Paweł Adam Piepiora 1ABCDE, Jolita Vveinhardt 1DE
1 Faculty of Physical Education and Sports, Wroclaw University of Health and Sport Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland
2 Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Social and Humanities Research Institute, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
Author for correspondence:
Paweł Adam Piepiora: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6525-3936 Jolita Vveinhardt: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6231-9402
Abstract
Background and Study Aim: In the social space, journalistic phraseology and the language of emotion permeate not only statements concerning the attraction and mystery still associated with karate. This category would also include: ‘recent years have witnessed a resurgence in the popularity of karate training among young people; however, there has been a discernible decline in the traditional values of karate, particularly in the context of its interaction with popular culture’. These sentences, on the terrain of science, cannot be considered true in the absence of empirical evidence. If, on the other hand, they are intuitions with some degree of truth, this is not enough to consider them as true premises. However, since these intuitions appear in the free statements of karate practitioners and didacticians, science (scientists with the competence of karate practitioners) should first be expected to formulate premises that would be intersubjectively acceptable to other practitioners, not necessarily with the competence of a scientist as well.
Therefore, the aim of this article is is to argue from the intersection of the analysis of karate as combat sports, martial art, and self-defense systems, so that the conclusions can be considered as a scientific rationale for further research of the violent phenomenon within the complex of hand-to-hand combat exercises that are identified in the social space with the different varieties of karate.
Materials and Methods: The method of expert opinion used (n = 2) is admittedly based on the assumption that the sentences formulated (for which there is no empirical justification) are considered true when there is no basis for the allegation that they express the authors' emotional connection to the phenomenon under investigation. However, it is impossible to accept the assumption that many years of personal practice involving, inter alia, participation in top-level sport competition (which, by its very nature anyway, could not cover all varieties and styles of karate) does not affect the authors' emotional connections with the subject of the scientific exploration undertaken. Awareness of these non-enthymematic assumptions may prove to be an important methodological guideline for researchers who would like to continue exploring the phenomena of violence and aggression in relation to karate.
As a criterion for identifying violence, we have adopted a praxeological definition of the term, in the knowledge that in many circumstances it is very difficult, if not impossible, to define the boundary between violence and aggression. Since the motoric dimension of karate and the applicable combat sport regulations are subject to direct observation and evaluation by licensed judges (regardless of the multitude of variations of this combat sport), so these circumstances make it easier to define criteria for identifying violent phenomena. The results are presented and divided into karate as a combat sport, as a martial art, and as a self-defence system. Therefore, in the latter two areas, the analysis of violence already requires more frequent references to psychological criteria. To ignore ethical criteria in any of the areas of the division made would be to deny methodological correctness. Our analysis of the main source materials included scientific (also popular scientific and didactic) articles and books, which, especially in the practitioner community, are generally regarded as the most valuable. This analysis is supplemented by our subjective conclusions from the current insight into events available in the existing social reality, which qualify for any of the above-mentioned criteria of division.
Results: Violence in karate as a combat sport occurs primarily in circumstances when a particular competitor continues to attack an opponent who is no longer able to fight. But there are also circumstances where the accomplices to this form of violence are referees who delay intervention. As martial art, when karatekas begin to break the norms and values of traditional karate culture and use karate knowledge, skills and motoric competence against weaker people in deliberate ways. As a self-defence system, it applies to every case when karate practitioners repelling physical aggression in particular (and more so verbal violence) consciously violate the criteria of legitimate defence.
Conclusions: The conjuncture of the results of our analyses, combined with the knowledge of the traditional values of karate implemented with such a message into the area of universal accessibility in every society, and associated with the human right to self-defence under the condition of not exceeding necessary actions, constitutes, in our opinion, a set of basic premises for further detailed research. We consider the complementary approach to be the most appropriate, while clearly identifying with the hypothesis of the supreme value criteria of global civilisation.
Keywords: combat sport, martial art, self-defence, technique, theory of combat sport
AMA:
Piepiora PA, Vveinhardt J. When karate becomes violent. Arch Budo J Inn Agon. 2025;21.
APA:
Piepiora, P. A., & Vveinhardt, J. (2025). When karate becomes violent. Archives of Budo Journal of Innovative Agonology, 21.
Chicago:
Piepiora, Paweł Adam, and Jolita Vveinhardt. 2025. "When Karate Becomes Violent." Archives of Budo Journal of Innovative Agonology 21.
Harvard:
Piepiora, P.A. & Vveinhardt, J. (2025). When karate becomes violent. Archives of Budo Journal of Innovative Agonology, 21.
MLA:
Piepiora, Paweł Adam, and Jolita Vveinhardt. "When Karate Becomes Violent." Archives of Budo Journal of Innovative Agonology, vol. 21, 2025.
Vancouver:
Piepiora PA, Vveinhardt J. When karate becomes violent. Arch Budo J Inn Agon. 2025;21.
