No question that the martial arts has taken a turn towards practicality and with more emphasis on the "body" rather than mind and spirit. I'm curious though, as to why people really stay with their dojo for many years whereas my friend will be lucky to retain "high performance street fighters" for more than a few weeks.
Yes, we all started because bullies kicked sand in our faces as we were growing up, but as mature adults, how many people continue to study exclusively for the self protection promises? Someone posted an interesting letter on another board which asks the question in another way. Obviously the masters on Okinawa and China thought about this topic as well. If you get a chance, fill out the survey and let us know why you started and why you continue to practice the martial arts.
In general however I can say that by the late 19th century social and economic changes in Okinawan and Japanese society made engaging in village style pugilistic contests increasingly less respectable (although the practise itself continued well into the 1930s in various guises - and probably still occurs today in an underground fashion - no evidence for this other than human nature) and many people were seeking to transform Karate, like boxing, into a means of developing physical (and hopefully military) prowess and nationalistic fervour. In doing so, they were considerably influenced by Western ideas along the same lines. Hence the contents of the aforementioned letter.
Earlier quotations separate the arts e.g.
'No matter how skilled you are at martial arts and calligraphy, you should be a good man of humble character.' (15th century)
IOW the danger of doing martial arts well was that of pride and spiritual transformation was not automatic nor guaranteed.
In teaching young men to duel with their fists, Okinawans recognised as much as any other peoples, that in so doing they might produce a few troublemakers and bullies. Sensibly, they filtered out young men who they thought unsuitable for such training and also hammered home the importance of good manners and of being sporting (i.e. not striking to lethally damaging points) although their 'rules' were undoubtedly less refined than ours. Amateur boxing coaches do exactly the same in their clubs. Even baseball coaches do it. And in any sport losing your temper brings the coaches' wrath down on you.
There is nothing special about Karate and nothing that makes it stand out from the crowd of other competitive human activities except perhaps the sheer pretentiousness of some of its practitioners. Even middle aged middle class female Tai Chi players aren't that snooty.
Richard
The good still really still shine through the bad however 
...and I didn't like that one bit , and there was an inate part of me that ......really didn't like that 
, and so I always fought back..and I looked for an easy way to solve this problem and it came along in various guises called " Martial Arts" and at first I practised them with wholly that in mind..to defend myself......but I soon realised that the " masters" who taught me hadn't experienced what I had experienced..they had never fought as I had, and so I taught myself 
Did you continue your training with those "masters" 
.......yet then again there are styles that I am useless at but were the instructor can easily beat me...such as kicking arts.
