CONTACT KICKS MARTIAL ARTS: October 2013

Lily's article about her karate journey. She is 8 years old and training for 8 months.

WHAT KARATE MEANS TO ME

By Lily Phan / Lily/Lily P.

To me karate means to protect myself and the ones that I love. Karate is helping me by getting me stronger and also making me fit. This martial art is also helping me getting healthy. In this martial art, it lets me exercise and to have some fun. The way I started karate was after Ryan joined karate.

First he went in and after 2 weeks I tried karate. A few months later, more people come in and they were all boys. Before I joined karate, I thought it was boring and only for boys. When I saw Sempai Mici, I started to think it would be ok if a girl joined. Now that I am a blue belt I don’t care if I am a girl or boy, as long as the classes are good I will continue. Later 2 other girls care and I felt more comfortable with another girl joining. One of the girls started training and she is quite good at the games we played when she started to train. Karate also gives me some skills and also gives me something to do if I have nothing to do. This martial art also gives me flexibility and now I can do the splits all the way down now. Even though it is hard work, I am still training and even though it is crowded maybe I will still be training in Contact Kicks Martial Arts ( CKMA). There are other types of martial arts and I think this martial art is the best size for a child like me. Every time I can’t do something I start doing it over and over until I do it good. Not everything I could do because the first time it isn’t so good then if you keep doing it you will become better each time. It is just like you bake one potato and then another and another and it’s gets more and more yummier. I think that you should not be a show off because you learn faster because one day the person who learns slow may catch up with you and even pass you and that is why we should respect and treat each other the way you want to be treated. I don’t care if people are older or younger than me I will still be nice and respect others and soon they will be nice and respectful to you. Karate also makes me more confident and makes me have a loud strong voice when I am yelling and talking in front of a crowd or a class. I would say karate is a good martial art to join so you can get fit , strong, confident, kind and healthy. I would not say karate is teaching you bad things. You may need 7 years of training to get to black belt. First white belt, the red, blue, yellow, green, green, brown, black. So far I have seen myself getting stronger and getting better at my push-ups.

This is the end of my report about what karate means to me.