I had a dream recently that bothered me. Not because it was strange, dreams always are. And not because it was shocking. It was not that kind of dream. It bothered me because it felt like a pressure test.

Like my nervous system was running a full audit on the exact things I have been thinking about lately. Identity. Responsibility. Reputation. And the fear of losing control of your own moral centre when life turns chaotic.

The dream was not really about what it showed on the surface. It was about being watched. It was about being placed in a compromising situation. It was about the risk of being seen as someone you are not. And it was about whether you can still hold the line anyway.

That is the part that stayed with me.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to win.

People see the training, the early mornings, the cold water, the miles on the road, the iron in my hands. They notice the routine, the wear on the body, the consistency. And it’s easy from the outside to assume there’s something being chased. A finish line. A title. Proof.

But that’s not really it.

There is an old question that goes back as far as scripture and maybe even further than that. Where have you come from? And where are you going? It sounds simple when you first hear it but the longer you sit with it the deeper it sinks.

I have been thinking lately that maybe a lot of our struggles today come from not really knowing how to answer either part.

Because if we are honest as a society and even as individuals we do not seem to have a shared understanding of where we came from. Not spiritually. Not historically. Not cosmically. We have got a thousand competing creation stories and ancient civilization theories and more modern disagreements than you could count. It is hard to root yourself in something when every root seems tangled or disputed. And without roots it is hard to grow upward.

Every now and then a dream hands you something that feels more like a warning than a metaphor. I woke up from one of those dreams the other night. Two scenes. One from way back and one from somewhere out on the edge of my future. Both trying to tell me the same thing in different words.

There’s a truth in martial arts that runs deeper than technique, lineage, or language. It’s something you feel long before you ever learn how to describe it. An understanding that doesn’t need to be taught, it’s just there. Before we speak, we move. Before we know, we sense.

Success isn’t just about talent or effort. It’s about balance. You have to walk a narrow line between being proud of what you’ve done and never letting yourself get too comfortable. Between pushing harder and knowing when to pause long enough to breathe. It’s easy to fall to one side or the other. Either you tear yourself apart because you think you’re not doing enough, or you start patting yourself on the back until you stop moving forward. Both are traps.

Note; These are personal reflections written from experience, not authority.

The poem If by Rudyard Kipling was first shown to me when I was going through a very difficult period in my life as a teenager. The man who introduced it to me influenced the course of my life in a way I didn’t understand at the time, but which I can now trace clearly. It helped set me on a path that led from a small town in Ireland to having travelled the world extensively.

I didn’t wake up expecting an adventure.
That day, I was just trying to get on a plane and get on with my work.

I arrived early. No checked baggage. Plenty of time. The kind of start that usually means things will go smoothly. Instead, the first refusal came at security. The power bank I’d travelled with for years was suddenly too large to fly. Rules are rules, apparently.

There’s a saying often attributed to the late actor Robin Williams:
“I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing is to end up with people who make you feel alone.”

A lot of folks think martial arts is just about throwing punches, defending yourself, or maybe stepping into a ring to see who’s tougher. But the truth is, it’s not really about fighting at all—not in the way most people think. The biggest thing it gives you isn’t muscle or technique—it’s a stronger mind.

Craftsmanship isn’t just about skill—it’s about process. It’s about putting your hands to work and shaping something real, something that lasts. Whether it’s forging orthopedic horseshoes by hand, carving out fine woodwork, or crafting a blade built to stand the test of time, true craftsmanship is about more than just making things—it’s about precision, patience, and a deep respect for the work itself.