Practice with another person.
From the first five-step exercise to the tactics of a refereed bout. Two different practices, kept apart on purpose.
Development and sport are not the same practice.
Traditional kumite trains a decisive technique against a committed attack: the exercise is structured so a student can learn distance and timing without having to survive at the same time. Sport kumite trains a scoring technique inside a rule set, against an opponent who is also managing a clock, an area with edges, and a scoreboard.
Both are karate. They optimise for different things, and a student taught one as though it were the other learns habits that cost them in the other setting — which is why the sections below are labelled and never interleaved.
The formal exercises
Each removes something from the problem so the student can work on what is left. They are listed in the order the difficulty increases, which is a fact about the exercises themselves and not a statement about any grade.
Competition
A different practice with the same technical foundation. Everything in this section depends on a rule set, and says so.
Fundamentals
The things that decide an exchange before any technique is chosen: the guard, the distance, the awareness that continues after a technique lands, and deception.
Footwork
Everything a fighter can do is bounded by where the feet can put the body, and how fast.
Sen — the three initiatives
Who is deciding, and when. Block then counter; counter into the attack as it forms; or meet it exactly as it launches.
Defence
The six answers to an attack, treated as a set of choices rather than as a single reflex.
Competition
Sport-specific material: managing a lead, the edge of the area, and reading an opponent inside a bout.
Combinations, as shapes.
A combination is not two techniques thrown quickly. It is one technique that makes the second one possible — and every one of them has an answer, which is written here too.
These are conceptual families, described by what they do and why they work. They are not MMAKF competition doctrine, they are not numbered, and none is attached to a grade. Federation-approved combinations are curriculum data entered by the technical committee, and none has been published.
Purpose. Open the guard with something fast, then land something heavy behind it.
Why it works. The lead hand arrives first and draws the guard toward it. The reverse punch follows into the space that leaves, powered by the hip rotation the first technique has already begun.
How it is answered. By an opponent who does not react to the lead hand, or who intercepts the first technique with sen-no-sen. It also fails if the second technique is thrown on a count rather than on the reaction.
Purpose. Draw the guard up, then attack the level it has left.
Why it works. A hand technique to the head lifts the guard and the attention. The kick arrives at the ribs or the opposite side of the head while both are still up.
How it is answered. By an opponent who closes distance on the hand technique, arriving inside the range at which the kick can be thrown at all.
Purpose. Use the kick to close the distance, and land the punch as the foot comes down.
Why it works. The kick occupies the guard and the distance. The punch is thrown as the kicking foot lands, which is exactly when the body is again able to rotate.
How it is answered. By an opponent who moves off the line of the kick, leaving the punch to arrive where they are not.
Purpose. Beat a guard by repetition and rhythm rather than by opening it.
Why it works. The first is expected and defended; the second arrives on the recovery of the defence, before the guard has fully reset.
How it is answered. By an opponent who counters the first technique rather than blocking it — the second never gets thrown.
Purpose. Move the guard twice and finish where it is not.
Why it works. Three techniques at three levels or angles. Each moves the guard; the third arrives at the level the first two have vacated.
How it is answered. By an opponent who closes during the kick, which is the longest and most committed part of the sequence.
Purpose. Manufacture the opening rather than wait for one.
Why it works. The feint is believed and defended; the real technique goes to the place the defence has left. It requires an opponent who reacts.
How it is answered. By an opponent who does not react, or who has recognised the feint pattern. A feint spent on a non-reactor costs time and gains nothing.
Purpose. Attack, move to where the answer is not, and attack again from the new angle.
Why it works. The opponent turns to face where the first technique came from. The second arrives from somewhere else, against a body still turning.
How it is answered. By an opponent who turns with the movement rather than to the original position — which good footwork does automatically.
Purpose. The foundational defensive unit: receive the attack and answer into the opening it leaves.
Why it works. Every block in the syllabus finishes with the hips loaded in hanmi. The counter uses that loading, which is why the two are one movement rather than two.
How it is answered. By an attacker who does not over-commit, and who recovers before the counter arrives.