Valuable Lessons Learned from Karate and Swimming

“Swimming isn’t a sport”, are the words I had noted my entire life, and I was the one who said them. Growing up I had plunged into the world of Karate. All I cared about was earning my three-stripes and progressing to the next belt I was obsessed. WIth the Idea of progress, practicing learning, trying my hardest to accomplish my goals. However, I laced my hardest challenge in life to date my brown belt test. The test encompassed everything you had learned from the 6 belts before It.

and burnt out, Karate had become a nuisance, and the number of skills I needed to know was overwhelming I had taken swimming lessons throughout my entire childhood pre-karate, I made some friends I still have today, retook the same level four times nothing too specral. At this point I had no idea swrmming was even a sport in my mind I assumed I needed to know how to swim so I could escape sharks in the ocean‘.

As I progressed through swimming lessons, I felt the same success I would feel later in karate. At the time I reached Level 5/5, I had been deep into my martial arts Iourney. The amount of strength and endurance I had gained was evtdent in the pool. My Instructor praised me and encouraged me to join the Swim Club. In my mind. hard work : success and success was the best feeling ever. However, karate : fun so I wanted to do that my parents though. knowing high school was a year away convmced me to join the high school team.

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Having never swam competitively before I had no Idea what I was getting into. The seniors on the team looked like Olympians, my tImes were almost the slowest on the team. and I was struggling to improve sophomore year, my seniors are gone, but my times showed no improvement.

Freshman swimmers that swam on swim club for years were coming onto the team as varsIty while I was stuck in the slow lanes. The swrmming I had once loved in lessons was turning into karate, something I was good at but lost the desire to improve. That summer I became a Lifeguard, l was maturing as a person and discovering my love for MedIcaI Science but couldn’t get a grip on swimming. Junior year I almost quit the team but stayed with it I felt that I had an obligation to be good, especially being an upperclassman. Breaststroke had been my stroke since freshman year I loved the stroke but never had the courage to push myself. This turned into a big problem, our top breaststroker had lust graduated and I was next in line to be the best.

The year had started out the same as any other with about a month left in the season, I stopped thinking had fun. and lust swam. My 100 Breast dropped 4 seconds, my 50 dropped a whole second, and I was in contention for a spot on the relay at slates. Before then I never knew how fast I could actually swim because I never tried. At CCC I dropped another 5 seconds in my 100 and another second in my 50 securing my spot at states. All the pan I experienced, and early practice injuries, were all worth it I broke through the wall once and for all. Now, the unknown is what pushes me going into my senior year I have no idea of what I can achieve, and the only way to find out. Is to keep pushIng. Looking to the future I can only thank swImming for what it’s done for me. My mindset has changed drastically I’ve developed an interest in the human body I hope to carry into college and the feeling of progress has relgnited the drive I once had to accomplish what I put my mind to.