Is Karate Really That Difficult To Learn?

Just like any other physical discipline in life, karate is really quite easy to learn, but incredibly difficult to master. If we were to compare karate to a completely different physical activity such as javelin throwing, you may learn how to throw correctly after just a handful of lessons. However, this certainly doesn’t mean you are now ready for the Olympic games.

In general, getting a grasp of a specific technique does not take long at all. However, learning many different techniques takes even longer. To learn all of these techniques competently or even well, takes an extremely long time.

Generating A Baseline Understanding Of Karate

As far as everything else on this list goes. Getting a baseline understanding of karate is really very easy. All that it will take is some level of commitment. This will really only be 3 hours per week for 6 months and doesn’t take much more than this.

Even if you feel you are not getting any better, this is simply your brain playing tricks on you. When you spend time doing something, unless you are completely zoned out or uninterested, you WILL get better. Even if you were one of the worst karate students to ever set foot on this planet (unlikely), you are still not different enough from anyone else that you won’t progress. It may take you a longer time than the average person, but you will generate a baseline understanding of what you should or shouldn’t do eventually.

Getting Physically Fit Enough To Perform All Techniques

This reason is one of the most underrated reasons why people fail at martial arts and especially karate. If you think of the strength, conditioning, and flexibility it takes to perform a reasonably easy technique such as an axe kick. A regular person would simply not be able to perform this technique due to their excess body fat and unflexible legs.

If you are unable to physically perform a technique then it doesn’t matter how many times you are shown it, you simply will never be able to learn it properly.

As you learn all the basic blocks and strikes in karate, eventually you will reach more advanced techniques such as jumping or flying sidekicks. These techniques are very difficult to learn, let alone master. Therefore if you are not conditioned enough, you will hold yourself back.

10000 Hours

Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote about 10000 hours of practice making you an expert in his book Outliers. Whilst this book became extremely popular, Gladwell was pretty much saying if you practice a lot, you will become competent.

To be honest 10000 hours seems like a number plucked out of thin air. Does 10000 hours of practicing karate make you an expert at karate? Or does 10000 hours of roundhouse kicks make you an expert at roundhouse kicks? Surely it depends on just how detailed the subject is.

Many skills in life will take far longer than 10000 hours to master. However, with that being said, karate can be learned to a very high degree within 10000 hours. You may not be a complete master of the art, but you will be very competent. You could learn all the basics of karate within 10% of this time or less.

Memorization of Kata

There are many different methods and theories people use to memorize their kata. There isn’t a one size fits all method for remembering things, people should generally do what they find suits themselves.

Remembering kata is probably one of the hardest things in karate, since it is combining both mental and physical aspects of the sport. You may be very competent at all the techniques, or even the best student in your class. However, if you can’t memorize these techniques within a routine, then you will surely fail your kata tests.

Other people may find learning kata easy, so this skill is not particularly difficult to learn or master. It really will just depend on the individual and how good your memory is. It could be second nature, or it could take a lot of practice and patience.

Applying Karate To Real Life

Applying karate to real-life self-defense is a difficult part of learning the art. If your gym spends a lot of time on warm-ups and kata, this is useful, but it will not translate well to real life.

Transferring your karate skills to a real-life situation will be very difficult to learn (but still possible) since you will need to spar a lot. Whilst sparring is not the silver bullet solution to everything, it will at least give you a good idea of just how good you are. If you are losing in the gym karate vs karate style, then the chances of you winning a street fight are fairly unlikely.

However, just like everything else, if you practice enough, eventually you will reach a point where you are good enough to apply karate to real-life situations. This is a very hard part of learning karate since it is fairly nuanced and unpredictable if we compare it to something like memorizing kata or conditioning your body.

Complete Mastery

Anyone who says they have completely mastered karate should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. Even professional karate fighters or old Japanese masters do not claim to have mastered the art. This is because if you are a human you will always make mistakes, and if your ego is in check, you will understand there are ALWAYS things you can improve upon.

In all honesty, complete mastery of karate is not really possible for a human. Maybe one day we will be able to make a robot that can execute all techniques as we perceive they should be executed. But until this day, it is very unlikely there will ever be a master. Yes, there are people who perform to a very high degree, but these people are often the most humble. They have reached this level by understanding their own frailties and improved upon them.

If you want to learn more about Karate, then this book is a great place to start.