It is often said in life that it is the journey that matters and not the end result. We learn more from being on the journey than we do when we actually complete it. In martial arts training, it is also the journey that matters the most, not the rewards (the belts, trophies, certificates etc.) along the way. We obviously need the rewards because we have to have something to aim for, something to keep us moving along the path, things to help us continue on the journey and cultivate a warrior spirit.
Along this journey we will inevitably come across many obstacles that are put there to seemingly block our progress, pitfalls and hurdles with big stop signs in front of them that seem to signal the end of things. In reality of course, these barriers to progress are not there to grind us to a halt, but to test us, to test our mettle to see if we are indeed worthy of continuing along the path we have chosen to travel on.
Many people, when they come across such obstacles, try to overcome them in a half-hearted manner, prodding the barrier a few times with a stick before deciding that they either don’t have the inclination to attempt to find a way forward (and therefore use it as an excuse to quit the journey) or they simply feel they aren’t strong enough to overcome the seemingly difficult or impossible odds.
This quitter mentality stems mainly from a lack of understanding as to the nature of the “journey” itself. The journey was never meant to be easy. It was never meant to be something a person could sail through unhindered. If it was we would all be on it and there would be no problems. However, there also wouldn’t be any growth.
Personal growth and inner strength comes from confronting these obstacles and doing whatever it takes to overcome them. There will certainly be a lot of discomfort in your attempts to overcome them (the bigger the obstacle the greater the discomfort) but when you successfully do so, when you break down the wall in front of you to open up a whole new vista ahead, you gain a sense of enlightenment and personal growth. The bigger the obstacle you happen to overcome, the more personal growth and enlightenment you will gain. Just understanding this fact alone can help greatly when it comes to breaking down those barriers. All it takes is persistence and a willingness to endure a certain level of discomfort and you will get there.
So given that, let’s now take a look at some of the common obstacles and barriers to progress that we often come across as martial artists and see what the best way is to tackle them.
1. Injury. Martial artists, pursuing as they do a very physical pastime, often incur injuries of one kind or another. Most of these injuries are often not that serious, but despite this, they are sometimes enough to put people off from training any further. It is not usually the injury in itself that stops people from training, but the excuse syndrome that comes with it. “My knee is sore; I think I’ll take a break from training for a while.” Or “My ligaments are playing up, I need to rest.” These are normally excuses to back out just as the going gets tough.
The fact is, most injuries can be trained around. You hurt your hand, you use the other one. If your back is sore, don’t do anything to aggravate it, do something else instead. Nine times out of ten, there will always be some kind of training that you can still do. I have a sore back most of the time, but it doesn’t stop me from training. I know other people with crumbling knees and loose ligaments that still manage to train.
Obviously, if the injury is a serious one then it would be foolish to keep training if you are only going to make it worse. In that case, you should rest up. Even then though, you should still visit the dojo often and stay in contact with your fellow martial artists in order to maintain your interest and enthusiasm. Read; watch training videos, practice visualisation. Just don’t cut yourself off from training altogether because you won’t want to go back when you do finally heal.
Training through injury is a character building process and is excellent for developing a strong will and discipline to keep going through adversity (the warrior spirit), which is why you shouldn’t make too big a deal of it when it happens. Just pick yourself up and carry on. For more advice on this read my article, How to get Over Injury Misery.
2. Boredom. This is one excuse that really annoys me when I hear it, mainly because it comes from a place of ignorance and a lack of understanding as to the nature of learning a skill. When someone says, “I’m bored with the training,” it means they haven’t grasped the fact that in order to become anywhere near proficient in the martial arts you have to repeat the same techniques over and over again until they become second nature. That’s how you get
If you look at any world class athlete, no matter what they do, be it shot putters, tennis players, swimmers, 
whatever, they are all good because they practice for several hours a day, doing the same movements over and over and over again until they have them as near perfect as they can get them. This is what martial artist’s have to do as well; they have to drill the same techniques over and over in order to master them. It’s like the old adage says, to master any technique you must perform it at least 10,000 times. It doesn’t matter what you’re after- speed, power, strength, agility- you have to keep working at it. Yes, it’s going to get boring, but that’s the way it is. Once again, working through the boredom is character building and growth stimulating.
3. Lack of Enjoyment. Similar to boredom in that people react to it in the same sort of way (i.e. they begin to question their commitment), a lack of enjoyment in training does not signal the end of the journey by any means. You can’t expect to do something like martial arts and enjoy it all the time. At some point, usually during a gruelling and painful training session your inner opponent will suddenly perk up and ask, “Wait a minute, I thought this was supposed to be fun, I thought we should be enjoying this. This isn’t enjoyable it’s painful.” At which point you will say to yourself, “Maybe it’s time I tried something else a bit more enjoyable…This isn’t fun anymore.”
Martial arts’ training is a serious and at times gruelling pursuit, both physically and mentally, but that’s the point. It’s supposed to take you to your limits, to the point were you almost feel like quitting. However, the real enjoyment comes from seeing how much you have progressed after doing all those hard sessions, it comes from realising how much further on in your journey you have come. It is unrealistic to expect to get enjoyment from it all the time. Many times in my training career I have lost that sense of enjoyment but I carried on regardless, pushing through the pain, so to speak. Lack of enjoyment is just another barrier to break down so we can become more enlightened. Stick with it and the enjoyment will return.
4. Lack of Progress. Every other week I bemoan my own perceived lack of progress. I say perceived because usually I am progressing and I just can’t see it, though it often feels like I’m tracking through thick jungle, struggling in vain to find a way out and being convinced there is none- basically getting nowhere fast.
This happens to lots of people when they are training. They train diligently for weeks and months at a time thinking that they are getting nowhere when in fact they are progressing far more than they think. The reason you think you’re not progressing is because you are checking yourself constantly and when you do that you get blinded to your own progress. If someone actually watched you for one session and then checked back a couple of months later they would see a real improvement in you, simply because they haven’t seen you for a while. It’s possible to get too close to yourself, too caught up in yourself, to the point were you become blind to your own situation.
The fact of the matter is that with every session you do improve. How could you not? If you’re not convinced then ask someone, ask your instructor and no doubt they will tell you the same thing. You just have to trust in the process, that’s all. Stick with it and you will eventually get to were you want to be.
See these karate gifts for the holidays.
You should also understand that we improve the fastest as beginners. It’s like bodybuilding- you make the most noticeable gains in the first few months. After that, although you still make gains, you make them over longer periods of time so they aren’t as noticeable in the immediate sense. Martial arts’ training is exactly same. The longer you train the less noticeable your improvement becomes. Just remember though that although your improvement isn’t as noticeable, it is still there nonetheless.
5. Responsibilities. The higher up the ranks you go the more responsibilities you tend to pick up along the way. As you get better you will be expected to teach other students, perhaps run classes and feel the pressure of having to maintain a high standard of technique in order to set a good example to those below you. More than once I have resisted these responsibilities, resenting them for eating into my training time to the point were I was teaching 
more than training. The black belt around my waist felt more like an albatross around my neck at times and like the Ancient Mariner, I thought about throwing myself into the sea more than once, so to speak. I considered quitting in otherwards, convinced my journey had come to an end without realising that I was just taking a new path to the same place.
I let my own selfish needs blind me to the fact that accepting and handling more responsibility is just another test along the way, yet another character building exercise and opportunity for further personal growth. Once I faced up the challenge of actually teaching and looking after other people besides myself I was able to enjoy the sessions more because they were now a chance to grow and understand the techniques better (teaching is the best way to learn) rather than the dead-end I first saw them as being. I also realised that if I wanted to maintain my own standards of technique then I would have to find other times to train, times when I could concentrate solely on my own advancement. I now do extra sessions when I can and train at home when I get a chance, just to stay on top of my own training.
Whenever you receive responsibility you shouldn’t run away from it but instead see it as the opportunity for growth and experience that it is. Walking away from training altogether because things get a little bit more complicated is foolish and short-sighted. You owe it to your club and yourself to stick with the process and continue to grow and advance along the journey.
Change Your Perceptions
As I see it, those are the main barriers to progress that circumstance and our own perceptions of things often throw up to try and halt our progress. The key to working past these issues is to change your perceptions of them. Look at the bigger picture and see these tests for what they are- opportunities for growth and a chance to further develop that indomitable warrior spirit.
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Further Resources
Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
The Warrior Within : The Philosophies of Bruce Lee
The Code of the Warrior: Daidoji Yuzan
Barefoot Doctor’s Guide to the Tao: A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior
The Warrior Athlete: Body, Mind & Spirit
Geoff Thompson’s Masterclass DVDs
