Y’all ready to clutch your pearls?
I have some news: I’ve stepped away from taekwondo training indefinitely.
Let me clarify–I stopped going to training classes at the end of December and have decided not to go back for an indefinite amount of time.
It’s taken several months and a few coaching sessions from my coworkers, also fellow trained coaches, to process my complicated feelings around this. The short version is, I wasn’t having fun anymore, I didn’t look forward to going to class, and I was starting to resent giving up time that I could be using to do something else.
The more complicated version is–this was part of the fallout of the extreme burnout I experienced in 2025.
Last year was cartoonishly riddled with drama and difficulty:
- I started experiencing extreme, constant insomnia that I later figured out was due to perimenopause, so this has been a long journey of brick walls and bullshit to finally getting the care I need.
- Around that same time, I started experiencing persistent excruciating pain in my Achilles tendon and foot usually exacerbated by vigorous exercise (like, say, taekwondo).
- I went through three invasive medical procedures in a 24 hour period.
- My car and home needed several expensive repairs.
- My sibling is going through an extended, difficult crisis. My parents have been devoting nearly all their emotional, mental, and physical capacity to helping them, so that’s altered the dynamics of my immediate family. I feel more distant from the three of them than I already did over the past few years and have watched them go through cycles of suffering and self-destruction with little I can do to help.
- My last two remaining grandparents, whom I loved very much, died a day apart.
- My job has become increasingly demanding, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I spent many years disliking my job and wishing I could escape. Things have turned around dramatically in the last few years, and even though I’m excited, energized, and engaged, I’ve had to adjust to the shift and a bit of the shock of it draining more of my mental battery and energy.
Even though the status quo was painful, I fought against changing it for a long time because I didn’t comprehend things could be different. Eventually I learned better coping skills and started letting go of things that didn’t serve me. I spent much less time on social media and online in general; I haven’t looked at social media all since the beginning of 2026 and don’t miss it. I had frank conversations with my boss about my extreme exhaustion, and she helped me rebalance priorities. I became more mindful about where I was directing my time and energy. I let myself rest and recharge more often.
And yet, something still nagged me. Taekwondo just wasn’t fun anymore. Some spark that I felt was gone. Although I always felt better after a class, screaming Achilles tendon and all, it didn’t outweigh the nagging feeling that I’d rather be doing something, anything else. I couldn’t even muster up the excitement and motivation to put my sights on preparing to test for Third Dan. But I kept gaslighting myself, thinking, “It’s only two nights a week. The Thursday class isn’t even a full hour. Taekwondo can’t be part of the problem.”
But it was, and when I started toying with the idea of stepping away, I felt better. I started with a two month break, and true to my manic, overly scheduled nature, I wanted to cram in as much as I could on those now “free” Tuesdays and Thursdays. After a few weeks of experimenting and a few days where the insomnia made me too tired to do anything “productive” in the evening, I learned to let go of over-scheduling those free days and just let whatever happened happen. Sometimes I’d do yoga. Other times I’d work on a novel I’m writing. Or read a book. Or practice guitar. Or take a walk. Or my partner and I would eat dinner early and get into our evening TV shows. Or take a nap if I’d had a really bad night’s sleep.
When the end of the two months neared, I started getting depressed thinking about going back to taekwondo before I could even form a clear thought about it, and then felt depressed and guilty that I didn’t miss it. That told me I needed more time. I sent a hasty text to my instructor saying I needed two more months and I’d be back in May.
But I really didn’t want to go back at all, and in the last few weeks, I’ve been able to admit to myself that I’m making the decision to stop going entirely. Whatever guilt and conflict I’ve felt about it has dissipated, along with the early defiant glee that I could do whatever I want in the evenings. Now I feel, as my coworker/coach helped me discover a few days ago, “stillness, peace, and quiet.”
I glanced back at the article I wrote nearly a year ago about burnout and am reminded of the idea my counselor at the time posed to me: Would you feel resentment if you said yes to something? Would you feel relief if you said no?
To those two questions, regarding taekwondo, right now the answer is: Yes to resentment, yes to relief.
The mental freedom I’ve felt over these last several weeks has been exhilarating. But taekwondo wasn’t really the activity keeping me penned in and constantly on the go.
It was me.
I have been beholden to an after hours activity, no, performance of some kind for twenty years, and I’m the one who chose it for me. I took classical guitar lessons from 2005-2010, did an MBA with in person night classes from 2009-2012 (had to let go of guitar so I could focus on school), did nothing in 2012 but stir up drama and create problems for myself (I still regret that wasted year), started taekwondo in 2013 and did that until a few months off in 2018 when I was changing dojangs, took extended time off for knee surgery recovery, which was its own time suck, and then I was back to a regular schedule of private lessons and full classes from 2022 until the end of 2025.
Recently on a Mel Robbins podcast I heard cognitive scientist Dr. Maya Shankar share her own story of “identity foreclosure,” which resonated with me deeply. The American Psychological Association defines identity foreclosure as “premature commitment to an identity: the unquestioning acceptance by individuals (usually adolescents) of the role, values, and goals that others (e.g., parents, close friends, teachers, athletic coaches) have chosen for them. The individual’s commitment to the foreclosed identity—for example, that of an athlete—occurs without exploring its value or contemplating alternative roles that might be more appropriate for them.”
Had I trapped myself in identity foreclosure by clinging so deeply to taekwondo as my primary means of emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual wellness with no room for anything else?
I’ve heard of people going through a spiritual death, and in hindsight, I think that’s what happened to me over the course of 2025. Now it’s time for rebirth.
I still tend to do certain things on certain days. I really enjoy my weekly kickboxing aerobics class at the gym (using good black belt technique of course), and my partner and I do a workout from a YouTuber we like a few set times a week barring any outlying evening obligations…but I don’t have to “answer” to anyone or be counted on for anything, and it feels fantastic.
As for the pain and insomnia, I’m under the care of medical professionals for both and am doing better.
Now I’m in this cocooning period where I get to figure out what I want to explore and expend energy toward next. But I don’t want to exert the kind of obsessive energy toward anything else the way I did taekwondo for over a decade. I want to stay grounded in who I am and have a better emotional and mental balance on what I pour my attention into. I don’t want to give as much of myself as I have in the past to anything.
And yes, I’m more career minded right now, and that’s okay. My deepest core value has always been safety and security, including financial security, both now and when I’m retired. I’m cool with work being a bigger priority and drain on my energy battery. I can now say confidently that I genuinely enjoy my job, which is a nice feeling.
My partner, a little concerned that I was SO thrilled to be able to stay home and hide in my Fortress of Solitude more often, asked me if I’d consider trying another martial art in the future, and I assured him that while I’m very open minded to trying something new, for the next several months, possibly the next year or more, I NEED this downtime to rest and be open to other possibilities of what I want to do next. (Kinda thinking about judo, but not ready to try it yet.)
As I let go of control, I gain back my power.
This is still a martial arts blog, right?
I can hear the Internet saying: “But…but…you’re a black belt…but, martial arts…fall down seven times, get up eight…a black belt is a white belt who didn’t quit”…blah blah blah. I get it. There’s a huge taboo in all of the martial arts world about quitting, and I’ve been guilty many times of judging people too harshly for stepping away. Screw that culty mindset. Yes, “quit” is a four-letter word, but not that kind of four-letter word. When, racked with guilt over leaving and recognizing that I was also denying my partner from going to the Thursday night black belt grappling class, he, a taekwondo master with over twenty years in that world, said…
“It’s just an activity.”
I am still a martial artist. I am still a black belt. I know many people who from my local metropolitan taekwondo multi-verse who don’t train any more, but it’s still alive in their hearts, and they are still forever connected to that world. I don’t question what they’re doing with their lives, and I ask that people offer me the same grace. I haven’t even felt the urge to do a form at home over the last few months, but I will. I still kick and punch the shit out of the air in my Body Combat class and feel a little thrill when I do it. My partner and I still get excited talking about fighting scenes in movies or shows we watched. The other day we laughed at each other when we both did snap kicks to warm up for our latest YouTube workout–that was focused on upper body work.
This blog is still going strong (yes, guest writers, you can still submit your wonderful martial arts-related ideas), and I’m not taking my lovingly written memoir about taekwondo off the virtual bookshelves. As Olympic taekwondo athlete Jackie Galloway said at a dinner I attended many years ago, “Taekwondo never leaves you.”
Even when I need to leave it.
