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I have spent the last six months adjusting to being a black belt. I have learned some interesting things and one that stuck out, just recently, is the lack of ego.

Too much ego, not enough brain….

When I was coming up through the ranks, I was very concerned about what others thought about my Karate. When training in the dojo, I was always looking for approval from my Sensei’s, my examiners, other students and everyone who watched me. When I would spar, I would always use my best techniques against anyone that I was sparring with just to show that I had skills or at least the skills that I thought I had. Instead of working on the techniques that I needed to improve on, I would always us the same attacks. I never wanted to use techniques that I knew I wasn’t very good at because my ego didn’t want anyone to see me get scored upon. I am sure it isn’t very impressive watching a first Kyu brown belt score a point on a sixth Kyu or seventh kyu in the dojo and I am also sure that it didn’t do much to help my fellow students that I was sparring with at the time.

Another thing that I realized is, I would make more mistakes trying to impress everyone. If I was doing kata, I was so concerned about being super strong and fast as the higher ranked belts, I would punch with my chest instead of my hips or loose my balance when doing my techniques. I wanted everyone to say “wow, he is so strong” instead of just doing good form an letting my power come out naturally. I would do my kata so fast, just to keep up with the higher belts, and make mistakes on at least half of the techniques. My focus also suffered because I was watching and comparing myself to the other students instead of just doing my kata and focusing on the imaginary opponents like I should have been doing.

Put the ego in the trunk and move forward….

It took six years and a black belt around my waist for me to realize that I don’t have to impress my Sensei’s, my examiners, fellow Karate students or anyone else. Because the stress of testing for Shodan is behind me, I can do Karate for me now. I don’t have to impress anyone but myself. I can work on techniques that I never used to work on because I don’t have to test to prove myself to others. My sparring is so much more relaxed, my kata is slower but much more precise and the movements are complete because I can now do Karate that my body will allow me to do instead of trying to do it how I thought everyone else expected me to do it. I am not saying that I have stopped trying to improve, it’s the total opposite, I am training harder than ever before to improve but with a relaxed mind that doesn’t have to prove my abilities to anyone.

One important thing that my Sensei (Sensei Cieplik) told me, that I didn’t really understand until recently is that it takes 30 years to learn Karate. The 30 years consists of 10 years learning to relax, 10 years to adapt your body to the movements and 10 years to move naturally. Now, I still have at least four more years to learn to totally relax but it seems that part of relaxing for me is to take my ego out of my training.

Many people often talk about the black belt being the beginning of a Karate students training and after the last six months, I have been learning or at least understanding things that I have been trying to learn and understand for six years.

I will admit, my ego does try to poke it’s ugly head up every once in a while but I can usually put it away before it takes over now. Note to self, “do not punch the really thick, breakable plastic board to show off ever again.”

Has anyone else had a similar experience where you noticed your ego doesn’t show up as much after you became a black belt? If so, leave a comment, I would like to hear about it.

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