This article is part of my series on the Kyokushin Dojo Kun. In this article I discuss the importance of discipline. Read Part 1: We Will Train Our Hearts and Bodies and Part 2: In Time Our Senses May Be Alert.
The third line of the Dojo Kun says: “With true vigor, we will seek to cultivate a spirit of self-denial.”
Discipline isn’t a feeling. It’s consistency – what keeps you moving forward when motivation doesn’t show up. It’s action, repeated over and over, that moves you toward your goal, whether motivation shows up or not.
While Claudio was in college, I adjusted his training schedule around his class schedule each semester. One semester that meant training at 7 am. I asked him once if he ever had mornings he didn’t want to get out of bed and come train. He laughed and said, “Yes.” I laughed and said, “Me too.” Then we got to work.
Neither of us was feeling particularly motivated some of those mornings. We showed up anyway. Or more accurately, he showed up and I got out of bed and moved the couch since we were training in my living room at the time.
Discipline is showing up to train on the days when you feel tired. It is continuing to practice when progress feels slow. It is putting in the work even when no one is watching. Discipline is consistency.
Perseverance matters more than comfort. Training is not always pleasant. There are moments when you want to stop. The student who continues despite that feeling begins to understand something important about themselves.
People may not always realize it at the time, but the things that are most difficult are often the most meaningful. I’m turning 68 in August. Trust me when I tell you this: years later, people rarely look back with pride at the things that came easily. What they remember are the challenges they overcame. The long training sessions. The tough fights. The moments when they wanted to quit but didn’t. Those are the experiences that shape character.
Kyokushin training was never intended to produce people who simply knew how to punch and kick. Its purpose was to develop people who keep going when things get hard, who move forward instead of stepping back. That comes from discipline. Not motivation. Not talent. Just showing up, again and again, until it becomes who you are.
The ability to fight is valuable. It is part of what makes one a martial artist. But the true measure of the training is found in the person who emerges from it. Someone who refuses to give up, who understands the value of discipline, and who keeps moving forward when things get difficult.
Years from now, you probably won’t remember every workout or every class. But you’ll know the kind of person the training helped you become. And you’ll know it was discipline that got you there.
This spirit of self-denial – doing the small things each day that advance us forward on the path, even when we don’t want to – is what Sosai Oyama and Eiji Yoshikawa meant when they wrote the Dojo Kun. It’s putting aside what you want to do, or what would be easiest to do, in return for progress. Whether that is sports, education, or a career, or a family, or your faith, all of those things require self-denial. And because you are the one who decides, it is one of the most difficult things to accomplish.
Osu!
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