Karate in a post-COVID world: one cynic's perspective

 

I’ll admit it. I suck at self-promotion. I don’t post inspiring videos on Instagram or TikTok. I don’t have a website anymore. And I don’t do a lot of stuff on Facebook that would draw people in - you know, like cool action poses.

I have posted a few more student pics in the past. But let’s face it: a handful of white belts does not inspire people to pick up and join. The ooh/ahh factor is not there.

I don’t want to teach a ton of students who are only there to get belts or compete for trophies. Neither was ever my motivation. I think I had all of three trophies in all my time in karate before I decided to disassemble and recycle them last year.

And after some 45 years on the floor, with my highest rank being a godan in Goju Ryu, if I were in it for the power and fame… well, I took a wrong turn somewhere.

In a post-COVID world, it seems to be harder to get people interested in anything, really. But karate is having a bit of a tough go. So much so that it seems that everyone and their dog has a get rich quick scheme for dojo owners and instructors. Most of it requires you to sell your soul to a management company that will turn you into part salesman, part marketer and part karate teacher.

That’s a lot of parts. Important I guess if karate is your bread and butter. But that is not my thing. The more hats you have to wear, the less important your karate hat seems to become. Seems if you want to get big, you have to overextend your reach. You have to adopt fads, gimmicks, sell a bit of your soul.

If you track the martial arts over the past 40 or so years, every art has sort of had a rush… a fad, if you will.

In the 60s, karate was more or less the king. Hell, even Korean stylists (and Korean masters themselves) were promoting their stuff in as Korean Karate rather than Taekwon Do.

In the 70s, it was a lot of kung fu. Bruce Lee was popular. It made sense.

In the 80s, it was kickboxing. Then, as the Seoul Olympics got closer, it was Taekwon Do. The actually now had a brand name. (Irony alert, thanks to the Olympics, more people now seem to want to call everything TKD, including karate.)

The Gracies stirred things up in the 90s with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And then the UFC. Remember ‘there are no rules?’ Well, there weren’t for grapplers, maybe… but it was great marketing.

As more strikers got on the BJJ bandwagon and the Gracies no longer dominated the UFC (which, itself, had some attraction problems), then MMA became the big draw. And yeah, it has sort of held its own. While the attitude that developed that “karate was useless and ineffective” did not come from MMA, many proponents certainly grabbed onto it. I guess if you have to slam the competition to win, can you truly say you’re winning? Or are you merely attracting the LCD clientele?

I digress…

But rather than teach karate in its purest form, as a method of defence, health promotion, discipline and, yes, as an art of peace, folks are quite often forced to fall back to gimmicks.

Yes, gimmicks.

After-school classes. Karate parties. Special dojo groups. Hell, in my city at least two groups I know of teach weapons. Nothing wrong with that, I get it. But sorry, neither nunchaku or sai are indigenous to Korea… so mebbe something is a bit hinky?

Gimmicks provide extra income to pay the bills for your karate hobby. Or something like that.

Sometimes it is not even simply a gimmick. If you only have a superficial grasp of the art, you will need more to bring people under your tent and keep them there.

Once you run out of pure content, you need to give people more content. And said content is typically borrowed from elsewhere to supplement your only true content. How very Wizard-of-Oz-ish.

Pay no attention to the master behind the curtain.

I have never felt a lack of content in my karate.

Ever.

It has helped build my confidence. It has helped me strengthen my body from a young, skinny kid to a healthy-ish mid-50s adult. It has given me focus. It keeps me grounded. And keeps me from wanting to punch a whole lotta people sometimes.

I learned more about anatomy and physiology from karate than from a science class. I learned more about injuries and how to treat them from karate than I did from a first aid class.

And yeah, I learned a lot more about how to lay hurt on someone than I did during any training time in any uniforms I have worn. (Note: said uniforms did give me a unique perspective on legal aspects of self defence and common attacks)

I never needed to look elsewhere for content.

Have I cross-trained? Sure.

Did I do sport martial arts for a while. Yup. I was an ass when I was younger.

And when I removed my head from my rectum, guess where I went? Yup, back to karate. Funny how my attitude and air of arrogance left when I did.

 

Two things happened recently that really sparked me.

The first? Clicking on an ad that kept coming up for me on Instagram about growing the dojo. Free lessons on how to do it. Ok, I thought, let’s see what they suggest. Turns out it is nothing I am interested in doing. I’m not a dojo owner. I am just a guy who teaches karate. And all they offered were suggestions on how to run the dojo as a business.

Get more students. Make more money.

If that is why you got into karate, then yeah, it would be appealing to you.

But it’s not why I joined. And the suggestions on how to ‘grow my business’ do not work for my model. And I have 0 interest in changing the model.

For example, they suggest selling students on ‘programs’ and not simply training. That way, students are motivated to complete the ‘program’ before moving to the next ‘program.’ Problem is, we already have such a motivation. It’s called the belt system. You’re automatically enrolled in the white belt program when you join.

So I ask myself – when did people lose the ability to self-motivate to learn something? To improve? To push themselves? I know that while karate is for everyone, not everyone will be interested in karate. Selling people on the ‘idea’ of karate to keep them motivated seems… disingenuous.

Guess I am not an ideal candidate for their martial arts winners circle. No Burakku Kyaderakku for me.

 

The second? It was reading a message posted by MalcolmDorfman Sensei, a senior Shotokan practitioner from South Africa. His message? That sport karate seems to be the push for so many these days. Tournaments. Medals. Trophies. Dreams of Olympic-esque glory.

Sorry, that’s not my karate. The art I study is not aligned with the goals of sport karate. In fact, if you plan to go that way, you will find that some of your principles get co-opted. Your motivations change.

Is your karate about winning tournaments or is it about being a better human being. Is it about collecting trophies or is about cultivating your integrity, your resilience, your focus and willpower, your discipline, your pursuit of self-mastery?

Hokey as it is the Karate Kid (and its successor Cobra Kai) have been trying to teach us these same things.

Notice how Daniel has a day job and a good one at that. Notice that Chozen is not head of a large commercial school in Okinawa like his uncle. Notice that neither actually has a large following. They just stick to the core teachings of their karate.

On the other hand, bad-assing it and teaching All-Valley championship-winning karate means your school will be full. Just sell your soul to a somewhat-soulless art. Throw out some slogans. Teach some cool spinny, acrobatic techniques that are more showy than practically effective.

Ok, so that is all very Hollywood-ized. But it all boils down to the same thing: people’s motivations for studying karate.

Perhaps folks like me are dinosaurs. We want people to learn the deeper meanings within karate. But we refuse to spoon feed. We want you to struggle. We want you to be frustrated. We want you to sweat. And strain. Get the bumps and bruises. Bleed occasionally. Feel worn out and worn down.

And we want you to come back the next day and do it again.

Nana korobi, ya oki. Fall down seven and get up eight.

Because karate teaches you to get up. It teaches you to extend an open hand before extending a closed fist. Your fellow karateka are brethren. They’re not adversaries. It teaches you the discipline to weather all sorts of storms. To think and respond critically.

As Stallone’s Rocky once opined, life’s not about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

It’s not about how many kicks punches your can throw in a fight. Or how many trophies you win.

Life has no trophies. Life has lots of winner and losers, though. In the day-to-day world. It’s often hard to tell which are which.

But real karate will not teach you how to win at life. It’ll teach you how to endure the harshness of it. How to endure. How to survive. And how to appreciate life that much more.

That’s the karate I teach.

It doesn’t cost a lot. But its lessons are priceless.

It’s not fancy. It’s hard.

I’ve never had fewer students. That’s a reality I come to appreciate in the post-COVID world.

But upon reflection, it’s not a question of quantity. It’s a question of quality.

Maybe if I felt the need to self-promote, to sell my soul, I could have more students.

But if I did, I guess I would not be doing my karate anymore, would I?