Never Stop Training

 

The "Secret" of Success

A student once asked Jigoro Kano, “What is the secret of Judo?”

Kano replied, “Never stop training.”

Kano’s quote is so pithy and simple—as wisdom truly should be—that we may not realize the depth of attainment behind the words.  We also tend to outright dismiss quotes such as this as something so obvious that we already know it.  At least, we think we know it.  But do we?  When I first read it, for instance, my initial reaction was to tell myself inwardly, “well, of course you can’t stop training.”

I began martial arts training when I was 9 years old.  So by the time I was 15, I (like most teenagers) was pretty sure that I was a world-renowned expert on, well, just about everything.  (But, especially, martial arts!)  And if I had read the quote back then—and I may have, but I don’t remember it—I would have taken it to mean “train every single day” or to “train as often as you possibly can.”

Never stop training, from Kano’s perspective, wasn’t about training as often or as long as possible.  It’s not the attempt to cram as many workouts as you can into a day, a week, a month, or a year of training.

The founder of Judo is not giving us a “commandment” to train all day long.

The commandment is to train all life long!

As a teenager, I can also remember how much I really thought that I knew about martial arts.  Now that I’ve trained for 40 years in various martial arts, I realize not just how little I knew then, but how little I know right now.  This is what happens, however, when you approach budo (or any martial art) with the attitude that training is a lifelong pursuit.  You come to realize that it’s not so much about being the hardest puncher in the dojo, or the highest kicker in the dojang, because those are strictly physical goals.  And if you pursue martial arts from a purely “physical” perspective, you are going to be disappointed as you age, even as you continually work on technique and improving your skills, and find that you are no longer as fast or as strong as when you were younger.  If this is your attitude, you will probably quit by the time you are 40 or so, and realize that you will never again be as fast, as flexible, or as strong as you once were.  But when you approach budo with the understanding that martial arts are more than just a physical practice, you know that you can improve because your mind and your spirit can be honed until the very end of your life.