Strengths and Challenges

Strengths and Challenges

This week in class we worked on identifying individual strengths and challenges.

Each student was asked to identify an aspect of karate training that they consider to be their strength and something that is challenging for them. 

Generally strengths will be something that we enjoy or find come to us naturally. People will often practice these things more as it feels good to do well at something. 

Challenges obviously are things we find harder or don’t come naturally to us and as a result we tend to neglect these aspects of training. (Some may call them weaknesses but I don’t like that. They are just things that need more practice.)

It is important to continue to build up our strengths to make them even better. Over time as a student progresses, they will begin to develop their own unique style and their strengths will be the foundation of this. 

At the same time we need to ensure we work on improving the things we find challenging to bring them closer to the level of our strengths. Balance is essential. 

Some examples of things students chose as strengths were:

Kata 

Sparring

Kicks

Grappling

Some challenges were:

Push-ups

Speed and stamina

Kata

High kicks and jump kicks

We did some work on both strengths and challenges during class. 

I request that all students practice their challenging aspect a couple of times during the week before next class. I will have questions about it. 

If anyone missed class this week, have a think about your strengths and challenges and practice both.