Warrior in a Garden
By Leo Gray
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I train in Judo. It was something I started doing after I once got my ass kicked. I have no shame in sharing that, and in my gym, there are a lot of posters. I mean a lot. I don’t really know what the color of the walls are. I think white, but I could be wrong. One of the posters is a Chinese proverb that says, “it is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in war.”
I recommend everyone take up weightlifting or martial arts training- especially grapplings, it will help you in case of any danger, and I recommend it for women being it will not only make you stronger and toner but allow you to learn how to handle physical threats that are larger than you. But back to the quote, which is the entire reason for this article today.
As Jordan Peterson once said, a good man is a dangerous man who has it well under control, and that is what a warrior in a garden should be. A skilled man who knows how to handle himself with conflict arises but also knows how to nurture the gentle things around him. There is a time and place to use force and violence, but there is never a time nor place where you should find yourself being weak.
Peaceful does not mean weak.
Remember that.
Ever heard some of the MMA and UFC guys talk when they aren’t in characters. Covington is one of them. Very violent and dangerous in the ring and when he is in character, but when he is being himself, he is soft-spoken and gentle. That is how all men should be. In fact, that is how everyone should be.
If you train to be a dangerous man who can control himself, there will be no war you won’t come out of alive, but if you treat your whole life thinking peaceful means weak, you will be the first to fall when any conflicts arise.
Going back to the quote at the beginning being a warrior in a garden means that you are prepared for any battles ahead of you, and you’ve trained to handle it, but you also know how to control yourself. But if you find yourself benign a gardener in war, you will not have the proper mindset and talent to defend yourself and the people you love.
You can never overtrain. You can never over-prepare. There is nothing wrong with starting out as a gardener, but there is everything wrong with staying a gardener when war time comes.