Spay and Neuter and the Martial Arts

I've been spending a lot of time thinking out and planning the strategy for spay/neuter programs through community building. Taking a break from it for a while, I was reading a few websites within the karate communities I follow.

Boy, talk about schisms -- karate groups are as bad as churches, rescue groups, or just about anyone else. And yet there's so much in common between all the groups, or at least so it would appear on the surface. After all, in the situation I'm thinking about, all the groups practice the same style of karate. It would seem that there's an immediate focal point to support a continuing community.

But is there, really? What is it about karate (and church administrative structures, for that matter) that lends itself to schism and infighting? Or is there really a functional community just characterized by infighting?

At least part of the problem lies in attempting to impose a foreign culture in the guise of learning an art. Many elements of martial arts that are traditional in their native lands simply don't survive the trip across the ocean. That's especially true, as Michael Massey points out in his work, when traditional martial arts are filtered through an American military mindset.

In the next few weeks, I'll be coming up with a checklist/flow chart for identifying some of these problems.