The Race

When I first began training in Japanese Budo, I was totally consumed with it. I could not stop thinking about it. When I wasn’t training with others, I did solo practice. When I did not do solo practice, I read books. When I could not read books about it, I would think about it or, if I could find a willing victim, talk about it. At twenty, my responsibilities were virtually non-existent, so I had all the time I wanted to pursue my passion.

Missing any training was agony. Any missed training somehow registered as “losing ground” in my brain, and it would color everything that I did. Irritation would hang around me like a cloud for days on end. Everyone around me felt it. I would be short and waspish with anyone that I had to deal with.  I was like an addict without his fix. It only dissipated when I got back onto the mat.

I clung to the practice desperately. In retrospect, it was a lot like a new relationship for me. When two people fall first fall in love, they cling to each other, unsure if the whole experience is just a temporary sensation that will quickly fade away. Touching is constant, as if to reassure themselves that what they have is real and lasting. There is a lot of insecurity there.

 In my mind, the practice was a race. I had to get as good as possible, as fast as possible. I constantly compared my performance with everyone else that I trained with. I kept a careful mental tally of whether or not I succeeded more than they did, on any given night, in a thousand different ways. I had to exceed my training partners, and if I didn’t, it bothered the hell out of me.

Fast forward a decade. My responsibilities have expanded quite a bit. I am the father of a little boy, someone’s husband, and a lawyer. My father is disabled, so I have to help Mom look after him. I have a great group of friends, and they need me too.  And of course, there’s always work to do and bills to pay. I don’t have as much spare time as I used to, and by the time I do get to the little spare time I do have, I’m often exhausted and unable to muster much in the way of mental focus.

In short, I don’t train nearly as much as I used to. For a while that bothered the hell out of me. I was “losing the race”.

But my relationship with my practice has changed. Like the one I share with my wife, it has grown and matured. It is not some ephemeral thing, likely to fade away at a moment’s notice. I have faith in it. The practice is part of who I am, just as much as being a husband, a father, or a lawyer. I don’t have to touch it every waking moment to make sure that it is there.

After a decade, I know that I’m in this training for life. It isn’t just something fun to do. It is the prism through which I view the world, and the tool I use to shape my interactions with the world.

That’s the “do” part of Budo. It is a “way” or “path” because it continues, and traverses all things and places in one’s life. And each place along the path presents its own unique difficulties and rewards. I’m sure there will be places on the journey where I will have more time to train again. At any given point in my training, my intention is the same: to do the practice to the absolute best of my ability, with everything I have to offer at that point and time.

I’m not racing with anyone anymore, because that is not the point. I do want to get as skillful as I can, do the practice as best I can, and when appropriate, transmit it to others as best I can, so that future generations can reap the same rewards and use the same tools I have. I do those things because they are worth doing, not because I am competing with anyone.

Maybe it comes to this: I’d still get on the mat every day if I could. But somewhere along the way, I realized that even when I’m not on the mat, I’m still on the mat. That’s the path.