Eat Dirt Off the Floor [Start Your Week]

During the 1900’s in Okinawa, Gichin Funakoshi, founded modern-day Karate. He went to Japan and other parts of the world including the United States to teach what is known today as Shotokan Karate.

I spent 14 years in Shotokan Karate. Funakoshi was known for saying, and I quote, “Many times I was forced to eat the dirt off the dojo floor.” The dojo is the training room. That statement didn’t mean he actually ate dirt from the floor as punishment. It was an expression he used to say how hard he trained to perfect even the simplest techniques. He said, “Many days and nights I found myself totally exhausted, face down on the floor from training so hard, but I had to keep training on the things I wasn’t good at so I could get off the floor, better than when I went down on it.” 

Saying you eat dirt off the floor as an expression that you’re doing everything possible to achieve your goals may sound like a gallant act, but it’s actually a message of improving yourself at the most elemental level. It’s getting down in the dirt, getting your hands dirty so to speak, working in the real-world, doing the extra things most people won’t do to achieve their goals. It means picking yourself up, and continuing to train, even when you’re tired and don’t want to do it anymore. Anyone who is really good at their art, or their job has eaten dirt off the floor. We’ve all had to do things when we were tired, things that weren’t fun or easy, and often included a learning curve. It’s during that learning curve where many people give up. They don’t put forth the effort to go down to the floor and confront the obstacles, eat the dirt most of us eat every day. And when they see how successful WE are, they don’t attribute it to the fact that we ate dirt to get where we are. They think we’re just lucky....