Greetings!
And…work out!
There is no greater gift one can give oneself,
than just working out.
Becoming pure through sweat,
divesting oneself of distraction
and finding the purity of the self.
Beyond what the world expects.
We were driving up this long, long road
to a place to pitch a tent for the night.
As we drove I noticed that the road was littered with rocks.
Little chunks that looked like sparkly granite,
maybe half the size of baseballs.
I veered this way and that
attempting to miss the rocks,
but knew I wasn’t successful.
Yet there was no sensation of tire over rock.
There should have been a hundred, little bumps,
things rolling under the car,
bouncing up against the undercarriage,
yet…
there was nothing.
How curious!
So I slowed down,
rolled down the window
and peered down at the rocks on the road.
Grasshoppers!
BIG…and beautiful grasshoppers!
Their acutely folded legs moved,
and they leaped,
but,
like as not,
I squashed them with my Firestones.
So I slowed,
drove more slowly,
and navigated the road filled with giant grasshoppers.
At the tent site there were only the occassional insect,
and I found one and squatted down to watch it,
to matrix it.
Colors to match the sparkle of dew,
perhaps to draw in smaller insects for a meal.
And there weren’t any larger insects,
so no fear there.
And if a bird,
or other beast came to feast upon it,
it jumped.
The quickness of the jump was savage,
an attack in flight.
And,
the sagacity of the insect,
it landed in twist,
so that it literally bounced off its rump
and faced the way it had come.
Well,
of course.
To flee again…in attack.
Is that good martial arts…or what?
I mean,
positively brilliant!
And what was the alternative?
To land facing away,
and to become a target in flight?
No,
better to flee as if in fight.
Surprise the foe with savage thrust,
yet always end up facing,
towards not away
ready to flight again.
Fight or flight,
flight and fight,
a marvelous yin yang of martial arts survival
and something that most people just roll over,
or swat away,
or laugh at.
Yet,
in mass,
grasshoppers are one of nature’s most ferocious armies.
Interestingly,
I was brought to think of the book by McMurtry,
‘Lonesome Dove.’
During a cattledrive the cowboys are overwhelmed by grasshoppers,
so they catch bagfuls of the critters,
dip them in molasses
and fry them.
Ummm!
Cowboy treat!
And even the hardiest,
most savage warrior
become naught but food
for those who can overcome their fear.
So,
in the midst of scorpions and tarantulas,
giant grasshoppers and other denizens of the enchanted land,
I pitched tent and had dinner.
And,
no.
It wasn’t a mess of fried grasshoppers.
Every place I go I see contest and battle,
creatures struggling for survival.
Interestingly,
it is only man that has a chance.
Only man has the ability to overcome himself.
To fight or flight and land so that he faces the true enemy…himself.
His cruelties and tortures,
his naked desires and covetness.
His desire to worship warped gods and think that
it is God that made him right.
And it is only by divesting ourselves of these cruelties and nightmares
that we can ascend to the truth of ourselves.
And it is only through landing in the correct manner so that we don’t fight ourselves,
but face ourselves,
that we will succeed.
Martial Arts creates this path.
Martial arts is where we learn to fight
so that we never have to fight.
This is a truth that we must take to ourselves,
and faster than we have ever done before.
And that is the message from the enchanted land of New Mexico,
the message I received just because I drove down a road
and didn’t want to kill
some of the most beautiful grasshoppers you have ever seen.
My apologies to those who wait an email,
or a fix on an order.
Everything is working,
but there are are a couple of things I just can’t do
until I get back to my computer.
I am able to connect to the net every day,
so if anybody wants to tell me off,
or wish me well
I can handle that.
BTW,
take advantage of the KangDukWon.com
I haven’t been able to raise prices
because of being on the road,
so,
temporary reprieve,
but prices are going up.
So,
if you want to learn how to fight like an animal,
if you want to learn the wisdom of nature,
you can start with the Shaolin Butterfly.
The animals covered in that include
the snake,
the dragon,
the crane,
the tiger,
the mantis,
and more…
here’s the URL…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/6-shaolin-butterfly/
Have a great work out!
Al
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