Karate Changes Nothing About a Person

Despite the efforts of crazed fanatics and the Entertainment-Industrial-Complex's pathetic attempts to push karate as a legitimately life-changing experience, it falters behind the other martial arts to a staggering degree.¹ A 2010 reboot of Karate Kid starring Jayden Smith and George Clooney quite clearly proves this point. In the film, Clooney, who plays the titular militant child's coach, tells him "Your focus needs more focus," and later, "Karate is a breath taken by God to strike at his opponents."² Neither of these statements are in line with the core tenets of the art of karate.³ Here we see Hollywood Westernizing a dying, static sport and trying to revive its following.

But all of this is already known. I am here to state a crucial and, (when you ponder on it) obvious, fact of philosophy. In films such as Karate Kid and in daily life, we are exposed to Karate's hierarchy of the belts. The basic idea is you start with a red belt and ask your skills increase, you move through the colors of the rainbow until you achieve at brown and then black.⁴ This would seem to indicate that one should strive for these marks of "honor." In reality the only belt that is the same color of a normal belt is the black and brown,⁵ symbolizing that once you master karate you just go back to being the average man on an average day. Karate doesn't change you. Karate changes nothing.

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1. Gecko, Spencer, et al. Karate's Popularity Wanes for Third Consecutive Decade. In Sport Census. New York: Rutgers. 2019.
2. Dir. Zwarts, Harold. The Karate Kid. 2010.
3. Author Unknown. The Code. 344. Accessed on February 17, 2021 via: sporticus.com/72893892749.html
4. Ibid.
5. tjmax.com: Belts section.