The year was 207 BCE and the battle at Julu was about to go down. The Chu army, lead by Song Yi and Xiang Yu were camped a good distance away from Julu in preparation. Hesitant to do battle with strong 300,000-man army of the Qin forces, Song Yi decided it would be best to keep the relatively small army there for forty-six days. Xiang Yu was not pleased by this decision.

While in a meeting together, Xiang Yu killed Song Yi to take sole control of Chu army. With no one to hold him back, Xiang Yu ordered his starving and tired troops towards Julu. Just outside of Julu, they arrived by boat. The Chu army of only tens of thousands of men were to do battle with hundreds of thousands in the opposing forces. The Chu army had thoughts of retreating to live to fight another day. Xiang Yu had other plans.

Xiang Yu ordered all of the boats his forces arrived in to be sank. He also destroyed all but three days of food rations. His troops had only two options. Fight and die or fight and win. Either way, they are fighting. There was no retreating, no exits. With nothing left to lose and no options left, the Chu army fought with everything they had. The tiny Chu army, over the course of nine battles, defeated the Qin forces to win the battle of Julu. Upon their victory, other non-Chu armies came to join their forces in admiration of Xiang Yu’s leadership. This helped them move on to conquer the entire Qin Dynasty.

Years ago, I wrote a blog about the importance of creating options in life. Even when options aren’t taken, those options can help create confidence in the options that are chosen. If you haven’t read it yet, go check it out.

Now I’m going to tell you to remove options. And yet, this doesn’t conflict with what I had wrote. The options I spoke of in that blog were all about creating options for the future. This time around, I’m suggesting the removal of the option of moving backwards. Xiang Yu knew this well. Hence why I used his story of the battle of Julu as the opener to this blog post.

I’m not against looking backwards in life. Nor am I against learning from your, or history’s, mistakes and successes. I’m obviously a big proponent of such. The more we know and understand history, the better we understand how to proceed and not repeat the same mistakes. The issue is when we use “retreating” to comfort when things get difficult. I’m certain we’ve all done it; I know I have. I know I probably will in the future in a weak moment as well. It’s very easy to do.

But like everything in life, it’s about trying to be better today than yesterday. This is the most important element to understand with our martial arts training. I don’t get upset or frustrated with students who try their best to improve, even if it may not seem like things are improving right away. I know, with continued and consistent effort, that improvement will come.

One thing that I find holds students back the most is the option of stepping back into one’s comfort zone. When moving forward brings the option of discomfort, pain or perceived humiliation, and stepping backward provides comfort and ease, it’s clear to see why so many would be willing to step back. Even with visions of greatness and fortune, stepping back into that comfort zone is so incredibly easy. Xiang Yu knew this. This is why he removed that option of retreating to comfort. It led his troops to fight harder.

I have students, especially youth students, that are very hesitant when they begin sparring. It’s very understandable. Even loaded up with sparring gear it can be daunting to step in the ring where your opponent is wanting to hit you. Many times, these hesitant students quickly step backwards to get away from the punches and kicks being flung at them.

It’s understandable. But it’s also the worst thing they can do to avoid a hard hit. I explain this to students often. When you step backwards to get away from a punch or kick, that leads the opponent to moving towards you. Therefore, when they throw those strikes while they are moving forward, they hit you harder. This is a good metaphor for all things in life that we retreat from. Temporary comfort and relief, only to get hit harder in unexpected ways. In sparring, it may seem counterintuitive but moving towards the opponent results in a weaker strike being thrown at you.

This is because you tend to jam the opponent up as they throw their attacks. Plus, it forces them to move backwards to adjust. This results in the opponent losing power, possibly going off balance, and possibly going on the defense. This results in less strikes thrown at you and less power in them. The opposite of what one might expect. Our greatest fears of moving forward rarely materialize. Stepping backwards leads to more pain and suffering in the long run than moving forward ever does. Again, a great metaphor for life.

Those who tend to fight hardest in life are generally those who have nothing to fall back on. Some of the world’s best boxers, MMA fighters, musicians, writers, and artists came from extreme poverty, broken homes, and abuse. Not all, of course, but it’s easy to see how having no comfort in retreat may push someone forward harder than those that have a safety net. But this comfort isn’t the only thing that can hold someone back.

It was August 20th , 1987, as my father lifted me up and held me to see inside. I leaned over and looked in. My entire world, my mother, laid in the casket. That day was seared into my memory as I recall hoping she would just wake up. Wishing, hoping for a miracle. I stared at her fingers, anxiously awaiting a slight movement so I could scream out to all in attendance that it’s all ok. That movement didn’t come.

That was the day that not only did I know my mother was gone, but with her went expectations that hopes, wishes and miracles would come true. Not because I lost hope in life, I didn’t, but because the person that made all of those hopes and dreams come true for me was being laid to rest forever. At the ripe age of six I realized that the only way my wishes would come true is if I made it happen myself.

This is what holds many people back when attempting to progress forward. Not hope or belief in miracles. Everyone should hold onto to these. The issue is believing that hopes and miracles are an action that will do things for us. We sit back and hope things will get better. Or hope tomorrow brings a better day to train. Or maybe we hope that third piece of cheesecake last night will magically disappear in our stomach and not add inches to our waste. I really like cheesecake. It’s my only vice, let me be!

Hoping, wishing, waiting for a miracle, these aren’t bad things unless it’s your only means of achieving success or a better outcome. Many times, we use these as a way to control a situation that we either perceive as uncontrollable or we simply something we don’t want to deal with. With that understanding, use them as a vision to create a path to your success, but make sure you create and follow that plan.

As with many things in this regard, it’s easier said than done. Sometimes, retreating is an option. And sometimes all we have left is to hope. Every situation is different. As martial artists, we are constantly training to have the ability to not need the option to retreat nor the need to rely on hope alone. The more we train, the more confidence we have to move forward.

Now get out there and burn those bridges and lose all hope! Wait. No. Not exactly. But you get what I mean. I hope.