If you’ve trained karate with any sensei worth their salt, you’ve probably had countless little adjustments made to your techniques; widen your stance, lift your arm, rotate your wrist, and so on. The other day, our Sensei asked us the following question: How can studying fighting helpful contribute to creating a more peaceful world? There are a bazillion possible ways to answer that question, but the first one that came to mind to me was that it’s in the little adjustments.

Hear me out.

Sometimes your Sensei makes adjustments to your technique in order to make its application stronger. If your kicking technique isn’t on point, after all, how are you going to deliver that devastating side kick?

Sometimes, though, the adjustments are less about the application and more about refinement – less of the martial, and more of the art side of things, you could say. For those adjustments, there’s no real fighting value. You’re not gonna take someone down harder because your kaki uke flows more smoothly. So what’s the point? Is it just about looking cooler?

Sure, you could stop there… but it feels like a missed opportunity to me. What if you took the principle of those little refinements, and you applied it to your life? What if, every day, you focused on one thing, made one little adjustment, to try and be a better version of yourself?

What if, the next time some guy cuts you off on the road, instead of flipping him off, you just breathe deeply? Hell, even swear out loud in your car, that’s still better than flipping him off. Then maybe you breathe deeply as a future adjustment. You know, work up to it 🙂

The point is that those little adjustments – working on being a better version of you – can help make the world a more peaceful place. It just makes it way less intimidating if you think about it on a scale of one person: you, the one person you have complete control over.

Wrapping it Up

I couldn’t answer Sensei’s question, initially, because I kept trying to see things at a macro level – in other words, how can martial arts as a whole, make the world as a whole more peaceful?

I don’t friggin know!

But I do know that by making myself more peaceful, taking the spirit behind those little adjustments and expanding it outside fighting, I can choose that path in situations that could have otherwise turned sour. It might not lead to world peace, but it’s a little adjustment in the right direction.

Would you agree? How would you answer my Sensei’s question? Share your thoughts in the comments section!