Familiarizing yourself with the pros and cons of karate—will help you decide whether you want to learn it or not. Although I don’t see one solid reason for someone to pass learning any martial art, some may struggle to choose between the variety of them.
The following list is the pros (advantages) of karate:
- Boosts self-esteem
- Increases self-confidence
- Highly effective for self-defense
- Boosts mental health
- Betters physical shape
These are all fantastic and highly desirable traits. In fact, if you picture your life with only a single of those, it’ll improve your overall quality of living. However, let’s examine the other side of the coin.
The following list is the cons (disadvantages) of karate:
- Not the best martial art for self-defense
- Doesn’t cover grappling
- Became a sport instead of a fighting style
Although the list is shorter and filled with not as influential metrics, it does have some prominent disadvantages. As a result, if you see yourself not wanting to study karate for one of these reasons, I encourage you to read this article to fully comprehend this topic.
Many people give up before they even try. Nonetheless, such an action isn’t as wise because they didn’t try. They’ve never experienced the slightest of the results. Therefore, it’s impossible to know whether it’s suitable or not.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into the pros of karate.
Pros of karate
Karate has many advantages and reasons to learn it. Thus, if you glimpse at the five pros I decided to list, you’ll notice a repeating pattern. They’re all highly relevant and desirable.
I mean, who wouldn’t want to improve their physical shape and live a healthier life. Who wouldn’t want to boost their self-esteem and skyrocket their confidence.
In fact, I don’t know a single person who would deny these benefits. However, they do require consistency and hard work. Yet, if you start your training, you’ll begin to have fun learning karate.
Let’s begin by examining each pro and see how long it’ll take to improve it while doing karate.
#1- Boosts self-esteem
The first positive outcome from consistent and deliberate karate training—is a boost in self-esteem. Eventually, how you view yourself can be the difference in your attitude.
For instance, if you think negatively of yourself, your actions will speak that way. On the other hand, if your self-image is solid, you’ll benefit from it in every area of life.
Karate boosts your self-esteem by being a platform to overcome obstacles and improve. For example, many karate trainees report feeling proud of their progression. Thus, they’ll feel they’re going out there and improving themselves – rather than staying at home and not progressing.
Can you imagine how good you’ll feel when you attain that black belt? For many trainees, this is the end goal, what they aim to achieve. So, if you managed to do that, can you picture how good you’ll feel about yourself?
Your self-esteem is the way you view yourself. I would bet many people would do anything to love themselves. In our era, depression and mental health issues are at their peak. So now, boosting your self-image is more critical than ever before.
Visual inspection showed that four participants improved their global self-esteem. Self-efficacy was improved in three participants…
Source
#2- Increases self-confidence
This advantage highly links to the previous one, which is a boost in self-esteem. The more consistent and dedicated you are to your karate dojo, the more fulfilled and confident you’ll feel.
With every training session done, your inner self will be more positive. Karate training is filled with highly relevant exercises that’ll help you boost your confidence—by allowing you to overcome them.
Once you start to notice you’re capable of overcoming these obstacles, you’ll think more highly of yourself. As a result, your confidence and ability to trust yourself will inevitably increase.
However, that won’t come that easily.
To feel that advantage karate has to offer, you’ll be required to invest plenty of effort and dedicate yourself to the process. If you don’t, you won’t feel as fulfilled when you do overcome these obstacles.
So, the next time you do attend your martial arts dojo, ensure you’re fully in the workout!
#3- Highly effective for self-defense
The third advantage we’ll discuss is that karate is highly effective for self-defense. After all, the purpose of martial arts is to teach others self-defense; that’s it. Karate wasn’t born to increase the confidence and self-esteem of its trainees. Rather, they’re by-products.
Because karate is as effective for self-defense, many trainees begin their learning process for that reason alone. Some of them feel as if they’re always defenseless. Naturally, they’ll want to change and improve your current situation.
The traditional karate styles, such as Uechi-Ryu, Goju-Ryu, and Shotokan karate, are the most effective for self-defense. Essentially, they’re as close to the origin as possible. So, they’re the fiercest, raw, and effective fighting techniques you can learn.
Karate teaches punching and kicking in many forms and combinations. If you practice them correctly, you’ll immediately be able to cause massive damage quickly—regardless of your opponent.
As such, if you want to know self-defense and how to fight appropriately, I encourage you to pick up karate and start training as soon as possible.
#4- Boosts mental health
The 4th positive outcome of karate training—is a boost in mental health. Today, our mental health seem to have gone lower and lower. As a result, compensating for that shift—is vital for keeping our health in check.
Numerous studies have examined the correlation between mental and physical health. The results were quite shocking. Here’s a study that will lead you to believe that mental health is a crucial aspect of everyone’s livelihood.
The main finding of this paper is that past mental and physical have strong indirect cross-effects on current mental and physical health.
Source
As you can see, your current mental and physical health will affect your future self. As a result, dedicate yourself to seeing progress, results, take your life with your hands and aspire to make changes through karate training.
Your mental health is yourself. If you’re not eager enough to become as healthy as possible, you’re missing out on plenty of opportunities. Personally, I’ve noticed I experience the most joy and fulfillment from life when my mental health is in check.
#5- Betters physical shape
Lastly, but not least importantly, karate improves your physical shape. Like the previous advantage, your health is what represents you long-term. As such, if your physical health isn’t as solid, your long-term health won’t be either.
Karate is an intensive exercise that burns high amounts of calories. As a result, all karate trainees will be able to reach the fitness goal, whether it’s to shed body fat or to gain muscle.
Moreover, it has wonderful other physical benefits, such as the following list:
- Better endurance
- Improved aerobic shape
- Better anaerobic shape
- Improved eye hand coordination
- Burning calories
- Becoming more flexible
- Building muscle
- Losing body fat
Wow, that’s a long list of what seems to mean the same thing—a better physical shape. Please, picture yourself with all of these benefits in your life. How different would your life look if you had all of these? Would your functionality and productivity improve or worsen?
The answers aren’t as complicated. You’ll become a better individual by having these benefits. So, why are you still hesitating to start your karate training?
Don’t you desire to improve your mental health, grow your self-esteem, better your confidence, and increase your physical shape? People would do anything to experience only a single of these benefits. Well, you can experience them all – while learning to fight!
Convinced yet? I hope so.
Cons of karate
Thus far, we’ve examined and went through five advantages karate has to offer. However, the story isn’t entirely bright. Instead, karate does have various cons, effecting its effectiveness and utility.
Yet, before we move on to the disadvantages, I want to emphasize how prominent the pros seem to be over the cons. Truly, when comparing the pros and cons and checking which should have more weight in the decision-making process, the pros will come out victorious.
Let’s dive into the disadvantages of karate and examine why they’re precisely that, disadvantages.
#1- Not the best martial art for self-defense
Indeed, karate isn’t the best martial art out there. Moreover, it won’t teach you self-defense in the best way possible. Yet, before moving on, I want to mention how effective and suitable it is for fighting.
Moving on, many martial arts are more suitable for self-defense than karate, especially modern karate. Such fighting styles were specifically designed to fit today’s world. As a result, they include various techniques which karate doesn’t teach.
MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is the best martial art for self-defense because it’s highly effective. MMA teaches its trainees highly effective fighting movements, such as punching, grappling, clinching, kicking, and takedowns.
All of these movements are highly suitable for all fighting scenarios—regardless of the opponent. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see a fight end with one fighter executing a grappling technique, which you can use to finish a fight in seconds!
If you want to read more about the best martial arts for self-defense you should learn, follow the link to an article of mine.
However, karate doesn’t teach grappling, which is our next point.
#2- Doesn’t cover grappling
Grappling is the best fighting technique for every dangerous scenario. It doesn’t require much physical strength and instead requires deliberate practice. For that reason, many MMA trainees are capable of beating bigger opponent than themselves, as they use grappling often.
Various chokes and submissions fall under the category of grappling. The martial arts that do cover them are: judo, wrestling, MMA, and Jiu-Jitsu. These are all A-class martial arts for self-defense, simply because of grappling.
Karate doesn’t teach grappling, and as a result, it fails to deliver fighting wise. That said, most of its trainees are highly competent fighter—regardless of whether they teach grappling. They’re capable of using punching and kicking to cause massive damage quickly.
And still, although karate is effective for self-defense, it doesn’t teach the most effective technique. The following video showcases just how powerful the tool of grappling can be in real fights.
Notice how the fighters don’t have to use punches and kicks to make the opponent submit. Instead, submissions, takedowns, throws, and chokes—are fantastic and highly effective tools you should add to your skill set.
#3- Became a sport instead of a fighting style
Today, karate is a worldwide sport. Don’t get me wrong, it has definitely helped to increase its popularity. However, many martial artists know the change it went through is somewhat negative.
The people of Okinawa, an island in Japan, constructed karate to teach themselves self-defense. The time was a time of war and chaos. As a result, they wanted to learn how to defend themselves in the quickest way possible.
So you can imagine how karate emphasized self-defense and other fighting techniques. Indeed, that was its purpose.
However, today, karate transformed to be a sport. It’s truly amazing to see how many more people are familiar with traditional martial arts. And yet, it has also changed the course of what you learn in this fighting style.
Instead of learning effective self-defense techniques, such as punching and kicking to the face, it commoditized them and therefore illegalized these techniques. By doing so, it made the martial art appeal to the masses. However, it has harmed the authenticity it had to offer.
Eventually, while karate is still effective for self-defense, it’s not as it used to be. However, learning it—is still as wise as it was back then.
Final words
Although the cons may seem to override the pros, it’s not entirely true. Every martial art has a disadvantage. In this article, I praised MMA for being the martial art for self-defense. However, it doesn’t have as rich of a history as karate.
Therefore, many MMA practitioners don’t feel any link between them and the martial art. This case is different with karate. Many trainees feel connected to the art of karate. Hence, they’re more likely to stay consistent with it.
So, before you make your choice and decide which martial art you want to learn, consider the advantages and disadvantages I presented.
Most people would do anything to experience only a single of the pros I mentioned in this article. Additionally, you’ll also have plenty of fun training and learning more about this fighting style.
So, there isn’t a single negative saying I have on karate. Truly, if you want to improve your life and positively impact the world, I encourage you to do karate.
If you enjoyed reading this article, I encourage you to read about Karate’s belt order. It’s one of my most researched pieces.