I came across something awesome this week, a book called Ninpo: Wisdom for Life by Masaaki Hatsumi. Hatsumi is the Grandmaster of Togakure Ryu ninjustsu and the book is just a series of essays written by him on a bunch of different topics. Some of the essays are a little strange or too technical but there are some real gems in there too. One in particular really stuck in my mind, about enthusiasm for training, he likens training in martial arts to creating pottery, you need some kind of heat to produce things and make changes, so for us enthusiasm or passion can be that heat. There's a lot of stuff in there that applies to any martial art, most of my favorites have the theme of training hard being the best way to progress. The person I borrowed the book from told me something else I really liked that Hatsumi says:

Takamatsu sensei (Hatsumi's teacher) told him that when we train hard, our bodies heat up and we sweat. The heat causes the sweat to evaporate, sending up steam to heaven reminiscent of the smoke from incense when we make an offering in a temple or shrine. Over time, we make many of these "offerings" and are eventually rewarded when heaven sends us the "martial winds".

Isn't that awesome?! I've really been enjoying thinking of training, and consequently sweating, as an offering to heaven since I heard this story. Shifu told us that we get too caught up in the physical side of our training sometimes and this imagery has really helped me to change my perspective over the past week or so.