I don’t often have guest writers on BunkaiJutsu. However, I’ve had a request from a freelance writer Katlyn Warner to publish her article on taking responsibility and how it is particularly significant to martial artists, especially children. It covers a number of self development aspects of martial arts training I thought so I thought I’d share it.
Katlyn wrote in her email to me, “as the 2018 and 2019 book tour of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, a clinical psychologist and professor from Canada, has demonstrated, people across the world are crying out for the message of responsibility. In his books and lectures, he encourages people to take on more responsibilities to improve as individuals.
Recently, I had the pleasure to help oversee an article which looks at what embracing responsibility can do for us. This covers how taking on responsibilities in our lives can improve us as individuals, improve our mental health, and can improve our professional lives”.
As I’m a firm believer in martial arts for personal and spiritual development as well as for self defence, I thought her article was a good fit. So below is the the Katlyn’s article, which I concur with. I hope you enjoy it and please leave your comments below:
How Martial Arts Increase Responsibility in Youth
Martial arts offers brain-boosting benefits for students of any age, studies show. However, aside from simply allowing people to increase their physical
fitness, develop form and engage with the spiritual side of martial arts, the sport has been found to actually help increase responsibility amongst martial artists. By learning about the ethics behind martial arts and how to carry out repeated, small moves, people who practice martial arts are building their sense of responsibility without even knowing it.
Task-Oriented Sports and the Connection to Responsibility
It’s no secret that sports can promote positive youth development, but the benefits reach much further than simply teaching kids how to play nice with others and work hard. One study, in fact, that was performed on various athletes from different sports revealed that the task orientation needed to perform sports was the driving force for both personal responsibility and social responsibility. What this means is that the various small, repeated tasks that athletes in any sport have to carry out leads them to develop personal and social responsibility (PSR) that helps provide them with a successful transition into adulthood. The mere ethical elements required for being a good sport also seemed to impact the responsibility of various different types of athletes, and that’s something that is incredibly present in martial arts.
Action, Reaction, and Conscious Movement
Anybody who’s taken at least one martial arts class will understand just how much the mind plays a role in the mastery of it all. Because martial arts is an art and a sport, it requires the participant to engage in repetition, just as a ballet dancer might practice their moves. This repetition is what truly builds responsibility in athletes, and it’s what really creates strong minds. Martial arts rely heavily on repetition for many reasons, but in part due to the fact that many martial artists have to perform under pressure and need to be prepared. However, it is believed that learning new physical skills is best done by making a habit out of it. As mentioned above, task-oriented sports tend to be the ones that increase responsibility the most. See the connection? Repeated movements require martial artists to engage in task-oriented athleticism which then increases their responsibility by making it easier to form habits, healthy ones, out in the real world.
Creating Responsible Adults
There’s no doubt that martial arts are beneficial for the mind, body, and soul. However, for young kids who are still in the process of developing healthy habits and working on integrating themselves into society, it can make all of the difference when it comes to responsibility. With the ability to raise conscious, self-aware, mindful, and responsible adults all while helping them increase their physical fitness and gain strength, there’s not much that martial arts can’t offer children and teens. Now, all you have to do is decide whether or not Bunkai Jutsu is the right kind of martial arts for you or not.