Is Karate Safe????
Many times as instructors we get asked that infernal question… “is karate safe?” While infuriating to me, I have only been injured a handful of times in my over 35 years to kicking and punching… and mostly due to my own stupid fault, it is a legitimate question. In a world of increasing liability, universities…my world… have had to protect themselves, their students and their employees.
Unfortunately, this has lead to university’s to paint all martial arts clubs with some very restrictive policies that can begin to inhibit much of the partner training aspects that we take for granted. Examples of these policies include:
having two CPR certified people on the floor at all times, no contact (of any kind, yes, that is meaning no blocking) training, only slow motion movements are allowed. Unfortunately, many of these policies have been handed down by risk managers without an understanding of the differences among martial arts, including their training philosophies, methods, or end outcomes.
To this end, I recently published a peer-reviewed paper in the Sport Journal. It is written with a hope that other collegiate club instructors will be able to use it as ammunition to help university risk managers to understand the true nature of karate, and what the real injury rate is based on data. Here is the link to the article!
Happy reading and enjoy!