Karate and self-discipline
Once again, post-karate-class this previous Monday I see something, and the mouth runneth over...I’ve added a few thoughts since the original composition.
Dear <instructor>,
Some of your comments made to other students struck a chord with me this evening; something that's been simmering below the surface for me for some time.
You were discussing with one particular student that excuses don't work, and that if you can't do <whatever very basic thing> by the time you’re an advanced student (say at my level—more than 5 years of serious study) you ought to be spending day and night working on it...
And then I think of the advertisements for karate schools (here is a sample) advertising that they’ll help increase your self-confidence and **DISCIPLINE**
and I think:
“Karate training doesn't create discipline, it selects for it. Only those who are disciplined enough to keep it up will succeed further.”
(This idea is touched upon somewhat in Rob Redmond's great site 24 Fighting Chickens, but he doesn’t take this particular thesis very far there.)
Then I think:
“Heck, that doesn't apply just to karate, but to EVERYTHING.
So why does karate have this ‘glaze’ to it that makes people
think it inspires discipline? Is it the rigorous, on-line
training? Well, you get the same thing in a rigorous team
sport (football, basketball).”
Maybe it has something to do with karate classes’ (and martial arts classes' in general: I say “karate” here just for short) not having formal “cuts”—all comers are served. (Something for which I am grateful, as I probably would not have made any initial cut some years ago.) So if you can hold out long enough through the workouts...you just proved you have some discipline.
(As an aside: Karate also selects for a certain amount of aggressiveness as well. It doesn't really temper that at all, but, hopefully, makes one more sober about its effects.)
I think we've all seen a lack of discipline in all of us; the problem is not everyone can be nudged on to overcome it. (Some of us students have thicker skulls/are harder of hearing than others.)
Of course, you can hang on for years and years and stop progressing, which could mean that either you just aren’t getting better, or aren’t going to get any better, or you have stopped practicing (your discipline has failed you).
I don’t have a solid answer here, only some vague notions about it. What makes karate somehow appear to promote discipline?