Reading with my Kung Fu glasses on

 "There's no class, but that doesn't mean there's no kung fu" 

is a familiar enough phrase but I'm finding more and more that the tiny voice in my head that would chime in from time to time during everyday life whimpering "hey that's just like in kung fu..." seems to be getting louder and more insistent as of late.

Weird opening tangent all to say that my friend lent me a book series centered around volleyball and on almost every page my brain was drawing parallels to kung fu. There are a ton of great quotes that with a little paraphrasing can be directly applied to practicing martial arts and I wanted to compile them in a blog post for me to have them all in one place, and for anyone else to read if they want since I think some of them are quite good!

“We’re what? Second in the nation? Or was it third? Ah who cares which it was? It doesn’t matter, that was all yesterday. Yesterday is gone. Yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, they’ve all been converted into muscle. What matters is this - what are we going to do today?”

“Instead of chasing one perfect instance now, focus instead on stacking up 100 inconspicuous yet effective instances that will make their presence felt at the end.”

“Know your weaknesses. Accept them. Forget the weapons you can’t wield. Find all the ones you can … and carefully, persistently, hone them all to a wicked point.”

“See, there are folks out there who think people are as good as they are just because, for no real reason at all. It doesn’t hit 'em that while folks like me might practice one, two, and three they are practicing one, two, three, and four, five, six. Either that or they’re doing a better, more efficient one two and three. Sometimes they’ll come up and say “why do one, two, and three when we could try A, B, and, C instead? Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Do ya know what’s so wrong about being afraid of stuff?” It’s a big waste of an opportunity.”

“My everyday actions are what make me who I am. Results are just the side effects of what I do.”

“You do it right and you do it everyday. You take care of your body. You tidy up after yourself. Follow customs. And practice.”

“What’s lamest isn’t losing the fight … it’s chickening out and running from it.”

“Why do you keep drawing random lines, telling yourself anything past them is impossible?”

(this one needs a bit of creative re-contextualization, but the sentiment it there)

“Getting blocked is no fun. Botching digs is no fun. Missing serves is no fun. Getting tired is no fun. I wanna score every time. I wanna dig every ball. I wanna win every game.” “having fun seems like it should be a simple thing … but the way he said it made it sound like a difficult and arduous task.” 

“You won’t ever be tall no matter how hard you try. But having fun is something you can make! It comes out the other end of lotsa hard work and training!”

“I hurt. I’m exhausted. I don’t ever want this to end.”

“The first and most important lesson to teach is how fun it is to succeed at something. Do what you love and success will come”

“Sometimes what looks to be the harder, tougher road … is actually the easier one to choose.”

“It’s okay to wonder about how to go about doing it … but never doubt the necessity of doing it.

“Anyways! Don’t worry so much about what’s coming later. It doesn’t matter. Pay attention to now.”

“It wasn’t that you lacked guts or didn’t want it badly enough or anything like that. Your physical and mental strength aren’t two separate things. Building a strong fit body also builds a strong, fit mind. Don’t try to surpass your limits. Work to push those limits even higher.”

“When you dedicate yourself to pushing higher … you’re going to have to expect the hard times to outweigh the fun. It gets to the point where you begin to believe that if it isn’t hard, if it isn’t rough, then you aren’t giving it everything you can. Yet without any rhyme or reason … from time to time … something fun will just … hit. Out of nowhere. It’s that fun that keeps pulling me onward.”

“To be truly strong … one must continually discard one’s strength.”