Arana 1

Hope Arana

9/7/18

English 01

Mr. Wright

First Love

A moment in my adolescence that changed me completely would be when I tested for my

black belt in karate.

A year ago, I was training for my black belt in the month of February. I would be going

to karate any chance I could. I would be taking extra time to train with black belts over the

weekend. Black belt testing was in October, and for the next eight months I was training.

Within that time my mental state slowly started to deteriorate. I would come home from

karate more and more depressed. I would judge myself more and more as the days continued on.

When I was corrected for mistakes, I would take it out of proportion and beat myself up for those

simple mistakes. The days I came home from karate crying became more frequent as October

neared and I felt like I was completely falling.

The month was August, and I was working out once a day at least, if not twice. I started

eating healthier, but none of that mattered because I was really stressed about my karate test. I

was training harder than ever before and put a lot of pressure on myself, as did many other

people in my life. I remember snapping at parents easily and taking out my frustrations on them.

Ironically though, the only thing that helped me relieve my stress was karate, and it seemed like

a never-ending loop of relieving stress and gaining stress.

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October was the month when I really saw my mental health deteriorate. I would be crying

nights often when I couldn’t get something right. I was thinking of all the horrible possibilities

that could occur in the moment that I tested. One of those possibilities being failing to remember

something or not executing a movement correctly. Everything was crumbling around me and I

couldn’t care enough to help myself.

People may wonder, why didn’t I stop? Why didn’t I quit? Simply because karate was my

everything. I fell hopelessly in love with it at the age of six and discovered my first dream at the

age of eight. No matter how much I beat myself up for every single mistake I made, I still

wanted to continue. Karate was a part of my heart, and as much as I came home depressed,

nothing would stop me from going back to that place to do better.

On the day of my testing, saying I was nervous would be an understatement. After

training for a year and outside training for eight months, you could simply say I put more than

sufficient, effort into being the best I could be. Although I could only be so good physically, if I

wasn’t mentally stable, I would be lacking. Until one of the highest black belts pulled me aside

and talked to me about my test. She said, “You know, everyone goes through this phase where

they hate everything they do. They feel as if everything they are doing is wrong, and they can’t

fix it. You have time to fix it later. Just do what you can now. You are going to do great. I’ve

seen you train this past year. You will be fine.” Lyn’s words stuck and echoed in my head,

making her the single person who helped me the most. She was the final piece that clicked

although in that moment I didn’t notice it, but rather during my test.

During my test, I would make mistakes naturally. There were some things I couldn’t do

that met the impossibly high standards I set for myself. Some of them being: having every single
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kick I throw be perfect, or not being able to execute my self defense correctly every single time.

Although the strangest thing happened in that moment, usually I would bash myself for not doing

better. But instead, I told myself “It’s ok. You can work on it, and do it better next time. Just do

the next thing with everything you have.” In that moment, I was able to accept what I could do,

not devalue it, and encourage myself to do better. To this day, I would not do anything to change

my test. It was the very moment I grew the most. Thus, I can say this moment changed me for

the better, and I hope to continue to change as time goes on.