Karate Kid (1984)

A lesson I got after I told Alex his lessons were boring:
“You two, watch the Karate Kid (1984) and make me a report on the lessons one might be getting even when one feels one is not learning anything useful”
“I promise to teach you Karate, You promise to learn Karate. I say, you do…no questions”-The Sacred Pact
We have a similar pact here, though it is not as obvious. The pact between the Teaching Master and Apprentice stands as follows:
“I promise to teach you the skills necessary to shoulder the burden of knighthood. You promise to learn. So, I say and you do…no excuses”.
I forgot that this was voluntary. The completing of the application, the taking of the simple oath, the working through the IP. No one was going to get angry if I suddenly decided that the path of the Jedi as practiced at the Temple was not for me. I’ve taken several leaves of absence. No one seems to be terribly upset at my leaving, but they are generally happy with my return.
The agreement between Mark Anjuu and myself was voluntary as was my pairing with Alexandre. I knew that I was making the sacred pact whether it was vocalized or not. I’d promised to learn, if he promised to teach. So why was this struggle occurring with every lesson. First, “Who Moved My Cheese?” and second “Freedom from the Known”. The fact that I have gotten two lessons is a testament to how detrimental my defiance is. Mostly the nagging question is “How is this relevant to knighthood?” Writing a bunch of papers wont make me a Jedi, so why not some more practical lessons?
I’m sure Daniel-san had similar misgivings about Myagi’s teaching method. He spent days doing menial labor. The first time I saw it I thought “He’s teaching him submission. Seeing how far he can take him before he breaks. I wonder how much longer this will last. I know that in the end he will teach him Karate, but I wonder how much will happen in the interim.
There must be an undercurrent of trust within any relationship to make it solid and strong, to make it last, and there I discovered my problem. Much as I admired Alex, I did not trust him, but there was nothing that he could do to make the trust grow stronger. He was keeping up his end of the promise, it was I who was not. By the same token, there was nothing I could do to cultivate that trust that he wasn’t already asking me to do, so I pushed on through Krishnamurti.
It was a bit like drilling through bedrock. Not only was it hard, Its unnecessary. I began my first essay with the words “I hate looking at your face Krishnamurti, but I’m doing this to be done.” I began reading something I had read many, many times over the last six months “Man has throughout the ages been seeking….” But it wasn’t until after I read it all and began writing that it all began to make sense. I had been seeking and become angry because I had not found what I was looking for, and to tell the truth even now I don’t know what it is. But the truth is there can be no method to the truth inside of me, there can be no path lain for me, I must make my own.
Paint the fence, sand the deck, wax the car, these are tools in the same way that “Freedom from the Known, “Who Moved My Cheese?”, “Way of the Peaceful Warrior” and “Celestine Prophecy” are tools. They don’t show you the way, but they make you think thoughts maybe you are afraid of and these thoughts, maybe they inspire some action. These lessons may never be practical the way I would like, just as Daniel-San couldn’t see the point of his menial labor, but if these things make me think differently, then they inspire a different sort of action, and it is the action that makes the Knight.