What Karate teaches Jennifer 
(Nothing)
But
The people and the experience
(Many things.)
Karate has been a viable vehicle for me. Karate helps me grow and develop during my journey from childhood to young womanhood. Karate is a part of my life, but only a part. My family is significant to my development. The love and support my parents and younger sister have offered me has been precious. I value their contributions and want to express my gratitude to them.
I express thanks to my instructors 
and partners in karate. Experience in karate and my valued family and friends have helped me understand the value of being grateful. There is great value in expressing gratitude. I have watched the development of people from early childhood to retirement. I have learned about people across the spectrum of age, education and varying degrees of intelligence and ability. The variety of partners and instructors has been and continues to offer me the opportunity to grow in understanding. Understanding myself and others. The strong and intelligent have given me opportunity to understand that my skills and abilities are only limited by my choices. The choices are evidenced by my behaviors. 
The weak have given me the opportunity to develop patience and compassion. In my individual experiences, patience and compassion have not been easy to learn. I do not enjoy practicing karate with seeming unmotivated and undisciplined partners.
Partners and instructors from various levels of intelligence and skills have opened doors to opportunity. The doors may have remained closed or only opened later in life had I never enrolled in karate classes. Karate as a vehicle for development has been greatly enhanced with people across many spectrums of life.
One wise and truly caring person transfers information dramatically influencing my life. That dramatic influence evolves as I pay attention. Consequently, that dramatic influence evolves as I understand how to make a determination between truth and falsehood. Ere regardless of the sources of information, I have discovered that truth is not necessarily the information that is readily accepted by the masses. Genius may certainly be ninety percent perspiration and less than ten percent inspiration and intelligence. Opportunity is always there. We must open our inspirational senses to make the opportunity become life changing. Hopefully in a valued and positive direction. Fortunately, wisdom has directed and challenged me to understand a great lesson that should be learned sooner rather than later.
It is impossible for anyone to offend me. Others are going to do what they are going to do and say what they are going say. I then decide how I respond. Consequentially, I have no power to offend only the power to act or be acted upon. Meanwhile others have to make their choice. In my youth, I observed enough to know I can do things that will increase the probability others will chose to take offense. Experience teaches it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, when they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise inappropriate measures that exceed their authority.
Parenting and teaching do not necessarily become greater and imparted skillfully with passage of time. Neither as the information and responsibility transfer from person to person. Parenting and teaching are both important and essential skills. Both seem to have inadequate preparation and are often fueled by unskilled and unknowledgeable mentors. Great parents should be revered, and respected and great teachers duly appreciated. Honor and respect need not be bestowed merely by the passage of time and uninspiring experiences, but rather to those through diligence, intelligence and brilliantly calculated execution have become worthy of such merits of admiration or recognition. The greater the parent or the teacher the greater their service and example. Come follow me as I follow the examples that are the greatest available.
I speak not of the obvious, but of those that diligently, introspectively and intelligently seek higher wisdom than do the lazy, foolish and indolent.
Goals
Karate in conjunction with the rest of my life has led me to believe in myself and set some lofty goals that are a reality in the making. I apply principles and ideas of which I shall share:
The following goals will become elaborated upon in future posts.
Karate in conjunction with the rest of my life has led me to believe in myself and set some lofty goals that are a reality in the making. I apply principles and ideas of which I shall share:
1. My dreams are big dreams, which demand planning and implementation of the plan. I upgrade the plans as I gather information. Hopefully, I am learning to use wisdom in determining the bits of information that will lead toward my dreams and fulfillment of the plan. I am in the process of learning who I am and beginning to understand I have great potential. I know that I am highly energized, and I want to learn to channel the energy to go directly to my goals rather than be distracted by irrelevant and meaningless aspects of life.
2. I am focused on doing the things I love and spend time with the people that I love, respect and admire. I would rather do the right thing and be with a few great people than be with the masses and be required to do the wrong things.
3. I focus on my strengths while attempting to eliminate my weaknesses.
4. Becoming the greatest woman I am capable of being is taking on an increased sense of importance to me.
5. I have aspirations of living a life of abundance. Rich is more than having money, because a person can have money and lots of it and be impoverished. They can be in a state of emotional poverty. That poverty can extend to their physical, social, intellectual and spiritual components which certainly could place them in a state of poverty even though they have amassed financial wealth.
I want to be wealthy in all aspects of life. Easy–Only as I learn who I am and learn to apply correct principles in my life. Helping others do the same if only by example may help in my pursuit of abundant life.
6. I need freedom in time, to pursue a life of abundance so I need to own my own business doing things and provide services that others can find rewarding and satisfying.
7. I am committed to spending time with the right people. Negative people need to be eliminated from my life. Not that I eliminate the people but live in a manner that assists them in eliminating the negatives with better things and thoughts.
8. I need to love what I do. If I am not doing I what love requires me to change. If I am not spending time with the people I love, I need to learn to love more deeply.
9. If I do not know, I need to learn. I need to be teachable. Being teachable requires honesty and humility.
10. Life is not always on the mountain top, but rather a pattern of peaks and valleys. There is beauty on the mountain tops and in the valleys below, but the greatest beauty may be along the way from peak to valley and from the lowest point in the valley to the highest point at the mountain top.
11. I hope to always be ready and willing to sacrifice the lesser part of life in order to obtain the greater part regardless of how attached I am to the petty.
12. I want to kick ass and take names (Am I kidding?).
13. Desire is greater than discipline.