The best martial artists always demonstrate their level of discipline. A few times a year, we volunteer in the Japanese American community at various events. This weekend is our dojo’s osoji or “year-end clean up” and mochitsuki or “mochi pounding” at Zenshuji. We always tell the students that volunteering is “part of their training.” It is part of their training because how hard we work and how well they work together demonstrates our level of shu (修) or “discipline” as martial arts practitioners and it also indicates the training level of our dojo. In the old days, martial arts were never demonstrated in public. The only way one could “see” another school’s martial art was to dojo yabure (道場破れ) or “challenge” them to a private duel. This was also called dojo storming. Yabure means “to tear” because after beating the teacher of the school, one would break their kaban or “sign” in half and take over the school and absorb all of its students. Because one could only know the strength of a school by reputation, it was a risk to just storm any dojo. Therefore, a practitioner had to be clever in choosing which school to attack. One way to figure out the strength of a school was to look at the genkan (玄關) or “front entrance.” If the entrance was dirty and unkept, then one could surmise that the level of training was no good which would make for an easier duel. However, if the entrance was clean and meticulous, then one could deduce that the discipline was good there. We often see shu in the word shugyo (修行) which means “discipline” but it is most often used within the buddhist context of “aesthetic practice.” Therefore, if one engages their training from the point of view of shugyo, then their training becomes more spiritual and a person who trains from this level would be much harder to beat. Nowadays, traditional training has lost its luster and many so called martial artists have tarnished the meaning of what it means to be a martial artist. Thus, when we go out into the community, we have to show that the discipline of training in a martial art has benefit farther than just beating people up. We demonstrate the benefit of martial arts training by individually working hard and by working well as a group. Martha Beck once said, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” Thus, if we demonstrate our level of discipline off the mat then it is not hard to extrapolate that our discipline on the mat is good as well. What does it mean to be a martial artist? Please show people with your actions because they are dictated by your level of discipline and that is why the best martial artists always demonstrate their level of discipline.
Today’s goal: Remember, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
Watch this video to better understand discipline