full contact is a rather new term period. The original point of karate self defense however was to kill with one blow - ichi-go; ichi-e - one encounter, one chance.

They had very arduous conditioning methods to develop that power, and of course, there was kata. Just as the samurai had challenges, I'm willing to bet that karateka did also - I'll ask my friend about that. Now that full contact has become more widespread - probably due to kyokushin, there is full contact sparring. killing with one blow isn't really the focus anymore, so this type of training is acceptable, and is a great asset anyway.

I completely overlooked the first part of the question - they also say that a one year boxer can easily beat a CMA - the reason being is that they spend alot more time sparring than most traditional styles, and so they are better with timing, are used to taking hits, etc. traditional styles by nature take longer IMO because you spend more time drilling than actually fighting - at least in the beginning. That's not a bad thing - it's just a different means of getting to the same end.