Soft Skills from Hard Hits
After over ten years, I’ve learned many hard skills from Shotokan Karate; I’ve learned to punch, kick, grapple, and even to bite another man’s ears off (only in self-defense of course).
But, I got the chance to talk to some friends from Penn State Engineering Ambassadors last year about a few of the soft skills that karate has taught me. I’ll share three of them with you today.
Self Control
Have you ever participated in a sport? What was it? Maybe track and field, cross country, or soccer in high school? Or maybe you Quidditch or swim synchronously in college.
Whatever the sport is, I am sure at one point, during practice, or competition that you can tell me that you gave it your all, that you gave it one-hundred and ten percent.
Well, what if I told you that, depending on how you look at it, I’ve never given 110%, not even 100% in karate?
If every time I threw a punch at my sparring partner, I accelerated my fist to reach maximum force, I’d have a lot of sparring partners with broken noses, ribs, or sternums, and a really really angry sensei.
Self control in martial arts is a round-house kick to the face, but not through the face. Self control is a choke hold until you get that oh-so-satisfying tap-out, but you never hear the sound of a neck crack.
At the same time though, I need to know, that if someone were to attack me, in a dark alley, and I needed to defend myself, I would be able to head smash with my elbow or knee.
So, self control isn’t keeping yourself from doing something. Self control is knowing when it is the right time to do something and only executing at that exact moment. Much like this cute guy:
Confidence
In all the time that I’ve trained in martial arts, I’ve noticed the biggest difference between a good fighter and a bad fighter is confidence.
A bad fighter will step up to the fighting line, lean backward, retract their arms, and look down at the ground; A good fighter, by contrast, steps up proudly, stands upright with their weight centered and arms out, ready to take the first jab.
Unfortunately, many people mistake confidence for cockiness or being conceited.
Being cocky is walking into a room and thinking you are better than everyone else. Confidence is not cockiness. How can I walk onto the sparring mat and know that I am better than my opponent? I can’t. I can only know that I am capable, capable of what I trained for and that I can handle myself. Inside or outside a dojo, I am confident.
Karate taught me that confidence is to believe in my ability, to not doubt myself when times get rough. I know how hard I worked and I can accomplish what I want to accomplish, no matter what obstacle or opponent I face. Confidence is about me, and what I can do, and not about anyone or anything else in the room.
I have fought men half a foot taller than me and twice my weight and I have fought children in elementary school. I fight them all the same: with confidence.
So I challenge you, the next time you have an interview or exam, hardship or sparring match — be confident. Like this boy, believe you can handle it:
Perseverance
One of the first things that I was taught in karate, and one of the first things I teach anyone else about karate is how to fall.
If you’re curious to learn how to fall it’s a bit like this:
Think about that for a second: how to fall. Not how to stop oneself from falling, but how to do it with grace and not get hurt. Karate taught me that I will fall and that there is nothing I can do to change that.
In life, I believe the same is true. We need to learn how to fall, how to fail and to do it gracefully. We need to learn from our falls and our failures rather than break from them. Sometimes in life, we keep falling again and again and can’t seem to get up no matter how hard.
So I’d like to quote everyone’s favorite martial artist and guy-unfortunately-not-related-to-me, Jackie Chan:
“Life will knock us down, but we can choose whether or not to stand back up.”
We can fail over and over again, but that does not make us failures. What sets us apart from true failures is our ability to keep trying despite how many times we get knocked down.
Karate has taught me that tenacity is the hard work I do after all the hard work that I just did. Over and over again. I never stop.
Perseverance is literally always choosing to stand back up.
I think the teachings of martial arts are many, and definitely beyond only the hard skills. Everyone should learn a little bit of martial arts, even if it’s just to have self-control, be confident, and to always stand back up.
About my love of the sport
I was “forced” into a dojo when I was in third grade by my mom because she thought I needed some exercise. I stayed in Tae Kwon Do for about a year. After our family moved and I left the YWCA, I thought I would never have to throw a punch or kick again. yay!
Then, I stepped in to Grandmaster James T. Martin’s dojo. I will never forget when I met him.
Mr. Martin was in his late 60s when I first met him. He had been practicing martial arts for more than 40 years and looked like the toughest old man in all the world.
Mr. Martin had fought in a war, served as a firefighter and a constable, and had literally accumulated hundreds of trophies from being named the best fighter in every-single-division he had ever fought in.
But, what made me look up to my sensei, was not his past; it was that he showed up rain, sleet, snow, or otherwise to his dojo every single day, all seven of them, just to teach me how to fight. If I didn’t show up, he called my house. If I didn’t answer, he called my mom at work. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t just me, he treated every single one of his students this way. He was a real life Mr. Miyagi.
Mr. Martin never expected us to do anything that he couldn’t do himself. He had won all the titles, the glory, and all the fame. He wasn’t training me for him, he trained me for me. If he wanted me to do a spinning side thrust kick six feet into the air it’s because he had done it at least one time in his own life.
He always said “discipline is doing what you need to do, doing it the right way, and doing it that way all the time.” His charisma and attitude about martial arts and life challenged my every way of thinking and compelled me to be a better student, a better fighter, and a better person.
He passed away in 2013. I will always remember his teachings. He taught me self-control, confidence, perseverance, and discipline. He is my hero. I never earned my black belt, I am one belt away. I hope that he can promote me when I meet him again.
