Do We Possess Any Resolve?!?

[sensei8]

In the year 70 A.D., Titus, the eldest son of Vespasian, began the siege of Jerusalem. The city had a triple line of fortifications, and within the inner wall were two natural citadel’s, the Temple and the old city of Mount Zion. The population, swollen by many refugees, suffered terribly from under but resisted with the fury of despair. 

Titus and the crack legions of Roman soldiers. These soldiers were the elite war machine of Emperor Vitellius, stormed the walls over and over. Each time they stormed the walls they meet with extreme resistance from Jerusalem.

Titus didn’t have the military ability or might that his father Vespasian had. Titus was having trouble with not only the siege of Jerusalem, but the control over his soldiers. There was doubt that the city would ever be sieged.

Experience and numbers told; the walls were stormed, and the Roman’s finally forced their way into the Temple, which was destroyed by fire. Mount Zion still held out but it too was finally taken by assault; Jerusalem was destroyed.

The Temple and buildings in and about Jerusalem during this siege were destroyed by something other than fire.

Greed was another factor among the Roman soldiers.

There was a deep discord in the rank and file. Rumors were rapidly spreading throughout the air that in the Temple there was gold in the mortars.

The solders tore down stone after stone in their vain search for this so called gold. Their search was so intense that buildings were completely leveled. Plows were drug through the ground searching for this gold.

At the conclusion of their search, Jerusalem was destroyed. Not one stone was left on another, completely destroyed by the Roman Empire. Both sides displayed a remarkable amount of resolve at many fronts, but in the end, Roman was victorious.

History touts that the Roman Empire and Jerusalem did whatever they could to either one thing or another…overthrow or survive.

Roman Empire eventually was no longer the great power that it once was—time decided. Jerusalem, that tiny but determined city, has been fighting whomever forever.

Resolve!! One had it and one still has it.

As a martial artist, particularly in a fight, we have two outcomes—win or lose—survive or fail?!? Fight or flight?!? I do not ridicule what decision(s) one might make when their faced with an attacker who’s filled with a such a resolve that hell itself will not quench its appetite for destruction. One does what one believes to be the best for them—I will too—you will too.

Whatever resolve is within you at that very moment, I pray that it’ll aide you to a certain victory. 

I do pray that at that certain moment that my resolve is that of Jerusalem with a no-quit attitude and that after the dust settles, I’ll still be standing.

Do we martial artists have resolve within us, especially whenever we’re faced with an overwhelming challenge, whatever that challenge might be?!?