THE TIGER STORY

(June ‘95/#10)

Here’s a little Karate Kid Training jewel.

‘Don’t ever try to eat anything that’s got bigger teeth than you.’

I know that’s not much when it comes to words of wisdom, but it certainly provides lead in to the Case History I want to share with you this month.

“Al, I’m tired.”

I looked at the youngster. He wasn’t tired, he was just being childish. The problem was that he had chosen to do so right in the middle of my karate class.

When one of these ‘future leaders’ interrupts my class for such foolishness I invariably have a desire to pick up that large stick with a nail in it that I keep in the corner of my school and…but I don’t. Instead, I tell them the story of the tiger, which has been told before, but which I will tell you now in my own inimitable fashion.

One day two monks were walking through the jungle. One was old and one was young.

The younger one said, “I’m tired. Can’t we stop?”

“Just a little ways further,” said the older monk.

“No. I’m tired. I’m stopping,” and the younger monk sat down and began to fan himself.

“We have to make it to the next temple. Get up now!”

“No, I’m just too tired!”

The older one, seeing a tiger sleeping in the bamboo, picked up a rock and threw it at the tiger. The tiger jumped up and chased the two monks, who ran like…well…like a tiger was after them.

The monks managed to get away from the tiger, and when they were safe the younger one said, “Why’d you do that?”

The older monk laughed and said, “I guess you weren’t really all that tired after all.”

And of course there is a moral after such a story as this; The monks were running for their lives. The tiger was only running for his dinner.

Which brings us to my words of wisdom.

Do you treat every day like it is a run for your life?

Or do you pretend everything has bigger teeth than you?

And the little Karate Kid Training in my class who complains about being tired? After I tell him the story about the tiger…if he still complains about being tired I get out the stick. And it really does a have a nail in it!