Karate Takedowns For MMA With The Machida Bros

MMA stands for mixed martial arts, meaning that it is a combination of all the different styles that the martial arts and combat sports worlds have to offer. At first it was MMA was about style vs style, with spectators wondering which style would win and competitors trying to show that the5y had the best style out of all of them. 

Pretty quickly people realized that the best style was to mix together all the effective techniques of the different styles and mix them together. It seems that during that process, most fighters wrote out some styles completely. One of these styles is Karate and this is why we see so little Karate techniques in MMA. 

The problem with that is this mentality creates a blind spot in a lot of fighters. Most MMA fighters fight in basically the same way with the same list of techniques and even the same stance. This is why when someone comes in doing a lot of things different, they can throw off a lot of their opponents. 

This is the case for your stance, your footwork, your strikes and even for your takedowns. Despite Karate being written off by most fighters, it actually has a lot to offer, in both strikes and takedowns. This is where Karate takedowns, also known as Te Waza (hand techniques) come in.

There is no better pair to go to for being different from the rest and using Karate in MMA than the Machida brothers Lyoto and Chinzo. In this video the brothers go over how they use a Karate takedown in MMA and how they follow up off of it. Lyoto and Chinzo Machida are some of the best examples of Karate being successful in MMA. The pair were trained basically from birth by their Karate master father. The two then went on to become two of the best strikers in the sport of MMA and Lyoto even became UFC light heavyweight champion. The pair now both compete at the top of Bellator MMA’s leaderboard. 

Karate Takedowns For MMA

The video starts off with the brother’s showing a takedown from Karate that they use in their fights at a professional level. The takedown requires a bit of speed and good timing to land, so use it wisely!

When you are facing off against your opponent, if you are in a closed stance scenario meaning you both have the same leg backwards, you are going to step through with your rear leg to make it your lead. You want to place your rear leg behind your opponent's lead when you step. You want to step in deep and basically have as much of your leg as possible under your opponent’s hips. 

To help get into this position you can throw punches to distract your opponent. Specifically a straight right will not only distract your opponent but it also makes it easy to steep through into position.

From this position you are going to reach down with both your arms and grab both of your opponent’s thighs just above the back of the knee. From their all you need to do is simply lift up your opponent to dump them on their back. You also want to stand up tall to use even less of your own power in this technique. 

From there, Chinzo shows how he likes to follow up off the takedown. From the takedown you can easily transition to a knee on belly position if you are competing in MMA. From there, you can drop some powerful ground and pound on your exposed opponent. 

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