When I was a child, my father once told me: "To win a competition, what you need is ingenuity, but what is more important is courage." I simply believed what he said that day. One day something changed me and made me believe that I should be more cautious about his words. I always thought that lack of ingenuity led to failure until I was assigned to a Karate competition in Thailand. I realized that ingenuity was not enough. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In 2017, I was assigned to a competition in Bangkok, Thailand, joined by athletes from many Southeast Asian nations. I didn't want to participate in the competition because I didn't have the desire to show myself and my strength for the competition. I hated and feared being stared at by so many people around me especially in competitions. Although I had spent two years training and was criticized for the mistakes I had made during the training session, I never had the courage to be a winner in any Karate competition. My only goals were good health and self-defense. My Sensei kept asking me to enter the competition and I asked him why. He replied, “You may think that years of training seems like enough for you, but just that doesn't mean you know how to use it. Furthermore, you may know the fighting tactics I have taught you, but you haven't had the courage to act yet, which is why I think this is your opportunity to not only show off your skills, but to become braver in combat. I decided to do as I was told. I couldn't sleep well the night before completion because I imagined what things would be like when I competed. It was like going to war empty-handed. My father gave me his advice about fear and how he would reward me if I returned with a medal. He thought I felt motivated while I felt depressed. After a long bus journey, I arrived in Thailand a few days before the competition together with my Cambodian team. So, we had a few days of preparation and consultation with our coaches. I noticed that I was the strangest young man on my team. During the exercise with my teammates, they seemed well trained and absolutely tough. They performed very well when they all fought together, so much so that they were simply blamed by their instructors. Furthermore, they had gained a lot of experience in national competitions, so the rest of the team seemed confident, except me. I was the only one who got blamed a lot. One of my coaches told me: “You are not compatible with this type of competition. You're just a scared fool. You need to open your eyes and see the other athletes on your team as examples. I'm not like you. What are you so afraid of?" It was so frustrating to spend years training and get scared just hearing those words that I almost quit that competition, however he wasn't wrong, so I had to admit it. Those athletes were so professional because they had won some medals in their previous competitions which had made them perform well without hesitation, so I was no match for not only the competition but also my teammate because I had never won any medal before and that was also the first time I competed at the international level. After a few days of warming up, the competition began but I was not yet ready. The stadium I would compete in was located somewhere in a suburb of Bangkok.