🥋Why Traditional Karate Must Evolve: (Part 1):The Outlier Problem No One Wants to Discuss - By Sensei Liam Musiak

I’ve spoken about this subject many times, and I’ll keep speaking about it, because it remains one of the most serious issues in martial arts today — easily one of the top three challenges facing Karate in the modern world.

It’s the issue of how our ranking system treats outliers.

Before anything else, I want to be fair.

The ranking rules themselves are not “bad.” In fact, the majority of the time — genuinely around 99% — they work exactly as intended. They help prevent belt factories, ensure that students mature properly, and protect the overall integrity and safety of the art. For the average student, the system does its job very well.

But I’m not talking about the average student.

I’m talking about the outlier — the dedicated practitioner who trains differently, studies differently, creates differently, and contributes differently. That is where the system begins to show its limitations. And I say this as someone who has personally faced those limitations.

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🕰️ A System Built in 1883 for a Society We No Longer Live In

People often forget where the Dan system even came from. It wasn’t originally a martial arts invention at all — it began in the Edo period as a ranking method for the board game Go. When Jigoro Kano adapted this system for judo in 1883, he did so in a Japan that was strictly hierarchical, traditional, obedience-based, and structured around seniority and age.

That was 142 years ago.

To fully understand the problem, you must imagine that world. Training was slow, formal, and extremely controlled. Knowledge was limited to the teacher in front of you. Innovation wasn’t encouraged. Youth was automatically linked with immaturity, while age and seniority were automatically linked with wisdom. Students only trained a few hours a week, and martial arts were embedded in a cultural environment that assumed all people should progress at the exact same rate.

In the context of 1883 Japan, Kano’s system made perfect sense.

But that world simply doesn’t exist anymore.

Today, we live in a world of instant access to information, global training methods, sports science, biomechanics, psychology, criminology, pressure-testing, daily training routines, and cross-disciplinary learning. Martial artists in 2025 do not live, train, or think the way people did in the late 1800s.

Refusing to adapt the system to this new reality is like insisting that everyone should still use the first iPhone because “it came first.” The original iPhone was revolutionary — but we wouldn’t use it today instead of the iPhone 17 Pro Max. It’s still an iPhone, just evolved, refined, and improved. Tradition doesn’t have to be abandoned to evolve; it simply needs updating to remain meaningful.

Karate could do the same.

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🔥 The System Was Built for the Average Student — Not the Outlier

When the Dan system was introduced, it was designed for the average practitioner — someone training a couple of hours per week in a highly structured, slow, predictable environment.

But today, martial artists vary enormously. Some people train casually once a week and enjoy the art socially. Others — and I include myself here — train daily, study deeply, develop full curricula, write extensively, test techniques under pressure, analyse biomechanics, and take martial arts as seriously as one would take a degree or a career.

The problem is that the ranking system treats both people the same.

It does not care who trains casually and who trains obsessively.

It does not care who studies deeply and who simply turns up.

It does not care who contributes to the art and who barely remembers the basics.

It forces both people to wait the same amount of time.

This creates a situation where the individual who trains two hours a week is treated identically to the individual who trains fifteen or twenty hours a week. And the result is predictable: the harder someone works, the less it seems to matter. They realise that no matter how much effort they put in, they will still be told to “wait exactly as long as everyone else.”

This does not encourage hard work — it discourages it.

I’ve seen dedicated students stop pushing themselves simply because they realise their contribution won’t be recognised until an arbitrary number of years have passed. In some cases, they become less motivated, not because they lack discipline, but because the system gives them no reason to keep striving at the level they were.

This is what happens when a hierarchical system designed in 19th-century Japan is applied unmodified in the 2025 Western world, where people expect merit-based progression, not time-based progression.

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✋ The Contradiction No One Wants to Admit

Traditionalists often say that Dan grades are not about physical ability. They claim they are about knowledge, maturity, teaching ability, contribution, leadership, and understanding.

But when a young martial artist demonstrates all of those qualities — when they show real maturity, teach regularly, innovate, create systems, pressure-test everything, and dedicate their life to the art — the response suddenly changes to:

“You need to wait.”

“You’re too young.”

“Not enough years have passed.”

This is the contradiction I’ve personally run into many times.

If the system is truly based on contribution and maturity, then judge me on those things.

If it is based on age and set timelines, then stop pretending it isn’t.

You cannot insist that rank is not about physical age, while simultaneously using physical age as the sole reason to hold someone back.

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👀 Why Am I Compared to the Average 21-Year-Old?

The average 21-year-old spends weekends drinking, partying, or drifting through life. That is entirely their choice. But why am I being judged by what the average 21-year-old does? Why are my syllabuses, drills, bunkai, articles, daily training, teaching, criminology study, biomechanics analysis, and self-defence frameworks dismissed simply because someone sees my age before they see my work?

Age is not a measure of maturity.

Age is not a measure of contribution.

Age is not a measure of capability.

Yet in rigid systems, age is often treated as the single most important factor.

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🥊 The Tom Aspinall and Conor McGregor Example

If Tom Aspinall or Conor McGregor walked into a traditional Karate organisation today, they would be required to wait years for rank progression and be assessed by people who are nowhere near their level of understanding, pressure-tested experience, or technical ability. They would be judged by timelines built for hobby students, not elite martial artists.

This exposes the flaw clearly:

the system rewards time served, not mastery achieved.

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🥋 Why Modern Combat Sports Are Growing Faster

You only need to look at MMA, boxing, BJJ, and kickboxing to see the contrast.

These arts reward effort, talent, development, and real-world skill. They don’t tell someone, “You must wait years even if you’re beyond this level today.” They don’t let less skilled practitioners control the progression of more dedicated ones. They don’t punish exceptional individuals for progressing faster than average.

This merit-based progression is a major reason younger generations gravitate toward modern combat sports rather than traditional systems.

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🌍 Karate Must Evolve — Or Risk Losing Its Future

None of this is written out of disrespect.

I love Karate deeply.

It has shaped my life in ways few people understand.

I am committed to its future.

But if Karate wants to remain alive and respected for the next century, it must adapt to the world we actually live in — not the world of 1883.

Rank should be determined by contribution, maturity, leadership, knowledge, ability, and genuine understanding — not by age alone or timelines designed for a society that disappeared long ago.

I have personally experienced how outdated rules can suppress the most dedicated practitioners — the very people who will carry Karate forward. The ranking system works perfectly for the majority. But the outliers — the hardworking, innovative, obsessed students — are the exact people who need a system that recognises modern dedication, not ancient timelines.

If Karate wants a strong future,

it must stop treating its most dedicated young practitioners like problems

and start recognising them as the future.