How I learnt a new Kanji

Last night I was indulging in one of my usual battle of wills with my compatriot Jai and attempted to lay a trap. I ever so slightly began to slide my front foot forward, not too obviously, on the knowledge that he would no doubt notice my apparent error and go for a foot hit (quite satisfying at epee). Once he went for it my intention was to withdraw the foot and strike down to his wrist or forearm.... the only question was, would it work? I kept edging out my foot further and further until eventually the trap was sprung. Jai's point whipped downward, I pulled my foot back rapidly and my stop hit was on it's way. In slow motion I could see the point heading straight for his forearm and I felt a sense of satisfaction; it must hit, it's going to hit - Doh .....! Just at the last moment Jai pulled back his arm and my hit fell short.
After the fight we were discussing this and Jai made the very valid observation that with an attack like that you need total conviction and I could only agree. On reflection I don't think I could have been putting my all into it or I would certainly have hit. This got me thinking "I bet there's a good Japanese term for this..." and true enough the word for conviction is "Shin'nen" which comprises the characters for 'firm' and 'belief'. Further decomposition reveals that the kanji "shin" is broken into two characters representing a man standing by his word, whilst "Nen" is composed of "now" and "mind". What a great description of the concept of conviction or belief. Standing by what you say in the present moment. So not only did I learn something important about a technique I learnt something slightly deeper too, which deserves greater consideration.