Not Quitting, Changing Course

Are the injuries worth it?

I finally decided to quit Kyokushin Karate.

The weekly debilitating injuries made me question the point of learning the art.

Why was I getting injured so frequently? It usually happened during sparring, not during the cardio workouts or self-defence parts of the class.

Is sparring something I want to learn? Well, sparring, or more accurately, sport-sparring, is not a sport that drew me to martial arts. It always came back to fitness and self-defence. While sport-sparring would certainly help toughen me up, it doesn't particularly help with self-defence, and the constant injuries were becoming a concern.

The final straw was observing the injuries of the more advanced students, which were worse than mine! That was my future, and I didn't like it.

My son wants to stay with Kyokushin Karate and I support him 100%. For kids, they learn through non-contact and I can see the benefits he's gained already. He's no longer physically intimidated by other kids. So Kyokushin is working well for him. It's like having a defacto big-brother to wrestle with.

I'm still keen to learn martial arts, but in a manner that better suits my goals.

I've found a possible replacement and I'll post the outcome of the introductory classes of a 'style' that I just learned about.