Faith Restored...Or Not!!

[sensei8]

As life has this nasty habit of getting in ones way on a personal basis, life also, being not a respecter of persons, gets in the way on a MA basis, as well.

What, if anything, has ever restored your faith in anything MA related??

[ShoriKid]

From a long time ago. Kata, demonstration of applications. Middle/upper Kyu ranking I was burning out on kata and didn't see the point in them. I was working a lot of hands on drills with a friend and fellow martial artist and getting stronger and faster. Kata seemed like a place holder that you did just to pass tests.

We had a night with several upper level students and the instructor is like, "Okay guys, time to work on some things past the basics." A throw from a turn in kata. And all of the sudden kata did stuff and were for something other than promotions.

[Spartacus Maximus]

Losing faith in someone or something usually implies giving up in one way or another. Considering martial arts, it seems that those who have lost faith are the ones who quit because they no longer believe it has any worth. Or perhaps because they didn’t find what they were looking for (yet), and gave up trying.

Those who continue over years inevitably have certain periods where they question the purpose of point of training and even start to doubt some or all of what they know, practise or have been taught. This is not really a bad thing, because it is an important first step towards greater and deeper understanding of whatever one has chosen to train.

It could be called losing faith, but personal experience doesn’t agree. It is very hard to lose faith in something if one continues to seek it always and in everything. Starting training over again from the very beginning with a different method allowed me to understand how little I knew and how much I had missed.

[bushido_man96]

From a long time ago. Kata, demonstration of applications. Middle/upper Kyu ranking I was burning out on kata and didn't see the point in them. I was working a lot of hands on drills with a friend and fellow martial artist and getting stronger and faster. Kata seemed like a place holder that you did just to pass tests.

This, this, this. I have toiled with this for so long.

To answer Bob's question, its the will to keep working through things, to persevere. Those bumps in the road pop up a lot. But its still a road, so keep travelling it!

[Lupin1]

Honestly, the few times I've had to use my karate and found out I actually sorta knew what I was doing. When you're learning it, it's easy to feel like you're just going through the motions and it wouldn't be effective in real life. But the few times I had to use my karate I made it work and surprised myself.

[MatsuShinshii]

Kata and the study of Kata. A life long pursuit of understanding.

I can't think of anything that could restore faith more than when you actually start to understand the applications and start to grasp the founders original intent.

[Spartacus Maximus]

There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of finally making a connection with practise and application. Finally understanding the how and the why after a long time wondering, questioning and doubting. It is, without any exaggeration, the martial art equivalent of discovering and deciphering an old book only few have ever read. This is only possible if one never stops asking questions and trying to answer them.

[Shizentai]

I think there have been many faith-restoring moments in karate for me over the years, but none more so than when I realized how important stability is to a person's well-being.

I was 19 when Katrina slammed the gulf coast, taking everything in my life at the time along with it. Growing up in a gulf-coast city, this was not my first hurricane experience. Evacuations were like snow days to us as a kids, so I didn't expect anything more than a few days off from class. It probably wasn't until the third night I spent in that truck stop that I realized I was homeless. I didn't want to keep watching the TV. I wanted to do something, but everywhere I was being told to "just sit tight." For lack of another idea I started doing kata.

The more kata I did, the more I realized that no matter what I lose in life, no one can take my karate away from me. You can take away everything else, but so long as I am alive, so is my karate.

[JR 137]

I don’t know if I’ve ever really lost faith in the MA. I’ve loved every second of it, even the ridiculously frustrating days where my hands move so slow that I get hit 5 times before completing a single punch or my feet feel nailed to the ground, or I butcher every kata and other standardized technique that night.

What reconfirms my faith is, or better yet my love for, the MA is when I’m not able to get to the dojo as often as I want to (more accurately need to). There’s weeks when I can’t go due to work and/or family commitments. When I can’t go routinely, I get moody and agitated far easier. It’s my biggest stress relief. When I’m at the dojo, the outside world ceases to exist for that hour and a half or so.

As a husband, father, son, brother, uncle, and an employee, I feel like there’s no time left for me. Getting pulled in all there different directions is a challenge. The only thing that keeps me from getting pulled too far is karate. Twice a week, I’m doing exactly what I want to do. And it’s for me. It’s genuinely the only thing I purely do for myself. My wife used to give me an attitude about it every now and then when it wasn’t convenient for her. Once she truly saw the effect being away from it has on me, she’s never complained since.

It kind of borders on the line of addiction. So long as I don’t become Todd and leave my family behind to follow Master Ken, it’s a good addiction. So long as I know when it’s genuinely appropriate to miss class, it’s a good addiction.

Being away from it confirms my faith.

[sensei8]

I've lost faith, not in the MA, but in those who have been representatives of the MA. It's the dojo pageantry lead by those representatives!! All I want to do is learn the MA and teach the MA. They can have all of that dojo pageantry all they want because to me, the MA can do without the pageantry; the sooner the better.

Imho!!