“It takes a 100 times to remember the move, a 1,000 times to make them beautiful and 10,000 times to grasp their essence.” - Unknown
You cannot buy budo. The main question that people ask when shopping for a martial arts school is “How much does it cost?” Obviously, they are trying to figure out if they can afford training and are weighing its value from a cost standpoint. The problem is that from a cost-benefit analysis, martial arts training doesn’t add up. For instance, it takes the average person five years to reach shodan (初段) or “first degree black belt.” If dues for training were $100 a month, then the cost to get a shodan would be about $7200 but that is not the real cost because that price doesn’t reflect any other ancillary costs like gas, equipment or uniforms. That $7200 might be the monetary commitment for shodan, but there is also a time and energy commitment which, generally speaking, costs somewhere around 1000 hours of training. Therefore, if we were to present martial arts training to potential students as requiring an average commitment of five years, $7200 and 1000 hours and that sho (初) means “beginner” then most customers probably wouldn’t start because of the sticker shock. Some call this consumer based mindset shoninkonjo (商人根性) or the “mercenary spirit” where things are transactional and the tangible benefits outweigh the costs. However, martial arts training teaches us to have a bushikatagi (武士気質) or “warrior spirit.” The word samurai (侍) itself means “one who serves” and to be a warrior in the service of others requires that we be gijin (義人) or “selfless.” There is a great line in the movie Seven Samurai where Shimada says, “By protecting others, you save yourself. If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself.” If we have the mindset of a customer, then we will never be able to jump into the void and save another person. With that being said, today, every student begins as a customer. However, at some point, we start to see training less transactionally from what it costs us to what we are gaining from it self-developmentally and thus stop being customers and become students. There are so many intangible benefits to training in the martial arts which don’t add up on paper like having more self-confidence, getting into better shape, or becoming a better person to name just a few. Those intangible benefits completely outweigh the “price” of training and that is why training is a journey and not a destination. Therefore, we cannot buy the benefits of training, they are something that we have to work for and that is why we can’t “buy” budo, we can only strive toward it.
Today’s goal: In everything you do, try to see the intangibles.
Watch or listen to the Aiki Dojo Podcast’s episode where they discuss customers versus students
Watch the HIGHLIGHTS