Why you started Karate?

[Spodo Komodo]

I lived to climb for the first 30 years of my life. I moved to Sheffield (a major UK climbing city) and tailored my employment around midweek days off to climb in the Peak District. The inevitable happened and I had a bad fall, leaving me in a wheelchair for a short while. I lost track of my regular climbing friends as I was now climbing way below my former grade and I just stopped one day. After a while of doing nothing and piling on the pounds a friend suggested I needed a new sport to be obsessive about and suggested martial arts or football. I tried football and couldn't find anything technical to get stuck into so I went to a Karate class and the rest is history as they say.

[chiliphil1]

I started around 6, some of the other kids in the daycare that I went to attended classes after their parents picked them up. I remember thinking how cool the uniforms looked so I asked my parents if I could do it too and they finally agreed.

I have been in and out of it since then but I have never lost my love for it. One funny thing though is that out of all the kids in my day care and all the people I have met along the way I am one of the very few who actually stuck with it, its strange how people come and go in the martial arts.

[AlbanyDude]

It's something I wanted to try since I was young, and want to do it now for self defense and for fitness (I'm way out of shape).

[Wastelander]

I started training in karate because there wasn't a Japanese swordsmanship or kendo school in the area, actually. I have always been a nerd, and I really found myself drawn to Japanese culture through films, anime, and manga. That, coupled with my pre-existing interest in medieval European arms and armor, led me to being very interested in Japanese swordsmanship. It didn't hurt that I was out of shape, and I figured it would help me in that department.

I looked around, but couldn't find anything, except for a karate school that also taught Okinawan weapons and Japanese sword after you reached yellow belt. I started in karate, and ended up getting hooked! I did work on weapons, but I found myself much less interested in them than the empty hand material.

[ashworth]

I started when I was 5, used to be bullied at school and a local karate club posted a flying through the door, parents signed me up and I have been training in various clubs ever since!

[OleOle]

I have good friends who encouraged me to start martial arts who also said that it's less important what style of martial art I do, more that I actually do it as, "All roads lead to Rome," as one friend put it.

Twenty years later I found the right sensei and I'm now learning kempo karate. Ive been encouraged to cross-train in gojuryu and muay thai, so in the next six to twelve months I'll be adding at least one of those into the mix.

[wagnerk]

I was bullied a lot as a kid and beat on so I joined karate to learn to defend myself. In the end, I stuck with it because I fell in love with Martial Arts...

Same here, plus I didn't have alot of confidence. I also had an interest in the martial arts thanks to the likes of Jackie Chan and to a lesser extent Bruce Lee

[chrissyp]

No martial arts in general, but I started karate after years of Muay thai as a way to think outside the box, do something different. My Sensei is a good friend, and teaches me for free, in exchange for helping teach fighting techniques and helping them. So its a pretty good deal I must say

[Lupin1]

I was 8. It was the Power Rangers/Ninja Turtles/3 Ninjas era and I was gonna be one or all of those when I grew up.

[heyroger]

Hi all, first time post.

I'm fairly new to karate, having started just last week. As a kid I loved Ninja Turtles, Double Dragon and Karate Kid. My parents wouldn't let me train because of the "violent nature" of martial arts.

When I moved out of home, I joined a class for a couple of lessons but didn't commit at the time due to uni.

For the last couple of years I've been focusing on weight training and was working toward strength and body building but lost interest because of the superficiality of it all.

Toward the end of last year I got into a fight at a pub and lost badly. It was depressing. No matter how fit, how strong, how big I became, I still don't know how to defend myself.

So at 33, I found myself a good local Shotokan dojo and am focusing my training more on power, agility and focus as opposed to just lifting weight.

I'm looking forward to the ongoing journey.