The Journey, not the Destination

Last summer several of us watched Olympic athletes from all over the world compete in just 2 weeks to see who would go home with the gold medals. Many times, the difference between silver and gold, or between bronze and 4th place was thousandths of a second or hundredths of a point. It really drives home the realization that only ONE person wins the gold. Even though those of us who train in martial arts aren’t necessarily running a race or trying to stick a landing or touch the pool wall first, ask yourself this: what would your journey as a martial artist look like if you WERE training for the gold medal? Let’s redefine what the gold medal might look like for us. Is it achieving the next belt rank? Showing up at Spirit Week every night it’s held? Is it losing enough weight to get into the next lowest size uniform? Is it making it through a class without jumping cadence and doing pushups? Although in a track event the finish line looks the same for everyone racing, our f...

In America today, loyalty can be seen in many forms.   The most blatant example might be avid sports fans.   Even when a beloved team is having a terrible season, a loyal fan will still cheer them on, hope for the best; and even attend games where a loss is expected. When the going in life gets rough, however, do we stay the course?   Do we remain focused on our path and our goals and refuse to allow what’s around us drag us off course?   The last of the traditional Bushido tenets, loyalty, or chugi in Japanese, seems to be the epitomal manifestation of the previous six tenets in a samurai’s life.   Judging from the origins of the word according to Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, its meaning is rooted in “allegiance to the sovereign or established government of one’s country”.   Over time, loyalty has come to embody allegiance to just about anything.   Dictionary.com defines loyalty as “faithfulness to commitments or oblig...

Politicians and celebrities using the media to downplay the shame of their misdeeds.   Fathers killing their children for choosing a different point of view.   Our culture’s understanding of honor – meiyo in Japanese – is seriously distorted and sullied.   It seems today that if we can get away with something or “sincerely apologize” if we get caught, then it’s ok to do whatever we want.   Our reputation, our family name, our honor doesn’t matter much anymore.   On the other hand, much arrogance and selfishness has been perpetrated in the name of one’s “honor”.   So what is it really? This is the 6 th virtue of Bushido.   Wikipedia states that honor is “a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self-evaluation of an individual or corporate body such as a family, school, regiment or nation”.   The key word is perceived.   From multiple definitions of the word comes the idea tha...

Honesty – makoto in Japanese is the 5 th virtue of Bushido.   Defining honesty is kind of like throwing jello on a wall and expecting it to stick.   So much of what the word means depends on the context and culture in which the word is used, unfortunately. The quality of being honest; uprightness, fairness, truthfulness, sincerity, frankness.   This is what you see when you look up the word in a dictionary.   Looking up the word honest, though, you find a deeper attempt at definition: honorable in principles, intentions, and actions, upright and fair; gained or obtained fairly; genuine or unadulterated. Nitobe relates that a samurai could not even comprehend living a life that entertained anything but honesty.   He writes in ‘Bushido: The Soul of Japan’, “The bushi held that his high social position demanded a loftier standard of veracity than that of the tradesman and peasant. Bushi no ichi-gon --the word of a samurai […] was sufficient guaran...

"For the true master, martial arts are essentially avenues through which one can achieve spiritual serenity, mental tranquility, and the deepest self-confidence."  -- excerpt of Chapter 1 from "Zen in the Martial Arts" by Joe Hyams After reading this chapter, my thoughts ... Am I true?  I am definitely not a master, but am I true?  Not right now.  Please grant me the courage and strength to do so.  To be true. Am I willing to travel the avenues necessary to achieve what I want?  Without a dojo where I live?  Without a teacher 3 times a week?  Well, at least in the traditional sense.  Am I willing to let it all go and redefine my "dojo"?  I have plenty of places to practice.  I have so many memories of dojos past that I can create my own "dojo" wherever I am.  I must if I want to stay on the avenue.  I must let go of the restrictions in my own mind, the grief of not having a dojo right down the street, the wishing ...

I’ve had lots of people ask me why we bow in martial arts.  What I never knew until now was that the commanding word in Japanese that a sensei uses to instruct his students to bow – “rei” – is also the word for respect, the “why” we bow. Dictionary.com states that respect as a noun means “ esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability” or “deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy”.  As a verb, respect means “to hold in esteem or honor ”, or “to show regard or consideration for”, or “to refrain from intruding upon or interfering with”.  The kanji character is also translated as “thanking; gratitude”.  This is what we learn bowing is all about – thanking our sensei for teaching, our fellow karate-ka for working out wit...

Whoa!  Benevolence is not a word we see on a day-to-day basis!  It brings up images of religious saints, philanthropists, and Boy Scouts helping someone cross the street.  It seems to be reserved for those special people that do not get caught up in the rat race of trying to keep up with the Jones’.  The World English Dictionary defines benevolence as “inclination or tendency to help or do good to others”.  It stems from Latin – meaning disposition to do good.  Similar words are altruism, amity, compassion, generosity, kindness, charity, mercy.  Benevolence is one of the five tenets of Confucius , perhaps the most fundamental.  It has also been translated as selflessness, good will toward humanity, and brotherly love.  The kanji itself is described as a man and the number two – implying the unity of two human beings.     Mencius , a follower of Confucius, sums it up, as “a benevolent man is ever min...