Pulling No Punches: Karate Myths and Other Stories

by Colin Smith

There is a global assertion that karate training develops good character. Shotokan founder Gichin Funakoshi is credited with this aphorism: “The ultimate aim of the art of karate lies not in victory or defeat but in the perfection of the character of its participants.” But he lived in another era and never witnessed the extent to which his karate ideal has been mauled worldwide. Inspiring as such rhetoric may seem, it establishes no fact or even a probability. Other factors shape our character, like our upbringing, our environment, or the pure-and-simple luck of the gene-pool draw. But not karate. Funakoshi’s claim is a fiction because nobody can provide empirical evidence that karate training improves morality. This personal account nicely illustrates that the purported link between karate training and the improvement of morality and character is a myth that deserves to be buried in concrete along with the other fabrications so prevalent in the Shotokan about living and dead instructors.

236 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 23, 2019

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