These are 4 pillars needed for success in karate:

Attendance – This one is obvious. How is one supposed to learn if they are not there when the lesson is being taught? It’s difficult, that’s for sure!

• Regular attendance is key to making sure the curriculum is understood as well as practiced.  However, regular attendance is also important for character development. There will be times in a student’s karate career where they will not feel like going to class (for whatever reason). No matter how keen a student may be, inevitably there will be times when the student will be busy, tired, or even burnt out. Attendance during these times pushes the student to do something that makes them uncomfortable, and so helps them to grow. Not many people like to do homework, yet they do it anyway to ensure they learn the lesson being taught. The same could be said for professional athletes who have to wake up at 5:00am to go for a training session. It’s not easy, and most likely the athletes would rather be sleeping in, but it is this never give up attitude that breeds success and produces champions of life.

Practice – The old saying ‘Practice makes perfect’ holds true in the world of karate.

• To learn a new skill, or correct a technique, it is said that the desired action is to be repeated 1000 times to develop the muscle memory needed to repeat the action without conscious thought. Anyone, regardless of natural ability or not, has the potential to succeed in karate. Those who are willing to put in the time, will reap the rewards of their hard work.

Goal Setting – Set a vision in your mind, and then make that vision a reality.

• Goal setting is an important part of achieving a desired result, and it can also help to motivate and bring out the best in students. The key is for goals to be realistic, attainable, and specific to the individual. In karate, there are generally 4 types of students: students who do karate for fun, students who do karate to learn the art, students who want to earn a black belt, and those who wish to pursue competition. Whatever the reason, it is important for students to identify why they are training. This will help the students to become self-motivated and work to achieve the results they are looking for.

Commitment/Discipline – How bad to you want to succeed, and how much are you willing to sacrifice?

• If it was easy to become a real black belt, everyone would have one! This is not referring to the type of black belt one earns after casually attending classes for six months, but instead a true black belt that actually means something. If 100 people were to start karate today, only 5 would make it to black belt. Where some see this statistic they are overwhelmed/intimidated, others see this is a challenge. Those who are willing to persevere, push themselves, and never give up will indeed one day become a black belt. The simple secret about black belts is that “a black belt is just a white belt that never gave up”. There will be times when training is challenging, or techniques difficult to master, but students must push themselves to their maximum to work through these trials. This type of training develops a strong character and strong mind.