The definition of a 'warrior' is, in general, two-fold. The first, "a person engaged or experience in warfare", is the most common definition. The second, "a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness in politics or athleticism", is a less common connotation but easily understood especially in the fitness community.
CFHEL has a third, and much more philosophical, definition of 'warrior'. The definition of warrior in our terms is the same given my Miyamoto Musashi in The Book of Five Rings. According to Musashi, one who follows the path of the warrior must have a resolute acceptance of death - the question is only when and how. At first glance, this may seem to apply ONLY to the professional combatant. In our warrior training, however, failure is worse than death (death being accepted as a future state of life and failure being a rejection to engaged in life). Failure is A STATE OF MIND, not a state of consequence.
The purpose of warrior training (the path of being a warrior) is to build an indomitable spirit and iron will; to believe that you cannot fail in doing anything. Even when UNSUCCESSFUL, the warrior learns from missed attempts and continues to make subsequent attempts until the goal is attained. FAILURE occurs when the ego wins out due to the FEAR of being unsuccessful (the ego's death) and eliminates the courage to TRY. Failure also occurs in the action of QUITTING - this also originates from the ego, having been unsuccessful once the ego fears another assault. The path of the warrior requires and trains the individual to find success even in the unsuccessful. It is this STATE OF MIND that enables the warrior to NEVER FAIL.
At CFHEL, we train individuals to be warriors. Not combatants. The tools developed through our training has transference to every daily life task because it alters the individual at the level of MIND as well as body. This is the heart of being a warrior - a STATE OF MIND that accepts all of LIFE, the inevitability of death as well as an nonacceptance of failure, which is the rejection of life.
