I experienced many ups and downs during my training journey in martial arts. This is normal; everyone experiences periods of self-doubt and invents reasons not to train again.

The ‘I am not improving’ feeling is probably the most common. You may not feel like you’re making progress, but to your instructor, this is never apparent; no matter how bad you think you are, there is always an improvement. It must be realised that learning martial arts is a slow process. There are no shortcuts, and the fact is that you will only get better by practising, especially outside of the sessions, where you should be working on techniques you initially find difficult. The more you put in, the more you will get out – that is the biggest ‘secret’ of martial arts (and of life in general).

In the past, I experienced peaks when I was involved in training almost every day. This was achieved by using fitness facilities at my workplace (hanging bag and open floor) while I was working towards my 1st Dan (1987). Sadly, I no longer have those facilities, so I feel I’m now just in low gear. Another way to achieve peaks is to get involved in instruction—the requirement to get things right the first time also vastly improves your techniques.

Another factor that can cause troughs is safety. The amount of contact involved puts many people off—these days, the worst is a few bruises on the arms in partnered work or sparring.

On the other hand, it is pretty surprising when people do not realise that Karate involves making contact with other people – maybe they think it is just Kata and marching up and down the hall doing line techniques. Performing a throw or a ground hold requires a lot of contact, and this can cause discomfort to some people nowadays. I find now I switch off my ‘personal space alarm’ during this type of training, but unfortunately, I don’t always realise that the ‘opponent’ does the same.

I must admit I have experienced more troughs as an instructor because I am a little selfish. I prefer to ‘do’ Karate. I enjoy developing, researching, and exploring; unlike many other mainstream Karate instructors, I don’t want to repeat the same things I learnt in my first five years. I’d rather have 40 years of martial arts experience than 40 years of just repeating the first five years.