“You will hold nothing back! Attack him with all your heart!” the teacher called to the ring of students encircling him and his favoured disciple.
The disciple, ready for this, his final and most difficult test, bowed to his teacher before raising his wooden sword; his mind clear and focussed.
“I have trained for this every day for five years,” he thought. “I am ready!”
A feeling of supreme confidence flowed through his body. He stood motionless, relaxed but alert, waiting for his teacher to retreat from the circle and give the signal to attack.
Instead, the teacher moved over to him and, smiling, took the sword out of his hands before turning to walk away. The crowd parted and then flowed back into place as he left, pressing even more tightly than before.
In an instant, all the confidence and poise drained from the disciple’s body, replaced by confusion and doubt.
“Teacher, wha-” he began.
“Hajime!” the teacher bellowed, giving the signal. And then there was no more time for thought…
With a shout, the first student was upon him, his wooden sword slashing downwards through the air. The disciple moved, sidestepping the attack and off-balancing his opponent to throw him to the ground.
Then came another attack, and another – the assault was relentless. But with each new attack the disciple found he knew what he needed to do and how he would overcome them. He moved without pause, drawing on reserves of skill he hadn’t known existed. Bereft of his weapon, the movements that he had practised again and again with a sword in his hand took on a whole new meaning – transcending everything he had learned before. Whole new worlds of possibility presented themselves to him in the blink of an eye, and at that precise moment the opportunity to use them also emerged.
At the end of the test, with every opponent floored, he was still standing. His earlier confidence had returned, but multiplied many times over. Breathing deeply to control his racing heart, he turned to face his teacher.
“Five years ago you told me you believed that mastering the sword would allow you to realise your true potential,” his teacher said. “Every time you took the sword in your hands, your skill – and confidence – grew. But then every time you placed it down, you abandoned all you had learned until you next picked it up.”
“Today you learned that the power never lay in the sword. It was inside you all along”
Even as he heard the words, the disciple knew them to be true. Looking around the room everything he saw was different, though nothing had changed but himself.
Whereas before he had seen four walls and a great challenge to overcome, now all he could see were limitless possibilities.
He took a deep breath, smiled, and began.