Who else feels this way?

[hawkfish]

You are probably right. I try to feel confident in my techniques, but it seems like I get myself down on it at times.

I thought I was reading something I wrote myself when I read what you typed above.

I get discouraged at times and start to think that I am getting worse instead of better but then, out of nowhere, something just goes the right way. It can be a concept that I finally understand or a move that I finally do perfect.

I have found, after training for a little over two years myself, I need to break things down in to smaller pieces. When I first started training, there were so many new things that I was learning, I could do nothing but improve all the time but now that I am not learning as many new things, I need to break down my improvements. Just as an example, when I do my kata, I would always turn on the ball of my foot but in order to do it the right way, I need to turn on my heal. I spent a lot of time working on turning on my heal and finally, just recently, it has become second nature. Even though it is a tiny improvement, it is still an improvement and keeps me motivated.

With all the time you have in now, it might be helpful for you to look at things on the micro level and maybe you will find out that not only are you improving, you are moving closer to perfection.