Stay active, with purpose.
Movement is the ultimate and most dramatic expression of our aliveness. It is how we express our ideas, our potential, and our freedom. We move to work, to build, to get stronger and faster, to grow, harvest, and cook food, to fight, and to create life.
It is during the times when we are most likely to be idle, whether because of an injury, the weather, or other circumstances outside of our control, that staying active is most important. Idleness is the opposite of aliveness. When we have the greatest number of reasons to do nothing, to be idle, we owe it to ourselves to act, to move, and to express our life and our freedom through our bodies in whatever way we are capable.
Find a way to stay active, to move, to be alive. Set small, achievable goals and look for ways to do this with purpose and intention. Make a decision to be a little bit stronger, faster, more flexible, more agile, more robust, and more healthy every day and then act on that decision because it is the little things that add up to big in both idleness and in purposeful action.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh (artist unknown, unless otherwise noted).
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