Quotes by Martial Artists - Page 5

All respect is earned, even self-respect.
Bohdi Sanders
Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.
Chuck Norris
A true friend is someone you can count on no matter what.
Bohdi Sanders
Your loyalty to friends and family should have no limit, although it may be expressed in ways that others cannot understand.
Bohdi Sanders
Excellence is a way of life.
Bohdi Sanders
The essence of warrior traits are demonstrated by : integrity with self, and honesty with others
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
The rare opportunity to exist, no matter how brief, is worth the pain left in the wake of its disappearance.
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
. . . most martial artists want to know how A technique is done, A seasoned Sensei will demonstrate why
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love.
Morihei Ueshiba
This is a trust that you just cannot find in modern society for there are no conditions to forge it.
Chris Matakas
Because all actions and expressionsstem from the mind, it is vital to know themind as well as decide in what way we’ll use it. Everyone has heard of psychosomatic illness, and most of us acknowledge that psychosomatic sicknesses can and do occur. But whatabout psychosomatic wellness?
H.E. Davey
Plants or animals rarely behave in an unnatural manner that’s contrary to their true makeup. Human beings are also natural beings, but at the same time, we’re conscious entities. We therefore have free will and must make the choice not merely to be part of nature, but also to follow faithfully the “laws of nature.
H.E. Davey
Retaining our capacity for reasonis common sense, but definite conclusions and beliefs keep us from seeing life as it really is at any given moment.
H.E. Davey
Genuine goodness isn’t discovered through postponement but must exist now or not at all. It cannot be based on what is not. We must find it in what is and what we truly see.
H.E. Davey
Mind and body are in many ways opposite from each other, and mind and body must each act according to its own principles. Nonetheless, while the mind and body are different in disposition, they are complementary opposites that form a single whole. For us to sustain mind and body harmony, and function as whole human beings, we need to discover the actual nature of the mind’s characteristics.
H.E. Davey
The innate harmony that exists between mind and body is one of the secrets behind the amazing power of Shin-shin-toitsu-do, which is weakened by an inefficient use of the body. Our bodies must be strong, relaxed, and healthy to respond to our minds’ commands.
H.E. Davey
Shin-shin-toitsu-do includes a wide variety of stretching exercises, breathing methods, forms of seated meditation and moving meditation, massage-like healing arts, techniques of auto-suggestion, and mind and body coordination drills, as well as principles for the unification ofmind and body.These principles of mind and body coordination are regarded as universal laws that express the workings of nature on human life. As such, they can be applied directly to an endless number of everyday activities and tasks. It is not uncommon when studying Japanese yoga to encounter classes and seminars that deal with the direct application of these universal principles to office work, sales, management, sports, art, music, public speaking, and a host of other topics.How to use these precepts of mind and body integration to realize our full potential in any action is the goal. All drills, exercises, and practices of Shin-shin-toitsu-do are based on the same principles, thus linking intelligently a diversity of arts. But more than this, they serve as vehicles for grasping and cultivating the principles of mind and body coordination. And it is these principles that can be put to use directly, unobtrusively, and immediately in our daily lives.
H.E. Davey
Since the early 1920s a unique spiritual path has existed in Japan. This distinctly Japanese version of yoga is called Shin-shin-toitsu-do, and it combines seated meditation, moving meditation, breathing exercises, and other disciplines to help practitioners realize unification of mind and body. Besides yoga, it is a synthesis of methods, influenced by Japanese meditation, healing arts, and martial arts; along with Western psychology, medicine, and science. Shin-shin-toitsu-do is widely practiced throughout Japan, although it is almost unknown in other countries. Through its principles of mind and body coordination people have an opportunity to realize their full potential in everyday life.A remarkable man created this path, and he led an equally remarkable life. He was known in Japan as Nakamura Tempu Sensei, and this is his story.
H.E. Davey
For many of us, especially being so fortunate to live in a first-world country, the vast majority of pain we experience is due to the seriousness with which we identify with our thoughts.
Chris Matakas
You are the space in which these thoughts arise, but not the thoughts themselves.
Chris Matakas
This is what it means to be mindful. To watch the thoughts as they come and go without judgment while completely accepting what arises in the present moment.
Chris Matakas
Freedom from the thinking mind is our underlying goal for most of human activity.
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
We’re so used to just glancing at the environment through the eyes of the past that we’re frequently not certain if we are in fact paying attention or if we merely think that we’re paying attention. Dynamic meditation in everyday existence involves the act of truthfully seeing.Many of us have changed some aspect of our appearance only to have this go unnoticed by friends. Perhaps you’ve shaved off a mustache, added a tattoo, or altered your hairstyle, but your acquaintances failed to initially notice. In such a case, your friends were looking at their environment through the eyes of the past instead of actually seeing what was taking place in the present.
H.E. Davey
Indian forms of yoga have spread throughout the world due to their objectives of promoting health and harmony. Japan is but one of many countries that have received these age-old teachings. While Indian yogic disciplines (Hatha yoga in particular) have become well known, not everyone realizes that certain distinctive Japanese versions of Indian spiritual paths have evolved. Perhaps the first of these unique methodologies is the art of Shin-shin-toitsu-do, which was developed by Nakamura Tempu Sensei (1876–1968). In fact, Nakamura Sensei is often considered to be the father of yoga in Japan.
H.E. Davey
If we fail to realize our full potential as human beings, we live more on an animalistic level. This is fine for dogs, cats, and chimpanzees but doesn’t work quite so well for women and men. Without the capacity to freely shape our own lives, much as a sculptor might carve stone, we inevitably slip into negativity and depression.
H.E. Davey
Just as there’s usually a space or interval between people passing on the street, even if it sometimes seems very small, a space also exists between thoughts. In your meditation, see if you can perceive this gap between thoughts. What is it, and does it belong to the realm of time? If it does not, then it’s unborn and undying, beyond all conditioning, which is a psychological carry-over from the past to the present.Whatever thoughts or internal conflicts come up—do nothing. Do not try to force them to cease or change. And don’t “do nothing” to still the mind, quiet fears, or resolve conflicts—all of this is doing something. It only leads to more struggling and prevents you from seeing the actual nature of thought and internal conflict. Genuine attention has no motive.This observation or listening doesn’t involve effort. Effort merely distracts you from what’s taking place in the instant. A kind of concentration exists that’s not forced. We’ve all experienced listening or paying attention to something we truly enjoyed. At that moment, was effort required for concentration to take place?
H.E. Davey
Relaxing the shoulders is vital for relaxation in general. However, owing to the effects of gravity, relaxation is problematic unless we let the shoulders remain in their natural place. Let the shoulders drop, or settle in harmony with gravity, into their most comfortable position. It isn’t too difficult to do this for a moment, but to sustain this condition unconsciously in our lives is another matter. We raise our shoulders unnaturally when we lean on a desk or hold the telephone between our shoulders and ears, when we are shocked by a loud noise, and who knows how many other times throughout the day. And the unsettling of the shoulders doesn’t have to be large to produce anxiety, stiff necks, and headaches. Just slightly raising them will create tension, and this tension throws the nervous system out of balance.When do we raise the shoulders in daily life? What are we feeling at that moment and leading up to that moment? Remembering that the body reflects the mind, and that the raising of the shoulders not only creates tension but also is a physical manifestation of psychological tension itself, what are the roots of this tension? Bringing the mind into the moment, let’s observe ourselves in a state free of preconceived ideas or beliefs. Don’t guess at these questions. Observe yourself in relationship to others and the universe
H.E. Davey
Basically, if the mind stays in the present, it’s impossible to worry. Upon careful consideration, it becomes clear that human beings are capable of worrying only about an event that has already transpired or one that may take place in the future (although the occurrence might have just happened or may be about to happen in the next instant). The present moment contains no time or space for worry.
H.E. Davey
By means of personal experimentation and observation, we can discover certain simple and universal truths. The mind moves the body, and the body follows the mind. Logically then, negative thought patterns harm not only the mind but also the body. What we actually do builds up to affect the subconscious mind and in turn affects the conscious mind and all reactions.
H.E. Davey
In mastering one thing, you have mastered all things because you have learned how to learn.
Chris Matakas
I have been given the rare opportunity to teach Jiu Jitsu for a living. This is a privilege that I wake up everyday grateful for, and a responsibility that I hold dearly. I understand how rare it is to be employed through a labor you genuinely love, and one which can be used as a vehicle for positive change in the lives of others. Even rarer still, I am often reminded of the quality of Jiu Jitsu I have learned, and the opportunity to have learned it.
Chris Matakas
I use my understanding of jiu jitsu as a road map to learn other activities. I look for the similarities between the two, and use jiu jitsu as an allegory for whatever my new practice may be. I truly believe once you have learned one thing, you have learned all things because you have learned how to learn.
Chris Matakas
I train jiu jitsu because I love jiu jitsu. But I also train knowing that my practice in this art will allow me better practice in any art. If you have learned one thing, you have learned all things, because you have learned how to learn. I can think of no more worthwhile pursuit of education.
Chris Matakas
I believe that which you study is only matched in importance by the sincerity with which you approach it.
Chris Matakas
There is no concrete way to play Jiu Jitsu, and this is why so many different types of people find joy in it.
Chris Matakas
For the sincere student, it mustn't be enough to simply understand Jiu Jitsu. We must seek to understand ourselves.
Chris Matakas
An arm bar in a vacuum is worthless. It is the realization of the truths which constitute that arm bar that is the real treasure we seek.
Chris Matakas
The infinitude of Jiu Jitsu allows for the infinitude of the types of practitioners. There exists a game for each and every one of us which is specifically possible within the confines of our particular skill set.
Chris Matakas
I wanted to get to the most essential aspect of my being, and look around for a while. I wanted to explore what I am in my most basic self. I wanted to chip away at all of the nonsense I have acquired through my twenty-nine years on this earth. I wanted to find truth. Thoreau went to the woods. I went to the mats. Jiu Jitsu has peeled the veil of daily life, and has shown me what lies beyond the curtain. We willingly accept the chains that circumstance forces upon us, and we grow to find comfort in them. We attach various fetters of day-to-day living to our being, and we do so with a smile. We accept these constraints for they come in the way of comfort. We accept conformity for it appears the path of least resistance. We strive toward the middle, and we run from ourselves.
Chris Matakas
Thoreau went to the woods. I went to the mats.
Chris Matakas
We call it training. Not because we are training for Jiu Jitsu. We are training for life.
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
Jiu Jitsu can be a source of total transparency such as a mirror, but it takes a conscious choice to see what it has to say.
Chris Matakas
Do not seek victory, for victory in itself will not serve you. Seek to understand what made the victory possible.
Chris Matakas
Jiu Jitsu gives each of us something that no other sport can. We have the opportunity to become truly great regardless of what circumstance fate has handed us. We have complete freedom and responsibility to achieve whatever level of mastery we wish.
Chris Matakas
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
Jiu Jitsu is meant to serve us, not the other way around. It is meant to make you more of whatever it is you already are. It is meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is meant to bring to conscious attention all that once went unseen. It is meant to make you more loving. It is meant to make you more wise, but less certain. It is meant to make us humble, yet supremely confident. It is meant to remind us of our frailty while simultaneously making us feel invincible.
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
Jiu Jitsu has shown me that we are not confined to the lot which we inherit. We are not bound to these fetters eternally. They are temporal. We can transcend them should we sincerely choose to. Sincere effort is in fact the rarest virtue among man.
Chris Matakas
. . as A martial arts teacher, we should never forget the first time we stepped onto the Dojo ground, remembering this, we will be better equipped to teach the next generation of Karate practitioners
Soke Behzad Ahmadi
There is no more valuable skill than studentship. The farther we go down one area of human understanding, the more we see the corollaries that all activities share. Everything I do for the rest of my life, all the skills I acquire, will be made possible because of my time spent on the mats. It has revealed a symbiosis between all things that I never knew existed.
Chris Matakas
But willpower is necessary only where _ability_ to do is lacking. Learning ... is not the training of willpower but the acquisition of the skill to inhibit parasitic action and the ability to direct clear motivations as a result of self-knowledge. [Introduction]
Moshé Feldenkrais
Health is the ability to realize our avowed and unavowed dreams.
Moshé Feldenkrais
The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.
Josh Waitzkin
He landed on cheap shot, but I knocked him out of the tournament.
Josh Waitzkin
Maintain a receptive attitude!
Tae Yun Kim
Life is easier lived when lived for others.
Chris Matakas
For things to be right on the outside, they first have to be right on the inside.
Bohdi Sanders