{"id":2928,"date":"2026-05-11T16:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T07:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2026-05-11T16:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T07:22:18","slug":"budo-beat-61-self-compassion-and-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/?p=2928","title":{"rendered":"Budo Beat 61: Self-compassion and Burnout"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The \u201cBudo Beat\u201d Blog features a collection of short reflections, musings, and anecdotes on a wide range of budo topics by Professor <\/em>Alex Bennett<\/em><\/a>, a seasoned budo scholar and practitioner. Dive into digestible and diverse discussions on all things budo\u2014from the philosophy and history to the practice and culture that shape the martial Way.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about burnout a bit more seriously than usual lately. Probably because I\u2019m somewhere in its general vicinity. Hence the lateness of this edition of Budo Beat!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years ago, my old friend Dr. Fujiwara, who happens to be both a professor of psychiatry and a kendo 8th dan, introduced me to the term \u201cself-compassion\u201d. At first glance it sounds suspiciously like one of those modern buzzwords involving scented candles and giving yourself permission to achieve absolutely bugger all for six months. But that\u2019s not really what it means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he explained it to me, self-compassion is not laziness, self-indulgence, or endlessly letting yourself off the hook. It\u2019s simply the ability to recognise when you are running yourself into the ground and responding to that fact like a reasonably intelligent human being instead of one of those old kendo shinai bags held together almost entirely by electrical tape and nostalgic optimism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, it means treating yourself with a degree of understanding and realism rather than assuming that endless self-punishment is somehow virtuous. That sounds obvious enough, but I suspect many people in budo, myself included, are actually quite bad at it. Well, I know for sure that I am, which is why I\u2019m putting this down on paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following my recent 8th dan challenge, I\u2019ve been doing the usual quiet post-mortem that always happens afterwards. Everybody is different of course, but this is very much my own personal experience of it all, for what it\u2019s worth. The whole thing consumes me beforehand. Every spare thought, every ounce of nervous energy, every bit of focus gets funnelled into that one looming event. Then afterwards it leaves me completely shattered for the better part of a week. Not just physically, but more so mentally. And once the dust settles, there\u2019s the less glamorous aftermath of trying to catch up on all the things I brazenly neglected in the buildup. Emails, work, writing, obligations, messages, life in general. That part is surprisingly brutal too.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I\u2019m not completely cooked and am still functioning. Still mostly turning up. But there\u2019s a definite sense that the engine isn\u2019t running as cleanly as it should. There\u2019s a bit of noise where there used to be none and a degree of reluctance creeping in where there used to be momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The awkward part is that, in budo, that sort of thing is not easy to admit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most areas of life, saying \u201cI need to take a step back\u201d sounds pretty sensible. In budo, it can feel like you\u2019re letting the side down. As if you\u2019ve quietly slipped from being \u201cseriously serious\u201d into being one of those people who used to train hard but now just talks about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That fear keeps a lot of people pushing forward when they probably shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to be fair, budo does condition us that way. From the beginning, you\u2019re taught to persevere. To keep going when you don\u2019t feel like it. Nobody gets anywhere in kendo, judo, or karate by waiting for inspiration. You turn up tired, busy, irritated, distracted, and you train anyway. That\u2019s part of the deal, and you do feel bloody good when you knock off a good keiko<\/em> session when life is chucking a whole lot of other BS your way!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the problem is that attitude doesn\u2019t always stay neatly contained within the dojo. It tends to spill out into everything. Work, travel, teaching, writing, meetings, obligations, endless small demands that don\u2019t look like much individually but pile up into something quite heavy. And the same mindset applies: just keep going. Push through. Don\u2019t slack off. Don\u2019t drop the ball.<\/p>\n\n\n

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At some point, the old adage \u201cfall down seven times, get up eight\u201d almost imperceptibly turns into \u201cfall down seven times, get up six.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not because you\u2019ve become soft or weak, but because you\u2019re human. And because, to put it bluntly, life can be relentless sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Budo doesn\u2019t always prepare you well for that distinction. Or rather, the way we talk<\/em> about budo doesn\u2019t. We glorify endurance and admire the one who never stops. The one who absorbs everything and keeps moving forward as if nothing sticks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s absolutely a limit to that. You can\u2019t just apply gaman<\/em> to everything indefinitely and expect no consequences. \u201cWhat\u2019s gaman<\/em>\u201d you ask? That would be the Japanese \u2018virtue\u2019 for enduring misery with such impeccable composure that outsiders mistake it for serenity. Somewhere between stoicism and emotional constipation, it is the art of carrying on while your knees and shoulders are shot, your boss is a total prick, you\u2019re stuck in another endless traffic jam, and your soul resembles a burnt-out rice cooker. Keep absorbing pressure from all directions, and eventually something gives. Usually not in an overly dramatic way, but a gradual flattening. You\u2019re still there, still functioning, but not particularly alive in what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I\u2019m committed to keeping my work freely accessible to all budo enthusiasts, wherever they are. If you\u2019ve enjoyed what you\u2019ve found here and would like to support my ongoing efforts and projects, \u201cbuying me a coffee\u201d (beer actually), or my books, would make a world of difference. You can also support the <\/em><\/strong>construction of my dojo in Kyoto<\/em><\/strong><\/a> in the Shop Tab. Cheers!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, my friends, is burnout. And I fully admit to having been there many times before, swearing I won\u2019t let it happen again\u2026 until it happens again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not just about keiko<\/em>. If anything, keiko<\/em> is often the least of it. Keiko<\/em> is the part I want<\/em> to do. It\u2019s everything else that drains you, and then you bring that drained version of yourself into the dojo and expect something meaningful to happen… Even keiko<\/em> becomes a chore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s where things start to feel off. The irony, again, is that budo itself actually gives you a way to understand this. We just tend to apply the teachings selectively. Take the old budo clich\u00e9 \u201cheij\u014dshin<\/em>\u201d. Balanced mind, normal condition, being perfectly centred psychologically no matter what\u2019s going on. Not just in a fight, but as a general state of living. If you\u2019re constantly overstretched, mentally cluttered, running on fumes, then you are most certainly not in a state of heij\u014dshin<\/em>. You\u2019re out of whack, and continuing to push harder in that state doesn\u2019t fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, another wonderful budo perspective would be \u201cmaai<\/em>\u201d. Not just distance to your opponent, but appropriate distance in general. I get too close to everything. Too many commitments, too little space. No room to breathe, or to reset. Then I wonder why everything feels compressed and exhausting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes the correct response is not to charge in again, but to step back half a pace. Same as in keiko<\/em>. You don\u2019t crowd the situation and hope for the best. At some point, you have to adjust. What worked when you had fewer responsibilities, demands, and moving parts in your life is not going to work indefinitely. Trying to maintain the same intensity across everything is a recipe for running yourself into the ground. And that ain\u2019t discipline, it\u2019s just poor judgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about that concept I wrote about in my last blog post<\/a>? \u201cSoftness overcomes hardness\u201d. That applies just as much here. If I try to meet every demand in life with rigid determination, I become brittle. Something snaps. I should know that flexibility, in this context, is not weakness. It\u2019s how you keep functioning over the long term. The problem is that I\u2019m reasonably adept at applying these ideas to technique, and evidently quite bad at applying them to myself in the grand scheme of things. Evidently there are still a few lessons I haven\u2019t properly learned yet.<\/p>\n\n\n

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He\u2019d probably never admit it, but I bet Musashi was an advocate of self-compassion.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

These Books Need a Home<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know not to force an opening in kendo. But we force our schedules. We know not to become tense and rigid. But we live that way. We know that good timing requires space. But we fill every gap. Then we wonder why we feel burnt out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point, you have to admit that the \u201cjust keep going\u201d model has limits. Not because it\u2019s wrong, but because it\u2019s incomplete. Sometimes, yes, you need to push through. Everyone does. But sometimes the better move is to ease off slightly. Not quit. Not drift away. Just\u2026 reduce the pressure enough that you can actually function properly again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might mean saying no to a few things. Training a bit less for a while. Dropping the need to perform constantly. Letting some things slide that, in the grand scheme, don\u2019t actually matter that much, as long as you have a plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of that sounds particularly heroic, and maybe that\u2019s why it doesn\u2019t get talked about much. But if the goal is to keep going over decades rather than just limping from one deadline or grading to the next, it probably matters more than most of us care to admit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The older I get, the more suspicious I\u2019ve become of my own tendency to simply try and endure everything thrown at me. From a distance that kind of constant motion can look admirable enough, but up close it often just looks like someone stupidly running themselves ragged. \u201cHow the hell do you manage to do all this stuff?!\u201d I get asked this a lot, but the honest answer is that sometimes I don\u2019t manage it particularly well at all. Then I disappear for a bit, mails go unanswered for weeks on end, and eventually I resurface pretending everything is perfectly under control again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to get a kind of masochistic buzz in the struggle to keep on top of things, and liked to think that it\u2019s the pressure that keeps me performing. What I\u2019m more interested in now is balance. Not perfect balance, just workable balance. Enough to keep moving forward without grinding myself into dust along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that means that sometimes \u201cfall down seven times, get up eight\u201d becomes \u201cfall down seven times, get up six and sit there for a bit,\u201d then so be it. I know I\u2019ll still get up eventually. Probably after a few coffees, a good lie down, vegging out in front of Netflix, and ignoring my inbox for another three days… Let\u2019s make that four…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, to me at least, feels a bit closer to what budo is actually about than simply staggering forward indefinitely like some sleep-deprived samurai zombie pretending everything is under control. Maybe self-compassion, in the end, is simply learning that you can\u2019t live permanently at full throttle without eventually running the whole thing into the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In theory I know this. The trick, apparently, is actually bloody well putting it into practice.<\/p>\n\n\n

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This Book Needs a Home<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Check out My brother\u2019s blog. Great stuff for dojo leaders of all budo.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cBudo Beat\u201d Blog features a collection of short reflections, musings, and anecdotes on a wide range of budo topics by Professor Alex Bennett, a seasoned budo scholar and practitioner. Dive into digestible and diverse discussions on all things budo\u2014from the philosophy and history to the practice and culture that shape the martial Way. I\u2019ve been thinking about burnout a bit more seriously than...","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[137,138],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-b-blog","tag-burnout","tag-self-compassion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2934,"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/2934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}