Sifu Jason King’s Blog - Chinese Martial Arts 2009

After a month of everything falling apart, (job, relationship, car - even a cockroach landing in my thickshake!), I thought it incredibly ironic to be asked at that time to do a Motivational Speech talk on Self Esteem. I was interested but not sure I could pull it off. After all, my whole life I’ve tended to take in large presentations of information in various forms only to regurgitate it succintly in a ‘nutshell’. I even prided myself on being able to analyse, condense and summate. Hence my trepidation.

The project was an absolute gift. Being at a low point not felt in many years I wasn’t exactly flying high in the confidence stakes even if it wasn’t particularly obvious to those around me (still got those acting skills).  The gift was looking at my journey (from conception! to now) and the transformations I had gone through. If anyone is interested I’m considering transcribing my talk into written form.

Anyhow, taking the time to see how far I have come and what I’ve already persevered through and accomplished made me feel pretty good again. Plus the fact I haven’t thrown myself in the deep end for a while so it was great to challenge myself. As I said in the talk, if you tackle a challenge and give it a good shot you’ll feel good about it and get a buzz.

So a good weekend in all. Went to the rellies on Saturday night and found some more family tree research. So many skeletons!  So far we’ve come across adoptions, bigamy, homosexuality, incest, abuse, mental illness, refugeees, POW’s, and more. Fascinating stuff and we’re only 5% in! Sunday was a good day too. Took a friend Zorbing (rolling down a hill inside a water filled clear rubber ball) just like the coke ad in the 80’s. Great fun - followed by strawberry ice creams, Yatala pies, rock climbing, ping pong and fish and chips by the beach! An awesome active day, with variety and great company.  And the whole time being updated with the continuing successes of my students at the NAS tournament. 5 Competitors and 6 trophies brought home. I’m very proud of them all.

Have just sorted through over a thousand photos and decided to create a gallery. The new website will be the obvious place to do that in full. Meanwhile, I’ll put some up on the forum and I’m considering doing a Facebook profile for the school as well. Check my profile for the link. Actually, here it is -http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=74262&id=71502368862&l=0932500591

If you click on the photos they come up in full.

This week’s virtue of choice is…. Honesty.

Being honest is being sincere, open trustworthy and truthful. When people are honest, they can be relied on not to lie, cheat or steal. If they tell you something, you know they mean it.

With honesty you can count on your friends, family, classmates, colleagues and they can count on you. Honesty means not exaggerating something just to impress others.

Honesty is telling the truth no matter what, even it means disappointing someone. Being honest means you don’t make false promises. You do what you said you’d do. Your actions match your words. Integrity!

Honesty brings an element of trust and security to your relationships and to your life. Telling the truth and living your life honestly isn’t always easy and requires a lot of courage, but will bring you greater rewards in your personal and professional life.

• Admit your mistakes
• Keep your promises
• Say what you mean
• Mean what you say
• Tell the truth tactfully
• Refuse to lie or cheat
• Refuse to steal

What virtue do you want next?

Be honest     

A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.  ~Edgar J. Mohn

We tell lies when we are afraid… afraid of what we don’t know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us.  But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger.  ~Tad Williams

Some people will not tolerate such emotional honesty in communication.  They would rather defend their dishonesty on the grounds that it might hurt others.  Therefore, having rationalized their phoniness into nobility, they settle for superficial relationships.  ~Author Unknown

It takes two to lie.  One to lie and one to listen.  ~”Homer Simpson,”