A comment on one of my recent articles caught my attention. Comments often do – they tend to reveal more than the article itself.
This one read:
“**** self-defense. I teach people to fight.”
It made me pause.
Is he right?
After all, we are practicing a combat art – not playing a game.
Much of what is presented as modern karate should not be labeled as self-defense.
Because it was never designed to be.
And when that kind of training is presented as “self-defense”, it can mislead people into believing they can protect themselves cleanly, efficiently, and without consequence. That’s a dangerous illusion.
For any martial art to function as self-defense, training must include a level of realism. Without that, it breeds something else entirely: complacency, overconfidence, and misjudgment.
We often say that fighting is the last resort – that martial arts is, in essence, the art of not fighting. It’s a paradox, but an important one.
Because the moment you place “fighting” as the primary objective, you’ve already misunderstood the purpose.
And yet, this instructor openly states that fighting comes first.
A street fight and a sparring match have very little in common. There are no rules, no referee, no guarantee of a fair exchange. Everyone should know this by now.
You don’t know what the other person is capable of. You don’t know if they’re armed. You don’t know if violence is something they live with daily.
Now consider this:
You engage. You win. You leave the other person seriously injured.
What happens next?
Investigation. Questions. Liability.
And one detail will stand out above the rest: you are the trained martial artist.
Self-defense is not about proving you can fight. It’s about doing what is necessary to get home safely.
Sometimes that involves action. But more often, it involves avoidance.
Karate doesn’t fail people – unclear goals do.
If your goal is to “win fights”, you may find one. If your goal is to stay safe, your decisions look very different.
To me, choosing to fight first is something else entirely.
It’s not self-defense – it’s agreement. A consensual exchange of violence.
And that has consequences far beyond the moment itself.
So no – I don’t teach people to fight.
I teach them to recognize when fighting is unavoidable… and more importantly, when it isn’t.
Swallow your pride. Leave. Practice that.
Because that is far harder than throwing a punch.