Does a change of character begin when we commence karate training? Does karate improve your character?
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Character traits can be built, forged, and altered with a sufficient amount of effort and willpower. The benefits of character building largely depend on your personal values and goals.
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However, ultimately, the most important question is how important is character to you? If you feel character is or should be important to you then it’s time to chart your own path to a better you….. But only you can do it.
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Kiichi Nakamoto 10th-dan Goju-ryu Karate was asked the question….. “Was Okinawan karate popular before the war?”
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His reply was…. “In those years, karate was a required physical education subject throughout Okinawa. The plan was to develop children’s health, but it did not prove as poplar as hoped. Some of this was due to the old master-disciple method of teaching. Pre-war karate masters treated students harshly, and expelled them for the slightest reason. A student also had to have a good character or they wouldn’t teach him.”
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Nakamoto sensei suggests that you had to have a “good character” BEFORE learning the martial arts.
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I strongly believe martial arts can be amazing vehicle to “personal growth”. However, it’s far from automatic, it depends upon many other factors, and the martial arts can just as easily be negative. In answer to the question “can martial arts change a person’s character for the better”…. I would say; “it depends”.
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I have seen instructors and students which at first seemed good martial artists, but when I saw how they actually lived their lives, I was no longer impressed by their martial knowledge or their character. They were not good instructors, not good students, and not good people.
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The phrase “perfection of character” is well used, but I think “perfection” infers there is a universal “perfect” and I’m not sure that is true … and even if it were true, would martial arts be the best route to that “perfect”?
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For me any character building that a person gains from practicing karate comes from what THEY put into it. It’s certainly not an automatic byproduct of simply turning up and training. It takes time and effort outside of class, it takes vision, self-analysis and a willingness to learn to improve your own character.
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Time matters. Time tests. Character erodes or grows. Our character is developed through time. More accurately, our character is developed through our experiences and what we choose to learn and do from them….. And the martial arts take time.
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So, can the martial arts improve or change your character? What do you think? 
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“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society” – Theodore Roosevelt
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 Photo Credit: Travel67 Chris Wilson Photography
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