Martial arts: probably not the first thing you think of when you think fitness. But martial arts doesn’t just offer physical benefits, there are also mental ones. Some forms of martial arts provide more physical training than others, but all martial arts offer some form of mental fitness.

Kevin Levesque is a teacher at Discovery Institute of Martial Arts in Easton, Maine. Kevin is a third degree black belt (three belts above black belt). He’s been studying Ninjutsu for almost 20 years, and he’s been teaching for about 15 years.

There’s been research on the benefits of martial arts. The United States Military Academy has a literature review of “The Effect of Martial Arts Training, Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Self Efficacy.” In the review it states, “Since the nature of martial arts is to deal with stressful situations, the practice of martial arts will increase the coping skills necessary to handle the amount of stress the person encounters.”

Andy LeBlanc has been teaching karate and jujitsu at LeBlanc’s school of martial arts for 27 years. When asked what rank he has, he was modest in answering, “Irrelevant. It’s just a piece of cloth.” LeBlanc thinks there are definitely physical and mental benefits to martial arts. Physical benefits such as, the physical conditioning aspect, flexibility, and general lifelong benefits. Mentally, it provides benefits such as, self confidence increases over time, people come out of their shell. Martial arts builds respect, character, and integrity. Over time a practitioner becomes a better person. LeBlanc thinks martial arts is a great life skill. The longer you’re involved the more benefits there are. “Anybody can do martial arts.” It’s important to set goals and to achieve them.

Levesque also believes that there is a major mental benefit to martial arts. “As people get higher in rank, and have been exposed to different experiences, it’s always like reinventing yourself or your approach to things. The longer you’re at it comes a maturity. Emotion, mental maturity”.