Martial artists aren't giri-giri type people.
Giri-giri is an onomatopoeia that Japanese use to refer to something that is done last minute. This morning on the radio, I heard that there was an earthquake advisory in effect from now until October 4th. This advisory happens to come at the end of national preparedness month. This made me think about how a martial artist needs to be prepared for any person, condition or thing.
As martial artists, we are always supposed to be prepared. It is part of our training and the reason why we train so much. I am sure many of you have heard this one, "How long have you been training? You've been going so long, why do you still need to go?" We still need to constantly train because, like in emergency preparedness, we never know when the "Big one" will hit.
As martial artists, we are people who not only learn from our mistakes, but from others as well. I can remember this one time when I was a student and someone forgot their hakama at a demonstration and how mad Furuya Sensei got. From that point on, I always kept a back up uniform in the car just in case and I know that many others did too. I learned from that person's mistake. There is a famous story about Tiger Woods during his time at Stanford. Supposedly, there was a really bad storm out and Tiger was seen heading toward the driving range. Someone stopped him and he said, "This is the only time I will ever get to hit balls in these type of conditions." Tiger wanted to be prepared if he ever had to play in hostile weather conditions.
We train so that our minds and our bodies will be ready for anything that comes our way. Nothing would be worse than to succumb to someone or something because of a silly mistake or underestimation.
Martial artists must be prepared for anything, natural or man-made. We are always prepared and thus are never giri-giri. Please make sure that you are always prepared.