“We martial arts addicts are a strange bunch, I’ll be the first to admit that.From an outsiders perspective, we train over and over how to beat someone up or respond to a violent situation. Of course to us ‘insiders’, our training is much more than that. We are training our bodies and forging our spirits. We are concerned not so much with winning or losing but about learning and deepening our understanding of the arts that have been passed down for decades and in some cases centuries.
It was thinking along these lines that got me wondering. What motivates some of the long term practitioners and instructors to keep training day after day, year after year?
I put this question out there to 4 people that I admire and respect: Ellis Amdur, George Ledyard, Joe Thambu and Seishiro Endo. Here are their replies:”