The best part of learning martial arts is the training process. I love how I feel when I am training alone in the dojo, often with the door locked, the lights off and the music pumping. I get a sense of who am I because I am forced to focus on nothing else. I never pause for too long so I won’t get distracted and I turn my errors into accomplishments.
Training hard is not always fun, but there is always something new to learn about myself. Most of the time I learn that whatever I though I knew was not quite right. After so many years of having the same experience, I have finally figured out that practicing martial arts is not about getting things right, it is about making them better. Working out will never be dull for me because I know that, no matter how much I get wrong, I can improve if I keep training.
My love of training not only stems from experience, but also from a internal restlessness – a unquenchable desire to refine my skills. Each time I practice, I learn. Each time I learn, I know what needs more work. When I set out to work on it (practice again) I learn more, and then I want to do more work. This process has been repeating throughout my entire life, and although at times my body feels as if it has nothing left to work with and my mind cannot quiet down, I can keep going because I know that there is nothing else I would rather do.
Sometimes I think that I must have lost my mind in the search for skill, but perhaps it was my mind that was in the way the whole time? Maybe I never lost it, but I began to understand when it was helping me excel and when it was dragging me down. This struggle to coordinate the workings of the mind and body is what makes the martial arts so beautiful. I love training because it is my way, it is my life.
