Before I headed out to the competition today I decided to soak up a little motivation. I watched Karate Kid 1 and part of Karate Kid 2. Mr. Miyagi and DanielSon are up there among motivational movies alongside Rocky, Top Gun, and Braveheart. However, watching these movies over again I caught a couple quotes that I had not heard before.
Firstly, just before the big tournament in Karate Kid #1 the following dialogue occurs:n
Daniel: I don’t know if I know enough karate.
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Miyagi: Feeling correct.
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Daniel: You sure know how to make a guy feel confident.
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Miyagi: You trust the quality of what you know, not quantity.
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I love the idea behind Miyagi’s statement here. Quality matters over quantity. It doesn’t matter if you workout or practice all day for 12 hours a day. If the quantity of your work exceeds the quality then you are in fact hurting yourself not helping. Tiger Woods didn’t get good at golf by practicing a bad golf swing for 12 hours a day and Michael Jordan didn’t get good at free throws by practicing a bad shot for 12 hours a day. They both got really good at their specific discipline because they each practiced their sport with quality reps worrying less about how many reps they performed but how perfect their reps were each time. Misses matter and the more you have of them in training, the more you will have of them in competition. If MJ missed 1 of every 2 free throws then likely he would miss that many in the game. The same is true of weightlifting. Quality matters well beyond quantity. I would rather you complete 4 perfect sets than 12 imperfect and your competition totals will reflect the made lifts over the missed ones.
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The second quote I heard was even more profound. At the beginning of Karate Kid 2 the following dialogue occurs:
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Daniel: You could have killed him, couldn’t you?
Mr. Miyagi: Hai.
Daniel: Well, why didn’t you?
Mr. Miyagi: Because Daniel, for man with no forgiveness in heart, life worse punishment than death.
When I heard this quote I could not help but be reminded of Provers 25:21-22. Sometime the best thing to give to your enemies is provision. We shy from forgiveness and mercy when we are faced with circumstances that seem to lean towards vengeance and justice. Miyagi reminded me today that sometimes the best punishment is forgiveness and love and that often our enemies will expect must less of us. This quote served as a good reminder that if Christ can look at me in all my depravity and squalor and forgive then I have no grounds to reach for vengeance with anybody else. Nobody has offended me in as great a way as I have offended Christ and yet He still forgave me.
Mr. Miyagi: Hai.
Daniel: Well, why didn’t you?
Mr. Miyagi: Because Daniel, for man with no forgiveness in heart, life worse punishment than death.
When I heard this quote I could not help but be reminded of Provers 25:21-22. Sometime the best thing to give to your enemies is provision. We shy from forgiveness and mercy when we are faced with circumstances that seem to lean towards vengeance and justice. Miyagi reminded me today that sometimes the best punishment is forgiveness and love and that often our enemies will expect must less of us. This quote served as a good reminder that if Christ can look at me in all my depravity and squalor and forgive then I have no grounds to reach for vengeance with anybody else. Nobody has offended me in as great a way as I have offended Christ and yet He still forgave me.
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