Hey. Ando again from Happy Life Martial Arts. Bruce Lee spoke famously about the
struggle to express yourself honestly in your martial arts training so how you
doing with that i sat down with Sifu Matt Ember to talk about how to make
your martial arts journey your own so you don't turn into a sad rusty robot.
It's always more difficult I think for people to do something of their own
right than it is to just follow along follow the steps give me the give me the
form I'll just do what you do and do you think that artists creative mindsets
make better martial artists when you're talking about owning your own stuff
having your own self knowledge like Bruce Lee would say I'm expressing
myself but I always when he would say that I always worried that yeah but if
you're not an artist at heart anyway you don't even know what that means you're a
few of the other type of brain where I need a formula I need steps I need a
logical flow from this to that show me what the map is you'd be a very well
designed machine and execute things well but you'll never really understand what
Bruce Lee was talking about when he talks about expressing yourself you
might be right that you would never understand that my my contention would
be that I think everybody has an artistic temperament they may not know
it and I wouldn't in my way encourage people to express that and to find it
and sometimes you don't find it until you've expressed it and then you realize
oh that was it that was me being kind of creative there so I think that's good
but I think I think it's always in you and I think for whatever reason people
who identify themselves as creative people feel more free to express it than
other people who don't identify as creative person that doesn't mean
they're not creative so if you have if you get over the fear of failure or
embarrassment you try more things then you learn more about yourself and now
you might be a lot more creative than you think right yeah you can't seriously
if you if you let go of some of that fear or you fuse fight through that fear
that's holding you back or stopping you from try
as hard as possible absolutely and you know I'm very used to say to us I don't
want anyone to fight like me and I want you to fight as I fight I want you to
think the way I think and use the techniques in the way I put things
together in your way but I always have to fight in your way
he didn't want to make you so sad I want to make a whole bunch of little Andre
BOTS rather who fight just like me because it's also impossible you can't
fight like somebody else and you can only fight like yourself you can imitate
somebody else's movements but it's always gonna come out your way it's like
listening to two musicians play the same string of notes it always comes out just
slightly differently right we've had students in wheelchairs right and we've
had students who of those two students that were in wheelchairs one could not
get out of his wheelchair so he had to learn to fight in his wheelchair
the other one was amazingly good at just bouncing out of his wheelchair and
coming at you on the ground either you know by himself or using his wheelchair
as a weapon I mean any body type any any disabilities can be incorporated any
abilities can be incorporated you're very good at high-kicking so I would
never say don't high kick you're good at it I'm not as good at high kicking so I
don't tend to throw as many high kicks but I had to learn how to defend against
high kicks because there are people like you out there right what advice can you
give them to make sure they're on the right path so they are taking chances
and heading in the right direction to own their own life as opposed to being a
robot I've two things the short answer is the one that Andre gave to me after a
couple months in this art he just look one day and he said don't quit and I
said why did you think I was going to and he said no but a lot of people do
after a couple months and you'll never get it if you quit hmm don't quit right
the other answer is I think if you can get people to try and not quit they
surprise you and themselves a lot they're better than they think they are
mmm-hmm at whatever it is they think they suck at mmm-hmm because a lot of
times at the internal critic is very strong the one that says how you suck
you suck at this you suck at that or you suck in general it's a very strong voice
we can hear sometimes and it's never good it's not a good voice so you have
to learn away or find a way or somebody has to give you a way to shut it up or
to do it anyway yes sir and so I think that was Andres
way when I was just starting that was him giving me the way to do it anyone
don't quit you're gonna want to is basically what he was saying even if you
don't today there will come a day where you say to yourself I got something else
to do or maybe I just don't have it today to go work out or you know I'm too
busy these days you don't have kids now whatever don't quit find a way even if
you suck even if you're injured even if even if you've got little kids that need
your attention and your time don't quit I didn't quit teaching I just decided
I'll teach out of my house. absolutely I think you just solved all the world's
problems right there. I doubt it. >No. Iwas kidding. For sure you haven't. Not yet.