Life changes and Identity

I've accepted Christ since I stopped writing this blog. I've had three children. I've changed careers. There has been a lot that has changed. 

I realize now that karate was an idol. Karate isn't bad or good on its own, but it was definitely filling a space in my life that it was never meant to fill. Tools should not fill spaces in your life. You need them or you don't and they fulfill a job, and that is about it. Karate is just a tool, but for me and for many other people it was about an identity. I was a karateka, or really a karate person. It described who I was. I know people spend their life practicing karate, and they fill their lives with all things karate and sometimes they build beautiful dojo and have stories about how karate changed their life, but it is just movement. Movement created to hurt people. One could probably find the same type of meditative qualities practicing calligraphy, or just jogging. One would not need to devote themselves to the practice of karate. These are all side things.

Karate will also not make you a better husband, a better father, a better friend or a better person. It will not even build your body. The people that I had admired in the karate world dedicated their entire life to karate. They trained relentlessly in pursuit of something. I don't even know what that something is. Perfection? What is this exactly? As we age this perfection can only wane and stop. We breakdown. We might even sacrifice being a better husband, father or friend in pursuit of being a more perfect karate practitioner. 

I know that my identity was wrapped up in being able to fight and protect myself. I thought it was cool and I built a persona in my head of what I wanted to be like, and this was detached from reality. I do have skills, and they have helped me in very slim situations, but I'm not sure anything would be different if I hadn't had these skills. They don't help me live, and they don't help me lead my family. They are subordinate and superlative. 

I guess I will end by saying that karate should not be your identity. It is not an identity. It is fleeting at best. It should have its place. A very small place, and the rest of your time should be spent living.

Practical Application

 I think it has been literal years since I posted anything on this blog, and I really am continually surprised that anyone even still reads this blog. I get a little less than 100 views on this blog every month. I'm not even sure what happened to the karate blogs that I used to read regularly. I haven't even tried to read them, but I'm sure the state of karate is virtually unchanged. People like belts, they like clubs and they like hearing that their karate is deadly. It might be. It depends on how you practice it. 

I recently spent about five years working at a very hard inner city middle school. I'm not sure how many fights I broke up, but I know that it was probably over thirty. It was infested with gangs, and had many problems. I finally decided to leave teaching there because I no longer got an adrenaline dump when I broke up a fight. This is a bad thing. You aren't supposed to get in that many physical altercations if you are a language arts teacher. Police officer maybe, but teacher no. I can say that my soft karate skills served me well, and I still practice occasionally, but I don't devote my life to it like I used to. In the end, it seemed kind of worthless, like a waste of time. It was a puzzle for years, but now that I figured it out, it seems pointless. 

I still wish I could help other people practice, and hopefully practice intelligently. Hard training has only broken my body, and I am only 39 years old at this writing, but my body hurts when it is cold. 

Please train smart people.