How common is martial arts?

[Kodiak]

Does anybody know how many people in the 'west' (for lack of a better term) practice martial arts?

[honoluludesktop]

In 2002, this post states that a study found about 5 million persons practiced some form of martial arts “every chance they get”.

[still kicking]

I was gonna guess 10 million, but it was just a wild guess. At some of the tournaments I've been to it seemed like they were all there at once, and were mostly kids. No offense, kids, we love you.

[Kodiak]

Woah, that's actually way more common than I thought, I figured 5-10% (for teenagers).

Also, can somebody move this to General Martial arts? I messed up posting it apparently.

[UselessDave]

I've guessed it's a lot. But I'm usually more interested in how they train martial arts. Though I understand that some people don't care: training is training. Wherever you get the motivation.

[chien_fu]

5-10 million martial arts practitioners in the US sounds like a LOT! Based on about 18,000 schools in the country, if each school has an average of about 50 students that's not even 1 million students.

Sometimes (like at tournaments) it seems like everyone trains MA, but in other environments, like at work or around my community it often seems like martial arts is a fairly foreign concept still.