The insect

After training martial arts for five years, I learned how to fight.

After training martial arts for ten years, I learned how to think.

After training martial arts for fifteen years, I learned how to learn.

After training martial arts for twenty years, I learned how to breathe.

After training martial arts for twenty-five years, I learned how to see.

After training martial arts for thirty years, I learned that I know nothing.


It does seem that every five years that my training changes in nature along with the way I perceive the world. It was as if after the first five years I stepped through a doorway and found the value of my skills. I was able to fight with more than one opponent at a time and had to in many instances. My focus was kicking harder and punching faster. Basically doing whatever needed to be done to leave the fray unscathed.

When I stepped through the next door, I found there were many other doors. Fighting was no longer the best option for each situation. In fact the best answer for resolving many situations was actually learning to calm myself. What people said to me was not as important as how I reacted to it.

After passing through the third doorway I found scrolls of knowledge and information that were the source of my skills. Through studying diligently I was able to better understand the development of combat historically and how to better aim my focus in my own training. Every additional skill I adopted expanded my mind and let me see more doors that would lead to who I desired to become.

Through the fourth door I found a calm through the understanding of meditation. Things that seemed to weigh on me heavily became easier to navigate. I found a oneness with the flow of life and learned to enjoy the bad situations as much as the good. For it was all a part of something greater than myself.

The fifth door was maybe the most frightening as I was able to see the connection between all things through kung fu. How every movement, word and thought had a vast affect in the universe. It became quite obvious that my training was part of a much bigger picture than just martial arts.My training was for the building and developing of a new dynasty.

Now as I begin my 30th year of training I have stepped through a door that I have become an insect in a vast martial arts jungle. Just as a termite in a tree or a bee on a flower, there is so much of the environment that I have not even begun to understand. The small amount that I may be able to teach is insignificant to the vast enormity that I have yet to learn. But just as an insect I will feed off the nectar from flower to flower and take the answers that the lord has provided me with today.

As an insect things appear to be much larger and in depth. The smallest details that we overlook every day are the home of the insect. Only the tiniest creature can understand the comfort of moss, the danger of rain and the lighting of the moon along side the bark of a tree. My voice has become so tiny that you may have to shrink your ego to understand my language.

Our currently established society that we have so grown to love and become familiar with is the very thing that is killing the human race. It's even strange that we call it the human race. Why race? Why are we prone to develop in a mode that we feel that competition with each other will lead us to success when it is quite apparent that it will lead to greed and arrogance?

If there are two great warriors in the land, the people will eventually have them go head to head to see who is number 1. This would be the same as taking two laptops and smashing them together repeatedly to see which one is more durable. Of course if you smash laptops together it seems wasteful, but aren't we as human beings more valuable than a laptop. Yet it is the first thing they will point us toward as martial artist. Do you compete?

In the end which ever warrior wins the world loses out on a great asset. A great loss to the protection of our people for the entertainment of the mindless masses. If I took two laptops and banged them repeatedly everyone would watch excitedly as well. It is our animal instinct that is driven to desire to see such primal acts. It is our animal instincts that run the country. When will we complete our evolution?

A while back I looked into the world economy and learned how much each individual on the planet would make if it was divided evenly. Every child, elderly person, American, African and Chinese person would have 7 million dollars a year. As God said the world will always be plentiful. So where does the suffering come from?

Well as an insect it is impossible to determine the source of the problem especially with all of the distractions in the Jungle. We must compete in sports, finance, religion, science and politics. If a divided house can not stand, then where are we headed?

It is childish to believe that I must be successful at the expense of others. To think that somehow your success is taking from my own. The truth is that our connection to each other is more powerful than our individual desires. Your success will make me more powerful. Therefore I should do what is best for me and us at the same the same time. When you become number 1 you are all alone and easy to control, isolated in a dark world that was designed to destroy heroes. Do you think it is human nature to eliminate heroes and warriors that would defend us? It sounds very much like a war strategy I heard before of weakening the enemy. Make their champions fight each other and they will never have strength.

If we continue to compete with each other instead of cooperate then our demise is promised. We must appreciate our differences and embrace our similarities. The only competition that is good is the competition of self. Everything else is vanity and destruction. I know many people have said these same words before and everyone hears it and moves on with there life. Maybe only insects can understand.