100 Quotes About Martial-Art

The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. Miyamoto Musashi

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. . Bruce Lee

Unfortunately, religion often works to shrink and tame the very wild and mysterious forces that first drew our wonder. In the process of making the inexplicable safe for the masses, the possibilities for real illusion-piercing insight becomes reduced. One might say that they are only available to those who dare to ride the breaking crest of direct life-altering experience. Stephen K. Hayes

The warrior learns of the spiritual realm by dwelling on the cutting edge of the sword, standing at the edge of the fire pit, venturing right up to the edge of starvation if necessary. Vibrant and intense living is the warrior's form of worship. Stephen K. Hayes

I think all artists struggle to represent the geometryof life in their own way, just like writers deal witharchetypes. There are only so many stories that you cantell, but an infinite number of storytellers. Henry Mosquera

Before you start your full day of watching Equestrian Square Dancing, Soccer Balling, Hoop Dreaming, Cricket Batting, Rugby Punching, Volleyball Chopping, Skateboard Falling, Martial Arts Bowing, Bicycle Peddlers, and College Football Hecklers, maybe we have time to learn something Scientifically. James Hauenstein

.. and so it is that A Sensei may impart his knowledge of the martial Way and nurture your fighting abilities, but you must learn the wisdom of finding other ways than martial skills to solve your problems Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Memories of lost love they do enpain, Fleeting images of what once was never again to gain. Hold tight those memories that slip through the mind, To walk in those fields again with her–a dream divined. Oh to be with that lost Valkyrie forevermore again, To hold her hand delicate until the last world’s end. To be at peace once amore in deep loving soul, Husband to wife in embracing hold. How he loved her so, but she was now gone, Leaf to the wind, heart tossed and tumbled torn. Memories like arrows stick deep–ohhh so deep, Shafts of pain and joy assail the soul’s lonely keep. --Angel-Heart, Ch. 22 Valley of the Damned. Douglas M Laurent

As she left the cold arena Angel had to laugh, Beaten by that of a wisp girl and her subliming cunning craft.– Jove lay silent in his orbit; brooding, deep, dreamless forweep, And faithful dog Sirius rising tracked behind on dusk’s purpling adeep. Scratched he his chin; counted the cold and early evening stars, He had miles to go that night, they being so very far. Only the music of the wint’ring span, Vanished he away in the shimmering land. . . Douglas M Laurent

The Valkyrie’s heart was wrought of dazzling gold full of the most finest and firmest of loves, this being the secret of her many moods and akimbo inspirangular mercies. – On Kari, Ch. Fifteen Valley of the Damned Douglas M Laurent

The Talmud states, "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. Bridges McCall

In Japan, a number of time-honored everyday activities (such as making tea, arranging flowers, and writing) have traditionally been deeply examined by their proponents. Students study how to make tea, perform martial arts, or write with a brush in the most skillful way possible to express themselves with maximum efficiency and minimum strain. Through this efficient, adroit, and creative performance, they arrive at art. But if they continue to delve even more deeply into their art, they discover principles that are truly universal, principles relating to life itself. Then, the art of brush writing becomes shodo–the “Way of the brush”–while the art of arranging flowers is elevated to the status of kado–the “Way of flowers.” Through these Ways or Do forms, the Japanese have sought to realize the Way of living itself. They have approached the universal through the particular. H.E. Davey

Jiu Jitsu uses us to express itself, and the best thing we can do to is to become a vehicle capable of expressing Jiu Jitsu with all of its perfection minus our imperfections. Chris Matakas

Tempestuous plains tell the tale, Windswept wastes do bewail, Haunting Spirit of the land, Seeks the living, seeks the damned. Horizoned edge sheared with grass, Dark Storm Rising in the pass, Ageless Spirit seeks the path, To torment souls to the last. Brooding Spirit upon the plain, Thunderhead gathers for the rain. Light grows dim then bolts with pain, On dry Earth her sin is stained.( Frightened creatures do stampede, Into night, they do recede). Ungodded hand on seasoned blade, Reaps the harvest of the Age.Released from her eternal din, Spirit of the Age rises again. Seeking to plunder and consume, Those who were proud, those who presumed. Spirits rage while storm draws nigh, Upon burning plain and emblazoned sky. It is said giants grapple in the Earth so deep, To contend for souls that they might keep. The Storm spirit now searches the high and the low, To seek her manchild victim in the fields below. Leaves bad wasteland to claim but a fallen man, Denying it Heaven, crowning it, ‘Son of the Damned.’Treacherous Spirit of the far lost night, Tramples souls down denying them light. Storm seethes with furious hiss, Leads men on to bottomless pit. This most ancient of foes has come from her den, To seek the living, to make ready those dead. A living sacrifice is her soul desire, To snatch the soul for black funeral pyre. A double-damned devil, that is she, This one who lies, who claims to make free. A lying spirit, that is her domain, A storm-wracked Fury of self-proclaim. Onward she seeks, this bleak Northern wind, Searching for naught but for a soul akin. Amidst the howling and the rage, To murder again, that is her trade. As this spirit of graves left the plain, She left a wake of dead in shrouded train. Now down from the plain Storm did come, Unto those cities wherein was no sun. There with whirlwind she did rip and scour, For those souls of whom she could tear and devour. She comes to seek the living and the dead, Those who were frightened, those with no dread. Thus upon those she did acclaim, “ I am the Mistress of the living and the slain.” O’ haunting Spirit of this land, Taker of life, maker of the damned. --On Villainess Storm, Ch. One Valley of the Damned. Douglas M Laurent

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

.. in Old Karate, you learned you Art through pain. You learned quickly that your techniques had to be fast or powerful or both. If you did not embrace pain and it's lessons adequately, you simply did not survive Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Your technique means nothing if you're not using your talents for the betterment of humanity. Gene Dunn

Better than money and fame, teaching martial arts to your children; giving them your time and confidence, is the best inheritance Soke Behzad Ahmadi

A karate practitioner should possess two things : wicked hands, and Buddha's heart Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Karate without heart is just A corpse Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Humans lose focus of the big picture when they’re drunken in the midst of their feelings. - Tojuro Hattori Yuhki Kamatani

Jiu Jitsu forges friendships in a way I’ve never known. Being involved in an art as intimate as this, where bodily connection is a must, the common cultural boundaries of personal space are broken. You will never see more hugs, high fives, and physical expressions of love than on the mats. Ultimately, this proves to be one of the most fulfilling aspects of our pursuit of mastery. Along the way, we learn to love others as we love ourselves. Chris Matakas

Through Jiu Jitsu I have developed many of the most meaningful relationships in my life, and if that were the only benefit of my practice, Jiu Jitsu would still be the best endeavor I have ever undertaken. Chris Matakas

Relationships formed through Jiu Jitsu are deeply rooted in respect for one another, and this is often not the case in matters of modern society. Chris Matakas

Jiu Jitsu provides a place of fellowship that, unfortunately, our society has largely failed to create. Chris Matakas

It is fellowship, this most fundamental need on our way toward achieving our highest expression of the human experience, which Jiu Jitsu provides. Chris Matakas

This is the opportunity the fellowship of Jiu Jitsu affords us. To reach our highest potential of self, and then to offer that self to another. Chris Matakas

The Hand (Kara-Te) is the cutting edge of the Mind Soke Behzad Ahmadi

When you realize you are no longer made of glass, you lose the desire to demonstrate that fragility in others. Chris Matakas

Real Martial Arts is Mathematics, Physics, Poetry; Meditation in Action Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Karate is many things, but mainly it's about synergy, ebb and flow, trial and error, action and reaction, rhythm of life, progress .. . Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Karate is action, survival, living; hesitation is paralysis, reaction, mortality Soke Behzad Ahmadi

The major events in our lives receive the entire spotlight, but ultimately your life will be defined by the same handful of choices you make each day. Chris Matakas

My growth as a human being has been directly proportional to my growth as a marital artist. Chris Matakas

As an instructor, my goal has always been to use Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to help our students achieve their goals, whatever the case may be. I have yet to find a better vehicle for growth, and the moment I do I will certainly pursue it with the rivaled fervor that I approached Jiu Jitsu. Chris Matakas

I can think of no more worthwhile aim than pursuing mastery in this craft while transcending one’s own limitations. Chris Matakas

Devoting yourself to a particular art is invaluable. The art becomes our vehicle with which we drive down the road of life. We use this vehicle to learn about ourselves and this place, to conquer fears, to become more of what we already are. In my own life, I have found most valuable the transferable skills of learning from jiu jitsu to all other facets of day to day study. In devoting myself with such commitment to this art, in undertaking the task of understanding jiu jitsu to whatever degree by circumstance allows, I have unknowingly learned how to learn. Chris Matakas

Jiu Jitsu is the vehicle. Not the road. Chris Matakas

A champion always prepares to win. D.C. Gonzalez

Laughter has got to be the single healthiest activity one can perform. Just think how healthy you would be if you could sincerely laugh at that which now oppresses you. Darrell Calkins

Recovery through sleep isn’t going to happen if the majority of the components of your being aren’t getting enough stimulation or resistance to work against. Your brain may be tired after work, but if your body and emotions haven’t been challenged through the day, they’re going to keep irritating you even if you’re asleep. They don’t need rest; they need work for real recovery to take place. Darrell Calkins

The typical image of a depressed, lazy and tired person is someone hunched over and inert. Often, the assumption is that if one had more enthusiasm and inspiration, he would then stand up straight and move. In many cases, this equation is backward. But, as with everything related to one’s physicality, balance is the key. An overly erect and rigid posture may convey confidence and power to some, but it also causes a subtle accumulation of tension and rigidity on various levels, including psychological and emotional. Darrell Calkins

No one will improve his health significantly without accurately perceiving priorities, knowing clearly what is at stake if those are not attended to and what is to be gained if acted on correctly. That’s the basic homework before any change can come about. Then that knowledge has to be transformed into a sustainable motivation. Darrell Calkins

Well-being, or wholeness, implies integrity and harmony between all existing elements, providing freedom for the whole. Darrell Calkins

Ironically, many of the institutions that run the economy, such as medicine, education, law and even psychology are largely dependent upon failing health. If you add up the amounts of money exchanged in the control, anticipation and reaction to failing health (insurance, pharmaceutical research and products, reactive or compensatory medicine, related legal issues, consultation and therapy for those who are unwilling to improve their physical health and claim or believe the problem is elsewhere, etc.), you end up with an enormous chunk. To keep that moving, we need people to be sick. Then we have the extreme social emphasis placed on the pursuit and maintenance of a lifestyle based on making money at any cost, often at the sacrifice of health, sanity and well-being. . Darrell Calkins

Physical well-being necessitates listening to what you already know, and then taking it seriously enough to act accordingly. When you wake up and feel the impulse to arch your back, stretch and exhale with a loud sigh, for God’s sake, do it. Darrell Calkins

In my experience, most people are actually seeking recovery from the monotony and anxiety of qualitative repetition. This applies to body, emotions and mind. And that monotony and anxiety involves inertia just as much as over-use, meaning inertia in some areas and over-use in others. Darrell Calkins

Yearning often does not provide a sense of attainment or “peace, ” as it is fuel for one’s personal purpose, to in some specific way give or create; to do that is not necessarily easy or peaceful. Darrell Calkins

If I were to make a list of focus for well-being, I would begin with lifestyle (the totality of one’s circumstance and how that is engaged, including job and relationships, and proximity to nature), attending to the physical functions correctly (posture, breathing, exercise, food, rest, etc.), consistent expression of your natural range of qualities, working and playing well and hard, and designing things so that you are doing what compels you. Obviously, you can’t give this list out as a prescription for physical problems and diseases, but then again, it is probably the correct prescription. If one were to follow it, any specific problem, even extreme, would almost certainly resolve itself. Darrell Calkins

It’s highly refined stuff–holding to one’s purpose and focus, but also intuiting the value of being a piece in a larger design and evolution. The balance between these two rhythms is where and when true harmony is achieved and magic happens. Often, just the release of the obsession for personal preferences and to personally gain opens the door. Darrell Calkins

The essential dynamic underlying almost every elite and esoteric physical art is work with the breath, so there’s information available. I would only add that it’s unfortunate that so much work is done with it, and not much play. Laughter has got to be the single healthiest activity one can perform. Just think how healthy you would be if you could sincerely laugh at that which now oppresses you. I’ve mentioned before that one good measure of someone’s depth of spirituality is how long it takes before they become offended. Imagine laughing hysterically at the criticisms, complaints and impositions you receive. At the least, you’d be breathing well. . Darrell Calkins

People generally believe that stress is responsible for depletion, but apathy and uninspired systematic repetition are equally responsible. Or rather, systematic repetition produces as much or more stress and anxiety as anything else. Darrell Calkins

Getting down to the gym a couple days a week and having low-fat milk in your morning latte isn’t going to make much of a dent in a system or lifestyle that is essentially, well, unwell. Darrell Calkins

If you’re ignoring a high percentage of the elements of your entire being, and the range of qualities they can naturally engage, there will be no real recovery or progress until you do. The typical relentless worker is just as lazy as the typical indulgent idler; they’re both just going through the habitual motions. To break the repetitive pattern, and discover more energy and effectiveness, one simply must stretch out in all directions, rotating focus and application of the qualities that make up one’s natural versatility. Darrell Calkins

The human body, like the human mind, is best at versatility and adaptability. This is our greatest skill and our greatest chance to unlock natural potential. What that means in terms of physical movement is that a fairly equal amount of time and effort should be allocated to the widest possible range of activity. That includes strength, flexibility, precision and endurance, but it certainly doesn’t stop there. . Darrell Calkins

As I’ve mentioned too often before, we are governed, and specifically our physicality is governed, by fairly strict rules, which are easily observable in nature. We have some freedom to manipulate some of these, but really not by very much. Everyone knows, or at least has the information, about the horrors of ignoring health issues and expecting your body to do what you want it to do with the least investment in it. Another “authority” telling you what you should do is not the answer. . Darrell Calkins

Besides having been identified recently as the single most important factor in what men find sexy in women, the list of how correct posture influences internal organs and systems, and also mood and general energy, is very long indeed. Your internal environment depends on the efficiency of the flow of elements within it. Obviously, this includes oxygen, blood, hormones and nutrients, but also all interaction between nerves and the brain. The spine, which is your foundation and support, has a natural position that guarantees the efficiency of movement and interaction of the related elements. Your internal organs are all right alongside the spine and depend on its correct position to function well. Any prolonged restriction or deviation from this natural position will result in some, at least partial, dysfunction. Over a long time, the results can be devastating. . Darrell Calkins

I look at the idea of rest as rotating one’s qualitative focus, not just doing less or changing activity. The role of rest is recovery. If you keep pushing the same quality button (fast or slow, concentrated or dispersed, hard-working or lazy…) for the same component all the time, of course it’s going to become depleted, just like if you keep working a single muscle in the same fashion or don’t use it at all. Darrell Calkins

The trick is in genuinely appreciating the elements of apparent resistance while you are engaging them. Not to oppose or remove them as much as to creatively fold them into one’s linear line of movement, exploiting them and making the necessary adjustments as you go. Darrell Calkins

A balanced diet” is not so much about protein/fat/carbohydrate ratios. The real ratios to consider, at least for the typical American or European, are energy consumption/expenditure, pleasure/actual need, food/everything else. Darrell Calkins

If one follows what is in one’s heart (let’s leave out mind for the moment), one ends up with what one truly values and loves in life–and one acts accordingly. One’s own private indulgent cyclic habitual reactive subjective transitory feelings are, hopefully, not at the head of that list. Darrell Calkins

If you, one, loves something or someone, that means that one is willing to, and does, sacrifice for it. That is, one chooses to do and give what is better to the being or thing one loves than to sacrifice the loved one for the personal emotion that is unrelated to or even hinders the giving. In other words, the way to transform an emotion is with a deeper one. This involves discernment and, yes, discipline, which are both frowned upon and seen as emotionless and less important. Which is immaturity, plain and simple, and is the fundamental aspect of human growth from child to adolescence to adult. Darrell Calkins

There is an actual and palpable hierarchy of emotional, mental and physiological intensity that corresponds to the actual capacities and limitations of human beings. In other words, there does exist a real and definable scale of suffering, and of joy. Darrell Calkins

Although each of us has the right to believe we are suffering, I suppose, there is a definite and ultimately essential distinction to be made between actual suffering, its cause and resolution, and invented or imagined suffering. Darrell Calkins

The subjective experience of intense pain (“That’s all I can take”) corresponds exactly to one’s subjective experience in relation to truth (“That’s all I can take”). Darrell Calkins

The transitory and random quality of emotions (“Well, that’s just the way I feel about it”) is deeply connected to, and largely the cause of, random engagement of one’s values and priorities. This very randomness and inconsistency is actually the cause of deeper suffering, primarily through the accumulation of addictions and the indulgence in reactions that are disproportionately small in comparison to what is really being sacrificed for them. Curiously–and a major theme in my own work over decades–the casual association of emotions to love is part of the insanity in all this. Darrell Calkins

True balance, and harmony, necessitates finding a way to override the addictive, reactive emotions that are the fabric of one’s subjective illusion, and discover emotions that correspond to actuality. Darrell Calkins

On the high-end spectrum of emotions, which are innately connected to intuition and direct comprehension as well as imagination and creativity, meaning true empathy and knowledge, appreciative realization, transformation and invention, one finds a richer and more voluptuous combination of experience. Unfortunately, to “get there, ” one has to be willing to sacrifice what is known for what is not. Darrell Calkins

The warrior guided by the spirit serves humanity, the warrior without, serves the ego Soke Behzad Ahmadi

He landed on cheap shot, but I knocked him out of the tournament. Josh Waitzkin

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

.. 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

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

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

Do not seek victory, for victory in itself will not serve you. Seek to understand what made the victory possible. 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

For the sincere student, it mustn't be enough to simply understand Jiu Jitsu. We must seek to understand ourselves. 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

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 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

... 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