Failure is like a force of nature.  We simply have to accept it.

That doesn’t mean we have to accept our specific, personal failures, but we need to accept the existence of it.  Of Failure, with a capital F.

You can’t have day without night.  The opposites define each other, and just so success and failure are connected.  One picks up where the other ends.  They are just two sides of the same coin.

The existence of failure teaches us where to find success.  But we can’t find success without getting dangerously close to failure.

As martial artists we must accept failure, and to embrace it.  Not lovingly, but with the resignation that, like death, it is inevitable and it is what gives meaning to our pursuits.

To deny and avoid failure is like living only to avoid death.. at an extreme we would probably find ourselves in a tiny bunker somewhere.  Completely safe.  Free of the possibilities of death by various means, but also a prisoner of our own fear and also removed from the very things that make life enjoyable.

By accepting failure, we give ourselves freedom to try, grow, and win.