There are no weekend warriors in budo. Having a Monday through Friday mindset causes normal people to live for the weekends. There is nothing wrong with this mentality. However, a warrior is a person who follows the Way. The Way is a life set forth by morals and principles that one does their best to not waver from. The Way is an everyday mindset and so there are no weekends. An everyday mindset is not something that one can be just turned on or off as we like because we run the risk of falling into complacency. Someone once said, “how we do anything is how we do everything.” Thus, to be a true warrior, we must be the same person everywhere and in everything that we do. It doesn’t matter if we work the french fry station or if we are the CEO, we must put forth the same effort into everything that we do and thus “how we do anything is how we do everything.” Furuya Sensei once wrote, “In traditional training, spiritual training always begins with purely physical training. This is where many of us misunderstand this process. This physical training is designed to develop our mental and spiritual sides, so physical training is not simply physical training but the first step towards developing ourselves spiritually.” When Sensei says, “spiritual,” he doesn’t mean religious. Spiritual in this sense means how or why someone does something and it is more important than the what or the outcome. To truly follow the Way requires us to always have the proper mental focus and attitude. To attain this proper focus and attitude requires spiritual training and that means living one’s life guided by a set of morals, principles, or ideals. The more we train, the deeper or more spiritual our training becomes. Budo training is about becoming the best person we can be. To achieve this requires a mindset where there are no days off and that is why in budo there are no weekend warriors.
Today’s goal: Ask yourself, “Am I the same person everywhere I go and in everything that I do?