#mykaratediary

[mykaratediary]

SO TODAY I GRADED TO SHODAN HO BLACK BELT - MY DREAM HAS COME TRUE  ♡ 

The hardest mental and physical challenge I have ever faced, but I couldn’t be prouder  ♡ 

“a black belt is a white belt who never quit “ 

[mykaratediary]

My first tattoo - dedicated to karate, one of the most important things in my life😊 The story behind it is - the infinity symbol symbolises "forever" and the anchor to me shows strength and one of my favourite quotes starts with the line "I refuse to sink" - so I included karate on the infinity symbol because my love for karate will last forever and it was my anchor - it stopped me from sinking and kept me alive in my darkest moments through my battle with depression - I included the black belt as the base of the anchor because my dream is to achieve my black belt this year and whenever I feel like giving up, it will remind me that I haven't achieved my black belt yet so I must keep fighting💕

[mykaratediary]

How Karate Makes Me Feel

* an insight into how karate has helped me *

Karate makes me feel like I belong somewhere – all through secondary school and college I never felt good enough, but the moment I stepped foot in the dojo week in week out all of these feelings melted away because everyone in the dojo was treated as equals, whether you are a beginner or the highest grade in the class, everyone is treated with the same respect and everyone is friendly and helpful and willing to help you in any way they can to push you towards your goals, and I loved that. Karate restored my faith that people could be kind, seeing as the bullies at my school made me feel incredibly anxious about people and my first lesson of karate I remember being petrified of being surrounded by so many strangers thinking that I would be hit by hurtful comments but I wasn’t and since that first lesson – I’ve been so eager to train and I knew from a few weeks in that I had found an activity that I was going to love for a very, very long time. I remember when one girl found out I had started karate and she poked fun at me saying that I would never be good at it as I was probably the least sporty person in my year group – I hated sport haha! But, I used that girl’s comment to fuel me, to make sure that I become the best karate student that I can possibly be. So sometimes my karate training makes me feel frustrated – because if I have a not so good training session where I get flustered because I keep getting things wrong or my kata just doesn’t look very good then a lot of the time I let self-doubt creep in and I hear that girls comment repeatedly in my mind, but karate has showed me that 100% of the time it’s mentality over technique. If you have a negative mind frame you won’t reach your full potential, you’ll be trapped, surrounded by four sturdy brick walls, with no door – therefore nowhere to go, stuck in one place, but, if you believe in yourself and have faith in your ability and replace the negative thoughts with positive substitutes then you will notice a massive shift in how your training goes.

Karate makes me feel free – the moment I bow and enter and the dojo, all my worries, fears and anything else that limits me subside. For that hour of training – I am becoming a stronger version of myself. I am constantly identifying my weaknesses so that I can put my time and effort into improving them and as the quote goes “the best project you’ll ever work on is you.”

Thankfully karate taught me that it’s okay to take longer than someone else to reach my goal or my next grade, because this is my own personal journey – the only person I need to focus on is me - but it’s never okay to give up on myself. Through training in karate I am in a constant state of learning and the minute I give up or doubt myself I will just fall into a horrible trap of getting frustrated and anxious about having to pull myself out again but karate has been an anchor for me – it stopped me from sinking, no matter how much I wanted to let go thanks to my training in karate I realised I had to keep on pushing through the difficult times because “pain is weakness leaving the body” and my pain was mental/emotional pain so each moment I kept fighting, the stronger I became.

Karate also makes me feel confident in my own ability – it has become my way of life, by identifying weakness in my technique in my karate, and making steps to remove them, in real life I can identify weakness with my thinking so that I can become a strong, tough, positive person so that I can have the happy fulfilling life that I deserve. Thanks to karate, I am beginning to feel whole again, I felt so much like a broken jigsaw due to things that happened but through my karate training, it has helped me on my way to putting all the pieces back together – and has made me realise that I am strong enough to overcome anything that is thrown my way :-) 

[mykaratediary]

Finally reached 200 followers

thank-you so much everyone!

best wishes, alisha~

[mykaratediary]

I came home with 4 golds and 1 silver from my tournament today! Absolutely over the moon! 

Gold ( X 4 ) for individual kata and continuous sparring, team kata and team sparring

Silver (X 1) for the individual event in point sparring :)

[mykaratediary]

Tips Needed

Hello, I really need some tips on how to build up arm strength for making my strikes more powerful ect and also leg strength so that I can hold shikodachi in particular for much longer then I can at the minute, also for my tournament in 4 weeks time I am performing seiyunchin so shikodachi is crucial, help out a fellow martial artist here please?

[mykaratediary]

ごめんなさい

Just wanted to apologise for not being very active, I have been having a really bad time recently, but as karate is pulling me through and keeping me going, I will try and keep this blog as updated as possible for all you fellow karate-ka. Hope everyone’s training is going wonderfully☼ 

Alisha~

[mykaratediary]

3 YEAR KARATE ANNIVERSARY

It is now officially three years since I first started karate, I cannot imagine my life without it, starting karate was the best thing I ever did and now I am on our club’s course to become a sempai yay!!