Day 27 of 27 — Imposter Syndrome

July 17, 2021

I still do need to explore the karate path as I still do not know how I got where I am today. That I would still be training, is no surprise. That I still love it as much and hope to train till the day I die, is not a surprise either. It is a surprise though that I am teaching karate, and almost daily I feel like an imposter.

 

A huge part of me knows that I was never meant to teach karate. It is a strange set of circumstances that put me here, and daily I feel I should step away and let the 'real teacher' take over. When I am teaching my class, I often feel removed from myself, like I am not really in my body, like I am scared to own who I am when I am doing it. They say imposter syndrome is something more women than men suffer from. Have you felt it? 

 

I felt it less right after my Sensei left Singapore. He had left the care of our dojo to two of us, his most senior students. It made me nervous when the other person stopped training almost immediately. But at that time there were just three of us training, me and two brown belts, on Fort Canning Hill. Twice a week at 7 pm when the day was still light, finishing at 9 pm when darkness had fallen. We often did Sanchin in the moonlight. On days when it rained, we took shelter under SMU and trained in the wide corridors outside Bras Basah MRT, along with SMU students practising theatre or dance. After half a year one more joined us, and when senior black belts passed through, they came and taught us on the hill. Such was the warm spirit of these Senseis. 

 

I rented a room at the Substation, where the arts were supported at subsidised rates, after I convinced the manager that traditional karate was also an art form. It was the perfect location and very affordable. More students joined; a teenager from Bombay who had started goju-ryu there, a Japanese man who had a black belt in another karate style. But then the substation changed management, and the practice rooms were converted into classrooms. We were dojo-less again. 

 

We moved to the Clarke Quay area and trained in several different gyms over the years. I guess the imposter syndrome grew as the class grew. Many of those who joined had years of martial arts when they were younger, many more years than I did. There is fear that fuels this feeling of being an imposter, but there is a logic to it. Most of my own teachers had forty or fifty years of karate behind them. Most of them had superior knowledge and skills. To teach one should at least have that much. You must have felt this at some time about something?

 

When the self-doubt felt crippling, I used a twelve-week inner work and creativity course to explore my feelings around it. I was wrecked with anxiety. I assessed my capabilities as well as my inadequacies. I drew and gave a voice to my critic, I walked like him (yes, he was a man!) and sneered like him, and I found a couple of allies—an ancient chilled out dragon, and a bumbling student samurai. I sat around the fire with them. It helped. One of my biggest strengths is that I recognise skills others in my dojo possess and I regularly invite them to teach. I also attend as many gasshuku’s and trainings as I can. I have trained with excellent teachers who have transmitted not just techniques but the essence of martial arts. For now, it will have to do. 

 

Sometimes I feel all this work is a patchwork still. One day I’d like to feel whole. One day I’d like to know how I ended up here and what is right about it. I feel like an imposter as a writer too. I don’t know how to overcome this feeling yet. 

 

Thank you for staying with me on this twenty-seven-day journey. Thank you for the gift of your time and involvement. I feel like something has shifted in these weeks, but I don’t yet know if it has or that I just want it to have. All day as I taught my class, had tea with some karatekas, rode back in the bus, ate lunch, I was sad. I will miss doing this, but I also am glad that the twenty-seven days are done. Though I sit here alone and type on my blank screen this writing has felt too much of an ‘extroverted’ activity. I need to retreat within for a while.