Everybody loves to say they “think outside the box.” Yeah, cool, but here’s the thing—they always forget you need to build a box to begin with. Trust me, after 15 years of getting punched and kicked (and, okay, doing some of the punching and kicking) in karate, you realize real quick: before you get creative, you better lay down some structure. Innovation? It doesn’t just pop out of nowhere. It grows out of discipline, foundations, all that boring stuff people try to skip. Yes, the box.
Honestly, the path to getting good at anything is a mess—no straight lines, no solo runs. There’s a team behind every move: teachers, mentors, even random folks you meet by accident. They all toss in a board or two while you’re building your skills. Karate hammered that lesson home for me. Try to skip the basics? Boom, you’re on your back, wondering what happened. I’ve watched super-talented kids wipe out because they tried to get fancy before they could even stand right. Not me. I spent years sharpening my basics, drilling moves until they were automatic. My “box” was built with every subsequent board, with plenty of sweat and no shortcuts.
After a dozen years of my martial journey, something snapped (in a good way). I started feeling which moves fit my body, which ones just clicked. In tournaments, my own style crept in. I’d nail the fundamentals (the box) and then mess around with new combos, sometimes crashing and burning—seriously, it took me over a hundred failed tries to land my double kick. When I finally nailed it, that move became my thing, my signature. Suddenly, techniques that seemed impossible were just part of my daily arsenal.
Then came wrestling, crashing in and expanding what I thought to be possible. Junior year, I joined my high school wrestling team, and the footwork just made sense. Turns out, wrestling and karate aren’t so different—you just have to mash them together in the right way. That’s how I cooked up the drop-step: half-wrestler, half-karate freak, all me. That little Frankenstein move was key to helping me snag the 2025 Kentucky State Champion title.
Martial arts? It taught me how to mix and match, pull from everywhere, and still keep my own flavor. Now, I see the same thing in science. Wild curiosity, sure, but always built off a rock-solid foundation. Whether I’m poking at molecules or figuring out new medical treatments, I go back to what karate drilled into my brain: master your basics, then get weird with it.
So yeah, for me, growth is about smashing things together—ideas, disciplines, whatever—and making something new. But it must be earned. No skipping steps. Always build your box first. That’s not just my karate motto; it’s my life hack. And I’m dragging it with me into every lab, classroom, and whatever comes next.
By ZaHir Covington