“So if you have to live amongst men, you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be: and all you should strive to do is to make use of this character in such a way as its kind and nature permit, rather than to hope for any alteration in it, or to condemn it off-hand for what it is. This is the true sense of the maxim--Live and let live. That, however, is a task which is difficult in proportion as it is right; and he is a happy man who can once for all avoid having to do with a great many of his fellow creatures.”
“Some think that they are incredible but are actually un-credible. Do you work, master your craft...”
“A masterpiece is a piece that masters things.”
“I believe the real reason we pursue anything in life is not for the thing itself, but for who we become on the way to its accomplishment. We strive to accomplish things in the attempt to mold ourselves. The greatest benefits Jiu Jitsu will have in your life will have nothing to do with Jiu Jitsu. It is this simple understanding that allows me to persist in my study. Even on the rare days when I may not have a burning desire to practice Jiu Jitsu, I am reminded that my practicing Jiu Jitsu is more accurately my practicing to become a better human being. The lessons I learn on the mat will serve me in every area of life-- personal development, relationships, business, and the like.”
“Self Mastery is the ability to maneuver through life without the mind or emotional attachment. It is being a mindfully present observer instead of the mind identified perceiver.”
“It appears, at least from my perspective, that each and every position in Jiu Jitsu regardless of the seeming complexity is really governed by no more than a handful of minimum viable products. Pursue to understand these essentials, and you will see that complexity is a myth perpetuated by lack of understanding, and it is this understanding which is possible for each of us.”
“By becoming a black belt, you will become whatever it is you wanted to be in the first place, and Jiu Jitsu will have served its aim.”
“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.”
“Thoreau went to the woods. I went to the mats.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We call it training. Not because we are training for Jiu Jitsu. We are training for life.”
“Every task you are given, no matter how menial, offers opportunities to observe this world at work. No detail about the people within it is too trivial. Everything you see or hear is a sign for you to decode. Over time, you will begin to see and understand more of the reality that eluded you at first. For instance, a person whom you initially thought had great power ended up being someone with more bark than bite. Slowly, you begin to see behind the appearances. As you amass more information about the rules and power dynamics of your new environment, you can begin to analyze why they exist, and how they relate to larger trends in the field. You move from observation to analysis, honing your reasoning skills, but only after months of careful attention.”
“We shouldn t let our envy of distinguished masters of the arts distract us from the wonder of how each of us gets new ideas. Perhaps we hold on to our superstitions about creativity in order to make our own deficiencies seem more excusable. For when we tell ourselves that masterful abilities are simply unexplainable, we re also comforting ourselves by saying that those superheroes come endowed with all the qualities we don t possess. Our failures are therefore no fault of our own, nor are those heroes virtues to their credit, either. If it isn t learned, it isn t earned. When we actually meet the heroes whom our culture views as great, we don t find any singular propensities––only combinations of ingredients quite common in themselves. Most of these heroes are intensely motivated, but so are many other people. They re usually very proficient in some field--but in itself we simply call this craftmanship or expertise. They often have enough self-confidence to stand up to the scorn of peers--but in itself, we might just call that stubbornness. They surely think of things in some novel ways, but so does everyone from time to time. And as for what we call intelligence , my view is that each person who can speak coherently already has the better part of what our heroes have. Then what makes genius appear to stand apart, if we each have most of what it takes? I suspect that genius needs one thing more: in order to accumulate outstanding qualities, one needs unusually effective ways to learn. It s not enough to learn a lot; one also has to manage what one learns. Those masters have, beneath the surface of their mastery, some special knacks of higher-order expertise, which help them organize and apply the things they learn. It is those hidden tricks of mental management that produce the systems that create those works of genius. Why do certain people learn so many more and better skills? These all-important differences could begin with early accidents. One child works out clever ways to arrange some blocks in rows and stacks; a second child plays at rearranging how it thinks. Everyone can praise the first child s castles and towers, but no one can see what the second child has done, and one may even get the false impression of a lack of industry. But if the second child persists in seeking better ways to learn, this can lead to silent growth in which some better ways to learn may lead to better ways to learn to learn. Then, later, we ll observe an awesome, qualitative change, with no apparent cause--and give to it some empty name like talent, aptitude, or gift.”