The Hardest Lesson in Karate: Unlearning What We Thought We Already Knew.

 

Posted by ADAM CARTER on NOV 14, 2025

The Hardest Lesson in Karate: Unlearning What We Thought We Already Knew.

(Approx 2 minute 35 second read)

‘Fighting’. If you think about it, it’s not difficult, is it? Most of us had scraps as kids, play fights with parents, siblings, or mates down the park. We all had a fight now and then.

Then we joined a karate club, and suddenly it became difficult. We had to relearn everything we once knew about fighting. Move away, create distance, don’t grapple, that’s wrestling, not karate. Low stances no longer felt natural, and those kicks now had to go around instead of straight. It goes on.

The natural skills you once had, stifled, removed, now you had to think about it. Blocking? What on earth is that?

Why is it so hard to learn this stuff?

When we started training, we had an open mind and great faith in our instructors. We absorbed everything they taught us. We didn’t question it, and if we did, we were quickly put in our place. It’s the teacher’s job to teach and the student’s job to learn. You know the drill.

Assumed in this was our belief that everything we were taught was the absolute truth, totally correct and complete. We had to believe we were being taught the right stuff.

Our faith and trust were given freely.

I read somewhere, I can’t remember where, that it’s nine times harder to relearn something than it was to learn it in the first place, even if we believe what we learned originally was incorrect. Think about that. Helps explain prejudice, doesn’t it?

We learned to accept and have confidence in what we were taught, regardless of the source, as long as we believed the teacher was qualified.

So here we are, in this particular stage of our karate practice, with all of our hard-earned knowledge now firmly in place, and faced with something that seems to challenge major parts of it.

Then someone comes along, suggesting that much of what you’ve learned might not be complete, saying that you’re all doing it wrong. What? Give me a break.

You have invested all these years in learning just a very small part of karate. You need to look within the kata.

I can see where many people would simply reject that out of hand because it could be interpreted to imply they’ve not been working on developing the right understanding all these years. That would be impossible for many to even consider.

After so many years of doing karate a certain way, it’s exceptionally hard to develop a new skill set. Without thinking, your body responds as it was trained. And it’s even harder when the tools you now need weren’t in your original toolbox.

Naturally, you would have a tough time. Only the rare few can step up to that challenge.

Another problem is that some egos will not allow being a beginner again. To learn a new skill set, one must accept that it will take a while to become proficient, and there will be a period where everything is clumsy and awkward. Didn’t we feel that way once already, when we signed up for our first karate class?

Real progress always requires a bit of humility, something that’s often in short supply once rank and reputation are involved.

Some simply can’t look like a white belt again with their peers.

Or it may simply be that we’ve been taught the same material for so long that it feels like that’s all there is, just refine what we already know.

And so they lose out on the rest of the story – how to learn from the kata.

However, there are a few…..

Written by Adam Carter – Shuri Dojo