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.”