The karate practiced today is quite different from that of forty years ago, and the number of styles now is said to total nearly one hundred.
Many schools send instructors abroad to propagate their respective techniques.
While it can be aid that there are certain groups in the United States and Europe that, with the objective of understanding the soul of the Orient as a means of counteracting the impasse arising from materialistic civilization, place emphasis on the spiritual side of karate, the sad truth is that many styles teach only the fighting art and neglect the spiritual aspects. And the practitioners themselves, who offer lip service to the spirit of the art, have as their real objective the winning of matches. They speak of fostering an indomitable spirit, which in itself is praiseworthy, but we have to think of the results if this spirit is improperly used. As in the case of a hoodlum or madman wielding a knife, gun or other weapon against innocent people, the results could only be disastrous. The present situation, then, is that the majority of followers of karate in overseas countries pursue karate for its fighting techniques, and it must be admitted that the proclivity to engage in combat is no less common in humans than in other animals.