Storms Give Birth to Warriors
I am sure you have heard the old saying, “Calm seas do not make a good sailor.” Anyone can sail a boat when there is no wind or waves. That doesn’t take much skill, but it also doesn’t teach you how to handle a boat when things get rough. You only learn how to sail through rough seas by experience. You can’t learn by reading about it, being told about it, or thinking you can do it; you must learn by experiencing it.
Likewise, you don’t learn how to be a warrior by reading books, watching movies, or training in a sports dojo. You learn the character traits of a warrior by integrating them into your life and living them daily. You learn to be able to fight, and defend yourself, by either training with experienced warriors or by actually fighting.
I grew up street fighting. I had been in dozens of fights before I went to college, and these were not playground “fights” where two punks are pushing and shoving each other. I had been shot at, stabbed, had a straight razor held to my throat, beat a left for dead, had a sawed off shotgun shoved in my face, with his finger on the trigger, and have been stabbed with a screwdriver (one of the most common weapons used to stab people, and one which most people never consider as a weapon), just to name a few of the situations I have been in.
At the same time, I have put several guys in the hospital, have been in many bar fights, fighting multiple attackers, and have fought some really bad ass guys, and walked away the winner. I learned how to fight before I learned anything about martial arts. This enabled me to know when an instructor knew what he was talking about or if he was basically, full of crap and had never been in a fight in his life.
All of the storms taught me to be a warrior, and my instructions from men and women of honor, taught me the character traits to go along with my fighting skills. Together, the storms of my life gave birth to the warrior spirit in me.
I don’t write this to brag or to convince you that I am tough or that I am a warrior; I use these examples to show that you must experience, and live through, the storms in order to cultivate the warrior spirit. If you have never had to sail through a storm, you don’t have the experience. You don’t know how you will respond. You don’t know what you must do to survive.
Reading about what to do, or being trained by someone who has no real experience, and having the actual experience, are two completely different things. Whether it is developing the character traits of the warrior, the spiritual traits of the warrior, or the fighting skills of the warrior, you can’t develop them unless you use them. Reading about them, studying them, and thinking about them are all fine, but to make them yours, you must use them. You must make them a part of your life.
This is not just referring to self-defense and fighting. In order to develop the traits of respect, honor, honesty, loyalty, etc., you must practice these traits; you must live them. Reading about them won’t help you if you don’t have the courage to use them when they are required.
You will have many chances in life to lower your standards. It takes courage to stand against the crowd. If everyone says your buddy is a fraud and a crook, it takes character to stand up to them and say, “He is my friend. I know him and that is a lie.” It takes character to stay loyal to someone when everyone else is against him. It takes character to live up to your word and make your word your bond. These character traits must be practiced and made a part of you through experience.
Moreover, if you are not training with someone who is an experienced fighter, who has survived many fights, either in the streets or in combat, then you are not learning true self-defense/fighting techniques; you are only learning theory from someone who has never been there or done that. That is not a smart move when you are training for life-or-death situations.
And, even if you are training with the right instructor, you must have some reality training or some actually experience, before you can be sure of how you will respond in an actual serious situation. I have been in several life-or-death situations, and I know how I respond. I know how to shift gears and what it feels like. I know how to stay in control under high pressure situations.
In fact, I seem to get calmer and more focused in serious situations. My wife gets frustrated with me, as I may yell and get upset when I can’t find my watch, but in a serious situation, I am calm, cool, and relaxed. That only comes from experience. I know that getting worked up in a serious situation only makes things worse and I am always strangely calm and relaxed. Now I just have to learn how to stay calm when my wife cleans up my office and forgets where she puts all my stuff! Jeez!
While the storms of life may not be pleasurable when you are in them, the experience you gain from them is invaluable. Storms give birth to warriors. They develop your confidence, needed experience, and skills which you need to survive the next storm. Everything happens for a reason. Learn from every situation and use it to your advantage.
Warriors are not made in the safety and comfort of their living rooms; warriors are made by surviving the storms of life. Push yourself past your comfort zones. Train with those who have been there and done that, who know what they are talking about and how to train you to survive.
This kind of training is not found in your average sports dojo; you will have to search for these warriors. And, this training won’t be some fun, exercise based, martial arts class; it will push you to your limit with reality training that will be a close as possible to a real attack. You will feel as though you have survived a storm when you are finished with class!
If you want to truly be a warrior, you must get out of the kiddie pool and get out in the open sea. You must experience life in order to be prepared for the storm. Expect the unexpected and know that you have what it takes to deal with whatever life throws at you. Then, when the next “storm” comes your way, you will laugh and say, “That is not a storm. I AM THE STORM!”
