What Three Years of Karate Taught Me About Self-Defense
The lesson that eventually led to Functional Wing Chun.
When people learn that I have trained in several martial arts, they sometimes ask me which one I think is the best.
My answer usually surprises them.
I don't believe there is a single "best" martial art.
There are, however, training methods that are better suited to different objectives.
It took me years to understand that.
Why I Chose Karate
When I first started martial arts, I believed something that many people probably still believe today.
Being physically stronger was always an advantage.
Karate seemed like the perfect place to develop that advantage.
The training was tough, physical, and demanding.
I became stronger.
The techniques were straightforward to learn, and in sparring it always felt as though I could fight back, regardless of how experienced my opponent was. Strength and conditioning gave me confidence.
At the time, it all made perfect sense.
The Question That Wouldn't Go Away
My goal, however, had never been to become good at karate competitions.
My goal was much simpler.
I wanted to be able to protect myself, no matter where violence happened.
The more I trained, the more I began to notice that those weren't necessarily the same thing.
Some of the tactics that worked well in the dojo didn't feel like the best choices outside it.
High kicks carried obvious risks.
Low kicks against a much bigger opponent didn't always seem convincing as a stopping tool.
We rarely trained against punches to the face, yet I knew they were among the most common attacks outside the dojo.
Something felt incomplete.
A Demonstration I Never Forgot
One day I asked another karate student whether karate really worked for self-defense.
He answered confidently.
Later that evening, while we were out drinking, someone looked a little too long at his girlfriend.
He stood up, walked over, and punched the man straight in the nose.
His point was clear.
Karate worked.
Mine was different.
That wasn't the kind of self-defense I wanted to learn.
I wasn't looking for a better way to start violence.
I was looking for a better way to deal with it.
The Trial Lesson
Eventually I decided to visit a Wing Chun school.
My future instructor quickly sensed that I had confidence in my strength.
He paired me with a student who had only been training for six months.
I expected to do well.
Instead...
I couldn't do anything.
It wasn't that my opponent hit harder than I did.
He didn't.
He wasn't stronger than I was.
What surprised me was something else.
His forward pressure and simple chain punches never allowed me to fight the way I wanted.
The timing, distance, and tactics that had worked so well in karate simply never had a chance to develop.
For the first time, I experienced what it meant to have my own options taken away.
The Real Lesson
I went home disappointed.
To be honest, I didn't want to go back.
Like many martial artists, my first instinct was to return to what I already knew and was reasonably good at.
But I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened.
Wing Chun wasn't winning because it used more complicated techniques.
It was winning because it created a different kind of fight.
A fight where strength mattered less.
A fight where my opponent's objective wasn't simply to hit me.
It was to prevent me from using the skills I relied upon.
That realization changed everything.
I stopped asking,
"Which martial art is better?"
and started asking,
"What kind of fight is this training preparing me for?"
The Beginning of Functional Wing Chun
That single trial lesson became one of the defining moments of my martial arts journey.
It taught me that every training method develops the skills it practices.
It also taught me that self-defense is not the same as competition.
Competition naturally shapes people to solve competition problems.
Self-defense should shape people to solve self-defense problems.
If your goal is to win competitions, your training should prepare you for competitions.
If your goal is to protect yourself against unpredictable violence, your training must prepare you for uncertainty.
That idea eventually became the foundation of Functional Wing Chun.
Not because Wing Chun is magic.
Not because karate is ineffective.
But because I wanted a method that gave ordinary people—including those who are smaller, older, or physically weaker—the best possible chance when the odds are against them.
Looking Back
Looking back, I'm grateful for every martial art I've trained.
Each one taught me something valuable.
Karate taught me the importance of commitment, physical conditioning, and the reality that strength is a tremendous advantage when you have it.
But it also taught me something else.
If your success depends too heavily on being stronger, bigger, or tougher than your opponent, many ordinary people will always be at a disadvantage.
Without that Wing Chun trial lesson, I might never have realized that the real question isn't,
"Which martial art is better?"
The real question is,
"What kind of problems does this training prepare me to solve?"
That question has guided me ever since.
It is the reason Functional Wing Chun exists.
And it still guides every class I teach today.
Remember This
- Every training method develops the skills it practices.
- Competition and self-defense are different environments with different objectives.
- Physical strength is a valuable advantage, but not everyone can rely on it.
- The most important question isn't which style is best—it's what problems the training prepares you to solve.
- Functional Wing Chun grew from one simple goal: to give ordinary people the best possible chance when the odds are against them.