If you let them.

Until you experience things for real, you have no idea what they will be like. You truly never know what something feels like until you go out there and actually do it.

This is the main reason why we keep the details of our yamabushi shugyo (training) a secret. Your experience should be your experience. It shouldn’t be clouded by the opinions of someone else, especially other yamabushi.

百聞は一見にしかず

There is a saying in Japanese: Hyakubun wa ikken ni shikazu.

Hearing about something one hundred times has nothing on seeing (read: experiencing) it once.

You can have some idea of what’s going to happen, but the unseeable, the parts you could never predict, are the parts that keep it exciting. The unseeable is what keeps you engaged. The unseeable is what keeps you moving forward.

Don’t let your expectations get in the way of a good experience.