There are a lot of things that I like about teaching karate. Giving out the kyu certificates and belts is one of them. It's the concrete piece of seeing the students achieve the next level of training.
This is Mary with me. She is one of my strongest students, but she is also a good example of a student working through some of her issues in karate. Mary is naturally good at sports--she has a long history of competitive softball--but she holds back in karate because she is afraid to be better than her peers. It's a fear of success born of a fear of peer rejection. She doesn't want the other girls (or boys, probably) to reject her out of their own insecurities because she is better than they are at karate. This is a small piece of a larger issue, obviously, but Mary has to start approaching it somewhere.
We have several students with a fear of success, all with their subtle differences. Some of them are afraid to be capable and independent because they believe that their family system requires them to be incapable and dependent. Some of them are afraid to no longer need their parents (or a parent) because their parent has some emotional need that they want their child to fill. For many of them, success means losing some relationship dynamic that they might not necessarily want, but the unknown that a change in the relationship would bring is frightening.
Some students are simply afraid of being better than their peers at something and being rejected for it. It can be hard to be brilliant, beautiful, and talented--or at least it appears that way to someone who has spent a good portion of their energy ensuring that they aren' too beautiful, too brilliant, or too talented.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actaully, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightening about shrinking so other people won't feel so insecure around you. We are born to manifest God's glory within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And, as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Nelson Mandella, 1994 Inauguration Speech
This is Mary with me. She is one of my strongest students, but she is also a good example of a student working through some of her issues in karate. Mary is naturally good at sports--she has a long history of competitive softball--but she holds back in karate because she is afraid to be better than her peers. It's a fear of success born of a fear of peer rejection. She doesn't want the other girls (or boys, probably) to reject her out of their own insecurities because she is better than they are at karate. This is a small piece of a larger issue, obviously, but Mary has to start approaching it somewhere.
We have several students with a fear of success, all with their subtle differences. Some of them are afraid to be capable and independent because they believe that their family system requires them to be incapable and dependent. Some of them are afraid to no longer need their parents (or a parent) because their parent has some emotional need that they want their child to fill. For many of them, success means losing some relationship dynamic that they might not necessarily want, but the unknown that a change in the relationship would bring is frightening.
Some students are simply afraid of being better than their peers at something and being rejected for it. It can be hard to be brilliant, beautiful, and talented--or at least it appears that way to someone who has spent a good portion of their energy ensuring that they aren' too beautiful, too brilliant, or too talented.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actaully, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightening about shrinking so other people won't feel so insecure around you. We are born to manifest God's glory within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And, as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Nelson Mandella, 1994 Inauguration Speech
