Editor:
For months I looked forward to the opening of The Karate Kid starring Jayden Smith and Jackie Chan, but after seeing the movie, I left the theatre full of disappointment and frustration.
It is not often that I feel compelled to write something that does not get handed in and marked by the teacher, but as a student of karate, I felt disappointed and frustrated in the message of this popular movie. You see, in karate we are never taught to fight for respect. Also, I was very frustrated to think that so many people may identify me with a sport that glorified the brutal violence displayed in the tournament scenes.
The more I train in karate, the more I hate any form of violence that is caused to show that you are better than somebody else or by anger. Self-control and respecting others are key principles of karate. If we neglect either of them, then a fight is nothing but violent behaviour.
The tournament portrayed in the movie was essentially a cockfight using children. The techniques and attitude that the kids showed was not even close to karate. If the producers of the movie were attempting to deal a striking blow of their own to the martial arts community, they succeeded by suggesting that such violence could actually happen in a junior tournament.
Karate tournaments are about good, clean techniques with precise control, timing, and distance. Strikes that could seriously hurt a real attacker are executed but retracted a split second before impact. Even at the highest level of junior karate competition, there is a respectful friendly bond between competitors that is hard to explain. Perhaps it comes from a common understanding of all the effort it took to get to where we are, and even after many years of hard training we are still just beginners. There is no anger or uncontrolled behaviour between us, only pats on the back, words of encouragement and correction.
In over six years of karate and over 20 tournaments, I have never seen any karate competitor purposely hurt another and I have never been seriously hurt while training or in competition.
It is my hope that parents and children do not associate what they see in The Karate Kid movie with the real art of karate. Karate is a wonderful art that teaches discipline, self control and respect for others. Karate is not all about competition, violence and being better than everyone else.
Zachary Charlton, 12,
Rosedale