From Parenting Wisdom: What to Teach the Children by Richard Andrew King.
If there is any one thing that separates “grown ups” from children it is that
Grown Ups, Own Up. Adults take responsibility for their own actions and do
not blame others for their choices or lot in life. As the famous Indian Saint,
Guru Nanak (the first of the ten Sikh Gurus), emphatically stated:
I blame not another; I blame my own karmas. Whatever I sowed, so did I reap.
Why then put the blame on others?
Remember this photo of Aidan “Smasher” Ligtvoet taken a few years ago when he
was a very young aspiring martial artist in the Kiado-Ryu system? Obviously,
he knew what he wanted to be!
Well, look at him now at age 16!
Smasher is all grown up. He tested for and accomplished his KIA Green Belt on
Thursday, 26 January 2023. He now has a green light to move in accomplishing
his first dan Brown Belt status.
From The Black Belt Book of Life: Secrets of a Martial Arts Master.
In seeking patterns of success and a strategy to win,
The “D” Line offers five clear maxims:
Desire, Dedication, Determination,
Discretion, Discipline.
A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end
will point out the means.
Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s the determination and commitment to
an unrelenting pursuit of your goal—a commitment to excellence—that will
enable you to attain the success you seek.
From Parenting Wisdom: What to Teach the Children.
In the 1960s the American folk singing group Peter, Paul and Mary, popularized
a Pete Seeger song entitled, Where Have All The Flowers Gone? It is not an
unfair question in these early years of the 21st Century to ask, “Where have
all the manners gone?”
What are manners? Manners are social modes of action expressing respect and
deference for others. Manners, or the lack of them, speak to the character of
an individual and a culture. The famous German writer, artist and politician
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (18th/19th Centuries) stated:
From The Karate Consciousness: From Worldly Warrior to Mystic Master.
Strength is internal power manifested in external form. As all qualities of
Divine Individuality, it flows from the center of man’s Oneness with his
Creator. It permeates all components of the life system—physical, mental,
spiritual—and is the sustaining force in the quest for perfection.
It is an absolute necessity for the student to continually increase his
strength if he is to successfully progress in the continuum. New obstacles and
challenges on the vertical growth pattern always yield an increased functional
understanding of the life force once they are surpassed, but to conquer them
demands a degree of strength equal to each task. Therefore, the goal for each
individual aspiring to mastery is to continually seek to increase the flow
from the Source because, of itself, the Source is strength and man is only as
strong as his ability to align himself with it.
