5 Reasons Why You Should Learn Karate

Have you ever wanted to learn Karate or at least thought about it? If you have then let me enforce that thought and hopefully convince you to join a club. Listed below are five (5) reasons why you should learn Karate.

This is probably the best available material if you want to know more about the philosophy and what Karate really means. Written by the man who introduced Karate to the rest of the World and established Shotokan, Gichin Funakoshi. It takes us through his journey from his sickly childhood to learning and then promotion of this once hidden art.

Because of my love for martial arts, I've created a blog /website to promote the arts in Papua New Guinea (PNG). I cover all styles of martial arts.

5 Reasons to Kick You Off

1. Discipline your mind and body
2. Karate is about control and discipline. Unlike what many people may perceive, the art culminates development of a strong body and at the same time the mind. In Karate, the mind and body and inseparable - if the mind is weak, the body will fail. If the mind is strong, the body will follow.
3. Be active, be healthy
4. Karate stresses on a healthy lifestyle. This includes dieting and other practices like smoking and drinking. Since I joined Karate in 2007, I've stopped smoking and drinking.
5. Protect yourself
6. Today, we live in a very rough world. People no longer respect others like they did in the old days and the need to protect you is important. However, in most states, it is illegal to carry a gun or knife around. But if you knew Karate, this would not be necessary.
7. Make friends
8. Joining a Karate club is a great way to meet people and make friends. In most dojos (karate training halls), the students are asked to introduce themselves to new students and make them feel welcome. Curtsey is also embedded into the Karate culture.
9. Build self-confidence
10. Karate helps develop self-confidence through the development physical and mental development. This is no surprise considering some of the world's action stars are very confident people like Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundren and Michael Jai White, to name a few, are students of Karate.

A Way of Life

There are so many benefits to learning Karate or any martial art and these are just five of them. In order to experience the full benefits of Karate, you have to join a club and learn. It's more than just a form of combat - it's a way of life.

If you need more convincing then this video from the MichiganProject should help convincing you to learn Karate.

Kyokushin is the style of Karate I practice and it's a hard but realist form of unarmed combat. It was developed by Mas Oyama during his lifetime and is derived from Shotokan, Go-ju ryu and a few other styles of martial arts including Muay Thai and boxing.