“Discipline is freedom”
I’ve got a gut reaction when I hear this. Do you?
Discipline has never been my strong suit. And I despise repetition.
Yet I always connected with samurai movies and I 100% agree with the above pearl of wisdom – that discipline creates (more) freedom, because s/he who is disciplined is generally more in charge of what they do and don’t do. It allows us to stick with something that we have decided worthy, even when we might not feel like continuing in the moment and… oh, look! Shiny red ball!!
So there I was, in 2015, in my car, with a friend, driving to Southend-by-Sea, a small town on the English Eastcoast, to buy a Katana – a Japanese Samurai sword. I had bought one online in the middle of the night and got scammed, but here I was making it a day trip to pick one up from a small showroom I had found online.
Back in my room, with a sword on my wall, I wondered: “Why?” I would never use a Katana, I’m not into weapons, and it was so cheap that it would probably fall apart if I were to try and defend myself with it.
Then it dawned on me, that what I had needed the most at this time of my life was discipline, and to befriend repetition – both aspects that are core to practicing the martial arts, and which were perfectly, and beautifully, represented by this Samurai sword on my wall. A powerful reminder that, to this day, is in my sight.
I’m still working on discipline and repetition. It’s not quite how I’m wired. But I believe in its value and in finding my own way with it. And so I loved mishearing David Clutterbuck in a recent meeting of the Global Supervisors Network as he was talking about a sword – I heard “thought”. And I had never made the connection between Samurai Sword and Samurai Thought!
Now let your mind run free with that metaphor! It keeps on giving 🙂
With Love
Yannick
