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
Essays on Old-School Strength Training, Classic Bodybuilding, Traditional Martial Arts, and Budo Philosophy