地獄のように戦
Jigoku no yoo ni tatakau
To fight like hell
A good warrior knows desperation. Once Furuya Sensei asked the class, “Do you think I would rather teach in heaven or in hell?” We all sat there silently thinking that his question was rhetorical. From the silence, one student abruptly answered, “heaven!” Sensei replied, “No, I would rather teach in hell because those people would be fighting desperately to get out while the people in heaven would be too complacent.” I remember it was a cold and rainy day, the mat was crowded elbow to elbow and there were buckets out because the roof was leaking. Everyone in the class was trying to be cautious of the conditions so we were all naturally a bit slow. However, it seemed that we were a bit out of it and so Sensei was admonishing us for being too complacent. I think that Sensei’s question was trying to instill in us the idea that we should always be “fighting like hell.” Jigoku no yoo ni tatakau (地獄のように戦) or “to fight like hell” is to “use all of one's power or effort to fight against something.” In order to fight like hell, we must imagine that we are in hell and trying desperately to get out. To know hell or at least imagine it, we must first have known desperateness at some time in our lives. To be desperate is defined as “feeling, showing, or involving a hopeless sense that a situation is so bad as to be impossible to deal with.” Once we have known desperation and its sting, we know we never want to feel it again and so we fight like hell to get away from it. In Japanese, this is known as yuusen (勇戦) or to put up a “desperate fight.” On a certain level, we can only truly learn when we are desperate. To be desperate is to feel hopeless, but in this context, it means to be so hungry for something that we will do anything to learn it. Thus, the feelings of desperation are what create the hunger for true learning. When we feel desperate, we will shichukyukatsu (死中求活) or will “desperately look for a way out.” Understanding this, a teacher tries to create an environment which brings out the student’s fire or their hunger. Sensei once wrote, “There is an old saying: ‘Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes!’ I would like to say, ‘Do not teach, until you see the fire in their eyes!’” We should use our past feelings of despair as motivation to push us to achieve our goals in not only the martial arts but in life as well. A good warrior knows desperation and uses it but never gives way to it.
Today’s goal: Be desperate enough to fight for what it is you want.
Watch this video to motivate yourself to fight like hell