Four kinds of Karate people

I have been thinking a lot lately about the types of people that I have run into in Karate and it brought back and old sociology exercise that we did in University when I was younger. The alterations I made to the “Categories” will make a lot more sense and you may get a benefit out of reading them and then figuring which of these groups you fit into…it’s a great exercise and while most of this is just my idea of where you stand in an organization, look at it as a fresh view on who you are now…not who you can be. If you don’t agree with some of the things that you see about yourself after reading this, change!

Essentially I view the four categories as guide lines based on your focus in Karate, and I hope that you can see that while its is not better to be in one category over the others, some are better for your health and mental wellbeing, and some are needed to have others…well you will see. I don’t like to paint everyone with big paint brushes and cubby hole them. It’s not in my nature to assume things about people. I generally like to get to know someone before I make an assessment of them and figure out what kind of student they are and what kind of senior they will make in time. Its kind of funny because I have been right I think about 9 times out of 10 in my long Karate life and only once or twice have I been wrong about people.

So, why am I blogging about putting people in categories if I don’t believe in it, well it actually helps me out figuring out who I am and what I need to do to be better or progress. I thought I would pass it on to you and let you review it, look inside and really take stalk of who you are. I truly believe that Karate is about a whole lot more than just throwing on a gi and belt and then kicking and punching. Its about being who you are and building and establishing relationships with others, and yourself.

So, how do you benefit from reading this guide? Read it…figure out who you are and if you like who you are…then laugh and get your butt back to the training! I have put people into four categories, much like the Sociology exercise of Meyers Brigs…but vastly simplified. I have four categories; goal focused positive, work focused positive, work focused negative, goal focused negative.

The first kind of Karate-Ka is the Results oriented/focused driven type or the Positive results Karate-ka. These people strive for the outcome, they work for medals, certificates, advancement, tournament trophies and titles and they work hard only because they want that GOLD! They live for being the center of attention and they push to win! These people have nice gis, and work out gis. They push hard to get in the best shape doing Karate five times a week for hours on end, running, weight, Diet and the whole time they dream about the titles “WOLD CHAMPION” they don’t get to that spot by accident…..they push for it.

These people are generally Type A personality…..they are hard to coach because they are bull headed and once they get something in their head you are not going to steer that boat any place they don’t want it! They are normally focused on doing anything they need to in order to get ahead and push hard to get the next belt level or to grab medals and trophies and they display them like Prized pirate booty! They also are first to insist on reminding everyone who they are and what they have done…even if they don’t get the reaction they want…they just want to hear it!

Being this kind of Karate Ka does have its benefits however. They are driven and they bring a lot of publicity to the organization and club they train at. The marketing of these people falls right in their personal arena of “look at me” kind of thinking. Even if they fake being humble the hunger inside of them make them “winners” in some ways, but their sheer devotion to Karate limits them to being great at specific things but horrible at most other things, normally great at teaching and demonstrating…not so good at balancing books and doing the things that really keep the doors open on a dojo. They are also great as students because the instructor feels like he is accomplishing so much with them. They drive to get ranking and do so much work they look fantastic. The go to a tournament and your Dojo name is almost a given to be front and center on any results lists. They also push others to pick up the pace and help the next category really change gears and have someone to follow.

However the Goal Focused positive has a few draw backs that have to be looked at closely. While early on its fantastic to raise through the ranks like a rocket, work hard and get tournament championships, medals and accolades, those that have this as a focus fall on hard times when age sets in, the glass ceiling of talent is hit or some more harsh realities like injuries, lack of competition or other things that limit their ability to express this focus. They get bored and find other things to do, or they get depressed when the rush of tournaments/testing is removed and often, they get eaten up by ego and become less able to cope outside the realm of being an athlete. Personal relationships suffer, work outside of their training falls apart and the internally created pressure build up and starts to cause other mental and physiological issues.

Some of these “Alpha male” types burn out using medially unsafe supplements to their training or participate in training that burns out and damages their body. Because they are so focused on the brass ring they don’t take the time off they need to or worse, they turn to substances that will keep them training longer and harder and do even more damage to their body. They often go to questionable sources on how to push harder, do more or reach higher levels quicker, and they pay for it later.

As these people get older, if they fail to change the outcome is often not good. In some sports they hold on far to long and they get hurt and damaged more than they should. In Karate, these people have to make the transition from Goal oriented athlete to a Goal Focused instructor/coach. They are often tasked with developing athletes close to what they were like, and often with great success…but they create clubs that are so focused on sport that the Martial part of training gets lost.

These people have great success in Karate at a early stage and repeat that success, growing on it till they peak and they cannot continue. They have a high dropout or drop off level and those that stay around tend to change or end up depressed and unfocused as their goal oriented mind cannot change gears from high levels to a more level training mentality. They don’t see health as important unless its equated with ability to perform at high levels so their focus is still on, get in shape…compete and repeat phases of training. Karate gave them an way to exercise their personal need to compete. Its both a great outlet and a harsh reality when they get older.

The key to this group is transitions. If they can go from Goal Focused positive with a focus on personal training to being the right kind of coach…they will make it big with Karate. And they need a balance in their training life. They need to reach out and find ways to learn about work habits as well as pushing to work on interpersonal “soft skills”. Because they were so focused internally they often don’t know how to truly communicate with others. If they develop the soft skills and start focusing on being successful coaches, they will go far and push the whole organization to the top, bringing all types with them and being as dynamic and enigmatic a person as they can be, the charisma they naturally have will drive others to seek to be better and they will create a strong foundation for an organization to be based on.

The Next group of positives is the Work focused individuals. These are the people who show up and train because they simply love to train. They may not be the type A kind but they are a great motivated group that are normally much happier than they are driven. They get a tone of work done in class and don’t take the outcome (titles and trophies) as serious as others. They may enter a few tournaments, but its part of their process, not as a goal of training.

The Work focused people also tend to be more involved in the organization. They work well with others and tend to want to handle tasks that will benefit all members. They are on boards, they do little things around the dojo and from day one you can see they love training, and they want to do more for the group. These people may not be driven to get their names in the spot light but they will work and work hard for the group and show they are willing to put in extra time for the benefit of everyone.

Most Work focused students don’t strive to get ahead, they move along at a suitable pace and just show up to train. They often need a nudge to test as they are not really looking at the next level as being more important than what they are doing right now. They make excellent work horses in the club and often are at every class pushing hard to just get more training time in and all this with a pleasant personality and hardworking dedication to the instructor and fellow students.

Having people like this in the club/organization makes things run so much smoother for instructors and senior board members. They know they can turn to them and put tasks on them that need good workers to focus in on it. However, being one of these people is the perfect match for Karate. The ability to focus on just the work outs, the hard training, learning, studying, and digging deep into Karate makes this kind of person perfect for training in Karate. They don’t mind the work and they don’t expect much other than the joy of their work outs and the levels of understanding they reach. These people tend to stick around Karate as long as there is work to be done, training to work on and much like trudging through knee deep snow….as long as the challenge of work is there and no real pressures to succeed and move along exist they will be there to continue trudging on and working towards the next day’s work.

The problem with being this kind of person or dealing with this kind of person as a coach/sensei is their lack of drive to move on and the fact that the work that they focus on can be changed out with other activities work or other life challenges. As they are unfocused specifically on Karates goals, the instructors may go nuts trying to maintain an upwards momentum on the students rankings. Its not that they are lazy, far from it, it’s that they end up feeling that the work is more important than testing. They end up sitting at one rank for years on end and don’t push to test and advance. They don’t enter tournaments often or travel across the country to attend because its just not their thing. They love the Dojo training and local tourneys but don’t kill themselves to compete.

Also, if they don’t get what they want from training they move along quickly to the next thing that allows them to trudge away, be it other martial arts or family stuff, work stuff or other activities. They must be kept busy and given outlets other than class for their work energy. Also, there is a balance between working someone and over working someone. In this case if you push to hard to get them working and don’t reward them they may take a minute, look back and realize the amount of work done and become bitter, leave and do the same work for someone else. It’s a strange balance with these people. They will bust their humps to make sure the group is doing well, some will simply just show up and work really hard and try to make the club do better that way…but if you abuse them to much, the breaking point is so finite that they walk and find other things to do. While they are not looking to be patted on the back or thanked, you should not mistake that for a group of people looking to be a slave.

These people will generally go far in Karate, but slowly. They may take a long time to get to a high rank and as long as they see value in training and want to move on with hard work they will stick it out and the whole group will benefit. They make you feel good about Karate because they feel good about Karate and the hard work.

Karate gives them a distraction to work on. Often these people are hardworking and have stress full jobs and family issues that take a lot of their time. But they have a hard time just letting go in class and leaving the dojo behind. They get a outlets to express themselves and for that the group gets the benefit of their services.

The more of these people a dojo has the more successful it is. The perfect mix is one instructor who is of the first type, or this type and then a arm full of seniors that are this type of person…its hard to imagine the next two types being positive in any way in the club…but you will see how they are benefits to the club.

We looked at what I call Positive or possible positive focused people, be it the end result focus or the work focused person. But there are those that do not match this, and are opposite to this in reality. The first of which is the Work focused negative person. They don’t stay long in clubs once they figure out its not easy and lots of work. Those that do stay tend to find ways to avoid the hard work of class and they have a variety of reasons for sticking about.

The Negative workers are either those that are avoiding hard classes and costing through normal classes or those that complain and gripe about hard classes. They have their head set a specific way and avoid things that are different because they have a comfort level with work outs that they are willing to do and that is about as far as they are willing to go! They may get to brown belt and even black with lots of time and little effort. Offer them a different set up for classes, like missing a classical warm up for lighter Kata and a buildup to harder work outs and they melt down and get upset. Unlike their polar opposites, the Work Positives, they find that they don’t like change, or things staying the same. They complain relentlessly and some wonder why they stick around.

Their participation in ANYTHING is against their will and only with a hard push will you get them out to extra events, and don’t even think of asking for a helping hand on administrative duties. They are basically snarky and hard to deal with and often a challenge…but they are not scared to let you know how they feel. I once had a Negative worker verbally attack me after a class he came out to…not at his club…as he did not realize that we did things a bit different at our club. He did not like that I DON’T LIKE TO HAVE WARM UPS…mostly they should be done before class and are a waste of my time in class….but I digress. He went through class with a chip on his shoulder because he did not like the “no warm up” begrudgingly did what we asked then on his way to change stopped me and unloaded his emotional crap on me. To be frank I was taken aback as he was one of my seniors students and I know he was used to harder classes, but because it was not on his terms…he rebelled. I as well let him go for a bit, cut him off and let him know that if he took my classes that’s what he could expect….and he never came back…but he let me know how he felt so I guess he felt like he won in some way.

Being a negative worker is never a positive, you are either lazy or a malcontent that likes to push others buttons and get your way with little to now effort on your own. However, having them in your Dojo is not always a bad thing…as long as they are the kind that challenge you to be better and to learn to stand up for yourself that is good. They are the “Teaching calisthenics” that make better teachers. With out the bump in the road you wont learn to control your teaching skills and develop better soft skills. But being one is not going to get you very far in Karate…or life!

Being this type of person is hard on your friends and family, you basically are sour all the time and hard to deal with or lazy and demanding at the same time. You expect everything to be given to you and you always feel like you have been given the short end of the sick.

This is the only group that I would say categorically….if they have any success in Karate, it will be short lived and mostly because they were pushed into it by their instructors and seniors not just holding their hands but pushing from behind. They often fail not just because of the Lazy factor, but because they are not happy with the results…any results that training may bring them. They have a negative attitude and eventually the helping hands start to dwindle and eventually seniors have the attitude that they are their just to fill space. I have seen dozens of juniors, some even reaching shodan, who never “get it” and are limited because of their attitude. Or worse yet, they get their Shodan and walk off thinking they reached some kind of accomplishment and wanted to be elevated to some kind of God in Karate because of it…and when they are not…they walk.

Karate can help these people if timing and instructors are right. If the instructor sees the issue and takes them under wing, and if they are open to it, they can be changed slightly…and mostly only if they are kids and the family has the right make up to help them as well. It’s a tough one as adults in this style of mentality are a cancer in the club, but the kids are “normal”. Its important to let people know that it’s a lot of hard work to get to a point that Karate is an extension of yourself and you start to understand it….if we did a better job of that and not “come in, its easy” we may avoid these types of adults in class.

In order to help these people we need more positives in their training, more positive influences and all of this during hard work to prove its worth to them. And if that does not work…cut them lose early to save the rest of your club the head aches and issues of dealing with them.

The “last group” that I am going to outline with are not as tough to deal with as the Negative work group, they are the Negative Results group…and this is a dynamic group that has its own challenges but can be a fantastic addition to a club or simply just good students. The Negative results group will never enter a tournament, will avoid testing and won’t show up for seminars or anything more than class time. They may be shy, they may be scared of failure but whatever it is they just don’t like to put themselves out and risk failure. If you have a club with a whole bunch of Goal focused positive people these are the guys that sink into the back ground and train enough to enjoy themselves but never stick out in the crowd of Type A personality types.

Normally quiet, and shy or “missing in action” around event time, this group simply wants to hang out and train with little chance of challenge beyond this. They work in class hard enough to enjoy themselves but just enough to stay under the radar of any senior or instructor who may notice them. They don’t do social events because that may make them noticed and one reason they give is that they just like to train.

Having these people in the club or even being one of these people is not a bad thing, its often not a lack of dedication or motivation that drives these people, it’s a reclusiveness that sets in and keeps them from wanting the lime light. They may even be selected to help out and get some organizational stuff going, but they still will hide out and be worker bees with silence over pushing themselves to be at the front of the pack. They however do get lost in the mix often and some don’t even notice when they leave a club. Normally the reason they leave by the way is the very reason they are not noticed….they are shy and they don’t want any attention…but not getting any attention also drives them away. It’s a strange dynamic.

They may have some success in Karate, and they will probably enjoy training unless the spot light gets shone on them a bit to much. They act as “Dojo filler” mostly and they just kind of hang out and train and have a good time. The important thing for an instructor to do is recognize this and push them a bit to test, advance and even work on tournament training with them. These kinds of people will never be super start athletes that push the club name, but they can get so much more out of Karate than learning to hid in the mass of white Gis!

Karate can bring these people out of their shells and push them to start trying harder. They may not see value in the nervous life of a super star introvert but they will start to learn that in life you often have to just throw caution to the wind and go for it…regardless out outcome. They often have a bit of hero worship issues and yet cannot see themselves actually succeeding…so we as instructors need to show them this. It will benefit them in all endeavors they have.

Most of us are a bit of this one and a tad of that one. The important thing to see as an instructor and even a student is to what extent are you a bit of each and learn how to get the most out of what you are in the club and outside.

Some of the “types” I outlined seem negative but like I said only one is “bad” in my mind…the rest are just simply shades of good and bad that you can see in the club. None are wholly bad and some digging into why you see some as being one over the other may help you understand students a bit better.