打たれ強い
Utarezuyoi
Be able to take a strong hit
The warrior’s mindset is resilient. In the olden days of budo, training was much harsher. Teachers would intentionally say and do things to try and even slap you in order to elicit a response. The reason for this style of rough training was because as children we are taught to be on our best behavior and put forward our tatemae (建て前) or “outward face” and hide our honne (本音) or “true face” and so without knowing the student’s honne, a teacher wouldn’t truly be able to help them reach their highest potential. So it was thought that the teacher would have to force out the student’s true feelings, personality or intentions and some people also believed that our truest self comes out right after being slapped. One day, Furuya Sensei thought I was dropping my guard in bokken training so he thrusted me in the soft cleft at the base of my throat. It was accurate and just hard enough to make me gag. Surprised and scared, I grabbed my throat expecting to see blood. Sensei just turned and walked away and casually said, “You’re fine.” After that, he confided in someone and said, “David has a temper.” I did but I never lost my temper in the dojo so I was dumbfounded as to how he could ascertain that from that one moment. I would imagine that with that information, Sensei would know how best to train me. In past times, a student’s feelings were never taken into account and the harshness in training was intentional because it was thought to be the fastest way to prepare the student warrior for the rigors of battle. It is thought that the best always prepare themselves to take on opponents of equal or greater strength and skill and we know that those opponents will always come at us with all their might. It is more inevitable than impossible that we will at some point fall but the greatest measure of who we are is if we are able to get up after taking a strong hit.
Today’s goal: Make resilience part of your day. If you get knocked down, get back up.