Students training for Black Belt are required to write a paper about what their Karate training has meant to their life and what they hope to accomplish in the future.
When people ask me why I do karate, I say that karate has shaped me throughout my life in many ways. I have been through many days and years of karate and it has helped me a lot throughout my life.
For example, karate has taught me to be calm when I encounter difficult situations and not get angry when I mess up something. My senseis told me that if I mess up something that I can control, instead of getting mad, I should just change the mistake and make it right. However if the issue is something that I cannot control, I should just do it right the next time.
I have learned throughout the years that I should control my anger even when I am really mad at others. I have set many goals while I was in karate and all of these helped me not get overwhelmed by thinking about what my goals were rather than actually working on achieving my goal. I have learned that when I see something negative, I should always look for the positive side of it so I don’t get stressed out.
Over the years, as I respected more and more people in the dojo, I got more respect back and the number of friends I had at the dojo kept increasing.
I have learned to persevere and never to give up even when things are not going my way. The character videos that we watched taught me that if I wanted to be a black belt, I should never quit and persevere until I achieve my goal. The karate motto says that a black belt is a white belt that never quits and when I was younger I did not realize what this has meant. As I matured through the years of karate thought, I recognized what this actually meant and it told me to persevere until I reached my goal.
Over all of the years I am now able to do 100 jumping jacks, 50 sit-ups, 50 pushups, and 50 mountain climbers. I have learned the proper technique to do this such that I would not struggle. The hardest belt to get to was my purple belt. This was because I always failed my pushups. I worked with many instructors to work on my pushups and 2 months later I could do pushups and I never failed my purple stripe ever since because of my physical requirements.
As a black belt, I will continue to do karate and teach other kids as I feel good when I help others. This is why I will continue to do karate.
Written by Srikar Mallajosyula