Quotes by Martial Artists - Page 4

Any advanced student will tell you the best way to recover guard is simply not to get your guard passed in the first place.
Chris Matakas
We see that happiness is not comfort. Happiness is the freedom to choose one's own way.
Chris Matakas
I believe it is the responsibility of each of us to pass on whatever we have learned in our time here. If I reach enlightenment after meditating in a cave for 10 years, but do not pass on this teaching and it dies with me, this was a wasted life. I believe we are here to help one another, and each of us has a unique wisdom that we should do our best to convey to others.
Chris Matakas
This was not uncommon in government-run operations, where a request that someone do their job often induced a catatonic state that might last anywhere from a couple of minutes to an hour.
Matthew Polly
Let go of self-condemnation and guilt!
Tae Yun Kim
Realizing that our minds control our bodies while our bodies reflect our minds amounts to understanding the most fundamental aspects of ourselves. It further equals a comprehension of the relationship between our “tools.” And since the mind and body are interrelated, this understanding makes it easier to see why coordinating them is a practical way of using these tools to greatest effect—a way of using the mind and body to live our lives as art.
H.E. Davey
Our social contract is becoming an exchange of free thought for mindless stimuli.
Chris Matakas
A karate practitioner should possess two things : wicked hands, and Buddha's heart
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
Your own thoughts can be your worst enemy!
Tae Yun Kim
When you are the only laowai in a village of 10,000 Chinese martial artists and you've sat through several dozen films where a white man shouts, "You Chinese dog," before getting his ass kicked, it starts to irritate you. We all need role models.
Matthew Polly
No one's life will be harder because I exist.
Chris Matakas
Karate is not A religion, cult or dogma. It is incumbent on every generation of martial artists, to find the weaknesses of the previous generations, not to revere it . . .
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished.
Ming-Dao Deng
We are now forced to actively pursue our struggles. If we do not go out of our way to stretch our comfort zones and grow, no one nor nature will do it for us.
Chris Matakas
Who you are as a person far outweighs what you do in an athletic arena.
Chris Matakas
I have seen far by seeing through the lens of Jiu Jitsu. I have exchanged a great deal of physical health for these insights, and these were trades worth making. My efforts were worth the return. I have sacrificed much in the name of this craft. Not for trophies or belts or prestige. For these fall away like dust. I pursued this art so fervently because it was not actually Jiu Jitsu I pursued. It was myself.
Chris Matakas
I believe we must pursue mastery for who we become along the way in its achievement. When we progress in Jiu Jitsu, that newfound experience and wisdom transcends into all areas of our lives. We use Jiu Jitsu as the vehicle for growth, but that growth radiates over all of human activity. Someone who devotes time and energy in learning this skill is learning far more than how to subdue an opponent. The student learns persistence, perseverance, pattern recognition, problem solving, and most importantly, learning how to learn. In the arena of life, these virtues are far more valuable than any guard pass.
Chris Matakas
In my own life, I have always viewed personal mastery as simply a medium through which I become capable of providing more service toward my fellow man.
Chris Matakas
Properly directed thoughts result in properly directed actions. The only way to appropriately guide our thoughts is to know their foundation, our values.
Chris Matakas
The body is not a product. It is an experience.
Daniele Bolelli
Thoreau and Huxley calmly state what I have spent years trying to articulate, and never found the words for doing so. To read the words of these great men is to read the highest expression of my very self which is inexpressible due to the shortcomings of my particular nature.
Chris Matakas
There is an opportunity cost for everything we do. This is why we must have the awareness to ensure that what we are pursuing is really what we value, because the pursuit leaves countless lost opportunities in its wake. We choose one experience at the sacrifice of all other experiences.
Chris Matakas
hope for the best, prepare for the worst
Chris Bradford
To obtain victory by any means and with any weapon.
Chris Bradford
In order to know your enemy, you must become your enemy.
Chris Bradford
There is no higher calling than the service of your fellow man, and to do so through your own personal mastery of a craft is a gift enjoyed by few.
Chris Matakas
In whatever we do, we should be investing in ourselves and not our jobs. Everything I have ever pursued has been for the sole goal of who I was becoming in its achievement. I competed and fought because of the man I became. This is the only worthwhile victory. You cannot take the trophies with you.
Chris Matakas
Green strongly influences the heart and helps alleviate tension. Positive qualities associated with green are generosity, humility, and cooperation. Foods of the green vibration are all green fruits and green vegetables.
Tae Yun Kim
Habits are infinitely more beneficial to the aspiring student than motivation. Motivation may get you started, but habits keep you going.
Chris Matakas
. . . the sole aim of Okinawa Karate is to teach A person to handle violence and violent individuals; whether it is tactile, mental or spiritual
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength.
Chris Bradford
All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.
Bruce Lee
We seek to understand Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to understand ourselves. We have different explicit goals, from getting in shape, learning self-defense or competition, but tacitly we all seek mastery of ourselves.
Chris Matakas
All creations are one with the universe. Look at the world around you. Can you effectively separate yourself from everything else? After seriously pondering this, most of us rapidly conclude that we cannot. To even make the statement that I exist as a unique entity requires comparison with something else. (If you exist as a distinct being, your distinctiveness is in comparison to other creations. No other creations, no individual you.)
H.E. Davey
What is it like to feel Tao? It is an effortless flowing, a sweeping momentum. It is like bird song soaring and gliding over a vast landscape. You can feel this in your life: Events will take on a perfect momentum, a glorious cadence. You can feel it in your body: The energy will rise up in you in a thrilling crescendo, setting your very nerves aglow. You can feel it in your spirit: You will enter a state of such perfect grace that you will resound over the landscape of reality like ephemeral bird song.When Tao comes to you in this way, ride it for all that you are worth. Don't interfere. Don't stop - that brings failure, alienation, and regret. Don't try to direct it. Let it flow and follow it. When the Tao is with you, put aside all other concerns. As long as the song lasts, follow. Just follow.
Ming-Dao Deng
On Ryukyu islands, the expert Kara-te practitioners, used their skills to subdue, control and generally teach bullies A lesson, rather than severely injure or kill their attackers. They knew full well the consequences of their actions and the trail of blood and retribution that would ensue
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
Maintain a receptive attitude!
Tae Yun Kim
We can lose the roll, we can lose position, but we can constantly strive to win the moment.
Chris Matakas
Memorizing someone else’s explanation of the truth isn’t the same as seeing the truth for yourself. It is what it is—the memorization of second-hand knowledge. It is not your experience. It is not your knowledge. And no matter how much material is learned by rote, and no matter how eloquently we can speak about the memorized information, we’re clinging to a description of something that’s not ours. What’s more, the description is never the item itself. By holding onto our impression of certain descriptions, we frequently are unable to see the real thing when it’s right before our eyes. We are conditioned by memorizing and believing concepts—the truth of which we’ve never genuinely seen for ourselves.
H.E. Davey
Obey the principles without being bound by them.
Bruce Lee
After I received my blue belt, I soon recognized that the belts were simply an external representation of an inner experience, and that they mattered little compared to the person I was becoming.
Chris Matakas
Many of us begin this art with little to no understanding of what we are getting ourselves into. Then, maybe a year or a black belt later, we realize this odyssey we have embarked upon and rest happily in knowing we have chosen a noble struggle.I think we owe most of our successes to our initial ignorance. When we begin, we cannot see the obstacles ahead, and so we march on optimistically. In hindsight, when we look back and connect the dots, we see just how green we were at the start, and it was only our ignorance that upheld us from the crushing despair of the task at hand.
Chris Matakas
Service, it seems, is the only antidote to existential frustration.
Chris Matakas
Have an open mind! Have an empty cup!
Tae Yun Kim
Learn the principles, abide by the principles, and then dissolve the principles.
Bruce Lee
By becoming a black belt, you will become whatever it is you wanted to be in the first place, and Jiu Jitsu will have served its aim.
Chris Matakas
Any self-defense situation has the potential to quickly become A 'life and death' situation, therefore your practice of martial arts should be undertaken, as if your very life depends on it . . .
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
Dawn is a precious time of day. It reminds us that every glory must fade, and that all things, cruel or sweet, come to an end.
Simon Higgins
While we can learn or study techniques for almost anything we might want to accomplish, real understanding is not the mere accumulation of knowledge. Understanding cannot be realized by listening or reading about the realization of others. It must be achieved firsthand via substantive, direct perception in the moment.
H.E. Davey
Society is a collection of selves perpetuating their myth.
Chris Matakas
You have to be strong enough to stand up for what you believe, even if you are standing alone.
Bohdi Sanders
If you are fortunate enough to have a particular activity with which you find greatest joy and technical success, it is your responsibility as a growing human being to continue that study. Whatever your endeavor, if you can expand upon the knowledge in your strongest subject, that new found understanding of all things will trickle down to every other area of your life.
Chris Matakas
This philosophy teaches us to leave safe harbor for the rough seas of real-world experience, and to accept that a rough copy out in the world serves us far greater than a masterpiece sitting quietly on our shelves.
Chris Matakas
Karate is action, survival, living; hesitation is paralysis, reaction, mortality
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Be water, my friend.
Bruce Lee
Karate training will make you strong and confident, but restraint will make you respected
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
The only way to consistently perform at your potential is to ask: Am I better than I was yesterday?
Chris Matakas
If Jiu Jitsu does not make you a better father, son, mother, daughter, wife or husband, you are missing the point. If Jiu Jitsu does not leave you viewing strangers in a kinder light, you are missing the point. If you are not better equipped to deal with the vicissitudes of life due to your training, then you are not really training.
Chris Matakas
In Japanese swordsmanship, it is not uncommon to speak of a unity of mind, body, and sword.
H.E. Davey
Jiu Jitsu is a baptism by combat, and serves a purpose in the inner life of the individual that has always existed, but our modern culture fails to acknowledge.
Chris Matakas