Having Fears

I am going to tell you something that you already know. It's simply this. Everyone has fears. Whether you are young or old, fear can often dominate your life. Fear is a very dominating force.

I know that as a child and later as a teen, I sometimes feared school tests. I sometimes feared teacher judgement in school. I know that many kids today have those same fears, as well as others, such as moving to a new neighborhood, making friends, being accepted by peers, will they be good enough at sports, and on and on. Adults also have fears concerning caring for their families, the pandemic and how to best keep their loved ones safe, and again, on and on.


I know of martial arts school that sought to address banishing fears by having its students jump from a very high pole and go down a zip line. Once you accomplished this feat, this one time action was supposed to rid you of EVERY fear you had. This was predicated on the idea that once you did something out of your comfort zone, in front of other people, you would always remember this success and be able to say, "but I conquered the zip line. I can do anything." Nope, did not work. It was a relief to get down, but it did not provide a shield around me for other fears.

Chipping away at your fears is a process. It takes time and support. It takes climbing a ladder, making progress going up but down also and then up again. It takes training. And this is where Croton Karate can help. Training at Croton Karate can help you conquer yourself and conquering yourself can conquer your fears. At Croton Karate it is not about training against someone, it is about training WITH someone. With a support system. With YOURSELF. You are not training to prove something to someone, not even to yourself---BUT RATHER, YOU ARE TRAINING FOR YOURSELF! Think about it. There is a difference. Your fear of proving something is gone. This is for yourself. When you do something positive for yourself, the benefits not only accrue to you, but to your family, and everyone that you meet.

Training at Croton Karate gives you the skills to build confidence, to get to know yourself and to build a better self, and in this way, conquer yourself and your fears. You learn that success is inward and then outward. The self-defense skills that you learn, the ability to learn and perfect technique, the strong will that you develop training here, that is what starts to give you tools to defeat fear. At Croton Karate you are not pitted against someone and told to measure up against someone else's progress. If you are an adult, you are not told to replicate a technique in exactly the way a young child can perform that skill. And yes, that has happened to me at another school. But Sensei Doherty works with your body and with your particular circumstances, because to him you are an individual, unique, and worthy of respect. And yes, because he has the knowledge and skill to know how to do this! You learn that you have the will to progress and beat YOUR progress. You are an individual with your own set of goals and achievements. If you are here, if you are training at Croton Karate, you have found the rarity in martial arts today. Congratulations!

Tell us your story about how Croton Karate helped you to overcome your fears and win a prize. I look forward to hearing from you soon.