Forging Spirit: Kantosho
We should avoid becoming comfortable in Kendo. When you feel that everything is easy, you have failed yourself. This doesn’t mean you should push yourself to injury. Comfort is a state of mind, its a relaxed disregard of your lessons. You are “fine” with where you are - Really? Every practice you should push your mind, your body to it upper limits. When you are faced with “I want to quit”, “I cant go on”.... that is when you are achieving growth. Learning is difficult. Its painful. Its frustrating. Its painful because all of the information is new, and difficult to apply into practice.Whenever you are faced with discomfort, frustration, exhaustion, remember THAT is the moment when you are developing something new.
Push yourself as hard as possible every practice. You will grow. When you are faced with dire circumstances and situations in testing and competition know you have already faced practices and situations that were much harder than what you are experiencing currently.
Nothing your opponent does to you will break your spirit. You have forged your spirit with a thousand practices. You have conquered yourself in the dojo over and over and over.
Training your spirit require you to try to break it, and rebuild it every practice.With a honed spirit your opponent stands no chance at conquering you.
