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A Pearl for You.

The Tale of The Two Pearl Farmers

As a white belt many years ago, our instructor related this story to us. He explained it much like this:

There was once two pearl farmers in Korea. They both lived in the same small village on the coast of Korea. The first farmer was a meager farmer with only but a limited number of strings from which hung his oysters with developing pearls in them. The total number of potential pearls amounted between 100-200. The second farmer had hundreds of strings of oysters amounting to a potential of thousands of pearls. Now after a time the pearls were ready to be harvested. The first farmer harvested all the oysters he owned and collected 100 or so pearls of quality to sell at market. The second farmer though he had such a large potential of pearls only harvested a very small number of his oysters resulting in 50 pearls. After the harvest they both went off to market and sold their bounty. The first farmer with his money paid off any outstanding debts he had and with the rest of his money he was able to live the rest of his life not extravagantly but comfortably until he passed a number of years later. The second farmer, with the little amount of money he made, lived out the rest of his days very poorly never bothering to ever harvest anymore pearls but rather save them for the future (which never came).

Which farmer was richer?

The first farmer, though with technically fewer pearls, used his potential and benefited fully from it. The second farmer though potentially much richer, did not use anywhere close to his potential and suffered greatly from this choice!

If we look at the word pearl and substitute it with the word talent, it is much like many in martial arts. Some have so much potential talent but never really use it. Others have very little potential talent yet use every little bit of talent they have! The choice is yours! Use every bit of your talents no matter how great or how small. It is what you do with what you have which truly counts!.

Working Escapes.

Luke from White’s Martial Arts having fun working joint-lock escapes.

Alphonse from White’s Marial Arts

Nigel from White’s Martial Arts

Awareness for Self Defense

99% of personal protection is using ones brain! So many confrontations, attacks and fights could be and can be avoided or altered by using simple methods utilizing the brain instead of brawn! Probably the most important mental aspect of self protection is Awareness! Although it sounds simple for one to be aware so few people actually are. To explain awareness we may use Color Code model based on one first devised by the pistol shooting coach Jeff Cooper. The model is as follows:

Although the chart gives four Code levels awareness could be simplified even further into the fact that either; ‘one is aware on what is going on around themselves’ or ‘they are not!’. A sad factor working against awareness is apathy. “That would never happen to me!” or “Assault is illegal so I should be able to go where I want and not worry about being attacked!” Sure, these and similar ideas are great but far from realistic! One should never have to worry about violence or being assaulted but apathy to reality could get you hurt or killed! Sorry! it’s not a perfect world! Conflicts, confrontations, attacks, assaults and murders do happen. Be safe and be aware! There is no need to be paranoid, just be aware. Know that you are in control when you take action. If you are apathetic you are a victim! If you are aware you are in Control!