So recently I’ve watched bunch of martial arts videos on YT and it got me wondering if I should start training something. However there is more to martial arts than just the exercise part: most of it is rooted in eastern religions like buddhism. This specific article covers the problems with karate fron christian perspective, I’d like to hear if anyone here has tried martial arts and what’s your experience with it. Were there any religious parts like meditation?
There are some dojos that are run exclusively and explicitly by Christians who focus in on the martial arts as it relates to exercise and self defense and then some incorporate Christian themes in where the eastern religious themes would be.
I attended at least one of these growing up where we were taught the fundamentals of the martial art and they incorporated Christian themes in. We didn’t do any meditations of any kind, unless you count praying as a form of meditation. We were taught virtues such as respect but it wasn’t necessarily always grounded in Christianity.
Though there are also many different forms of martial arts, and not all come from places where religion has been part of it like Jiu Jitsu from Brazil but not having any religious themes involved despite it originating from Japan.
What are your goals in learning and practicing a martial art? Is there a specific type you have been interested in that heavily incorporates these religious elements?
I highly highly doubt that in secular country there would be single dojo which would be run by christian, europe is not like US. Maybe 20-28% of the people here believe in God so we are in minority here and the procecutors want to pretty much ban Bible here.
Ah sorry, I assumed you were in the US. I apologize but you’re right. My experience was with the US.
karate interests me, from what I’ve read there are some buddhist teachings but it depends on the gym of course.