Why do I say a personal journey, firstly because it is a journey rather than a destination, although the destination would appear to be to make all techniques perfect. The problem with this being that perfection is not possible,
something that needs to be understood for progress to be continually made even after many years. Also what people expect and actually get out of it varies, even when the aim seems to be the same, we are all different people! Although the competitive spirit is good sometimes, it is important to realise the true challenge is against yourself and not other people. Of course to beginners many people look 'perfect', but this view changes the longer you train, though the errors and imperfections should decrease the more someone trains. The biggest sin of all, self-satisfaction, if you think you cannot improve upon something, then you won't!
It will be interesting that Sensei Sakagami said (after about 46 years of practice) that things he was certain of 20 years ago he didn't believe to be so anymore. It will be interesting to see in 20 years time (assuming nothing stops me) how this looks since I am only up to 19 years so far.
Train hard and enjoy
It is not just important to train hard, to try to improve, it is also important that you enjoy your Karate, and being with the people you train with, as far as this is possible. Without enjoyment, how long are you likely to continue training? Yes I know this is not always easy, personal problems, those bad sessions or periods where seemly nothing goes right, a few painful blows, injuries, grading failures, competition disasters, realisation that you are simply not as good as you thought you were, the people you find annoying, all are part of the challenge. Nothing is really worthwhile unless it requires effort and determination. I have forged many friendships over the years through training hard together with people of all ages, some sadly move on for various reasons, but all are still thought of and hopefully reappear at later times.
It is important to realise that most of the limitations you see in your Karate are self imposed, you must push yourself beyond what you think your limitations are even sometimes to point where muscles give up completely (you should not do this if you are very young or very old), few people push themselves to their true limits. In hard training you find the truth about yourself (painful as this can be sometimes).
As Yoshi Shinohara used to say especially on summer camps, "if you feel tired just carry on, if you feel dizzy stop". Obviously as you train more you become stronger and can take more, so you can push further. Ah, I hear some people say, "I'm getting older, less flexible, weaker etc etc", the limits may change from being very young to being very old, but still most are nowhere near their real limits.
Balance
There is always a balance to be achieved like tension and relaxation while doing the techniques, hard and soft while fighting, fight hard but control to avoid injuring your opponent. To achieve real power forces must also be in balance, which means the body must also be in balance.
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