Informal Interview with martial arts practitioner James Snyder:
Question: How long have you been practicing martial arts?
Answer: “I have been practicing martial arts for over half of my life.”
Question: What was your initial reason for joining martial arts?
Answer: “I just wanted to do what I saw in the movies because I was only a kid when I started.”
Question: Do you feel that martial arts has contributed to your health and fitness now?
Answer: “Oh no doubt in my mind. Martial arts has pushed my mind and body to a whole new level. I am more disciplined in my everyday life and the physical demand that martial arts puts on your body forces you to be in shape.”
Question: How do you feel about your body now?
Answer: “I am comfortable with my body, there are always things that I could work on when I’m not practicing martial arts, but I still feel in shape.”
Question: Is there anything that you would change about your body?
Answer: “Well like I said there are always things that I could be working on aside from martial arts, but if I had to change one thing it would be my cardio. I feel like my cardio isn’t very good at all. But as far as physical shape goes I don’t have any complaints about my body right now.”
Informal interview with Roy Cruz
(Martial arts practitioner)
Question: What was your initial reason for joining martial arts?
Answer: “At first I just wanted a new way of working out, and after a while I found that martial arts provided much more than I thought it could.”
Question: How do you feel about your body now as opposed to before you started doing martial arts?
Answer: “I would have to say that my body is in its best physical shape than ever before. I owe much of it to martial arts, but I also workout outside of karate and I watch what I eat.”
Question: Do you think the environment in martial arts is different from the outside world in the way of physical fitness?
Answer: “Well honestly I believe that there is a much higher standard that men have to live up to outside of martial arts than inside the martial arts world. In here you’re accepted no matter what shape you’re in and everybody works together to get into shape, but outside of the martial arts world I felt much more pressure to be ‘lean and mean’ and be the world’s buffest man, to look good for the ladies. But after I started martial arts I knew that I was getting in better shape because I felt better about myself, even though I wasn’t the ‘buffest’ guy out there I had loads more confidence about myself.”
Question: What would you change about your body now?
Answer: “Absolutely nothing. I feel great, I mean don’t get me wrong I am striving to get better and better because God knows I’m not the greatest athlete, but I don’t have any complaints about the way I feel concerning my body, and overall health.”
Interview with Casey Proulx:
Martial arts instructor/practitioner for over 12 years
Question: What qualifies you to be a martial arts instructor?
Answer: “Well for starters, you have to be a student for a few years just to grasp the basics and then you have to enroll into an instructors academy for a little while and just do very simple training exercises with beginning students. Then after all that is complete you become a certified instructor and start teaching more and more students and so on and so forth.”
Question: What is the most common thing that you have noticed people joining martial arts for? (Adults)
Answer: “I would say most of the time it isn’t an actual need to learn how to defend themselves, but more so to help push themselves, whether it be pushing themselves to just get out more often and escape from other parts of their life to just getting in a good workout. Occasionally we’ll get the law enforcement guy in or the die hard karate man who just wants to learn martial arts but usually it a much more personal reason for joining rather than this social norm.”
Question: Would you say that people discover more about themselves after they join? And if so then how?
Answer: “Definitely. There is a lot of people that join under the idea that they’re naturally gifted physically, but then they realize just how much more demanding it is than they originally thought, and same goes for the opposite person who comes in thinking they can’t do much and then realize they can actually perform at a much higher level than they themselves thought.”
Question: Do you think stereotypes about martial arts are broken when people come in, or supported? Mainly the stereotypes perpetuated by movies and the new MMA culture.
Answer: “Well it depends on the stereotype. I feel the stereotypes from old martial arts films are much different from the MMA cultural views. But I think most martial art schools don’t promote the idea of just fighting to fight as some movies depict, but rather defending yourself when needed and pushing your body and mind to limits beyond what you thought you could.”
Question: Are there any stereotypes for men and women in martial arts?
Answer: “Well predominantly there are a lot more men than there are women actually practicing martial arts, but there definitely are female martial art practitioners and instructors. Most women are actually involved with the self-defense aspect and the workout aspect more so than the other aspects of martial arts. And for instance, in MMA schools there aren’t as many women simply because most of the time MMA schools are geared towards fighting which is more of a male based stereotype, although there are women involved in that too.”
Question: Is there any common factor among the women that come in to join martial arts that you yourself have noticed? Men?
Answer: “Mainly among adults I see them coming in to try to build a better sense of confidence for both men and women, but with the women more so than the men. Women don’t usually come in to learn how to fight or spar, but they do come in to build better confidence in themselves so they can walk down the street comfortably and know they could defend themselves if necessary. I wouldn’t say there is a dividing factor from the women that are involved in martial arts to the women who aren’t, but I do notice huge changes in self-confidence and overall mental health after women, even men, have been involved in martial arts for a little while.”
Would you say having a better understanding of culture and cultural diversity helps you with your job?
Answer:
“A good population of clients that I see are women that are 50 plus, and I do have some men, but the predominant population of people that are interested in this kind of mind body exercise are women. I think that although usually see clients that are well acclimated to American culture, it is always useful to have certain understandings because if I get someone from a different cultural background, touch might not be something that is so easily or readily accepted… Now with my training I was always taught that you ask to touch, and let them know what you’re doing which is always useful… I think that we as a culture in the U.S., touch is taboo or has a sexual component and I think that understanding that and making sure there isn’t ever that cross and there isn’t a particular intention with touch is really important especially when I’m working with male clients… I sometimes work with kids too, and I think therefore it is really important to have an understanding of boundaries and what is acceptable.”
Question:
Now do you educate yourself on these cultural aspects? Is this something they teach you in the classes that you’re taking?
Answer:
“There is a component in the classes, although it’s not a formal class there definitely is a component… In my masters program at the University of Utah, we did talk about culture, but more about identity and individuality and all of the possibilities… Like how people develop their identities and roles… It wasn’t’ necessarily this culture might have these values versus this culture has these values, it was more like each person is going to have all of these social factors that influence them.”
Question:
Do you think just understanding a person’s dynamics helps assess what they really need?
Answer:
“Yes absolutely… I think disorder patterns at certain points in my life, as a teenager, and as a young adult when I first started living on my own, will help me be able to see it in other people… Even though we have this image that skinny is better, you see this in all sorts of magazines, that’s not necessarily the healthy approach.I remember one client where we actually just talked for two hours on how to think about things differently because I believe that a lot of life is about our expectations and our perceptions so if we have a certain idea of what we’re supposed to be, that maybe isn’t serving us, it might not be the best option. So we talked about what do you eat and what do you do that makes you feel good and we thought about it a little bit differently.”
Question:
What tips do you give your clients about what they should look out for and possibly avoid to help them get into shape?
Answer:
“Eating for comfort, and comfort food actually has a nervous system response that produces saliva flow allowing for more effective digestion. So comfort food does provide that relaxation for us, but if this is someone who is already overweight, and might have certain risk factors (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc.) then we need to evaluate their nutrition lifestyle, as a professional I need to see what is it in their social context that are encouraging them to eat this comfort food, so you might think of are they happy in all aspects of their life, or do they go out with their families for celebration because in many cultures food is celebration, so I need to evaluate how often their eating these foods, and how often they’re snacking.“
Question:
Have you ever worked with an individual who has had body alterations (breast implants, or other implants)? Do you notice anything different with them as opposed to your normal clients?
Answer:
“Yes…People who have had plastic surgery seem to have a more open appearance, they have better posture, not cross legs or cross arms, almost a proud posture, and because of that reason they have more self-confidence. With that self-confidence comes more willingness to do more to create change.“
Question:
Have you ever had a client who’s in great physical shape yet still feel uncomfortable with themselves?
Answer:
“Yes… I think that because we have this impossible expectation of what is ideal, like the airbrushed photos and hours of hair and make-up in the media that we see on a day-to-day basis, we always set the bar higher and higher, and even when you’ve achieved what you thought you wanted ‘it can get even more perfect.”
Being a practitioner of martial arts for over half of my life, I realized how important it is to keep in shape, especially in such a physically demanding sport/discipline. I started out teaching new students basic forms and techniques of Kempo, but after my ninth year as a practitioner, I took my martial arts expertise and made it into a career. Later in my career, I started to worry about my physical shape and appearance. I noticed that many of my students were not only participating in Martial Arts to learn how to defend themselves, but also to lose a weight and/or to get into shape. As time went on, I learned that there are many differences between men and women, in the sense of what their wants or needs. There was an array of desire to participate in Martial Arts that ranged from being in a friendly environment, to acquiring weight loss and improving flexibility. Many times, the weight loss and the friendly environment aspects of Martial Arts went hand-in-hand. In my experience, when a student felt uncomfortable with their body, it helped them to be in a friendly environment because they felt comfortable with the other students and the instructor (myself). This is something that I noticed a much more often than anything else while instructing. My students would agree that a comfortable surrounding helped push them to get into shape better than anything they’ve ever tried before, simply, because they do not feel insecure due to the fact that other students were going through the same thing.
