r/karate • u/Electronic-Brain8420 • 2d ago
I don’t know if I should quit karate.
I started karate last year as someone who was completely new to it with a younger who was purple belt. I was really excited at first and tried my best in everything, but then this new girl came along and after our grading, she was orange belt while I was yellow belt. I felt the sensei’s and higher belts treated her better than they did with others, like they saw “potential” in her and always helped her more. I felt invisible, i need help too. I felt they were much friendlier to her, and there was one particular black belt who was mean to me and im not sure what I even did. but yeah everyone is super nice to her and she’s literally a blue belt now while im just an orange belt. we had a tournament too, it was our first tournament ever. I did so horribly and won nothing, i was trembling when doing kata and just had zero confidence. i felt I was better at kumite but I lost terribly and I didn’t win anything and she won third place. I was so shaken up after the tournament and felt really bad. I felt like a loser.
I feel like im comparing myself to her too much but I actually can’t help it. and the unfair treatment makes it worse. i told my mum today that im not sure if I want to continue karate and that i didnt want to waste their money if i suddenly just didn’t wanna do it. my mum got angry and told me to just quit everything altogether because im a quitter in everything. She’s pissed at me right now:( I don’t know what to do and I feel emotionally numb doing karate and I don’t feel joy in doing karate anymore. I mean I did just start karate because of my mom and my sister being in it. I just feel like a loser in the dojo and that I suck.
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u/OkSalamander9110 2d ago
I don’t know if this will help reframe the situation for you but here’s something to consider:
One reason I love karate is not only because of the physical challenges my body encounters and gets stronger from but other opportunities it seems to present to test your strength mentally and your character. Your reactions to the things you mentioned are completely normal and human but don’t forget, we are in control of how we choose to respond to things and we can choose to rise above perceived adversities. We are all on an individual journey of growth and every one has their own unique challenges. Having a go, or doing things despite the fear (ie. tournaments etc) has rewards in itself.
Don’t worry about other people and their journey as it is just distracting you from your path to growth. Be mentally strong and in time you won’t need the validation of others. Don’t give up!
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u/CS_70 2d ago edited 2d ago
You are making things up on your head.
Belts are irrelevant. The other girl is irrelevant. The potential is irrelevant. The sensei is irrelevant.
Karate is a single person endeavor: you are attacked and you need your get out of the fight with your life intact. There’s no guarantee of success. Comparisons are pointless - the other guy is not going to stop. The situation is out of your control and you can only chose to fight or die.
So you chose to fight. As well or as poorly as you can. To get better, you train.
You grow at your own pace, basing on your heart and your brains, which is what you would need in battle.
What others do or do not matters nothing, unless they are physically attacking you.
If they aren’t , you’re happy with your condition of being alive and peaceful.
And you focus on preparing: training.
That is the essence of karate.
You are not a quitter. You are afraid of failure and look for reasons and excuses to distance yourself from the possibility of it. You are insecure and it’s much easier to quit then to look at the possibility of failure or not being very good yet. Instead of facing it and realizing it’s normal, you look for external causes to justify your current level.
But the key is not blaming others.
The key is more training.
In a fight, all you can do is try or die. Failure and not be up to the task is always an option, for you, the girl, the sensei and everybody.
The only thing you can control is how much and hard you train, to up your chances.
5
u/karate_kenken 2d ago
Your karate journey should be your own. Don’t compare yourself to someone else. This is of course easier said than done. But if you focus on your journey and not hers, you will find it much more enjoyable.
If you feel that there is a bit a favouritism in the dojo, I think that’s fairly normal. Every person has a favourite thing, song, food, etc… All bosses have favourite employees, teachers and have favourite students too. But if you’re letting that bother you, and affect you, that means your karate isn’t your own.
You won’t last long if the reasons you’re doing it are wrong. If you’re doing it for recognition and that’s not sustainable. Trust the process, learn from the failures, work on improving yourself, mentally, physically and emotionally.
Every karate-ka has always gone through ups and downs and hit many many many walls along the way. I’ve learned much more from my failures than my success. After years of training and teaching, I still love it. If you truly enjoy it cause you do, then keep doing it. But do it for the right reasons. Good luck.
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u/Tigereyesxx 2d ago
Karate is for the self, train internally concentrating on your own body and breathing correctly, correct your stances and put in 100% effort you will improve In leaps and bounds. If you train this way you will feel the benefit and not care about others. Competition is not Karate, this must not be given priority, train hard and you will succeed, Karate is for life, you will always be fit and in good shape, mentally it will become very rewarding also, just do not compare, but watch your seniors and emulate their way of moving and striking..
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u/SirDigbyChcknCsr 2d ago
Comparison is the thief of joy. You can’t control how dedicated, fit, flexible or talented the other karate ka are. You can control how much effort, spirit and dedication you put into your own karate and, as others have said, your past self is the only relevant comparison. Regarding favouritism in the dojo, there shouldn’t be any, but… imagine you teach a kata to two students - one is enthusiastic and the other seems like they’re just enduring the lesson. Who would you enjoy teaching the most?
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u/Ill_Advantage6095 2d ago
this is when the growth in karate starts but only if you don't stop... i'd wait one year and re-read the post and talk to some blackbelts to gain perspective, even online
keep going to tournaments, you are the one you're trying to beat (better than last tournament is the goal) and the other guys are just there to support that process
2
u/Odd-Engineering-7959 2d ago
You're still young, and the self-doubt and low self-esteem is quite common and natural. Don't let it be the reason to quit karate or anything in life. This is an important teachable moment and life lesson for you. As you grow older, you'll come to realise that life is harsh, and nobody's going to show up at every turn to molly-coddle you and give you participation trophies or reassuring pats on the back.
Stick with it, tell yourself that you can not only do well, that you will make the most of this opportunity you have been given to make yourself better, stronger, faster, one class and a day at a time.
2
u/karate_kenken 2d ago
Your karate journey should be your own. Don’t compare yourself to someone else. This is of course easier said than done. But if you focus on your journey and not hers, you will find it much more enjoyable.
If you feel that there is a bit a favouritism in the dojo, I think that’s fairly normal. Every person has a favourite thing, song, food, etc… All bosses have favourite employees, teachers and have favourite students too. But if you’re letting that bother you, and affect you, that means your karate isn’t your own.
You won’t last long if the reasons you’re doing it are wrong. If you’re doing it for recognition and that’s not sustainable. Trust the process, learn from the failures, work on improving yourself, mentally, physically and emotionally.
Every karate-ka has always gone through ups and downs and hit many many many walls along the way. I’ve learned much more from my failures than my success. After years of training and teaching, I still love it. If you truly enjoy it cause you do, then keep doing it. But do it for the right reasons. Good luck.
2
u/Spyder73 2d ago
I mean this in the nicest possible way - If all you are doing is going to class twice per week youre growth in karate is going to be slow unless you are naturally athletic.
How often do you train kata in your spare time? How often are you training your techniques at home on a punching bag? How often are you stretching so you can have higher kicks? How often are doing exercise to get in better physical condition?
If the honest answers to these questions are "not much", then im not sure why you expect to be excelling at something you are not putting much effort into.
1
u/embarrassingdyk 2d ago
Good point. My dojo class it to show my instructor progress from work at home and to learn new things to train at home with daily practice/workouts. Karate is like taking up an instrument, you can’t just practice in school
1
u/GroundbreakingHope57 2d ago
but then this new girl came along and after our grading, she was orange belt while I was yellow belt. I felt the sensei’s and higher belts treated her better than they did with others
Are you a dude by chance?
1
u/karainflex Shotokan 2d ago
In the end there is only one thing that counts: go to each class, train at home and concentrate on what's your next step. This automatically leads to progress.
Know that everyone's progress is individual. Some people graduate quicker, some graduate slower. But in the end you will graduate too.
I am currently reading a historic karate book and one of the paradigms of the historic karate master was: "if someone trains, train 10x as much". And it's somewhat common that many of them are described as underdogs who went all in in regards of training and came out as very skilled people.
Your instructors will notice the change. I have like 20 adults and 20 children to teach and I can't manage everyone in my mind. Sometimes I forget what a student's current state is. At least then I create an opportunity to check the state asap. If your instructors don't do that, ask what you should train next. You either get that important hint that immediately helps to progress or they notice they somewhat forgot about you and watch more carefully.
That self focus will help you to forget about her grading. If you have time to think about hers you certainly have time to train for yourself ;-) And you know what? Maybe you can ask her if she wants to train with you. It can lead to a wonderful friendship and suddenly you don't envy her but cheer for her. And she pulls you with you.
Regarding the tournament: obviously not everyone can win it. But this gives you the opportunity to analyze your training and your performance and work on it. I am preparing children right now for a tournament. Oh boy... many of them don't train for this event (or for gradings), they expect things to happen. If they even expect anything. I see their performance and think: point loss, point loss, point loss, can't even do the kata, insecure much, etc. I am drilling them like a madman because I want everyone of them to win. But I know only some of them will make it. Look at the so called normal distribution: a minor set of people over achieves (the person that is easily able to skip a belt), the same amount underachieves (someone who is a white belt for two years; you can see light burning but nobody is at home) and most are somewhere in the middle, plus minus. All I can do is showing them the way. And though I want the underachievers to progress so much, I just can't do it because I have 20 other people as well. And last time I told one of the good students to help someone who struggled because I can't tear myself up, he just watched and then went away. So I can't do that either.
Work on that mental strength. If your mom says you quit everything and you beat yourself up because others have success that you don't have then you have to work on your attitude. There is an exercise you can do: Think about why you have these feelings or this mindset. Usually we notice that these thoughts that hinder our progress come right out of the mouth or behavior of other people. Those thoughts are not our own. Write down at least 4 other people you know about who somehow manage to do it right. This shows you that these thoughts are not the absolute truth and that there are ways to be successful. Try to learn from those people. Remember how I wrote you might want to ask the girl if she wants to train together? Try that. Remember the long dead master from the book I mentioned and what he said? Try that. Find two more examples.
There are books about this too, titled like "mental strength", or something with success or thinking big or whatever. Some of them are 100 years old, still work and will always work. Read a couple of them. At some point their message repeats.
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u/No_Entertainment1931 Goju Yondan 1d ago
Hard work will outlast talent if you keep with something long enough.
There will always be someone smarter, stronger, more attractive than you and comparing yourself to others will always be disappointing. So, stop doing that and push yourself to do your best for yourself.
1
u/RedSunWuKong 1d ago
Comparison is the thief of joy (someone clever said that).
There’s lots of great comments here about being your own person. That’s all great advice.
The only thing I’ll add is you don’t need to be perfect, or even better than anyone else (like the other girl). Just try and be better than you were yesterday or last week.
Good luck, keep at it if you want to. Think about another club or another activity if you don’t.
1
u/Royal-Shock-352 1d ago edited 1d ago
Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that the training is supposed to be for your benefit. What you're describing is the opposite of the impact it's supposed to be having on you. If your experience is undermining your self-confidence, and making you feel inadequate, you should not feel obligated to continue; that is not a healthy mindset, and it will undermine the benefits you're supposed to be getting anyway.
I would suggest setting a short term goal along with a time limit. Decide whether or not you want to continue once you have met your goal or failed to meet your goal within the time you allotted yourself. That could just be your next belt test or getting ready for a tournament or whatever. And whenever you decide whether or not you're going to continue, you should establish the understanding that it is not going to be a permanent decision. If you've only just gotten started and you're a lower ranking belt, it isn't reasonable to expect you to commit to a plan that will take years to achieve. And if you decide you don't want to continue or you need a break, that doesn't have to be a lifelong decision either.
If you're feeling like the training is wasted on you because you're not as good as your peers, you don't have to worry about that. You should be there for yourself not for anyone else. But it sounds like that's getting to you anyway, so, keep in mind you can improve. You don't have to be an impressive orange belt to be a good black belt. Some start weak, some start strong, then more experience will usually even things out in the long run. Many of us who ended up teaching were far from impressive when we first started. The students who struggle less will often appreciate it less, and they might not stick with it and become elite. Those who struggle the most tend to appreciate what they gained more, and in the long run, they might go further because of it. I have heard some impressive teachers tell me the only reason they got better than the people they started with was because they stayed longer. I saw that play out with other students, and I went through that myself.
And another thing you don't see is the people who never even got started. There are people who never worked up the nerve just to walk through the doors for the first time. There are people you don't see there because they gave up. Just showing up puts you somewhere.
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u/sauertooth 1d ago
Everyone goes through these feelings at one point or another. You can push through it and come out the other side and look back at all the obstacles you have overcome.
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u/Sweet_runner 2d ago
Well I am a white belt and thinking of quitting too. I am very clumsy and my lack of coordination is making me lag behind. But before I decide to quit I will give it all outside classes and change class time to see if with another class I feel more love for it. I would advise you to do the same if you still love the sport. Training with her is becoming toxic and not doing any good.
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u/Sweet_runner 2d ago
And remember you are not a quitter because of what your mother said regardless if you quit or not. You are the one who decides all the rest is noise. Just make sure if you quit it is for not liking the sport and not because of a classmate or a sensei there lots of karate classes who would like to work with you
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u/Ambitious_Jicama4461 2d ago
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u/Livinginrome 1d ago
You have just started on your karate journey! I failed for my first grading (yellow), had white belt for 9 months. Lost all competitions the first 3 years. Later became national all style champion, 6th Dan, won lots of international championships. Karate is not a sprint.
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u/yashara 2d ago
You’re looking at it the wrong way. Most people compare themselves to others. What job does she have? What degree did she earn? What spouse does she have? What’s car, etc.
The only one you should ever compare yourself against and compete against is the you of yesterday. You should always try to be faster, better, richer, happier than the you of yesterday. That’s how winners are made, that’s how they think.