Why do People Train Martial Arts? Participation Motives of German and Japanese Karateka

• Main Authors: Martin Meyer, Heiko Bittmann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-12-01
• Series: Societies
• Subjects: motivation; martial arts; <i>karatedō</i>; self-defence; strength; fascination
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/8/4/128

Meyer&#8217;s (2012) qualitative research on motivation of German <i>karateka</i> initiated the coordinated research project Why Martial Arts? (WMA) to analyse motives in various martial arts styles, like <i>jūdō</i>, <i>taiji</i>, <i>krav maga</i> and <i>wing chun</i>. In 2017, the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) supported the transposition of the research question to Japanese <i>karatedō</i> and <i>jūdō</i> practitioners. For the German sub-study, 32 interviews were conducted about entry/participation motives, fascination categories, and reasons for choosing <i>karatedō</i>. The design of the Japanese sub-study was based on the aforementioned German study, but due to the higher number of participants (n = 106), a mixed method questionnaire was used and distributed via paper and online versions. The results demonstrate that many motivation categories of Japanese and German <i>karatedō</i> practitioners share similarities in importance and content, although the characteristics of motives can be very different&#8212;partly due to cultural specifics.