"Spring Shugyo....."

Shugyo is an ageless Eastern tradition and regimen for training and testing oneself. This is a process of personal tempering that is applied in many martial forms, such as the Shotokan and other traditional styles I have studied over the years. It is also an approach to preparation many adventurers I know practice during the spring. Shugyo is a part of the 'Budo' systems where very intense physical training is designed to develop oneself, not just physiologically, but also in character and especially spirit...

F. Morgan wrote, "Shugyo isn't a routine part of training; it isn't something you do daily, weekly, or even monthly... The idea is to find a memorable occasion that will have emotional significance to those taking part... Then shugyo serves as a cleansing rite of passage." He said too, "Shugyo doesn't have to take place in the training hall, and if your spirit is strong, you don't need someone else to drive you on. In fact, undergoing shugyo alone, with no one else to motivate you or look after your safety, can temper your spirit like nothing else can." I and some friends have often thought of our adventure spring training in this way. This kind of journey has also been a part of many of my own solo's through the mountains or when sea kayaking by myself out among the islands. Through such a process we embrace not something we so much learn, or is taught to us, but more so something we find deep within us... It is a part of our shared indomitable spirit and that personal inner voice which says quietly, but firmly - we will return and we will not give up... At certain times and significant points in our adventures things may seem beyond us - and then such spirit can be the difference between being able to go on, keeping safe, or not.

So as F. Morgan writes further, "Plan a project that will truly test your physical and emotional limits, an obstacle you previously believed insurmountable... Where you do need to carefully and intelligently push yourself to the edge of your limits and beyond."

In doing so, we will be both tired and tried, but in unusual and truly rewarding ways. This is about a toughening, but not just of the body... There is a real tempering of the spirit, where we will rise to new levels of understanding and motivation, create distinct enhanced endurance the likes of which we may not have experienced before... This is about developing a different kind of discipline that polishes our spirit like a gemstone...

I believe as with adventures themselves, and as A. Hasegawa wrote ages ago, that "Paradoxically the need for shugyo is even greater in an affluent society."

Enjoy your spring training my friends...

DSD