The voices / 197 fragments

Chris Matakas

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Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Archive entries

01Undated

Society is a collection of selves perpetuating their myth.

Chris Matakas / quote

02Undated

When you give your weakness permission to be because you understand that it is simply an expression of your strength, it tends to no longer be a weakness.

Chris Matakas / quote

03Undated

The point of meditating is not to learn to sit quietly in a room. The point is to live that way in the world.

Chris Matakas / quote

04Undated

The major events in our lives receive the entire spotlight, but ultimately your life will be defined by the same handful of choices you make each day.

Chris Matakas / quote

05Undated

Self-improvement is generally a removal of a vice rather than an acquisition of a virtue.

Chris Matakas / quote

06Undated

There is an undeniable truth that as one progresses further in his understanding of a craft the rest of his life progresses along with it. This symbiotic relationship between all things is experienced on a daily basis, but rarely articulated through conscious thought.

Chris Matakas / quote

07Undated

My growth as a human being has been directly proportional to my growth as a marital artist.

Chris Matakas / quote

08Undated

As an instructor, my goal has always been to use Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to help our students achieve their goals, whatever the case may be. I have yet to find a better vehicle for growth, and the moment I do I will certainly pursue it with the rivaled fervor that I approached Jiu Jitsu.

Chris Matakas / quote

09Undated

I can think of no more worthwhile aim than pursuing mastery in this craft while transcending one’s own limitations.

Chris Matakas / quote

10Undated

I am a better son, brother, friend, and teacher because of the daily sacrifice and effort I put toward my craft. WIth all the advantages modern society has created, it has left us wanting. We no longer need to struggle to survive. Our basic needs are now met with minimal physical strife or mental challenge. Technology and the advances of man have left us over-stressed and under-performing. We are now forced to actively pursue our struggles. If we do not go out of our way to stretch our comfort zones and grow, no one nor nature will do it for us.

Chris Matakas / quote

11Undated

The only way to consistently perform at your potential is to ask: Am I better than I was yesterday?

Chris Matakas / quote

12Undated

Devoting yourself to a particular art is invaluable. The art becomes our vehicle with which we drive down the road of life. We use this vehicle to learn about ourselves and this place, to conquer fears, to become more of what we already are. In my own life, I have found most valuable the transferable skills of learning from jiu jitsu to all other facets of day to day study. In devoting myself with such commitment to this art, in undertaking the task of understanding jiu jitsu to whatever degree by circumstance allows, I have unknowingly learned how to learn.

Chris Matakas / quote

13Undated

Jiu Jitsu is the vehicle. Not the road.

Chris Matakas / quote

14Undated

I would more appropriately define mastery as the technical ability possible within the constraints of your particular existence.

Chris Matakas / quote

15Undated

Thoreau and Huxley calmly state what I have spent years trying to articulate, and never found the words for doing so. To read the words of these great men is to read the highest expression of my very self which is inexpressible due to the shortcomings of my particular nature.

Chris Matakas / quote

16Undated

Quotes tell a story. A stringing together of a few words can leave you with an idea that changes the course of your life, and can direct you toward reaching your highest potential as a human. The story they tell is derived from the experience which inspired them, and it is our sharing that experience that allows for the quote to resonate so deeply within our being.

Chris Matakas / quote

17Undated

Words make the intangible aspects of human experience communicable, and a single sentence can shatter our world view and assist us in the formulation of a new one.

Chris Matakas / quote

18Undated

When your words enter the material world in the form of ink or on screen, you are immediately afforded the opportunity to judge their worth.

Chris Matakas / quote

19Undated

Life is easier lived when lived for others.

Chris Matakas / quote

20Undated

There is no more valuable skill than studentship. The farther we go down one area of human understanding, the more we see the corollaries that all activities share. Everything I do for the rest of my life, all the skills I acquire, will be made possible because of my time spent on the mats. It has revealed a symbiosis between all things that I never knew existed.

Chris Matakas / quote

21Undated

Jiu Jitsu gives each of us something that no other sport can. We have the opportunity to become truly great regardless of what circumstance fate has handed us. We have complete freedom and responsibility to achieve whatever level of mastery we wish.

Chris Matakas / quote

22Undated

We seek to understand Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to understand ourselves. We have different explicit goals, from getting in shape, learning self-defense or competition, but tacitly we all seek mastery of ourselves.

Chris Matakas / quote

23Undated

Jiu Jitsu is meant to serve us, not the other way around. It is meant to make you more of whatever it is you already are. It is meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is meant to bring to conscious attention all that once went unseen. It is meant to make you more loving. It is meant to make you more wise, but less certain. It is meant to make us humble, yet supremely confident. It is meant to remind us of our frailty while simultaneously making us feel invincible.

Chris Matakas / quote

24Undated

If Jiu Jitsu does not make you a better father, son, mother, daughter, wife or husband, you are missing the point. If Jiu Jitsu does not leave you viewing strangers in a kinder light, you are missing the point. If you are not better equipped to deal with the vicissitudes of life due to your training, then you are not really training.

Chris Matakas / quote