I’ve practised traditional martial arts for more than twenty years, and in all that time I have never once wanted a fight. That’s not a failure of the training. That is the training.
The style I practise centres on a kata called Sanchin, which translates as “three battles.” None of the three battles is against another person. That surprises people. The old teachers had students practise it alone, for years, because the battles are the ones to unite mind, body, and spirit – the opponents are internal. Spirit here means fighting energy, or reactive energy: the heat that rises in your chest when someone challenges you. Twenty-plus years of that idea, applied and reapplied, taught me more about conflict at a conference table than about conflict anywhere else. My coaching practice is named after it, and this article is the reason why.
The real opponent is rarely across the table
Think about your last genuinely difficult moment at work: the meeting where you were challenged in front of everyone, the email that read as an accusation, the colleague who took credit. Now look again at what you were actually fighting in that moment. Was it really them? Or was it the heat rising in your chest, the need to be right immediately, the fear of looking weak, the story spinning up about what this means?
That’s the first martial-arts lesson that transfers whole: name your actual opponent. The person across the table is having their own three battles, and yours are the only ones you can win. And the paradox every martial artist eventually meets is that the calmer fighter wins, not the angrier one. Anger isn’t strength. It’s autopilot, and autopilot is predictable. The old swordsmen built entire careers on reading opponents whose reactions had taken over, because a person under threat stops choosing their moves. The colleague who stays calm keeps choosing. That’s the whole advantage.
Fighting for, not fighting against
The second lesson took me longer. Non-violence isn’t the absence of fighting. It’s a change in what the fight is for. You can fight to defeat a person, or you can fight to restore something: fairness in how credit flows, honesty in a decision, balance in a relationship worth keeping. The first kind of fight has a loser, and a loser on your own team is expensive. A person who walks away feeling defeated turns defensive, fights harder next time, and gets along worse with everyone around them. The second kind can end with both people better off, which is the only victory that holds up when you have to work together again tomorrow.
In practice, before any difficult conversation, I ask one question: what am I fighting for here? If the real answer is “to win,” I’m not ready to have it. If the answer is “to fix how decisions get made between us,” I know my opening line, my tone, and my finish line before I walk in.
A kata for the conference room
The sequence is four moves, and you can use it today.
First, pause. Take one slow breath before you respond to the thing that stung. That second is enough to stop the reflex and give you back the choice.
Second, name what’s happening in you, silently: “I’m angry, my pride is involved.” A reaction you’ve named loosens its grip.
Third, aim. Ask yourself what you’re fighting for, and say it out loud early: “I want us to leave this meeting with a decision we both trust.”
Fourth, separate the person from the problem. Be hard on the issue and soft on the human, every time.
Most workplace “conflicts” turn out to be two people who each felt unheard, taking turns proving it.
None of this makes you passive. Boundaries still get held, bad behaviour still gets named, and some fights genuinely need fighting. You just fight them on purpose, calm, aimed, and clean, instead of being dragged into them.
Mind, body, spirit. Three battles, every meeting. If you’d like to train for yours, that’s what my practice is built around, and where the Shades of Fighting course goes deep. Or start smaller: book a free intro call and we’ll walk through the conflict you’re in right now.