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

The questionnaire consisted of a 28-item adapted version of the PMQ (Gill et al., 1983) with additional demographic questions relating to grade, club location, primary martial art practices, gender, age, height, weight, experience, length of club membership, hours of training per week and number of males and females in the club all of which have been suggested as important factors in participation in sport. Also included were 8 questions that investigated the perceived importance of a number of factors previously identified as aspects of martial arts and physical activity participation such as tradition, progression through grades, learning self defence skills, technical ability of instructors, cost of participating, development of confidence, underpinning philosophy and instructional style.

Three hundred questionnaires were sent by post to 30 martial arts clubs in the West Midlands region of England. Club members were asked to complete the questionnaires and return them in the pre-paid envelope provided. The PMQ and perceived importance statements were structured in a 5-point Likert scale using the common prefixes of 'I participate because I …' and 'how important are the following to you…' respectively. Responses were identified as 'very important', 'important', 'somewhat important', 'unimportant' and 'not at all important'.

Due to the variable factor structure of the PMQ identified in previous research, principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to identify the factors evident in this sample. Items and factors were selected by the criteria of factor loadings above 0.40 and eigenvalues above 1.0 according to Ntoumanis, 2001.

Seventy-five questionnaires were returned (return rate of 25%) from a total of 11 clubs from across the West Midlands representing practitioners in Tai Chi, Karate, Kung fu, Aikido, Jeet Kune Do, British Free Fighting, Taekwon-Do and Jujitsu. Respondent demographic data are presented in Table 1.

Mean scores in order from most important to least important for the 7 factors identified can be seen in Table 2.

The belt grades of the respondents were varied ranging from white belt to 6^th dan black belt. Only 29 of the respondents, however, entered their current belt grade status and therefore meaningful investigation of belt grade differences was inappropriate with the small numbers in each category. Whilst acknowledging the impact of the small sample size on the appropriateness of the use of the PCA procedure, seven factors were identified (explaining 68% of the variance) as 1- Affiliation; 2-Friendship; 3-Fitness; 4-Reward/status; 5-Competition; 6-Situational and 7-Skill development and their associated Eigenvalues, variance and Cronbach's alpha (α) can be seen in Table 3.

Gender, experience in martial arts (quartiles) and weekly training hours (quartiles) differences in the seven named factors were investigated using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The results (Table 4) identified no significant main effects or interaction effects.

Item means for the eight individual questions investigating the perceived importance of tradition, progression through grades, learning self defence skills, technical ability of instructors, cost of participating, development of confidence, underpinning philosophy and instructional style were calculated (Table 5).

Gender, experience in martial arts (quartiles) and weekly training hours (quartiles) differences in the eight individual questions were then investigated using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The results (Table 6) identified a significant main effect for weekly training hours with subsequent post hoc Bonferroni tests identifying significantly greater importance placed on the underpinning philosophy of the martial art (Wilks' Lambda=.29, F (24, 105) = 2.32, Partial Eta² = 0.34, p < 0.05).

Martial artists training for more that 8 hours per week (quartile 4; mean 1.56 ± 0.86) or between 4 to 7.9 hours per week (quartile 3; mean 1.22 ± 0.42) identified the underpinning philosophy as significantly more important to them than both those who trained in up to 2.5 hours per week (quartile 1; 2.38 ± 0.96; p < 0.05 and p < 0.01 respectively) and those who trained for between 2.5 and 3.9 hours per week (quartile 2; 3.10 ± 1.20; p < 0.01 for both).

This study offers findings of participation motivation for martial arts in a broad range of martial arts including Tai Chi, Karate (variants), Kung fu, Aikido, Jeet Kune Do, British Free Fighting, Taekwon-Do and Jujitsu and as such represents a unique study sample from a region that has been identified as experiencing the lowest participation rate in all sport in England (Sport England, 2002). The sample in the present study was similar to those found in previously published research in many respects, however, as it included both gender, novice through to very experienced practitioners and a broad age range (Ebbek et al., 1995; Stefanek, 2004; Twemlow et al., 1996; Zaggelidis et al., 2004).

The fact that 76% of the respondents were male is congruent with the greater participation rate in martial arts for males evident in the Sport England survey (Sport England, 2002). Males, compared to females, were also found to have been involved with martial arts for a longer period of time and had belonged to their club longer (Table 1), again suggesting predominantly male participation in the martial arts. There was no significant gender difference found in the mean number of hours trained per week, however, indicating that once involved, females were equally committed to training on a weekly basis. These findings would appear to support the trend apparent for physical activities that identified that despite the lower participation rates in females, the mean number of sessions of physical activity undertaken per week were similar (3.6 for females and 3.2 for males) (Australian Sports Commission, 2005).

Whilst considered a strength of the current study, the diversity of the primary martial arts practiced and their sub-variations and indeed the range of belts held, resulted in low participant numbers in many of the style and belt categories. As such the investigation of differences in participation motivation between the styles and individual belt categories was deemed inappropriate thus not permitting direct comparison to the 'belt group' findings of Breese, 1998 and Stefanek, 2004. Instead of belt held, therefore, length of involvement with the martial arts was used to reflect level of achievement within the martial art practised in subsequent analyses as has been done in previous publications (Breese, 1998).

Whilst the sample size reduced the suitability of the data from the 28-item PMQ for PCA, it was deemed necessary to use this method to identify the motivating factors in this sample as the PMQ has demonstrated variable factor structure in previous work (Gill et al., 1983; Koivula, 1999). The factors identified, however, all displayed acceptable reliability statistics and thus were appropriate for further investigation in this sample. The four most important emergent factors in descending order were 'Affiliation', 'Fitness', 'Skill Development' and 'Friendship' (Table 2). As such the findings of this study support the contention that broad participant motives for martial arts engagement are similar to those evident for other sports, these being fun, physical exercise, skill development and friendship (Stefanek, 2004). Affiliation to the sport would appear to be congruent with 'interest in the sport' identified by Zaggelidis et al., 2004 as the main motivation. 'Fitness' in this study, which encompassed items relating to health, also reflects the 'health benefits' motivation identified as second most important by Zaggelidis et al., 2004 and 'physical health' identified as a key motive by Stefanek, 2004.

The three least important motives from the current study: 'Rewards/status; 'Situational' and 'Competition' would also appear to reflect previous survey data and research that has identified low rates of competitive engagement (Sport England, 2002) and little emphasis placed on extrinsic rewards or status (Twemlow et al., 1996). This finding would also appear to be supported from the individual item question (Table 5) that rated progression through grades as relatively unimportant.

When investigating individual items from the 'Affiliation' factor and the most highly rated individual questions (Tables 2 and 5) it would appear that the 'style' of the instructor (encompassing teaching/communication style and technical ability) is of paramount importance for practitioners. In conjunction with the conclusion of Breese, 1998, these findings stress the significance of both the student perception of the instructor's abilities and the association between student participation motives and the instructional training regimes used, on continued engagement.

The mind-body-spirit and philosophy underpinning the martial art participation motivations suggested by several previous authors (Iedwab and Standefer, 2000; Lu, 2003; Stefanek, 2004) was not evident from the PCA of the 28-item questionnaire, due possibly to the absence of items specifically relating to this concept. It was also not identified as the single item most important for participation in the additional eight questions (Table 5). From the single item question, however, the importance of philosophy of the martial art, was found to be significantly greater in those who participated in training for more than four hours per week compared to those who participated in less than four hours of training per week (Table 6). This may indicate that comprehension of the philosophy of the martial art practiced may be a key factor for current commitment to high levels of weekly training participation. Not only are these high volume practitioners participating for affiliation, fitness and skill development motives, they would appear to be fully immersed in the holistic appreciation of the martial art and its underpinning philosophy.

The four most important participation motivations evident were 'Affiliation', 'Fitness', 'Skill Development' and 'Friendship' supporting the contention that broad participant motives for martial arts engagement are similar to those evident for other sports. The three least influential motives, indicating their limited importance as motivations for participation in the martial arts, were 'Rewards/status; 'Situational' and 'Competition'. There were no significant gender or experience differences for any of these emergent motivational factors.

The current findings, from a range of martial arts, would suggest that whilst there is a gender discrepancy in participation level, once engaged, females were equally committed to weekly training. 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.

The many martial arts practiced can be categorised in many ways, based on their "source systems", on philosophy, on syllabus etc. At closer inspection, they can loosely be described as external/internal, hard/soft, traditional/modern martial arts. The small sample size utilised by this research does allow consideration of some of these differences with respect to the martial artists analysed although it would certainly not be possible to extrapolate these findings to all martial arts.

It would appear that the 'style' of the instructor (encompassing teaching/communication style and technical ability) is of paramount importance for enhancing student motivation to participate. The importance of the instructors' teaching/communication style implies that even for the same style of martial art, practitioner responses will alter dependant on the attributes of the instructor. The instructor has inherent personality traits and behaviours and will make choices whether to adhere to a formal/traditional training regime (if in place) or has flexibility in the methods utilised to train his/her students.

Ancient martial art practice followed a master-disciple model. Modern practice often requires an instructor to interact with many students, all of which have different motivations for practice. One dilemma for the continuation of traditional martial arts is the need to follow ancient etiquette, which reflected a much less complex set of participation and motivation rationale. These issues reinforce that the "instructorship" is perhaps more important than the art being practiced; indeed the art is best defined by the nature of the instructor, and so the art will change with time, whether by intention or not. Future research could usefully consider the martial art instructor, in terms of the formal process (to become an instructor) from various perspectives, and motivational issues.

• Whilst there is a gender discrepancy in participation level, once engaged, females were equally committed to weekly training.
• The four most important participation motivations evident were 'Affiliation', 'Fitness', 'Skill Development' and 'Friendship'.
• The three least influential motives were 'Rewards/status; 'Situational' and 'Competition'.
  " There were no significant gender or experience differences for any of the emergent motivational factors.
• Instructor 'style' is of paramount importance for enhancing student motivation to participate.