The objectives were to identify the participation motivations and the perceived importance of certain participation factors in martial artists in the West Midlands, England, UK.

The objectives were to identify the participation motivations and the perceived importance of certain participation factors in martial artists in the West Midlands, England, UK. A 28-item adapted version of the Participation Motivation Questionnaire with additional demographic questions was distributed to 30 martial arts clubs in the West Midlands region. Eight questions that assessed the perceived importance for participation of progression through grades, learning self defence skills, technical ability of instructors, cost of participating, development of confidence, underpinning philosophy and instructional style were included. Seventy-five questionnaires were returned from a total of 11 clubs from across representing practitioners in Tai Chi, Karate, Kung fu, Aikido, Jeet Kune Do, British Free Fighting, Taekwon-Do and Jujitsu. Results indicated that the rank order in terms of participation motives was: 1-Affiliation; 2-Friendship; 3-Fitness; 4-Reward/status; 5-Competition; 6-Situational and 7-Skill development. Participants who trained for more than 4 hours per week placed greater importance on the underpinning philosophy of the martial art. Findings suggest that whilst there is a gender discrepancy in participation level, once engaged, females were equally committed to weekly training. The 'style' of the instructor is of paramount importance for enhancing student motivation to participate. High volume practitioners would appear to be fully immersed in the holistic appreciation of the martial art through increased value placed on its underpinning philosophy.

INTRODUCTION

The data from the Sport England, 2002 survey of 'Participation in Sport in England' (Sport England, 2002) highlight interesting trends in martial arts participation in England. From the 17,463 respondents, 2.1% indicated that they had taken part in martial arts (including self defence) in the previous 12 months and on average had participated 6 times in four weeks prior to the date of data collection. Gender differences in participation were apparent with 2.5% of the male and 1.7% of the female respondents actively involved in the previous 12 months with participation rates decreasing with age group including rates of 6.8% of 16-19 year olds, 3.9% of 25-29 year olds and 0.6% of 60-69 year olds (Sport England, 2002).

The lowest participation rate in all sport in the previous 4 weeks prior to data collection was in the West Midlands (54%). Location of participation identified that 2.1% took part at an indoor facility with 2.4% practicing their martial art at home, 56.2% reported attending some form of club with 17.5% indicating a health/fitness setting, 4.5% at a social club and 18.7% at a sports club. Of those who took part in the martial arts, 9.8% had taken part competitively in the previous 12 months and 81. 3% reported receiving tuition. Respondents who reported that they would like to take up a sport or recreational activity that they were not currently engaged identified martial arts in the top ten preferred activities (Sport England, 2002).

Much of the previous sports psychology work regarding participant motivation has been undertaken using variations of the original 30-item Participation Motivation Questionnaire (PMQ) (Gill et al., 1983). Whilst the PMQ has been adapted and used in many sport and exercise (Trembath et al., 2002), physical activity (Kolt et al., 2004) and school physical education settings (Zahariadis and Biddle, 2000), the number of factors and indeed the component items identified through factor analysis have varied dependent upon the sample under investigation (Gill et al., 1983; Koivula, 1999). As such, whilst a basic 6 to 8 factor structure has been found, any use of the questionnaire requires identification of these factors and subsequent scale reliability support before the factors can be deemed as appropriate in the sample involved. The use of principal components analysis to identify such factors and the use of an orthogonal rotation is the most commonly reported method in social sciences for these purposes (Fabrigar et al., 1999).

Previous martial arts participation motivation research has focussed primarily on specific martial arts (Zaggelidis et al., 2004), in specific population groups (Stefanek, 2004) or has been undertaken outside the UK (Twemlow et al., 1996). Research using a modified 28-item PMQ in Judo and karate practitioners revealed no significant differences between the two sports and genders as regards to the main motives encountered for entering the sports in the sample of 113 mixed ability males and females. The three most highly ranked motives identified were interest in the sport, health benefits and character cultivation (Zaggelidis et al., 2004). Twemlow et al., 1996 investigated motives using a 13-item questionnaire in 170 male and female attendees aged 5-63, at a martial arts school in the USA. Whilst self defence and physical fitness motives were deemed to be the most important individual item motivations, the authors suggest that students could be identified by the three following 'perceived needs': 'physical and recreational'; 'intellectual and emotional', and 'integrated self-transcendent' needs. The reliability of responses to the questionnaire from a sample containing such young children, however, should be questioned based upon their reading ability and their understanding of the nature of the questions. Unfortunately, the data analysis in both studies relied entirely upon ranking of individual item scores and did not seek to explore any common underlying factors through the use of factor analysis. The existence of any more broadly identifiable motives for participation was not investigated therefore and as such, the conclusions based on the identified 'motives' from either individual items or visual inspection of rank orders is less enlightening.

Motives for participation in 250 male and female collegiate Taekwondo participants of varying belt ranks were found to be similar to those motives found in traditional sports, including motivations such as fun, physical exercise, skill development, and friendship (Stefanek, 2004). Additional motives amongst the top ten identified were integrating and improving both mental and physical health, increasing perseverance, and reducing stress with further martial art specific factors including the philosophy of the martial arts, suggesting that a mind-body-spirit approach is important to participants. This motive has been highlighted as a key aspect of martial arts participation on several occasions (Iedwab and Standefer, 2000; Lu, 2003). No differences in motivation for participation were found between genders, supporting previous findings (Ebbek et al., 1995; Zaggelidis et al., 2004), or belt rank groups, which is in contrast to the findings of Breese, 1998. In his investigation of 72 Taekwon-Do participants in New Zealand, Breese, 1998 also identified that motivation for participation was different dependent upon overall time involved in the martial art with those involved for greater than 4 years identifying personal power and control as their primary motivation whilst those involved for less than 2 years identified fitness as their main motivation. Breese, 1998 concluded that instructors should be aware of these differential motivations and customise their training regimes accordingly.

With the apparent national trends and the paucity of previous research in the areas as its rationale, the aim of this preliminary study was to identify participation motivations and perceived importance of selected participation factors for a variety of martial arts from a regional cohort of practitioners in England.

Keywords : Aspirations, self-defence, physical fitness, recreation, martial arts.

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