Their is no question with respect to homicide, neither should there be placed any emphasis in winning. When you practice Karate-do, what is most important is to be one with your opponent, move together and to progress together. It is not. It is a self defence art, but to attain benefits, the participant must be completely free of egoistic feelings. The Heart of Karate-do Karate as its practiced today is very different from how it was practiced 40 years ago, and the number of styles, is said to be close to 100.
Many schools send instructors abroad to propagate their respective techniques.
Even though it can be said that there exist certain groups in America and Europe that, with the object of comprehending the soul of Orient in mind, as a method to counteract the impasse that is the result of the materialistic civilization, put emphasis on the spiritual side of karate, the sad truth is that many styles only teach the art of combat and forget about the spiritual aspects. And the participants themselves who offer lip service to the spirit of the art, have as their real goals the winning of tournaments and competitions. At the present moment, most of the karate followers in foreign countries follow it for it's combat techniques and one has to admit that the tendency to fight is no less common among humans than in other animals. It is very doubtful that these participants have attained a complete understanding of Karate-do. Gichin Funakoshi advocated the spiritual aspects of Karate-do and placed much more emphasis in this than on the combat techniques.