18 years ago in a hall in Ramat Gan, a black belt ranking test was held in karate. I wasn’t there. I quit the dojo a few weeks before, after almost a decade of training.

The official reason: I wanted to focus on being a scout leader. The unofficial reason: They flew in a sensei from Japan especially for the test, and I was convinced he would notice I wasn’t practicing at home and therefore fail me. After all, there’s nothing worse than failing. Except maybe practicing at home.

I actually loved doing karate. But practicing at home with movements and “kiai” shouts? How embarrassing. Just the thought of my family seeing me doing weird movements, making mistakes, correcting myself, moving - made me nauseous..

Doing things outside, in front of people - only possible when they’re perfect.

For years I toyed with the idea of going back to training, and nothing ever came of it. In a really random conversation with a new friend who mentioned he also trained once, something stirred. Something about sharing that memory.. I came home and searched for a dojo in the city center - turned out there was one just a few minutes from me. I signed up that same day.

I arrived at a studio in the basement of a gym. Karate isn’t Pilates. From the moment you enter and bow - only the sensei speaks. After a few minutes he came over and asked if I had trained before. “Yes,” I answered, “a bit.”

It was clear to me that I wanted to start from a white belt again. Learn the principles from the beginning. Be clueless, without the desire to jump as quickly as possible to the highest rank. Refreshing.

I discovered it’s a different branch of karate. I trained in Shotokan, and now it’s Kyokushinkai. The main difference is that it’s a more physical branch (nice name for: kicking is allowed) so I come home with quite a few bruises. In one training session I kicked so hard I got dizzy from the pain.

I’m the only woman in the dojo and therefore in the simplest sense - the weakest. But mainly, I’m not afraid to learn from zero, not afraid to be bad.

Finally there are two and a half hours a week when I don’t think about the world outside, when I get stronger. Muscles I didn’t know existed have appeared. Still not practicing at home, but… you have to start somewhere.