be larger, and so that little point of impact is strengthened and um made just a little larger so that they could really focus it in there and hurt people. Wow. Yeah uh and that that they don't do that anymore, Right, that's out of practice, out of fashion probably you never know, Um, did you see that article I sent to the Science of Bruce Lee's one inch punch? That is a pretty good example of concentrating your energy over a small surface area. Yeah, And and there's a video that goes along with it too, that was it's pretty cool to watch, you know. He's he was famous for that for being able to hold his hand one inch away from a board and then send that fist through the board without like reaching back and rearing back. And he does it so quick and there's so much power. It's it's just like it really comes through even this old, grainy black and white video, like you have to rewind it ten times just to be like, man, did that just happen? Yeah? That quickly. Yeah, and the bride famously used it to punch her way out of a coffin when she was buried alive and kill Bill. Yeah. I'm calling total bs on that now though, what that she the way out? Yeah, because if you watch and then I guess it's a good time to talk about this. Uh. Karate is all about putting as much um impact with your whole body behind that puncher kick. So when you see someone kicking karate, it's uh, they're not just kicking at you like Daniel Son did at first. They're usually standing sideways and winging their whole body around to get their whole the whole energy of their whole body into that kick or punch. And that's what Bruce Lee does. You see him, He lunges forward super fast with his body and just puts all that energy into his little one inch punch. But Uma Thurman's in a coffin like she can't move at all. So I just called total bs on that. So with Bruce Lee's punch, and that's the only thing that movie that wasn't realistic, right, everything else is totally dead on. Beat somebody baby, Uh. When uh Bruce Lee does that one inch punch he um and you say he lunges forward a little bit. Yeah, what you're seeing right there from that lunge to the point where he's broken through the board um is actually a sequence. They figured out. It's a sequence of muscle movements to where he starts out generating energy or force through his huge through the big muscles in his legs, and then moves him up through his hips by and then twists his torso and then basically shoots it out of his arm. It's crazy. So basically he's he's generating a tremendous amount of force and power in his legs and directing it up through his body and out his arm and then shooting his his hand and inch out and all of that force that's been generated by his muscles is focused right onto his little knuckles and it goes right through a board. It's it's pretty awesome, like someone should animate that, like the the energy of that from the who knows, from his little toes all the way up. It seems like every part of his body is going into that tiny little area. Yeah, it's pretty pressive. And that they in this article that was on Popular Science, they figured out that, yes, the the muscles definitely count like somebody who didn't have these muscles wouldn't be able to do this. But even more important was um the white matter, the the the material that connects neurons, that transfers energy or not energy information between your brain cells. Um. Because the timing that was required to fully focus this force in this perfect sequence over this very short period of time took a lot of white matter and Bruce Lee must have had that stuff in aces. Yeah, he was awesome. Man, those movies are still so great. Uh. The other thing Bruce Lee is doing there is following through, which is huge in uh in Katte, what's it called the the breaking of the boards that has its own name. It is called temeshi wari. Yes, and that's when you see people breaking bricks and boards and things like that. It's a demonstration of force. But Bruce Lee is doing there is he's following through. He's not looking at that board. He is imagining punching through to Utah, you know, like at some point well beyond that board. Because humans have an instinct if you're gonna punch a wall, even if you're super angry, you're gonna hesitate. You may not even realize it right before you punch your fist into that brick wall out of anger you made even know it, You're gonna be hesitation, hesitating because you have that hesitation instinct. Yeah, so it's called self preservation. Yeah, and katte basically trains you to get past that and through breathing in and out. Remember karate ki again, it's all about the breathing breathing out. When you're releasing that punch and following through. You are not punching that board. You were punching two ft beyond that board. Yeah. The board just happens to being the way and the board is sorry, it got in the west, right. So that's offense. Basically, you're you're learning to focus your energy um into punches and kicks, learning how to um lower the surface area of the point of contact, and just basically becoming an explosive force of the universe. That's the first part. The second part is defense, learning to take your opponent's energy and use it against them. Yeah, and this is a very important part of karate as well. Yeah, and it also has to do with physics because we're talking about momentum, which is obviously a product of mass and velocity, but also of direction. So, um, let's say you are a brick wall and your opponent's fist as a car. If they drive straight into you, it's gonna hurt. Uh. Let's say you're a guide rail on a highway and the car is driving down the highway and sideswipes you. It's gonna hurt a lot less less And that's the whole basic premise of codat a defense is to try and angle yourself to deflect as much of that blow as possible at a different angle and take it straight on. You want to deflect their the momentum of the force of their punch or and apparently you use your arms. Um. I've seen people like use their legs to deflect blows, but this article makes it sound like you just use your arms and karate Daniel Son uses legs. Yeah, it makes sense that you would use your legs. Yeah, because that was which one was the training thing was the legs. I don't know, was it the crane kick training? Now? Because he had already uh had something. We'll see. He waxed on, he waxed off, He washed the car, that was the cars he painted up and down the windmill on the refrigerator box, he sanded the floor. No, I don't think he used kicks. He defended the kicks with his hands. That's what I'm thinking. Okay, So then that's the premise of karate. Is like when you defend yourself against blows, whether it's a kick or a punch. In defense, you're using your arms the whole time, and like we said, you're you're deflecting it, so you're forcing this um, the momentum of this punch off of yourself at an angle. There's another thing you can do with momentum is when you when you do deflect it. If somebody's going to punch you in the chest and they put everything into it, like they started this punch in their little toes and now it's coming at you in their big broken middle finger knuckle school, and you managed to sidestep slightly and and deflect the blow downward. They still have that momentum, the product of their mass types of velocity, which is speed and direction, and that direction is forward toward you. You and your chest are not there any longer. So this frequently results in your opponent losing his or her balance and all of a sudden, what's opened up is in karate circles known as an opportunity for you to beat them badly. That's right, you can throw them, even though they point out that that is more noted in judo and aikido. Throwing isn't central in katte. But um, I'm sure someone will throw someone if they need to, like use their own momentum and pull them past and then get the old solar plexus blow. Yeah. You also could um, Yeah, you can punch them as as if if you don't throw them, there's all they're just open up. You can pin them on the ground. Yeah, and then punch them. Yeah. What you don't want to do is um anything illegal. No, you don't do anything legal. And your your stance while you're doing this. The reason you're able to deflect these punches and kick so well, it's because you're not standing there like a dumb frat boy in a bar saying come on, man, bring it. Uh, you're standing to the side saying come on, man, bring it. And you're gonna have a smaller surface area for someone to punch. And you've got that one leg in front and the one leg behind. You've got your center of gravity low and um, you're you're just you're ready for all comers at that point to deflect all those blows. And again, all that is about being open and paying attention to your surroundings. Yeah, you're you're watching your opponent and you're just looking for a chance to throw their momentum or deflect the punch or a kick or what have you. Um, and we'll talk about some of the ways, because if a couple of karate experts um displayed their full power skill, there would be two deag karate experts or at least one so over the years, because karate dough isn't about like killing other people, it's it's about showing your skills, they've developed some ways to do that and we'll talk about those right after this. So, Josh, you mentioned, um, two dead karate masters. If they went full bore at one another, Uh, there would be bloodshed on the mat. And that's not what you're after. If you're a student of karate, you to display your skill in a way that shows that you're very skilled, but not necessarily inflicting violence because it's not about violence. About a lot of things for a lot of people, but never is it just about like learning violence like learning how to beat someone up really good. Yeah, And like you said, it's a lot of different things to different people. Like some people go there for exercise, building self confidence or tuberculosis and to help your health and your breathing. Apparently doesn't work for tuberculosis though, you know. Yeah, um, but I'll bet he had tons of confidence, you know, sometimes just learning some self defense, maybe feeling feeling good about walking through a dark alley at night alone, because the point is not beating up your opponent, but knowing or making it apparent to other people that they don't want to mess with you in the first place, because if they did, then it's trouble for them. And you do that or you advance to different cues through um, different types of demonstrations. Basically yeah, well, first though, it's not to say that you can't like do some serious damage. It's just not the main purpose. Like the famous uh eken he saw to the one punch kill is the thing in karate is yeah, and some people say like it's impossible, and some people say it is possible, an others say it's not even a real thing. It's just like a statement of attitude. One fist certain death and it's just sort of the mindset you should have, Like with this fist, I could kill you, but I'm not going to. But I'm not gonna be I'm a nice guy, right, And I'm in a shopping center between a lot smith and a tax preparation center in the valley in California. But I could kill them both if I wanted to. They even said shopping centers in this article, which I thought was funny because it seems like they are always in a shopping center. I don't see very many like freestanding. Joe's all right, So you mentioned the the there's different ways to measure your skill and to flaunt your skill. Want to combat such simulation called a kata, and that is where, um, you're basically fighting uh ghost attackers that don't exist. Yeah, Like anytime you see somebody going hayah and they're just doing it by themselves, that's kata. And the whole thing is um like a prescribed rigamarole of moves any way, and that's that's kata. That's something you would have to perform to move on to another belt. That's right. Uh. The next thing, if you actually want to get a live person involved and not just look like some crazy person fighting nobody. You could practice sparring or kumata. And there are four levels of that. Um. The first is footwork only, the second is shadow boxing, the third is blocking contact only in the fourth is light contact. And the idea is it's a very controlled, supervised sparring session where you're not laying blows raining blows upon one another, you're pulling your punches, you're stopping them, or there's very light contact. You're probably wearing headgear like some sort of protective gear. Yeah, and um, this is typical of what like a karate tournament will have in it. It's mostly commit or points sparring. Um. And if again you've ever seen Karate Kid, you'll notice that those matches are over pretty quick. Yeah, I mean this seems pretty accurate for karate the Karate Kid movie. Did once I read this right and vice versa. Yeah, um, but with points sparring, usually you'll have one to three minute about or fight, and whoever has the most points at the end wins or if you score a certain number of points typically three within a fight, you're you want that's right, and the points are called epons I P P O N s and um, Apparently I didn't realize this. The points are awarded not just on the the strikes that you're getting, but also the attitude in which you do it in your technique, so they're sort of judging you on an aesthetic level as well on a spiritual level. I mean it makes sense, like if your opponent walks into the back of your hand, you can get a point for that, you know. And then chuck, there's um the Temesha warri which we mentioned already, which is board breaking, block breaking, um, which is the real deal. It's not magic or illusion like this person is breaking through a board. Yeah. I remember being a kid and people saying, like, you know, those boards are weakened. It's not true. They just know what they're doing. They know how to exploit the the weakest parts of those boards. Maybe, but there, as the article puts it, they turned their appendages into natural chisels. And um, they find out where the board might be weakest and they punch right through it, right through it, or the ones that get me, or the with the like the karate chopped through the bricks. Let's see how they do that stuff physics. It's crazy. And then you mentioned schools man Um. Yes, they are mostly in shopping centers, but that doesn't mean they're not good. Yeah, well you're in your mom's getting too taxes done next door while you're in there learning things. And uh, if you want to look for a school, there are If you're in a big city, you're gonna have your choice of a lot of different kinds um catering to a wide range of students. If you're a little kid, you want to send your you're an adult, you want to send your little kid to one. There are lots of options, but send your kid to one that caters to kids. Don't take them to Cobra Kai no else they're gonna turn out like Johnny. I actually found an article I can't remember what was called, but it was about how to tell if your martial arts group is toxic? Oh really yeah, because the author um is there an opium den in the back. It's probably one dead giveaway. But the author was saying, like, especially if you're new to martial arts, you may think, like, oh, you know the sense they's supposed to be an abusive jerk who yells and screams all the time, and it's a students and stuff like, no, there's uh, there's it's supposed to be a normal, respectful, calm environment. You know, it's not supposed to be like run by a megalomaniac or something like that. So if you have your kid and that kind of school, may want to get them out and get them into a different school. Yes, and what wisely as well, they suggest, um that it all be very open to the parents and they're not be any private rooms for your children that are off limits. That's just good said. No matter what kind of school you're taking to. If you're a lady, you might want to, um find a dojo that maybe has a lady instructor or maybe um. They they're just respectful toward women in general. Like again, think it's if you don't want your kids to go there, you probably and because of some jerk megalomaniac, you probably wouldn't want to go there as a lady either, Yeah, or if there's like a jerk lady megalomaniac, Yeah, I'm sure they're out there, right, there's got to be. I'm sure that that guy had a wife in karate kid. Megalomania transcends gender. Um, And then Chuck, we said that people go to take karate to UM to gain self confidence and to understand UM their body a little more. But a lot of people find along the way, even if they're not going for this UM, they find that they UH what's called their center, the center of their key, spiritual center basically and UM in in karate practice. Well, Karate is linked to Zen Buddhism, and one of the points of Zen Buddhism is that you can you can attain spiritual fulfillment and enlightenment through everyday practices, including karate UM. And that once you start to practice karate, once you start breathing, once you start paying attention to your surroundings at all times, when you just find yourself in tune and in focus, you're going to find your key yeah also known as Q, your spiritual energy. That the same thing and where it sits in your body, and you'll be able to learn to raise or lower it right your energy UM to attack yeah and UH. If you're like you said, if you're just going for you know, up through a certain few levels, you may not hear much about that, but it definitely comes into play at the higher levels. And how fast you work up those ranks and get those belts is sort of up to you. Like anything else. If you go three or four days a week and you're super dedicated, you might zoom up four belts in the first few months. And I think from that point things start to slow down a little bit. Uh. If you don't put much into it, might take it a little longer. But from what I've read, people to get into it, like really get into it. Yeah. And in this article says for the average person, getting to black belt, um would take about three years. If you were super athletic and talented and and went like five days a week, it might take eighteen months. But it's still going to be difficult and take you a little while. And it's a life pursuit. Yeah, um for a lot of people. Yeah. And and again this article points out getting to the highest belt is not necessarily the pursuit of karate, Like the point of karate. The pursuit of is to find your center into feel self confident, and get whatever you want out of it. Yeah, just understand the mechanics of it. Uh. If you want to go to karate school to learn how to throw Japanese throwing stars and kill someone with nunchucks, you're probably out of luck. Um there, Maybe you may can take like a nunchuck class or something, but um, it's it's not a typical thing to use weapons uh in the classes. Um. I actually saw that as one of the points of a school to avoid. Really, if they say they can teach you ninja ninja to or make you a ninja, stay away. I remember taking ninja can make training when I was a kid. Um. There is a funny um nunchuck video on the internet. This just look up Redneck nunchuck And there's this guy in a living room and his I guess his mother is shooting him and he's demonstrating and he hits himself in the face and breaks his glasses, and his reaction as briceles. Afterwards, he just gets really mad, really fast, and he starts to stomp off, and you just hear the mom go like, don't pitch a fair. It was really funny. Even though I typically try to avoid anything that says fail yeah, because those videos are just so dumb. It's like the worst of the Internet. I just hate that word. But Redneck nunchuck fail was pretty good. You got anything else? I have nothing else, sir um did this make you want to try this in anyway, it made me way said stuff to taekwondo a little more. Yeah, um, minor regret and that's about it. Yeah. No, I probably won't pursue karate Yeah, me neither. Um, but hopefully there will be somebody out there who is inspired to give it a try because it is pretty awesome. Uh. If you want to know more about karate a, you can type that word k A r A T in the search part how stuff works dot Com. I'll bring up this article. Since I said search part, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this something about um police interrogation. Um. Hey, guys, want to write in and let you know how much I enjoy the podcast spoiler alert a bunch. Hopefully I can also add something I'm currently studying to be apparent legal and we spend a lot of time learning about trial proceedings and what evidence is admissible in court. During the episode and police interrogation, you mentioned the rates of convictions that were based solely on confessions. Courts in my state of Pennsylvania have to follow something called the nanti glow rule. In a n T Y g l o U of ladies wrestling. Yeah, that's what I thought too. Uh. This rule states that motions for sary judgment cannot be based solely on depositions, or more specifically, the confessions they're in. So basically, if a party has confessed, their confession alone isn't enough to convict them. The record, like other motives or affidavits filed with the court, would need to contain other evidence in order for the motion to be granted. Uh. If anyone confessed after being interrogated, they might not be completely doomed. If they're in Pennsylvania, motions for summary judgment is a pre trial motion, so this rule wouldn't affect the case that had already made it to a trial with a jury. And I don't remember this is only a rule in civil cases or if it applies to criminal ones as well. I haven't heard of other states having a similar rule. Every few years there will be editorials about how nanti Glow is outdated. I know the name is outdated, uh, and it needs to go. But as of this email, there hasn't been a case to overturn, so still binding anyway. Really enjoy it. I hope this is informative. Uh. Stuff you Should Know is the perfect thing to listen to while I'm knitting, and I always look forward to a new episode that is from Haley. Thanks Haley. We appreciate that. In Pennsylvania. Have you seen the Glow the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling documentary? Now? It's pretty good. Yeah. Is China in it? I don't think she was in Glow? Was she? Oh? I don't know. I just that's the only female restaurant thing going. No, no, no, no, this is I think way before her time. Anyway, it's a It's a good, good documentary, strongly recommended. I'll check it out. If you want to recommend a documentary or talk about an arcane law to Chuck and I. We can be reached at s Y s K podcast on Twitter, on Facebook, at Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and as always, check out our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.