Frustrated with karate

[ShotokanKid]

Haven't posted on KF in a while.

I'm in high school, and I do Shotokan Karate. I love doing karate, but I'm getting a little bit frustrated right now. I would like your advice on how to handle this.

We have a tournament coming up that my dojo is hosting. In preparation for that, I have a lot I need to work on in kumite. I work out with the adults class (which is 13 and up). I regularly spar with people much bigger than me. Tonight, we had a combined class with children and adults. I was training with someone who I tested for shodan with. My sensei (who is a great instructor and a wonderful person, by the way) had me come down and work out with a boy who is probably 9 or 10. He's very good for his age and size, but he does not challenge me.

I can't improve if I'm not being challenged.

My instructor sometimes has me come down and work out with the "juniors." They do not really try to score on me, and they don't take it seriously enough. I want someone to challenge me so I can get better.

I am around the same size as about 15% of the adults and I can score on a lot of them, and sometimes on my fellow blackbelts.

Not only does breaking the "juniors" apart from the "ladies" apart from "everyone else" not help me, but it doesn't do much for the juniors or the ladies. How often is a child molester going to be another junior, or a rapist going to be another lady?

I want a good way to talk to my instructor about this.

Another thing I want to talk to my instructor about is something else that happened tonight.

I was about to spar with a junior and we bowed to each other (like we've been taught to do) and then we began to spar. My instructor told me not to "mess around with him like that." I don't know what he thought was going on, but I would like to find out.

Thanks for reading through this, please give me some advice on how to talk to my sensei.

Thanks again.

Edited March 13, 2006 by ShotokanKid

[ki master]

You need too talk to your sensai straight on. If he is a truly good person he wouldnt mind talking to you about anything.

[ShotokanKid]

So do you think I should just tell him what I told you guys?

[Brian]

I think you should tell him exactly what you told us.

-owari-

[b3n]

Agreed.

[jaymac]

Always be as honest with your instructor about yourself and your training so that you will not become frustrated in your training, because trust me it is easy to become frustrated and it is up to you to remotivate yourself and find solutions to your problems. It sounds to me that you really enjoy martial arts. Good luck and keep us posted on what happened.

[isshinryu5toforever]

If you find it difficult for people to challenge you challenge yourself. If you can score on people using your normal style of fighting, use a different one. Say, ok against this person I will only use my hands. Or against this person I will try to use technique combinations exactly as they are found in kata. That will force you to look for specific situations in which to attack/counter/defend. Sometimes as we get more experienced we become frustrated with the "lack" of progress we make. One must overcome this by challenging themselves within the exercises they are doing. Instructors have black belts work with juniors for a reason. After a while, Karate is not solely about your personal journey, but about helping others with theirs as well. And who knows, someretimes a junior surprises you and teaches you something that you never would have learned had you worked with only black belts. There's a method to the way things work.

[powerof0ne]

My sensei did the same thing to me when I was a teen in Shito Ryu, he took it a step further and was too impatient to teach the kid's class so had me teach all of them when I was supposed to be training for Jr. Olympics.

Like someone else pointed out you should try to work on techniques that you're not good at in sparring. This is what sparring is really about, working on techniques/strategies...not focusing on "winning". In competition you try to win but in sparring, this isn't really the point.

If this bugs you a lot talk to your sensei but I know how some sensei can be and this might backfire(unfortunately). Some sensei expect blind obedience from their kohai. The important lesson I myself learned from this is to never be this way with any of my kohai.

I wish you luck in how you go about solving your problem and if you keep feeling that you're not be challenged perhaps it's time for you to move on to another martial art?

[Killer Miller]

It sounds to me like he is using you as a great and rare example for the juniors. That should be an honor to you. You can learn as much yourself teaching/aiding juniors as you are teaching them as well. I don't think I would take it in an insulting manner.

Saying all that, there should also be a fine balance in your training as well. Time with the juniors to provide the juniors a challange for them, and time with the seniors as well to challange you. The juniors have a right to be challanged just as much as you have the right to be challanged by your seniors.

I don't know the full story here, but if your Sensei is as great as you say, there should be no problem at all talking to your Sensei about this. I would bet that he is not even aware of your feelings on this subject and would be willing to make a comprimise on your concern.

Out of curiosity, and since you train in S/C, do you mind saying who your Sensei is? I'm just curious if I know him. If I know him, I could probably tell you what's on his mind.

- Killer -

[Menjo]

Exellent advice above that I would agree with.

I had a personal experiance similar to this once, maybe it can give some insight...

Like yourself, at one point in my training I was constantly being told to "spar" with younger members and the members who just dont try. After a month I was really ticked, eventually I realised my sensei knew what he was making me do.

I also realised that he was teaching me to learn quite a few things that one would learn with sparring these people. The next week, he put me in free sparing with all the black belts and I just used some basic knowledged that I gained from patience, that I was never even threatned by them in the least.

I know your experiance must be alot different, however I thought sharing this could put a spin on some people's thinking.