虎穴に入らずんば虎子を得ず
Koketsu ni irazunba koji wo ezu
If you do not enter the tiger's cave, you will not catch its cub.
The best martial artist always puts in the work. The secret to getting good at Aikido or any martial art, for that matter, is to continually show up and put in the work. Napoleon Hill said, “Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.” Every day when I go to the dojo, I see two types of people. The first group are the students who have shown up and are putting in the work. Regardless of ability or talent, those students will eventually get good and reach their goals. The second group, which I don’t see, are the students that didn’t show up to the dojo and, most likely, aren’t putting in the work. It is not a far stretch to think that the latter will improve far more slowly and will also, most likely, not reach their goals. 30 years or so ago, when Watanabe Sensei was a student, there was a young actor who used to come all time that Furuya Sensei would use for ukemi and he was getting very good. At one point, life must have happened, and he had to take some time off. When he returned a year or so later, Watanabe Sensei had passed the shodan exam and this young actor was astonished at how strong Watanabe Sensei had gotten. He relayed his astonishment to Sensei and said, “I can’t believe how strong he is now.” Dismayed, he ended up quitting for good after about six months and someone told me that he quit because he felt that he could never overtake Watanabe Sensei again. However, what this student didn’t understand was oitsukioikose ( 追いつき追い越せ) which in Japanese means “To catch up in order to overtake someone.” It only seems logical that to beat someone or reach our goals, we have to catch up to them first. We can only catch up by putting in the work. Thus, there is really no secret to getting good at all. Getting good at anything is a simple recipe: show up, put in the work and time will take care of everything else.
Today’s goal: If you get tired, rest but just don’t quit.
Watch Gary Vaynerchuk discuss putting in the work.