Cupcake Or Cosmos

One of the things I spend a great deal of time talking to my students about is mindset and Swishing Teki Kyoto (Spiritual Refinement) and recently I explained it as the theory of the cupcake of the cosmos. 

Whenever we want to do something like get better at martial arts you will hyper focus on training and doing the physical skills and either have a short spurt of motivation or get to black belt and quit. This is because your focus is that you want to obtain that black belt and once you do, you feel you own it, you achieved your objective and you quit feeling a false sense of confidence. 

A black belt who hasn't trained in 8 years simply isn't a black belt anymore, you got to the point where you understood the foundations to get better then quit, dooming yourself to an eternity of mediocrity. 

This is the perspective of owning a cupcake, you made it, you baked it, you consumed is and it's now gone. 

What you should do is forget belts and forget ranks but focus on knowledge and learning a diverse range of skills. Being good isn't simply training for 4 hours a week, Ninpo is quite literally the "Ninja Way Of Life" and Budo (The Warrior Way) is a living thing, you have to live it, drill the techniques daily. All black belts may be the same but not all Budoka (Warrior Way Students) are the same. 

This is the way of living in the Cosmos, You have to build the world you want to live in and be God of your own universe. You have to be accountable for your own excellence so if you want to get good you have to diligently practice the way on a daily basis. 

The paradox is that a student who believes he is a master is a fool, A Master who believes he is always a student knows the Warrior Way. You should NEVER feel finished with training and that is where ego becomes an issue. 

Go as far as you can in one art and move on to the next one to expand your skill sets. That is how you will become able to operate in any environment and use a wife variety of skills to aid in your survival and self defence. 

So the question really is do you want a cupcake? Or to live in your own Cosmos and be God of your own universe? The only person who holds you truly accountable for your own excellence is you and you become what you believe you will become. 

I say to my students all the time that I don't care if I teach 1 or 1000 students it's all the same to me, because I live in my Cosmos and I know I am the god of my own universe and own it. It's a choice, be meek and mild or own the room, it's that simple, so cupcake or Cosmos?