By Adrian, 04 Dec 2016.
For my internship I’ve been asked to prepare a display regarding the history of martial arts in Mississauga. This is good for me because I’ve been involved in martial arts for over a decade. I don’t regret any of the time I spent in karate because of the amazing amount of things it has taught me and through my work I want to introduce others to these lessons as well.
Despite the popular stereotype that karate is just a sport in which you learn how to fight. It is so much more than that, it is also a lifestyle. One of the first things that you are taught in karate is the fact that you don’t use all of those highly impressive skills that you learn unless you’re in a situation where you’re going to be in a fight no matter what you try to get out of it. Hence, here is one of the most important aspects of karate, self-control.
Another important part of karate is its physicality; I won’t sugar coat it sometimes it gets so hard that you want to quit (luckily, or unluckily for some, they also teach us the importance of not giving you and seeing things through to the very end). This allows you to stay in shape and grow stronger because it pushes you to your limits. Besides that it teaches you never to get too complacent in class because believe me it takes less than five minutes to become exhausted, especially with some of the exercises. If you don’t believe me try doing continuous rounds of burpees (jump up, get down and do a push up, do a sit up, transition into a push up position, do the push up and use the momentum to get up and jump upwards, then repeat). If done right and quickly you won’t even need two minutes.
Finally, (I bet you were waiting for me to mention this) karate taught me self-defence and no it is not nearly as flashy as they show you on tv and in the movies. Believe me a fight can often end after one punch to the right area. With this knowledge of what or fighting abilities can do we were taught to control them and how to use them defensively. It would be a nightmare to imagine what would happen if some of these techniques were used offensively. However, most of our practice was routed in several fundamental rules which only increased its effectiveness: it was simple (less chance more mistakes especially if stressed), we practiced them constantly and under different situations.
Karate has taught me many more interesting and useful things as well, but if I wanted to write all of them down I’d need a book and not a blog. I’m happy with my internship position because it allows me to rediscover why I like karate so much and inform others about its benefits.