Do you have Kung Fu?
Practice, preparation, endless repetition. That is the way, the only way one acquires Kung Fu. 🥋
It’s been a while, actually very long while since I last wrote to you. I’m sorry. Some of you reached to ask if all was well? I appreciate that and to you all, I respond all have been well. I just took time off writing this newsletter and I’m not fully back yet.
However, I stumbled on an idea, an idea so compelling I couldn’t resist but to write you this email. I hope you will find the idea as useful and challenging as I found it. I hope you have Kung Fu. I really hope.
If you are like me when you hear the word Kung Fu, what comes to your mind is similar to the image below.
That was it for me until recently. I was seeing a movie on Netflix and a monk had to tell his student what Kung Fu was:
Kung Fu is the supreme skill of hard work.
The cook, the artist, the painter and the calligrapher can be said to have Kung Fu. Even the one who sweeps steps or a masterful servant can have Kung Fu.
Practice, preparation, endless repetition…until your mind is weary, and your bones ache… until you are too tired to sweat, too wasted to breathe.
That is the way, the only way one acquires Kung Fu 🥋
Stop there David, I told myself. So you mean Kung Fu is something to have, a thing to possess? You gotta be kidding me.
Well, that realization struck me a lot. And it made me imagine how many more things do I think that I know but have no idea about it at all. As Richard Feynman will say, “there is a difference between knowing the name of a thing and knowing a thing.” But that’s a discussion for another day.
Kung Fu
The history of Kung Fu goes back millennials and it originated from China. Kung Fu is an ancient sport popular in China and during its very long history of evolution, a variety of skills were created and massively improved.
It is believed to have originated from the hunting and defence needs in the primitive society (over 1.7 million years ago), it at first only included some basic skills like cleaving, chopping, and stabbing. Later the system of Kung Fu formed and developed mainly as the fighting skills from the Xia Dynasty (21st - 17th century BC) to the Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368), and reached its peak during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 - 1911). In modern times, it has developed well and became not just martial skills or physical movement but also a way of keeping fit, entertainment, and performance. - Source
What can we learn from this short history?
Simple, from the inception of Kung Fu art, it was never intended to be a fighting skill alone but art that teaches one how to become a master at what they do. It simply evolved to be primarily associated with fighting and it is evolving beyond that as it stands now. Seeing it has found its way into fitness, entertainment and performance.
Do you have Kung Fu?
If Kung Fu is something to be possessed, all men must have it.
Kung Fu is the supreme skill of hard work and anyone whose hard work has spoken for them can be said to have Kung Fu.
It reminds me of the words of Martin Luther King:
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
Definitely, this street sweeper could be said to have Kung Fu.
Until your hard work, the work of your hand, and the work that you do brings you unparalleled success (whatever this may mean to you), you cannot be said to have Kung Fu.
How to have Kung Fu
Practice, preparation, and endless repetition…
until your mind is weary, and your bones ache… until you are too tired to sweat, too wasted to breathe.
That is the way, the only way one acquires Kung Fu 🥋
I doubt if I have Kung Fu and it worries me. Does it worry you?
One only acquires Kung Fu through perseverance. It is only perseverance that will allow you to keep on practising while you are weary, it is only perseverance that will allow you to continue the endless repetition even while your bone aches and your body begs for rest. It is only perseverance that will keep you on track after you’ve failed again and again at it (whatever “it” is).
The goal is Kung Fu, the supreme skill of hard work. But the path to that is perseverance. A gruelling one.
What are you doing about your life? Is there an area in it where you can acquire Kung Fu in and will help you achieve all other things? Are you after Kung Fu at a thing already? Acquiring Kung Fu requires a laser focus on one thing, it requires being good at that one thing enough for the hosts of heaven and earth to pause to say, here lived a “great street sweeper” who did his job well.
That was the idea I stumbled on that I couldn’t resist but write to you about.
Apt! Perseverance is a mindset.