Escapes are our Self Defence movements to get away from different grabs and holds from an attacker. Our escapes come from a combination of traditional Karate and other Martial Arts techniques.
Escapes are an esstial part of self defence. Someone grabbing us can often be the beginning of a situation. A common belief in Jujitsu is that all fights end up on the ground, which is the basis for their self defence. Karate is primarily a striking sport, in which we beleive the best way to defend yourself is on your feet. Especially when we start to consider there may be multiple attackers or even weapons.

When doing our escapes, a strike may always be available and a good option. However, we refrain from striking when learning escapes for 2 reasons.
1) Striking may be not be a necessary or a proportional response to someone grabbing us. It may not be an overly serious threat, and striking someone may lead to us getting in trouble, even though we didn’t initiate the altercation. In this situation, escaping the attackers hold quickly and cleanly will hopefullly cause them to second guess attacking us.

2) A strike may not be effective. We can miss, or potentially the individual does not stop even with a clean strike - they may still have the hold. There may also be multiple attackers. In this situation, escaping the hold is the priority, essential to allowing us to protect ourselves against another threat.

Therefore, in our escapes, the goal us to release as quickly as possible, getting back to position to defend ourselves.