GACKT Official Blog update. Translation below:

I trained with my friends for the first time in awhile.

Today, a new friend has joined us.
He is Umeno Genji, the WBC Muay Thai world champion.
He’s going to challenge the most prestigious title in Muay Thai,
in other words, the world’s top title, in a month’s time.

It would be nice if my knowledge could help him in a good way, even if a little,
so I taught him a few things.

For Genji, who has been getting great results thus far,
it would be good if he can use my knowledge while training,
and bring it into the competition
to bring him further to the top of the world.

Exchanging information like this
and enhancing each other’s knowledge and skills has nothing to do with age.
The most important thing of all
is how high you’re aiming
and how you intend to live and deal with that.

We started training,
and checked how much skills he actually possesses.
Of course,
it’s easy to imagine that for someone who has beaten the world,
his talent and physical ability is quite high.

When I see his kick, it indeed overflows with power.
However,
if he continues kicking like this,
I could see that other areas of his body
might break or fail.


For him, as a 29 year old,
another point is also
how long he can continue his current activities that last throughout the day.

If my knowledge can be the spark
that increases his power and speed, it would be good.
I believe that the most important thing is
to figure out how one can make their body evolve further
and create a body that’s of an even higher level without destroying it.

In the past,
when active martial artists
and fighters came to exchange knowledge,
they said that they’ve often seen people like them
being forced out of their active lifestyles because of small accidents.

This doesn’t only happen in the martial arts world,
and the same can be said for any other sport.
I suppose that somewhere,
with the experiences that they have accumulated of having that vigour while they were young,
they have that confidence that it’ll somehow be alright.

Because of that, everyone knows what must be done
and what they must be careful of but
in reality, there are shockingly few professionals and athletes
who live each day being conscious of that
and constantly keep that in mind to take care of their bodies in detail.

Actually, there are many people who,
only start to become aware of what they need to do
after getting injured for the first time.
Your body is something that you need to continuously maintain.
I suppose, mentally, it’s also exceptionally painful to indifferently
increase that troublesome work as you age…

Most of the time,
that small injury
will often come back as a major setback at the very end.

It’s sad but
no matter what sport you’re a professional athlete for,
it is different from normal occupations,
in the fact that the period of time that you’re active for is exceptionally short.

Of course,
as a professional athlete, the rewards that you get is much larger than others’ for awhile but
if you divide it over the long lifespan of a person,
you’ll also realise that, unexpectedly, there isn’t as much in amount either.


That’s why
active athletes are worthy of our respect
for doing these for whole days.

The need to think and manage things based on the amount of time they have left in their own professional career,
along with needing to add additional training to their usual,
overall, it’s much more than what a young athlete will need to do.

If the knowledge and experience I’ve accumulated can be of use to him, even if a little, it would be great.
And if he could reach even greater heights in the world with that,
it will also be returns to myself
and to the value of my existence.

Training is tough,
but I’ve always thought that
there needs to be strong tension for the fun to come out.


Today’s training was tough but
despite that, I saw a great smile on him when they were leaving, and seeing that,
I thought, mm,
today started out great as well,
and with self-satisfaction and a modest happiness in my heart,
I went for a meeting after that.

Ahー, I’m tired.

Anyway, it’s the 8th day of fasting.

Source: GACKT Blog

Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team

Translation © GACKT ITALIA