When I was younger and competing, I had a couple of favorite techniques. Most of us did. They were the moves that felt natural, the ones I could rely on to score points or end a match. There’s a certain satisfaction in finding something that works; it gives you a sense of certainty.

But even then, I knew that those few techniques weren’t “it”. I knew there was a much larger picture I wasn’t seeing yet, and that’s what kept me searching long after I stepped off the competition mat.

The danger in martial arts – and perhaps in life – is the moment you find something that works and decide you are “right”.

Once you believe you have the answer, you usually stop looking at the problem.

I see this often. A practitioner finds a particular application for a movement in a kata that makes sense to them, and suddenly, that is the only thing that movement can be. They’ve closed the door. They’re no longer studying the kata; they’re just looking for a mirror to reflect what they already think they know.

This is the trap of confirmation bias.

We don’t realize it, but we often spend our training time filtering out anything that doesn’t fit our current favorite ideas. If you’re convinced that karate is all about power, you’ll ignore the subtle shifts in balance. If you think it’s all about speed, you’ll miss the importance of structure. You end up with a very narrow version of the art, but because that version “works” for you, you stay comfortable in your bubble.

I remember teaching at a local dojo and the instructor had a very narrow vision of karate. Being an overweight heavy man, his advice to his students was always the same:

“Just keep your hands up and use your weight.”

When we distill karate down to these comfortable truths, we aren’t making it more effective; we’re just making it smaller.

Why?

Because “use your weight” is a tactic, not a principle. It works as long as you’re the biggest person in the room and as long as you’re young enough to move that mass. Once the weight doesn’t work, or the person gets older, there is nothing left to fall back on.

By being “right” about his one specific way of fighting, he had actually built a dead end.

It’s an easy trap to fall into because being right feels good. It’s much harder to stand on the floor and admit that your favorite technique might be a dead end in a different scenario. It’s uncomfortable to look at techniques or a kata you’ve done for twenty years and realize you might have been misinterpreting the core principle of a movement the whole time.

But that discomfort is where the growth is.

If I had stayed satisfied with the techniques that won me matches years ago, my karate would have died when my youthful speed did. The search for “more” is what keeps the art alive as we age. It moves us away from collecting correct answers and toward a deeper understanding of how movement actually functions.

We should be wary of the student or the teacher who is always right.

Mastery isn’t about having a final, static answer for every situation. It’s about having a mind that is open enough to see what is actually happening in front of you, rather than what you expected to see.

The moment you think you’ve finally got it right, you’ve likely just stopped growing.

The real work starts when you’re willing to be wrong, because that’s the only time you’re actually forced to look for the truth.