“When you started, we didn’t think you’d keep training,” my sempai told me.

I asked him what he meant.

“We just didn’t think you’d make it. You didn’t seem cut out for it.”

When I began training in martial arts, I was a college sophomore. Academics had come fairly easy to me, and so I had never learned to work hard. Near-sighted and bespectacled, I had never been very physical.

Seventeen years later, I have no answer as to why I am still training. If pressed, I would say it is because it has never been easy. It forces me to struggle every day.

There are two characteristics that are essential to the pursuit of budo, or martial arts training: a bullheaded stubbornness, and nyunanshin. Nyunanshin, “pliable mind” or “malleable spirit,” allows a person to continue to force himself to change, to empty his cup each and every day. It forces the budoka never to cease the quest for self-improvement, to view his study not as a destination to be reached, but as a journey to be taken.

It is necessary to cultivate this flexible, malleable mind, lest it harden.

Jungian psychology deals extensively with the shadow-self, the aspects of our psyche of which we are unaware, that we suppress. According to Jung, we encounter the personifications of these shadow-selves in dreams and visions. Though the shadow is not uniformly negative, Jung did say that “the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” When we meet our shadow self, we meet a dark reflection of our own positive aspects, and we must choose: either continue to live in ignorance of the things that influence us, or confront the shadow.

Wrestling with the shadow illuminates parts of ourselves that we are ignorant of. The process is unpleasant and uncomfortable. Marie-Louise von Franz, who worked alongside Carl Jung, said in her work Process: “If and when an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of) those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in others — such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions.” It is, she continues, “…[a] painful and lengthy work of self-education.”

Joining a dojo is like becoming a member of a family; you inherit a teacher to guide you on the path and brothers and sisters who will support you, push you, challenge you. When you begin to lose your pliable mind, more senior students are there to set you back on the correct path. When it comes time to fight your shadows, they will stand beside you.

As one grows ever more senior, training becomes an ever more solitary effort. The work is something you must do on your own. You don’t spend as much time with those who are your seniors. It becomes easy to presume you are in the right, both in your training and your life.

Seniors are seen by their juniors as examples, models to follow. This is the challenge of all people in positions of teaching authority: those they teach will look to emulate them.

Despite the many portrayals of wise masters of martial arts in the media, the raw fact is that mastery of budo is exactly that: mastery of budo. Nothing more. There is no inherent morality to a proper sword cut. This lack of morality complicates the task of being a responsible senior, because it is inevitable that juniors will emulate their seniors’ behaviors, both for good and for ill. The onus, therefore, is on seniors to strive to be excellent examples in all areas of life.

There is a saying in my martial tradition: “My sensei didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” It was not until recently, when I found myself confronting a dark aspect of my own personality, that the ramifications of this saying became evident to me.

I owe a debt to the ryu to be the best example that I can be. This is how I honor those who have come before me and strengthen those who will carry on after I am gone. Over the years, I have observed my seniors, and my sensei, and seen that they are men of discipline in mind, body, and attitude. They are thoughtful men who speak only after deliberation and consideration.

When I look at myself, I find the difference between my reality and my aspiration is far greater than I had hoped. There are aspects of my own personality that I am unaware of, and that I must confront, understand, and acknowledge. I have become rigid in my thinking, and my nyuanshin needs to be strengthened.

Obviously, it is not wrong to support a belief or a position. Nor should one change his or her opinion simply to fit in. But it is dangerous to avoid looking into the “why” behind one’s beliefs and opinions. Ignorance of your motivations is a weakness, and a warrior cannot allow himself the luxury of deliberate ignorance of his own mind. The enemy we face most often is not external; it is ourselves that we must fight and overcome every day. It is through awareness of our dark side and willingness to confront it and change our actions that we prove to be worthy exemplars.

There is no excuse for leading those who look to you astray. They are the future, and we must be worthy of them.

I sat down today to capture moments in my training for posterity. Instead, I find a reminder of how far I still have to go before I am worthy of my ryu and of the respect of my fellow travelers along this difficult path that is budo. There is no excuse for my actions and no apology that will take back words already spoken. The only path forward is to own my choices, strive to be better, and leave these thoughts as a guide for those who follow after me.

The road is hard.

I sit in a quiet space, and do battle with my own shadows.