Me, well .. I'm a karate geek!

Now I know a lot of people have different views on young people getting black belts. Some people may think its wrong because they have no concept of what truly being a black belt means, and some may think that its ok as long as their technique is good.

I personally believe that age plays no part in wether you are ready for your 1st dan or not. I think it matters on your state of mind. Because I’ve seen adults that shouldn’t have a black belt, because they are cocky, arrogant and think they are the next Funakoshi. A black belt has to have confidence in their ability, but not be arrogant. Also as a black belt you have to have a certain amount of humility. That is how you improve, you recognise what your weaknesses are and you train to get rid of them. You also have to remember what Funakoshi himself said that “Karate strives internally to improve the character of its participants”, so don’t just take on the physical aspects of karate you have to remember that you are developing yourself as a person as well. Now If i as a 15 year old teenage boy can grasp this as a simple concept of being a black belt, then not all young black belts are bad. I don’t claim to know everything, not at all! Im just probing a point that you can be young and have a black belt round your hips :) 

Arigato gozaimasu. 

Recently I’ve seen A FEW people posting about the reasons parents put their kids into karate, saying that they want their kids to be more disciplined, faster and stronger. I don’t think i could disagree with that more to be honest. I don’t particularly get on well with the “over confident” type of people in karate (not many people do). It’s good to have confidence in your own ability in karate, but don’t be cocky about it. With the whole “I WILL be the best” or “I’m gonna be the next bruce lee” those sort of comments are stupid. And if parents put their kids into karate with the headset of them wanting to be better, faster and stronger than any other kid in existence then we’re just gonna get a wave of arrogant and cocky karatekas. 

My sole belief has always been you only put your child into karate IF they want to do it. NOT because you want them out of the house for a couple of hours or you want to have a child that can beat up every other child.  

The more successful young karatekas I have seen wanted to start karate from a young age or karate runs in their family. Rant over.