Unlocking human potential through martial arts
Are you feeling run down? Suffering from tired blood? Do encounters with foreign cultures leave you confused and angry?
If so, then we have a solution for you. It’s called SlowFlo, the Christian alternative to Tai Chi.
Inspired by Chuck Norris, the art of SlowFlo reforms the inscrutable pagan art of Tai Chi Chuan into a safe and guilt-free form of Christian exercise.
This I Believe is an international project engaging people in writing and sharing essays that describe their core values. More than 90,000 of these essays, written by people from all walks of life, are archived on their website.
Naturally, some essayists shared their beliefs on, and experience with martial arts. Here are a few of their stories.
Life Is A Spiritual Struggle
by Joseph Laycock (Brighton, Massachusetts)
Over the din of boxing gloves pounding against leather bags, I struggle to hear this Brazilian explain yet another way to choke someone unconscious. This is a martial arts gym. Most of the regulars are amateur fighters with dreams of going professional. When they’re not here, some of them work as firefighters or bouncers. I’m definitely the only schoolteacher in the room.
My students take interest in my training. Sometimes I’ll enter the classroom with bruises or a slight limp from the gym. In world history, I’ll discuss the cultural significance of the fighting styles I study. In Thai kickboxing, the eight striking weapons — fists, shins, elbows and knees — represent the eight-fold path of the Buddha. Brazilian jujitsu has more improvisation than Japanese martial arts, which reflects different cultural attitudes towards tradition.
Every class asks me the same questions, “Have you ever beat anyone up?” And, “Why are you a teacher instead of a professional fighter?” When I tell them the truth — that I have never been in a fight and have no aspirations to go professional — I get a range of reactions from disappointment to accusations of cowardice.
“So why do you do it,” they always ask.
I believe that life is a spiritual struggle. My battle is not against another fighter but against the unjust and apathetic system that is attacking my students… [continued]
Did you know?
On the set of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” Chuck Norris once took a live rattlesnake by surprise. Then he set it down on the ground, and grabbed it again. The director fleed the scene in terror. (pg. 2)
Chuck Norris is half Irish, and half leg. (pg. 20)
In the interest of full disclosure: I owe Chuck Norris a favor. It was by introducing his “facts” to the mainstream audience back in 2006, that I first established this blog as a premier source for martial arts humor, news, fact and opinion. As payback, he has kindly allowed me to review his latest book,
From Chuck Norris’ recent column in World Net Daily…
God and guns were so important to our founders that they established our protection to exercise them in the first two amendments to our Constitution-–the uninhibited and unrestricted freedom to choose our own religion and bear our own firearms.
But, more and more, these pillars of American life and liberty are being attacked and abandoned, not only out of sheer bias but ignorance of our founders, the Revolutionary period and our Constitution. Instead, these pivotal American rights have become the brunt end of cultural jokes and are often regarded as biased lifestyle components of “rednecks” and rural citizens.
The indifference, lack of education about and passion for all of our Bill of Rights gravely concerns me.
How do you think Google established their complete dominance of Web search? Superior engineering? Nope. Shrewd business strategy? Guess again. They have a secret weapon…
Chuck Norris built Google’s first data center from a roll of barbed wire, a pallet of lumber, and a side of raw beef. The barbed wire was just for snacking.
A recent Google Health survey has identified the three most common medical diagnoses in the United States: Chuck Norris’ Right Leg, Chuck Norris’ Left Leg, and Other.
My previous list of top Chuck Norris facts was a surprise hit. Here are a few more of my favorites, from Comrad Ivan Red’s myspace blog:
Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And don’t bring a gun to a Chuck Norris fight.
1. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
2. Chuck Norris counted to infinity—twice.
3. The chief export of Chuck Norris is Pain.
4. Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
5. When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
6. Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.