As a Martial Artist you can be challenged sometimes to use the arts or your strength. I been in a local pub and somebody asked, if I would take up with him to do arm wrestling, as people say how good I was in sports. He was about 2 stone bigger than me and of cause I turned him down. (even if he would have been a light weight).
This kind of competition is not only useless, it doesn't say anything at all about the winner or looser. Martial Arts is not about competing with an opponent in pubs or elsewhere. It is about yourself and when it comes to the real world, maybe for good self defense reasons.
Similar situation happened last night. A guy bumped into me on the street and tried to bully me. "Don't you know who I am?" he asked me. I just questioned him if he would know who I am. And this reaction took him by surprise.Finally he calmed down and went off. Later I learned he was a local gangster. Ok.
But read this:
King Hsuan of Chou heard of Po-Kung-I, who was reputed to be the strongest man in his kingdom. The King was dismayed when they met, since Po looked so weak. When the King asked Po how strong he was, Po said mildly, " I can break the leg of a spring grasshopper and withstand the winds of an autumn cicada."
Aghast, the King thundered, " I can tear rhinoceros leather and drag nine buffaloes by the tail, yet I am shamed by my weakness. How can you be famous?"
Po smiled and answered quietly, " My teacher was Tzu shang-chi'ui, whose strength was without peer in the world, but even his relatives never knew it because he never used it."
Photo: Don Wilson seminar May 2009, Germany
Text read this: From the book "Zen in the Martial Arts", by Joe Hyams
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