Musing on Optimism for the Martial Art Aspirant

Join me on a journey as we explore the path to unlocking your inner strength and discovering the power of optimism, inspired by the wisdom of martial arts.

A breakthrough, though a struggle, will come and inspire you. Tedious work, disparaging personalities and bad weather can sap the joy out of life sometimes. Frustration stemming from impatience can break and make our minds pessimistic other times. But bringing back joy to our work and tasking ourselves to express gratitude for waking up to experience a brand new day, regardless of current life conditions, will create the inspiration you need to create the breakthrough and progress you want at the right time and place.

We need the optimism of the beginning martial artist, patiently training and mastering the techniques to build a solid foundation, despite the critics and contrarians laughing – “Why that won’t work?” “Your martial art stinks!” and “You should learn this and that to become a real martial artist!” – despite the many unknowable variables in any situation. Critics and contrarians attempting to project their own experiences on others, under the guise of “protecting them”. Forget that! Everyone has to walk their own path, make their own mistakes and grow from their own experiences. We cannot avoid all the pitfalls of life, nor the responsibilities for the choices we make afterward. At best, we can all avoid the illusion of knowledge, if not the ignorance of it, meaning that to not know stands not a sin, but pretending we have the “knowledge” stands worse than ignorance-it is illusion!

Undaunted, the martial art aspirant, under the guidance of good teachers, holds his reverence for tradition until his reason tells him otherwise, and he trains diligently day by day, mastering not only the forms but himself. He learns how to deal with and overcome his internal challenges first as he cultivates his competence and control. Once he has achieved self-mastery, then he proceeds to test the limit of his knowledge and practice under pressure within his training domain and without. This process takes years. Eventually, he will adapt what stands useful and set aside everything else. Had he followed someone else’s unsolicited and too often pessimistic projections of their own disastrous past, he too would have become common pessimistic dabbler too afraid to commit to a tradition or path chosen on his own terms, nor would he ever reach mastery of himself, much less anything enough to qualify him to pass knowledge on or teach others.

Optimistically, create your path and walk it responsibly on your own time and terms.

In sum, we all have the potential to overcome challenges and create a breakthrough, but sometimes we need some extra inspiration. That inspiration can come from within, or without so lets embrace where we stand, what we have and gratitude for new growth and possibilities the day and our practice offers.

The martial artist is a perfect example of optimism in the face of adversity. Despite the inner and outer critics and contrarians laughing and projecting their own experiences on others, the martial artist is undaunted. Holds reverence for the traditions your art, while also having the wisdom to know when to adapt and move forward. Remain patient and willing to put in the time and effort to become a master, no matter how long it takes.

This my friends remains your the key to optimism. Create your own path, and walk it responsibly on your own time and terms.