“If you get too attached to each and every move, you won’t be able to adapt to change and you won’t achieve anything, so embrace change, use your mind to be flexible, and deal with each thing with all your might.”
There is a famous story in which the monk “Takuan 沢庵和尚”（1573～1645） used these Buddhist words to teach the secrets of Zen to this Samurai leader named “Yagyu Munenori柳生宗矩”（1571－1646）.
If your mind becomes fixed in one place during combat, you will be unable to counter the barrage of enemy attacks.
By not focusing your mind on one thing, but you do not neglect each individual move; rather, you utilises your mind to focus on each move while remaining flexible in your response.
This is the exactly the same concept of “Hitsu, Gi, Kyoku 必技極” advocated by Shihan Aso, that there is no such thing as failure in submission.
If one technique fails and your mind is stuck there, and you stop moving, it is simply a failure.
The concept of chain submission is that even if one technique fails, if you keep your mind flexible and connect it to the next technique and continue until you finish your opponent, it is a setup for the next technique and is no longer a failure.
However, if you get too ahead of yourself and perform the move you’re currently attempting half-heartedly, the move you could have finished now will be wasted, so use your mind to focus 100% on each move and chain them together to master the chain submission.
It’s the same in our daily lives. If we make a mistake or have a single worry, our minds can become trapped by it, and our minds stay there, unable to focus on other things or the present.
What’s important is how we react in that moment.
Instead of dwelling on the failure or worrying it stops us from moving forward, we should quickly recover from it, move on, and focus 100% on the next thing.
If you get too attached to each and every move, you won’t be able to adapt to change and you won’t achieve anything, so embrace change, use your mind to be flexible, and deal with each thing with all your might.
Simply knowing about these things is not enough.
Just like with martial arts techniques, these days, with the spread of the internet, many people know a lot of techniques but can’t actually perform them.
There is a world of difference between just knowing something and being able to do it. Then you have to practice it until you can do it well, and then you have to practice it until you can use it in real combat.
Without regularly practicing this kind of mental attitude, it is difficult to actually be able to do it.
That is perhaps why it is the secret of Zen.
