汚名返上
Omeihenjo
To redeem oneself
The journey of the martial arts is really omeihenjo (汚名返上) or a journey of “self-redemption.” It is inevitable that not only in the martial arts but in life that we will make mistakes. Our character is defined by how we handle adversity and how we deal with our mistakes. Every day, we train, make mistakes, learn and grow. This process can best be summed up by the proverb nana korobi ya oki (七転び八起き) or “To fall down seven times, but get up eight.” Falling down and getting back up teaches us utarezuyoi (打たれ強い) or “resiliency.” Interestingly, the kanji for utarezuyoi directly translates as “strong hit” implying that we have to be able to recover from a strong hit in order to succeed. In Aikido, our partners throw us down and we have to get right back up and do it again. Thus, we are literally practicing this proverb and teaching ourselves resiliency with every Aikido technique. We learn that our character is defined by how we handle adversity and mistakes. When a normal person makes a mistake, they usually go to great lengths to cover it up, pretend that it didn’t happen or turn away from it. A martial artist isn’t a normal person and so they turn toward adversity and embrace their mistakes. O’Sensei said, “Be grateful even for hardship, setbacks, and bad people. Dealing with such obstacles is an essential part of training in the Art of Peace.” We should be grateful because our difficulties show us where the work needs to be done. Furuya Sensei used to often say, “Do not turn a mistake into a mistake.” Explaining this he wrote, “By running away from our errors or mistakes or not turning them into some kind of advantage or benefit is the ‘real’ mistake.” Therefore, the only mistake that we can’t recover from is in not trying to rectify or redeem ourselves when we realize that we have made an error. The martial arts teach us resiliency and thus we learn that nothing is broken beyond repair and that is why the true path of the martial arts is self-redemption. This year might be coming to a close but there is still time left in life to make a comeback and redeem ourselves.
Today’s goal: What can you do to repair something that seems to be broken?
Watch this video to better understand redemption.