On Discipline

Discipline is the cornerstone of attaining success in the martial arts. It is arguably the most important component for achieving success in any aspect of life (with luck and skill thrown in too of course).

However, what is discipline? Often times discipline is evoked by instructors telling their students to stand up straight, focus, bow to seniors, or remember to keep their fist tight consistently. It is that thing that people lack, and that instructors often beat their heads against a wall trying to give to students. The problem is that discipline is not a thing that anyone can teach to someone else, which is what makes it such a valuable resource.

Succinctly put, discipline can be defined as “self-control.” It is the ability to exert one’s willpower over their actions.

This trait is entirely derived from one’s own self, of the control that the practitioner has on their life and the choices that they make. For this reason, it cannot be taught to others. It must be cultivated within a person, not handed to (or drilled into) them as an external idea.

Because of this, superficial discipline is easily discernable from real discipline. Superficial discipline may appear when practitioners excel at the niceties and politeness of protocol, but have sloppy technique. They have focused their attention to the aspects of discipline that are most on the surface, because those are the places that passively interact with others.

However, the manifestation of deeper aspects of that self-control never appear. They have not exerted that willpower over the mastery of techniques, of training, and of improving their skill in the actual martial art that they train in. More true discipline manifests by adapting to corrections in one’s technique, or pushing oneself to the limit of one’s ability, or even simply showing up on time to train at every opportunity one commits themself to.

Truly, real discipline emerges no matter who else is around. And, in fact, is most salient when no one is around, since it is self-control exerted upon a person’s own actions alone.

When true discipline is achieved, it permeates all aspects of a person’s life. The practitioner’s martial technique will show the devotion paid to it, yet their protocol will reflect the values they have learned from that development. Their politeness will pour from the wellspring of the lessons that training has shown them, not from being told what politeness is and how to show it.

True discipline emerges out of hard work and training, and cannot be taught as a “thing” unto itself.

If the training itself is not the focus, then what right do we have to call ourselves “martial artists”? If only protocol is stressed, then we forsake the “martial” — simply becoming polite shells of practitioners whose technique does not matter, in capturing only the façade but never the true lessons of the inner power of martial practice.