Okuden Shotokan

WHY DO SO MANY STUDENTS QUIT KARATE?

Every year, thousands of students walk into a karate dojo filled with excitement, determination, and dreams of becoming strong martial artists. They imagine earning new belts, mastering powerful techniques, and gaining the confidence of a warrior. Yet many of them quit long before reaching their true potential.

The first reason is that karate is harder than it looks. Movies and social media often show spectacular kicks, dramatic victories, and black belts performing amazing techniques. What they rarely show is the repetition, discipline, and years of practice required to achieve those skills. Many students discover that progress comes slowly, and some become frustrated when success does not arrive as quickly as they expected.

Another common reason is the search for instant results. Modern life encourages quick rewards, but karate teaches patience. A strong punch, a precise kick, and a calm mind are developed through countless hours of training. Students who expect rapid improvement often lose motivation when they realize that mastery cannot be rushed.

Some students quit because they compare themselves to others. They see classmates who learn faster, move better, or earn promotions sooner. Instead of focusing on their own journey, they become discouraged. The truth is that karate is not a competition against others—it is a lifelong challenge to become a better version of yourself.

Fear of failure also causes many students to leave. Making mistakes, forgetting techniques, or struggling during training can feel embarrassing. However, every great martial artist has failed thousands of times. Failure is not the opposite of success; it is part of the path toward success.

For young students, distractions can become another obstacle. Video games, social media, school activities, and changing interests often compete for their attention. Karate requires commitment, and commitment becomes difficult when focus is divided among too many things.

Yet the students who stay discover something extraordinary. They learn that karate is about much more than punches and kicks. It teaches respect, self-control, perseverance, humility, and courage. It develops character as much as physical ability. Over time, these lessons become more valuable than any belt around the waist.

The difference between those who quit and those who continue is often simple: persistence. The students who succeed are not always the most talented. They are the ones who keep showing up. They train when they feel motivated, and they train when they do not. They understand that every class is another step forward, no matter how small.

Karate is a journey, not a destination. There will be challenges, setbacks, and moments of doubt. But those who refuse to quit eventually discover that the greatest victory is not defeating an opponent—it is overcoming the desire to give up.

Remember: A black belt is simply a white belt who never stopped training. Keep showing up, keep learning, and keep moving forward. The path of karate rewards those who stay the course.

facebook.com/Ilovekarateka 🥋🔥

This idea taps into one of the most uncomfortable truths in martial arts: success is not determined by how many people start, but by how many are willing to endure what comes after the excitement fades. In Karate, the beginning is filled with motivation, curiosity, and energy—but those emotions don’t last. What separates those who continue from those who quit is the ability to push through boredom, repetition, slow progress, and self-doubt. Most people are not defeated by difficulty, but by inconsistency and unrealistic expectations. The real challenge is not learning techniques—it’s staying committed when progress is invisible. That’s why finishing is rare: it demands discipline long after motivation is gone.

Get your gi back on!

It seems inevitable for many students – after years of dedicated training (or even just months), the training begins to slow down.
Sometimes, it just stops suddenly, and there’s a conspicuous gap where a student used to be. A pocket of quiet where a karate practitioner used to stand and nodding away while listening to instructions. No student slips away unnoticed.

There are a thousand demands on our time, many beyond our control. Money must be earned, marks attained, Families require an investment of quality time, Sometimes, it’s as simple as an injury that dragged on and suddenly, it’s two months out the dojo (or more).
One missed class can easily become three. Three classes becomes a month. Then six. Then a year. And then there’s a day when you open your cupboard and there is your gi, hanging up and gathering dust. Waiting. (And silently judging you.)

“But what will Sensei think?” the student wonders, before slowly closing the door. “I can’t go back after so long.”

Oh, but you should. You can always come back. 99% of the time, your Sensei will be utterly delighted to see you return. All that matters is that you make the decision to put your gi on and get to the dojo. Oh, sure, there might be excuses, like…

“But I’m so unfit!”

So few people are genuinely fit anyway. If fitness was a precondition for martial arts, very few of us would get to start. It’s not that important.

“I never told Sensei why I left”

Look, few instructors are soft and fluffy. But your Sensei is human (very much so) and probably isn’t holding a grudge. Just come back, perhaps say sorry, and ask to train again. It sucks to ask, but it is also pretty hurtful when students disappear without any explanation.

“I can’t remember it all anymore”

You are not starting at the bottom – everything you learned is somewhere in your body. It just needs a gentle reminder and some dusting off, and things will start to flow back again.

Losing momentum is the cause of so many failed hobbies, talents, dreams and projects. In trying to get any major goal accomplished, we forget that it is made of a thousand little steps.

A black belt is only the sum of hundreds of hours, not always a special talent. You don’t have to do unworldly things: you just have to go to class every week. Every class you can, except when you really, really can’t.

If you have a virus, stay out the dojo.
If you have an exam tomorrow, then study.
Big family thing? (My family know not to arrange things on a dojo day, they all know what it means to me, and love and respect me enough to know that's where I will be)
Tired?
Busy?
But not so busy that you can sit and watch TV for 2 or 3 hours ?

To me nothing is worse than having a talent and a passion and letting it go to waste simply because of a stubborn attitude or trying to please others..

"IT’S YOUR LIFE TO LIVE"

Get your gi on and get to a dojo!

Richard Hang Hong

Every belt tells a story—but not all stories are the same. What begins as a clean white belt, filled with curiosity and uncertainty, slowly transforms through years of sweat, discipline, failure, and growth. The journey to black belt is often seen as the ultimate goal, yet in truth, it is only the doorway to deeper understanding. As time passes, that once-pristine belt fades, frays, and becomes marked by experience—each tear and stitch representing lessons learned, battles fought, and students guided. At the Shihan level, the belt is no longer a symbol of rank, but a living record of a lifetime devoted to the art. It reminds us that mastery is not about reaching the top, but about enduring the journey and becoming the story itself.

Leaving Your Karate Club

If you have trained for any lengthy period and reached a higher kyu grade or even Dan grade, it’s is likely that at some point along the way you will want to stop training or leave your current club.

In an ideal world, every Dojo, Sensei and student would be a perfect match and the thought of leaving would never occur, but sadly for everyone concerned, this isn’t always the case.

Reasons will vary, and sometimes you don’t have a choice about leaving. Maybe you’re moving to another part of the country, or even another part of the world altogether and your dojo is too far. Maybe it’s a medical reason; a serious illness or injury meaning that you to have to cease training.
With the former, an alternative can be found, and your Sensei can sometimes offer recommendations for where you can continue your journey, the latter however will often be sad for you both.

Sometimes your decision to leave is because you can’t make classes anymore due to a change in circumstances at work, home or family commitments. Or perhaps you have a change in motivation; maybe you’ve hit a wall that you feel you just can’t get over, or you’ve achieved what you wanted and have no interest in pursuing further, or your interests have changed and your current dojo doesn’t provide what you need but somewhere else does. These are just a few reasons from a very long list.

Whatever the cause and reasons may be, over a period of time you will have likely built up some level of depth in the relationship with your Sensei, so making the decision to leave will in most cases be difficult. You must weigh up the pros and cons, ask yourself if this is an obstacle that you need to overcome, perhaps one you need help with, or if it’s really time for you to move on? If you reach a point where you are absolutely certain that you want to leave, here are some thoughts to ponder on how you could do so.

1. Tell your Sensei

It sounds obvious right? But you’d be surprised at how many students simply disappear without saying a word. So either call them, or better yet, arrange to meet with them in person, preferably at the dojo and tell them that you are leaving. Don’t send a text or email, it’s so impersonal. In today’s era of dependence on technology it’s so easy to go that route. If you care, then your Sensei deserves more than that. And make sure to do it yourself, don’t have someone else do it for you. If you feel nervous about telling them, have a friend of family member with you for support. Your Sensei will often have even more respect for you if you do this as they know how difficult it can be.

2. Be honest

Whatever the reason is for leaving, be open and honest with them. They may not like the reasons, particularly if it’s something negative, but this can actually help them improve the dojo for other students in the future, even if it’s too late for you. Let them know if there is anything that could have been done on their part that could have helped, and if you could have done something too. If you’re lucky enough to have a really good Sensei, they’ll be supportive in your decision and thank you for your honesty.

3. Your Sensei will understand

If it’s something that can’t be helped, like you’re moving home, going to university or changing to a job that means you can no longer attend. They’ll often wish you well and tell you that the dojo doors will be open for you to visit in the future.

4. Your Sensei may feel hurt, sad or upset

You’ve trained under them for years and they’ve invested a lot of their time and efforts into teaching you. In addition, if you started as a child, your Sensei will have watched and been a part of you growing up to adulthood. If you started as an adult, you may have both developed a friendship bond beyond the walls of the dojo, so many instructors will naturally feel the pain of a student leaving and this may come out in various ways. After all, despite what some students believe, your Sensei is a human being with feelings, not a robot without emotions.

5. Be respectful after you leave

Most of the time when someone makes the decision to leave there is no reason to be negative. If you’ve learned some skills from your Sensei during your time in the dojo, gained some benefits and been treated fairly then those positive connections and feelings will remain for a long time.
If for some reason you’ve had a bad experience, going out and spreading negativity to others will often sour the relationships you’ve built with your fellow dojo members who have remained. And who knows, maybe one day in the future you’ll want to return. A respectful departure will ensure that the opportunity remains open.

Everyone has their reasons for starting and for ending their journey with their dojo and instructor, and remember that it’s okay to leave, never let anyone else tell you otherwise. Take the experience and let your departure be a reflection of what you have learned.

Richard Hang Hong

I have been fortunate in my karate journey to have had some truly great teachers. I would say that though, wouldn’t I? No disrespect intended, but I imagine most people feel the same about those who have guided them.

But that raises an important question – what actually makes a great teacher?

A great martial arts teacher is not merely someone who instructs techniques. They are a mentor who guides students on a longer journey, often without announcing that they are doing so. I sometimes wonder how many teachers today still see their role in that way, particularly as karate in many places has become a business rather than a vocation.

They must possess a deep knowledge of their art, not at a superficial level. That depth only comes from years, often decades, of training, refinement, and quiet study. It includes not just the physical techniques, but the principles and thinking that sit behind them. This allows them to pass on that knowledge effectively and to guide students with confidence rooted in experience.

They are also driven by genuine passion for what they are doing. It shows through their continued dedication to learning and development, and in the care with which they pass their knowledge on. Their commitment becomes a long-term example for their students.

A great martial arts teacher is not defined solely by technical skill, but by character and integrity. Which unfortunately today, is lacking in some. They should embody qualities such as discipline, humility, respect, and personal responsibility. They lead by example, upholding these values in their own lives and expecting the same from those they teach.

The influence of a great teacher extends far beyond physical training. It should leave an imprint on how students think, and carry themselves outside of the dojo. There is a profound difference between becoming a teacher and becoming a great one, and being under the long-term guidance of such individuals can be genuinely life-changing.

I consider myself fortunate to still know and remain in contact with several of my teachers from my early karate years. Those relationships span decades of mentorship, shared experience, and continued respect.

Across generations, people have looked up to genuine experts who have devoted years of their lives to understanding their art. With so much demanded of that role, it is no surprise that truly great teachers are rare.

The longer you train, the clearer it becomes that the greatest influence in the martial arts is not technique, but the person who helped shape how it’s understood.


– Adam Carter

There is a modern belief that achievement is something you can hold in your hand – a certificate, a diploma, a grade, a title, a rank. Something printed, stamped, and signed that proves you have arrived. It’s a comforting illusion, and it has taken root in karate.

The logic is simple. If the box is ticked, the work must be complete. If the test is passed, the knowledge must be real. If the rank is awarded, the skill must be present.

Karate does not bend to that logic. It never has.

Karate was built on practice, not performance. On understanding, not memorization. On curiosity, not compliance. Yet much of the modern karate world now mistakes certificates for competence, grades for progress, and performance for substance.

At the center of this confusion is the failure to distinguish between knowing about something and actually understanding it.

Knowing the syllabus is not understanding. Performing kata is not exploring what it contains. Passing a grading is not embodying the principles it claims to test. This is the difference between memorizing a map and walking the terrain.

Karate today is full of map-readers. People who can reproduce the choreography, demonstrate the official kumite, and meet the visible expectations of their organization. They know what will be rewarded. They know how to perform the role of a karateka.

But they have never walked the terrain.

They have never treated kata as a living textbook. They have never tested ideas under genuine pressure. They have never allowed uncertainty or failure to challenge what they were taught. They have memorized the map, but they have not travelled the landscape.

This is not entirely their fault. The culture around them rewards the wrong things.

Despite this, there are still practitioners who have done the work. They didn’t stop at what they were shown. They tested, failed, reflected, and revised. They are recognizable not by their credentials, but by the depth in their answers and the restraint in their claims.

Commercialization has turned rank into a subscription, created uniformity and stripped away subtlety.
Senior grades are handed out without the decades of work they once represented. Somewhere along the way, depth became unfashionable.

The problem is that learning in depth is slow. It cannot be accelerated. It doesn’t photograph well. It doesn’t fit neatly into a syllabus. It requires time, pressure, correction, humility, and a willingness to be wrong. It requires curiosity, the very quality many systems quietly discourage.

Curiosity is uncomfortable. It leads people off the approved path and produces questions instead of obedience. It creates practitioners who want to know why, not just how. Who care about what works, not what looks right.

That curiosity is where depth and understanding comes from.

Not from titles or certificates, but from years of honest practice, failure and correction. From pressure, reflection, and revision, and from treating karate not as a performance to preserve, but as an inquiry to pursue.

Karate loses its depth when it becomes just a display. I believe it regains it when it becomes an investigation.

Yes, it’s nice to receive a certificate, a shiny new belt, even a title here and there. But on their own, it’s not the depth of understanding that we all should be aiming for.


– Adam Carter.

We do not use ‘osu’ in our dojo, but we do tolerate its use, especially from older students. Although we are Shotokan (and the word was in common use while I came up through the grades) I now teach in the Okinawan style of teaching that Adam mentions. The basic reigi remains but the teaching is not regimented.

After I posted my thoughts about the word “osu”, I expected a few people to disagree. But what surprised me was how many long‑time practitioners, including instructors, admitted they weren’t actually sure where the word should be used, or even why they say it at all.

Some people told me they’d been using it for decades and still weren’t sure what it really meant. Others said they’d been taught it was an international greeting between karateka, something you could use with anyone, anywhere, as if it were a universal handshake.

One person even explained that in their dojo they use it for everything: stop, start, line up, greetings, acknowledgements – the entire vocabulary of the dojo compressed into one syllable.

That kind of comment is exactly why I wrote the original piece. It shows how deeply a habit can take root when no one ever explains where it came from or whether it belongs in the system you practice. People aren’t doing anything wrong; they’re simply repeating what they were taught, often without any cultural context.

The truth is that “osu” is a mainland Japanese budo slang term. It appeared in the early twentieth century, probably influenced by the military and school culture of that era. It was already being used in Japanese Shotokan university clubs.

Kyokushin later popularized the “push/endure” interpretation, but they didn’t create the word. And it certainly didn’t come from Okinawa. It was never part of Okinawan karate etiquette, and many Okinawan dojo find it crude, overly macho, or simply out of place.

When I taught at a Kyokushin dojo years ago, I heard it everywhere. Not just in class. Ordering pizza? “Osu”. Handing someone a tool from the back of a car? “Osu”. Greeting someone in the car park? “Osu”. At that point it isn’t etiquette anymore – it’s just a reflex. And that’s fine for those systems. It fits their culture, their training environment, and the atmosphere they want to create.

But Okinawan karate is different. The tone is different. The etiquette is different. The relationship between teacher and student is different.

Okinawan dojo culture is more conversational, more personal, less militarized. Teachers don’t bark clipped commands, and they don’t rely on a single word to replace half the language. So it simply doesn’t belong there.

What struck me most about the comments I received was how many instructors asked where they should use it. That question alone tells you how far the word has drifted from its origins.

If someone has been training for forty or fifty years and still isn’t sure what the word means or where it fits, is that their fault? It’s a sign that the term has been passed down without explanation for generations. It’s become a habit rather than a tradition.

My own view is simple. If you teach a Japanese system and “osu” fits the culture of your dojo, that’s entirely your choice. But if you teach an Okinawan system, it doesn’t belong there. And in my dojo, we don’t use it at all. Not because I’m trying to be difficult, but because it isn’t part of the culture or etiquette of the art I practice and teach.

This isn’t about policing language or telling anyone what they must or must not say. It’s about understanding what you do and why you do it. If it’s part of your lineage, fine. If it isn’t, that’s fine too. And if you’ve been saying it for decades without knowing where it came from… well, that’s simply how habits spread.

But habits aren’t the same as tradition, and repetition isn’t the same as understanding. Karate deserves more than automatic behavior.

It deserves awareness. It deserves context. And it deserves to be practiced with the same thoughtfulness that we expect from our students.


Written by Adam Carter - Shuri Dojo

What does a Blackbelt represent?

The fact is, that out of thousands who walk through the doors of a martial arts academy, most will not stay.

Many leave in the first few months once the novelty fades and discipline is required.

More leave after the first year, when progress slows and repetition replaces excitement.

By the end of the second year, only a small fraction remain—those who have learned that growth is quiet, difficult, and often uncomfortable.

Of that fraction, very few will continue long enough into their third year to earn a black belt.

Fewer still will advance beyond it. Only a handful will take responsibility for teaching, preserving, and transmitting the art to others.

When someone reaches that point, martial arts is no longer something they do.
It is something they are.

That is what a black belt represents.

Merry Christmas to all our students, friends and family and thanks for your support over the last year.

Nadolig Llawen pawb