PowerSHOT: Respect

25 Apr 2009 · 1 min

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1:28

In this short spoken presentation, a martial‑arts instructor explains that his schools operate under a single rule—respect. He recounts an experience speaking to elementary‑school children, where a first‑grader demonstrated a simple, heartfelt definition of respect by bowing and saying "Excuse me, because I always can see him." The instructor was moved by the child's definition and adopted respect as the sole rule for his martial‑arts centers, replacing a longer list of regulations. He argues that respect controls power, fosters mutual care, and serves as a universal guideline for any challenge or situation within the training environment.

Chapters

I have one rule and one rule only in my martial arts centers. Anybody want to take a stab at it? What is it? Thank you. Did everyone hit respect? Okay, respect. Respect is what controls power. I was asked to speak a number of years ago to a group of elementary school students, and they had prepped it. Sensei was coming and this and that. It was so cute. Most of them were first, second, third graders. So I asked the same question I just asked you. I said, what does respect mean? Can you give me a definition of the word respect? Well, one little guy, he's a first grader, he stood up and he did the whole thing like this and he bowed, right? Excuse me, because I always, I can see him. And when I asked him, what's the definition of respect? This is what he said. And it's never lost the emotional content, that message. I immediately went back and installed that as our only rule. We had a page of rules I took them in this, and now that's it. Because think about it, no matter what challenge, what situation we face, if we think about this, doesn't that take care of everything? You see, take care of one another.