A warrior knows that there are times to let go and times to hold back, and so a warrior uses control when appropriate. Along with discipline and intent, control offers the antidote to life’s challenges and desires. Without control a warrior’s journey would be long and arduous, too unfocused to matter, for a warrior does not live at the whim of the energies of life but learns how to work with them, to be fluid and available to life’s experiences but not be swallowed up by them.

A warrior knows that to navigate life with awareness and to build one’s energy, prowess and expertise one must have control, discipline, and intent. But a warrior also knows that one must enjoy life to the fullest or the journey will have no meaning, for to live upon the earth and deny its pleasures is the opposite of being fluid and available. So a warrior embraces all of life and all experiences as meaningful, and yet there is always an element of control to balance a warrior’s exuberance, for a warrior’s intent is always to gain, not to lose.