CAN KARATE IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE?
By Ray Brown 6th Kyu

My sister-in-law would have been the first one to admit that when it comes to confrontations she was not very confident. She would always be the first one to back down in an argument and would go out of her way to avoid a confrontation of any kind. Then some years ago she took up Wado-ryu Karate achieving 1st Dan. Given these facts I was interested to hear the following story.
After some months of being bullied at school, by a particularly aggressive girl, my sister-in-laws daughter had had enough and decided it was time to fight back and gave the girl a sharp punch to the side of her head causing a rather nasty bruise.

The following day, in the school yard, the girls father along with his daughter confronted my sister-in-law and her daughter about the previous days incident. The teachers on duty, knowing all too well how aggressive this man is, retreated to the safety of their staff room. He then repeatedly encouraged his girl to punch my sister-in-laws daughter, but she would not obey his demands. Seeing this tactic was not working he told my sister-in-law he was about to “take it out on her instead”. My sister-in-laws reaction was to put down beside her the bags and books she was carrying then she calmly turned to face her would be assailant and said to him “O.K. I’m ready whenever you are”. The man simply turned and walked away as fast as he could dragging his daughter behind him, with the laughter of the other parents who witnessed the confrontation ringing in his ears.

The point of this story isn’t whether or not her Karate skills would have protected her against this man had he carried out his threat to attack her but the fact that she had the self confidence to stand up for herself which she never would have done before taking up Wado-ryu Karate.

By Ray Brown 6th Kyu