What was it that made you decide to take up Martial Arts?

[Dragon Fist]

Another one for Family or Friend

Here are the updated counts so far.

• Family or Friend - 10
• TV Personalities (Bruce Lee, Ninja Turtles, Matrix, Karate Kid, and Jedi) - 7
• Attacked or picked on - 4
• For Fitness - 4
• Dated Instructor - 1
• Self Discipline - 1

Influenced by a Family member or Friend, is still the number one reason that people have decided to take up martial arts. But TV Personalities/Media is catching up.
(count is based entirely on what people have posted so far.)

 

[Dragon Fist]

A friend I meet in a dojo told me that he got started in Karate because he wanted to be good at something. Something that people can't take away from him.
He just resently got his Shodan.

 

[Simon Curran]

A friend I meet in a dojo told me that he got started in Karate because he wanted to be good at something. Something that people can't take away from him.
He just resently got his Shodan.

Good story, and great for him.

 

[Dragon Fist]

Here are the updated counts so far.

• Family or Friend - 10
• TV Personalities (Bruce Lee, Ninja Turtles, Matrix, Karate Kid, and Jedi) - 7
• Attacked or picked on - 4
• For Fitness - 4
• Dated Instructor - 1
• Self Discipline - 1

Influenced by a Family member or Friend, is still the number one reason that people have decided to take up martial arts. But TV Personalities/Media is catching up.
(count is based entirely on what people have posted so far.)

 

[Dragon Fist]

Did anyone ever decide to take Martial Arts by simply seeing an ad on the paper, flier, TV ad, or happen to pass by a dojo?

 

[The Kai]

Did anyone ever decide to take Martial Arts by simply seeing an ad on the paper, flier, TV ad, or happen to pass by a dojo?

No, I came into the arts because of a desire to be good at something, find something to keep me in shape, andof course learn how to fight.
In my dojo I notice you can put the right flyer in the right person's hands - but if they are not ready yet they don't come in.

Todd

 

[47MartialMan]

I was "forced" into it.

 

[Ceicei]

I was "forced" into it.

How so?

- Ceicei "Curious"

 

[47MartialMan]

Until I was 10, I was very violent and had a behavior problem.

I served many detentions, suspensions, and was expelled from many schools.

It wasn't that I couldn't fight, it was the attitude to fight, win or lose, and to misbehave.

My parents had tried everything, including a psychiatrist. To which he had told them, that I being the "middle child", I was seeking special attention via my actions. (These words I know form later discussions, many years after, with my parents). I believe he was wrong. I had did bad things not for attention, but because I had liked it. I wanted to "get away" with anything or not get caught. To show my attitude, I told the psychiatrist if he didn't stop seeing me and taking my parents' money, I will say that he was touching me in my privates. Sessions ended after that speech.

At a large family gathering, a reunion that family members were allowed to bring friends, my mother had met and spoke with a woman whom had a "problem child" with the same behavior as mine.

The woman told her that she had enrolled her son in Karate and that his attitude had changed. So my mother spoke with my father (whom had made a discission at the time to send me to a boys' home), about Karate lessons. They could not understand the concept.

Decades later, while taking courses in psychiatry, I had realize why, per monks, would do so. I have written a thesis/article in this.

Anyway, my first Karate school and/or lessons, did not go so well as I was expelled from that one. Bascially, the teacher had no experience with a child such as me and I tested his patience to the brink.

But, I would later attend other martial art schools, due to rekindled desire and changed residencies.