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Journal of Martial Arts Anthropology

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Abstract - Changes in participation motives in karate between 1970–1999

The purpose of this study was to assess the participation motives of males and females to enroll in karate over a 30-year period. Subjects (n=9189) were male and female beginners aged 15-22 years from Slovenia, Germany, Luxembourg, and Czech Republic. Four major motivational dimensions may be distinguished: physiological, mental, spiritual and fighting skills. Over the period of study, physiological motives increased from 27.0% to 36.6%, mental aspects changed from 10.4% to 11.8%, spiritual decreased from 52.3% to 19.8%, and fighting skills changed from 6.2% to 28.5%. The results of this study seem to indicate that over time, beginners have ascribed much less abstract, unfounded contents to karate and expect to gain much more concrete, sport-like benefits from training.