02UndatedThere is no higher calling than the service of your fellow man, and to do so through your own personal mastery of a craft is a gift enjoyed by few.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
03UndatedI believe the devil exists in those little, seemingly unnoticeable moments when we choose to value our own insecurities over the service of others.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
04UndatedI have found the more worthwhile something is, the more of your life is required to achieve it.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
06UndatedTrue mastery, it turns out, is not found in accumulating each and every tool under the sun. True mastery is learning that there are really only a handful of tools, and it is the proper application with correct timing and setting that makes them so useful.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
08UndatedIf you are fortunate enough to have a particular activity with which you find greatest joy and technical success, it is your responsibility as a growing human being to continue that study. Whatever your endeavor, if you can expand upon the knowledge in your strongest subject, that new found understanding of all things will trickle down to every other area of your life.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
09UndatedMastery, to whatever degree your circumstance allows, is determined by a handful of choices repeated daily.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
10UndatedMastery lies on an infinite continuum, and as a result we will never reach the end. We can, however, see to it that we are as far along that continuum as our circumstance allows.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
11UndatedThe best yardstick for our progress is not other people, but ourselves. Am I better than I was yesterday? This is the only question worth asking. As long as you go to bed at night a better practitioner than the one who woke up that morning, you have succeeded. Your worth should have nothing to do with how your progress stacks up relative to another.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
12UndatedWe must remember that regardless of our differences in rank we are all equal as human beings. You can always tell how caring and compassionate others are in their actions towards those "below" them. Of course you are going to treat your black belt professor kindly, but how do you treat the white belt taking their first class? In spite of the division in belt rank there must be no division as people.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
13UndatedYour progress as a Jiu Jitsu practitioner is a direct reflection of the standards you have for yourself.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
14UndatedEmpathy is a breaking down of the false constructs of division between the observer and the observed.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
15UndatedThe secular world often finds its constituents disenfranchised and solitary as it has spent a great deal of time debating the religious community while failing to build a true community of its own.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
16UndatedAll these men recognized what they themselves valued, and lived according to these values regardless of their relationship to the values of their community. Each lived according to what brought them happiness and peace rather than commonplace prescriptions of the multitudes.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
17UndatedWe are only different because there exists something to be different from, and it is this difference that bonds us.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
19UndatedAnyone who has ever achieved anything has been a steward of his potential.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
22UndatedI have never been as alive or awake as I have been through Jiu Jitsu.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
23UndatedWho you are as a person far outweighs what you do in an athletic arena.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
24UndatedLife is a constant build up and release of tension. If we go too far in either direction bad things happen.Chris Matakas / quote ↗
