What Karate Means To Me

What karate means to me has changed significantly over the past few years. When I started learning karate at nine years old, I was very young and I didn't quite understand what it was all about. Now, after practising karate for over three years, the meaning of karate has taken on a completely new meaning. Karate has had a huge impact on my life.

Before I started practising karate, I was curious about it and I watched the movie Karate Kid many times. This movie inspired me and this is why I wanted to start karate. I discussed it with my dad and so he started searching for a good karate school. After many nights, my dad came across a school that he liked. It was important to him that I do some form of Goju karate because that was what he did when he was young.

I remember my very first class was a Monday night at Westmeadows. I walked in with my dad and we obviously didn't know anyone. All we could see were the black belts warming up and doing their kata. I suddenly felt even more interested to want to learn karate and hoped that one day I would also be wearing a black belt. After several weeks, instead of just bringing me to karate, my dad decided to start doing karate with me. This meant a lot to me because we got to spend more time together doing something we really enjoyed.

When I first started, I found learning karate was a challenge, especially bunkai and kata. I struggled as a white belt but worked through it and my karate had got a lot better. As the years have gone by, I have found that with each new belt comes a new learning process. It seemed that with each new belt I had a better understanding of the karate system. Yellow belt was a pivotal point for me where I felt I had finally worked out my capabilities and how hard I could train.

As my karate advanced, things got a whole lot more complicated. I found I had to really listen to the things we were learning and this has also helped me with my schooling. Whenever my teacher speaks, I now am more focused, which helps a lot with my school work in general. Karate has helped me become more mature and have less of a monkey mind.

What I found, is that Goju Ryu karate helped me become fitter and more flexible than most other kids the same age as me. Before I started karate, I was a pretty chubby kid and I had a really unhealthy diet, eating food from fast food joints all the time. By doing karate, I learnt more about diet, which helped me become leaner, healthier and stronger. As I do a whole lot of other sports, karate has helped me hugely in each of them. I do long distance running and cross country, so karate has taught me how to breathe through these types of races so that I can last longer and go quicker. It has helped me throughout my footy career by teaching me how to hold my ground by locking up, using my height and body against other players bigger than me. Karate has helped me in tennis also by teaching me to use my hip movement to hit the ball a lot harder, faster and with accuracy.

In September of 2017, I was fortunate enough to go to Japan with my dad, Shihan and Sophie to practise karate with Sensei Tsubamoto and all the black belts in Japan. We trained twice, one time in a massive sports centre and the other time in Sensei Tsubamoto’s small Dojo on the outskirts of Tokyo. From this experience I learned many things about karate. I learnt about how hard they train and some of the Japanese culture and respect. It changed my view toward karate. I also learnt that there is a lot more to karate than just self-defence. This fascinated me and helped me to train harder and more focused on getting my brown belt.

This year I started high school so it has been a big year. I feel karate has helped me with staying centred and not getting upset if someone picked on me or if things got a bit heated during sports. Through karate I have learnt not to react but to use self-control and stop a fight rather than start one. I feel karate has helped me become more confident during situations like this.

Karate has had such a positive impact on my life. It's been a great learning experience for me. From when I started karate until now, I feel karate has made me what I am today. I look forward to going for my black belt, but I know I've still got heaps to learn and to experience so I’m looking forward to continuing my karate journey.

Jake Daglis began training at karatedo on 11th February 2016, at age 9 years. He was graded to Shodan on 5th October, 2019, at age 12 years.