I am a Martial Artist

This started out as a post about a job interview I had awhile back, but I realized the real post isn’t the interview, but in what kept me from really wanting the job.
A little background as to where these thoughts came from.
I did have an interview for a job I didn’t really want. It was a sales job, straight commission, which in and of itself wasn’t so offensive, but apparently I don’t like sales people. So I didn’t want to become one. The recruiter I met with had an issue with me wanting to leave a little early once a week to get to my kung fu class.
Here is the point I want to make. I am a martial artist.
I have been taking class from my sensei for roughly seven years. I am a second degree blue belt, but that doesn’t matter. I have had injuries that have kept me from participating continuously since I started in 2003. I had a hip injury that sent me to the doctor’s office. I had a hernia that kept me out for a summer, and I had a shoulder separation that kept me out for another nine months or so. But I continue to go back. Why? Because I am dedicated. I have found something that I am passionate about and I am dedicated to it. I have learned more about myself and what I am capable of and can take, in practicing kung fu than I have in anything else I have ever done or participated in. But how do you explain that to someone who isn’t a martial artist. How do I get the point across to this recruiter and his manager that I will be dedicated to my career because I am a martial artist?
I am a better person because of kung fu. I am who I am because of it.
As a student of Shaolin Kempo, the style of kung fu I practice, you learn five rules on your first day in class. A true martial artist will bring these rules into their everyday life, making him or her a better person in everything they do. These rules are: Effort, Etiquette, Sincerity, Self Control, and Character. Sure, maybe they don’t sound like rules, but if you really think about it they are. Rules to life. If you were to take these rules and apply them to just one aspect of your life, I believe that aspect would improve tremendously.
I give just one example. My wife, Lydia, is incredibly dedicated to her work. Everything she does at work screams these rules to me. I have never seen and event of hers fail due to anything under her control. She had some dancers bail on an event once because it rained. They weren’t martial artists. But Lydia is, even if she doesn’t realize it, I see it.
So I have taken these rules into my life and every day I try to become a better person. A martial artist.

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~ by belchingwalrus on August 27, 2010.