Ego challenge

July 24th, 2007 at 15:11 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Karate, Okinawa, Training Journal 

Last night, I had another good chat with Sensei after the evening training. He told me about some people trying to learn and to get dan promotion and teaching license from Toyama Sensei with ill intention and without sincerity to learn and train.

Sensei told me one of the severity I would experience while I am here on Okinawa is the ego challenge. The training is not so much of learning new kata and techniques. It is about letting one’s ego down and be open minded to accept new changes. He is happy with my performance so far. This morning training has really challenged my ego. To tell you the real facts, I had no egoistic feeling when I practiced and learned from kyu students far younger than me. They are teenagers in their 15-16 years of age.

I believe it is hard for many karate-ka to let down their ego to pursuit new knowledge. I hope my students back home will never have ego and will practice and learn from anyone who has knowledge to share regardless of age, rank and seniority. And I really hope they will read this post and understand the message I am trying to pass on.

Sensei also told me the story about Elangovan Sempai from India. He told me how he strived in his training and also the story of his close friend who was killed in an accident. I was touched and I hope I can strive like him during my one month training on Okinawa.

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One Response to “Ego challenge”

  • My Little Sensei | Adrian Hoe’s WebLog on July 27th, 2007 23:59 1

    [...] It will be really hard for some people to learn from a little kid and whose rank is lower. But I find it intriguing and especially amazing when look at these photos. It is fun to work with kids like him. As I wrote in a post earlier, Ego Challenge, it is also important to learn from people who has knowledge and yet far younger and lower rank. [...]

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