Inspirations/Motivations

I’m reading a new book, American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in theNew China.

It is the story of the two years Matthew Polly spent in China living, studying, and performing with the Shaolin monks... Matthew would need to rely on all this inherited wisdom and skill when he was forced to defend the Temple’s honor in a no-rules challenge match, rescue a friend who had crossed a jealous underworld gangster, and fight in one of China’s national tournaments… This is both the gripping story of Matthew’s journey and an intimate look at the Shaolin monks who struggle to overcome the restrictions of an authoritarian government.

From the jacket cover, it even sounds like there is a love story in there too. I’m just four chapters into the book, but I knew that this was going to be a fun read before I even finished the prologue. He’s intelligent, witty, intriguing and entertaining in his writing style.

In the prologue, he describes sitting at a special dinner with the leader of the Shaolin Temple as well as the Temple’s best kungfu fighter. A master from another school came in and challenged the leader to a fight to see who’s kungfu was better. Were this not a true story, I would think it was something out of one of the old kung fu movies that I used to watch. The Temple’s leader chose to not have their best fighter fight; rather, he chose for Matthew, one of their least qualified, to fight. (I’ll let you read the book to understand the leader’s reasoning.) Matthew, a novice, was going to have to fight a kungfu master from another school. It was the comment the leader told Matthew before the fight that struck me.

“I do not fear the 10,000 kicks you have practiced once; I fear the one kick you have practiced 10,000 times.”

I’ve said more than once in this blog that the secret to losing weight and keeping it off is to change your lifestyle rather than just trying to lose the weight. Anyone can drop a few pounds, but when you change the way you think and live, the change becomes permanent. Making a lifestyle change doesn’t happen overnight. They say that you can overcome and/or form a new habit in 21 days. You can change a behavior perhaps, but make a permanent change in 21 days? That’s never worked for me. I’ve done stuff for 21 days, and it didn’t stick.

In my opinion, you might change a behavior in 21 days, but you can’t really change the way you think. A lifestyle change means a thinking change, and changing your mind takes time. There are things that Annie told me about healthy living almost 8 months ago that are just now becoming a way of thinking. There’s a very specific reason why. I’ve been doing them for 8 months. For example, Annie told me in January, almost six months ago, that I had to learn to be mentally tough about getting fit. I knew that I would have to do it, but I didn’t understand what she meant. I worked at it for a full four months before I understood that it simply means doing the right thing whether or not you feel like it and whether or not you see results.

It’s the same thing that the leader told Matthew. Though Matthew didn’t know 10,000 kicks and lots of various special fighting moves, he knew a few things well. Compared to trainers and dieticians and doctors, I don’t know a great deal about fitness. However, I know a few things well. How do you learn something well? You practice it – over and over and over. If you want to eat right, you have to make yourself do it daily. If you want to increase your cardiovascular strength and aerobic capability, you have to exercise daily. If you want to increase your mental toughness, you have to do the right things (eat, sleep, exercise) daily.

It’s not about learning lots of methods and facts and tricks to losing weight. It’s about learning the basics well by practicing them repeatedly. The more you practice, the better you become.

Go for more than just losing weight. Go for a lifestyle change that will make fitness a way of life for you. Start with just one target. Do you want to eat right? Begin doing it daily. You might not hit the target at first just like Matthew probably wasn’t able to kick his targets very well when he started. However, with daily practice, it won’t take long before you start succeeding more often than not. As your success increases, you may find that your behavior begins to change into a habit. Habits practiced over a long period of time become ingrained into our lifestyles and that’s where permanent change happens.

You can do it!