Hard Work, Failure, and Kung Fu

In my last entry I covered the meaning of the words kung fu. If you learn a skill you have to practice it every single day. Even if you stink at the thing you are learning practice. Most people try something and if they are not talented at it they give up and do something else. The question is not one of talent but one of desire.

How badly do you want to learn this skill? It doesn't matter if it's martial arts, cooking, music, photography, writing, or anything else. If you don't want to practice it it's just a whim, a desire that is about as strong as a puff of air. You need to tame your desire and turn it toward what you really want.

I can hear people now saying but I'm not good at (insert given skill.) Being good doesn't matter. Even if you totally suck and have no talent whatsoever practice will make you better. Enough practice will make you competent. Even if you have no money you have Google and a dozen other search engines at your disposal and the entirety of human knowledge to help you get started. Too often we hide behind excuses that we don't have money, we aren't talented, we don't have time. But we need to be truthful we lack desire. Learning and practicing a new skill can change your life entirely. You have to be willing to fail and fail and fail again. Fail hard. It is not only ok to fail it is a good thing to fail.

A Tai Chi master named Cheng Man-ching started out his life sickly and weak. He learned Tai Chi and cured himself of Tuberculosis. He wasn't an inspiring looking physical specimen being rather small and unassuming looking. He was in fact remembered in mainland China primarily as the kid who would push hands with anybody and who often got beaten. After some years of this though Cheng learned how not to lose. He in fact in his elder years gained a reputation for being unbeatable. So much so that the renowned martial arts writer Mr. Robert W. Smith said that of all the masters he met in Asia "none could stand before Cheng." Here is the story of a poet and painter who by dint of hard work and stubborn persistence became so good at martial arts that he defeated all challengers and impressed a man who had a black belt in Judo, had boxed golden gloves, and was a former US Marine. It's kind of hard to BS your way past all those martial arts fighters and a veteran pugilist and soldier. Cheng Man-ching said that his philosophy was invest in loss. Every time you lose you learn something. Cheng didn't get discouraged and cry that his skill was not good enough. He learned from the losses. He made friends with loss and learned to love it.

This is what you have to do. Embrace loss. Learn from it. Loss is your best friend. Now go choose a skill and practice so that you can grow your kung fu.