Choosing Action

So one thing that training provides one is focus - and lessons.

In training on Sunday Soke made the following statement:

"Once you begin an action, you must think five or six steps ahead to its completion.  And once you choose an action you must continue to move through it to completion.  But you must move - once you attack you must continue until you defeat the enemy."

It got me to think a great deal about drive and action.

I am not, by nature, a driven person.  I tend to drift along with flow, happy to engage with whatever is going on at the moment.  In some ways, this is a reasonable philosophy to hold.  If I am in a regular environment, I tend not to worry about things.  I can easy change plans or priorities as the circumstances dictate.  And generally that is a good thing.

I am not, however, as good at accomplishing things longer term.  In fact, I am generally pretty bad at it.  Which is a bit of an issue if you actually want to move certain things forward in your life.

I am not very good at strategy.  I am not terribly good at creating a plan.  And I am certainly not good at following up on said plans.

But Soke's statement made me think. Because Iai is, after all, really about life.

I understand the concept he was trying to communicate.  Once an action is begun you cannot end at that action.  You have to have the next attack or next block thought.  But one has to remain fluid; once a series of actions has begun, it can become like a cascade - one has to continue down the line of attack or defense one has chosen.  And always, one must keeping attacking, keep moving, until the opponent is defeated.

I am not really good at any of the points, but I am especially bad at the last one.  I start and stop things in spurts.  Which is never really the way to get anything done of course.

It comes back to that thing I hate to do of course, commit.  To commit is choose something - and not choose something else.

But it becoming relatively clear, if for no other reason than the theme that keeps reappearing in my life, that this is a step that I need to start taking.

Choose one action, then choose a dozen more.  Always keep moving.

But choose.