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Karate

My First True Love

5 min readMay 2, 2025

I did Isshin-ryu karate for 11 years.

I only obtained the rank of brown belt, but I loved it. It has the standard punches and kicks, as well as some trips, throws, and chokes to warrant it being a legit art that’s badass.

But training in martial arts is not about being a badass. It’s about working to be a better person.

These days karate gets a bad rap, but it shouldn’t. A question about the effectiveness of karate from Quora prompts this week’s newsletter.

Be warned, it’s a little long.

808’s and Heartbreaks

When I was 16 and had my own money, I knew I wanted to invest it in martial arts.

I wanted to be like Bruce Lee and all the other martial arts movie gods I grew up with. So, I went looking for the best place to train. I thought I had found it when I found a kickboxing gym right in my hometown. It was a good experience, but I found out when I went to college that it wouldn’t stay in business, and I only just cracked the iceberg of martial arts.

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Edward Carbajal
Edward Carbajal

Written by Edward Carbajal

Interests in Martial Arts, Literature, Civil War History, Horror. Contributor to; Sherdog, MyMMAnews.com, One37 PM & TheBlogboardJungle.com

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