I was speaking to someone the other day who was getting fed up with her martial arts instruction.

Claiming to be misunderstood, persecuted, and unpopular, she felt the whole commitment was too much to take, and she insisted she wanted time off from the dojo.

No problem, that happens, and sometimes its what everybody needs to regain proper perspective, to see that the grass isnt greener, and most of our discomforts are self-inflicted.

But I gave her an illustration, one that Ive read many times in martial arts books.

You have to steal your training, this wisdom says, which means you have to aggressively take from your training what you need. Its not going to be handed to you on a platter.

I see it this way. There is a diamond, a big, beautiful multifaceted treasure that is waiting for us in martial arts.

But it is encrusted in dung.

If you want the diamond, you have to reach for it where it is, smack in the middle of that smelly stuff.

Your treasure is in the hands of your instructors, whose job it is to make you confront yourself, your inadequacies, fears, and submerged secrets.

You can blame them all you want for your woes, but that wont help you at all.

Like any movie hero, such as Indiana Jones, you have to go through some scary, slithery, serpanty stuff before you emerge with the jewels or the Holy Grail, or whatever youre seeking.

Once you commit to doing whatever it takes, the task becomes easier, but never really easy.

After all, we dont respect treasures that are simply handed to us, do we?