Mastery 10-13-22: What the greatest MA instructor in the world told me

Greetings. My name is Steve Barnes. I am creator of Life Writing, hold three Black belts, master instructor, instruct in yoga. Greetings, and let me see. I am still learning how to do this. So what you were just hearing is the live stream going to YouTube. So I am just working on getting these. Like I've been telling you, I've moved to a new house, and it's beautiful, it's wonderful, but it's also cluttered. So every day, hopefully you will see things getting a little better, a little, a little simpler. But this is life. Life is messy, and I am certainly alive. Anyway, so what I wanted to talk to you about is what these are about. And these are all about mastery, because I don't believe that you should settle for anything less than mastery in your life. So a quick definition. That mastery is that you have the basic skills of your craft at the level of unconscious competence so that you can perform under stress, and you've committed to that path for a lifetime. If you do that, if you do those two things, you are on the path of mastery as much as anyone else who's ever been on that path, even though there will be some who are horizons distant from you and others who are behind you. And your task is to model the people in front of you, do the work where you are and turn around and help people behind you. You do that and you're on that path. Mastery in that sense is a verb, not a noun. So the primary tool that we've used for this, that we're discussing for this is fire dance. You know, it's the. It's the idea of doing affirmations, visualizations, emotional floods while you are performing Tai chi chuan. Now, of course, you can also do it while you are walking, while you are doing yoga, while you are doing sun salutations, while you are dancing. But we use Tai Chi primarily. I'm not going to be, you know, shy about saying that. I'm also not going to be dogmatic and say that you can't do something else, because you can't. You can use another movement system, but we're going to be coaching you on that movement system during this broadcast, during, you know, because I've been able to connect that to my home life, my life with my family, my wife, my son, my daughter, my career in Hollywood and in publishing and in my martial arts. And it's all worked out. You know, what I want is for you to have the kind of success that I've had, plus a lot more. I'd love, you know, I've been married to my soulmate for 24 years. New York Times best selling writer, published over 3 million words and worked in Hollywood on Twilight Zone, in Outer Limits and Stargate and God, you know, I've been so lucky in that sense. Written comic books. I had a lot of fun doing that. And stage plays and working on doing a podcast now, you know, www.lifewritingpodcast.com. also working on a fictional podcast. And in terms of martial arts, I have three black belts and I've been honored to be the official Tai Chi instructor for the Black Karate Federation. So, you know, you look at those things and you ask, well, how can you do this? Most of what you do to become a master is to find a valid path of mastery and you stay on it until you've got gray hair. I mean, seriously, that's pretty much what it is. And if you do that, people will say, ah, the master. And all they really mean is, if I do what he does, I'll become an expert. A grandmaster is someone who can lift someone to the level of master. It's, you know, very, very simple in that sense. It's not easy because the implication there is that you have to do certain things every day, and that's not always fun. In fact, anything that you have to do every day that you have to do every day, there are going to be some times when it's not fun. You're bored, you're tired, you're busy, you're distracted, you begin to question yourself. You don't know whether or not this is a valid path. You take a look at the structure of the hero's journey and you can see that you have a character who is challenged. And ordinarily they will reject that challenge due to fear. Then they will accept it and they'll sit out on the road of trials during which they meet allies and gain powers. That's the majority of the journey, is just chop wood, carry water every day. If they continue on that path, they will hit the dark night of the soul. The dark night of the soul is the moment in which it feels that all of your insufficiencies are rising up to eat you. They're going to eat your dreams. You can't do it. The way through the dark matter of the soul is the leap of faith. Faith in yourself, faith in your companions, or faith in a higher power. If you take that leap and you've done the other steps, increased your skill and gathered your allies, so forth, then the various storytelling traditions of the world all over the World to all time suggest you can win, that that is the path to winning. It's not guaranteeing that you're going to win, but it says that this is the way to load so that you get the maximum chances of winning. So if you can take what I just said about the her hero's journey and apply it to any specific goal you have in your life and break it down like that, you can actually see in advance the resources you're going to need to publish a book or find your soulmate or master martial arts or master your body or whatever it is that you intend to do. Although we do suggest that you have goals in all three major arenas, because that way there's no place for your BS to hide. You know, the fact is that, that our crap, our negative beliefs will hide in the place that we don't want to go looking for them. So if you're not physical, that's where they're going to hide. If you're not committed to building a business or building a career or an education, that's where it'll hide. If you're not committed to having a healthy relationship with yourself and with a loved one and with your community, that's where it will hide. But it's going to hide someplace. By looking at all three readers at the same time, you, you're opening the doors, you're turning on the lights. There's no shadows for your dark stuff to hide in. So that's what we want. We want no place for it to hide. Now, one of the things I've done is anytime I've had a chance to meet someone who is extraordinary, I like to find out what motivates them. What is the. Not just the difference that makes a difference, but what is the difference that gets them going every day? What is the thing that they use to motivate themselves to get up and do the same thing again and again and again? I remember many years ago, Danny and Asanto, I think, had just turned 60, perhaps said, you know, Steve, you can stay in shape as you get older. It just takes a little hard, a little more to motivate yourself, every year a little bit more to motivate yourself. So five years ago, I wanted a private lesson with Danny for my Christmas present to myself. And so I got in touch with him and asked him, and he and his wife Paula, bless their hearts, gave me one of the greatest Christmas gifts anyone could ever give me. Now let me back up a little bit. If you don't know who Danny Inosanto is, it Is my contention that he is candidate for greatest martial arts instructor who ever lived. Candidate? You know, it's impossible because everybody's gonna have different standards. But the reason I say that is not just that he has expertise in so many different arts, because he has expertise in dozens of different arts. Filipino arts and Indonesian arts and the Thai arts and, you know, American Kenpo and boxing and wrestling, and on and on, on and on and on and on. He was also inherited Bruce Lee's jeet kune do empire. He was Bruce's closest friend and workout partner. And because of where he lived, Southern California, and his connections to Bruce Lee and his connections to the Filipino martial arts community, he had access to a flow of information that the greatest Shaolin monks in the old days could not have had, because they may have had access to Chinese martial arts, but where were they going to learn Indian martial arts? Where were they going to learn Filipino martial arts? You know, they're up on top of a mountain somewhere. So it isn't a matter of potential, and it isn't a matter of how hard he worked. What's matter is that he did have an extraordinarily high level of discipline and an extraordinarily high level of innate talent. He was a great sprinter and football player in high school and a school teacher, which allowed him to learn how to organize information. So his classes are just amazing. You just nobody better. And the man's in his mid-80s, and he still trains every day and he still teaches every day. And before COVID he was traveling all over the world and teaching. I suppose he's doing a little bit of traveling now, but it's kind of extraordinary. It truly is. So Danny and Paula listened to my request for an hour of his time, which I was willing to pay very highly, and they gave me. They gifted me three hours with him because he had some time between, you know, one appointment and when he was supposed to go to the airport to fly off to New Zealand or something. And he said that he had three hours to give to an old student. I trained with Danny for three years back in the late 70s, early 80s at the Filipino Kali Academy. And I'm telling you, I could not believe that he'd been so generous. I would have paid thousands of dollars for that. I mean, just honestly, because he is one of the best of the best of the best, and of the people who I have any kind of personal connection with, he's the best. And that's not a dishonor to my karate instructor, Steve Muhammad, because Danny was Steve's teacher, Danny Inosanto and Chuck Sullivan were Steve's teachers. So I'm remaining within my lineage. I'm talking to my master's master in that sense. And they have great respect and affection for each other. So there's, you know, I care about things like that. I believe that you should show respect to those who have helped you along the path. So I would not go contrary to anything for Steve. But it's not contrary. At any rate, I drove down to his school, which is in Marina del Rey. If you have the opportunity to train with him, I strongly suggest, like I said, he's in his mid-80s now. We will not have this miracle of a human being forever. And you need the experience. Just go to one of his workshops and experience what mastery at that level is true mastery. No question about it. And I got around to my question because I realized that he is what he is because of the things I said. He found true paths, true teachers, and he did what they said. And he did it every day, day after day after day after day, week after week after week after week, month after month after month after month, year after year after year after year, decade after decade after decade after decade. He did it when other people quit. He kept learning. When other people said that they knew enough. He was always questing, always looking. And it's hard for me to even represent how good this man is. To touch hands with him is to know that you. You know nothing. You know nothing, Jon Snow. I mean, you know nothing. Steve Barnes. It's all the time that I've put into it. There's. It's. It's like I've built this really interesting wireframe, and he's water. So just pour it into the wireframe. It doesn't matter how complex the wireframe is and how beautiful. The water runs right through it. That's me trying to stop Dan in Asanto. It's like it's. It's a joke. It's just a joke. But I asked him what motivates him, what gets him up day after day after day? And if you will ask yourself this question in connection with the thing that you want to do that you want to be good at, it will definitely profit you. So I asked him what motivates him, and I pushed him on it. And he got very quiet. And he told me the following story. He said, when I was in elementary school, there was a bully, and everybody was afraid of him. And one day I was sitting having lunch with a friend, and the bully came over and Started bullying my friend and I stood up to him and we started fighting and the bully was knocking the crap out of me. Then a. A couple of teachers came over and broke up the fight. And there were two teachers holding the bully and one teacher holding me, pulling us apart. And I pulled myself free from the teacher that was holding me and I lunged at him and I punched him right in the nose. Bam. And the bully started crying and blood coming out of his nose. And the teacher is hauling me back and this guy is just falling apart. And I looked at him as the teacher hauled me away. And I thought to myself, he bleeds too. The bullies bleed too. The big, tough, scary bullies bleed too. If you have the courage and the science and the will, and that realization that the people who are your demons, who are tough and rough, that the right action from the heart and from the mind and the body in alignment, they bleed too. And that realization sent him into a lifetime of study and teaching. He does not like teaching fighters per se. You know, people want to get in the octagon. And he's done it. Of course he's done it. He's, you know, taught. He's taught many movie stars. You know, people like Denzel Washington, Matt Damon and so forth. You know, Danny is the go to guy, often through his student Jeff Imada, who was a huge stunt coordinator in Hollywood. Most of what he likes to do is to teach just people who have issues of fear, people who want to become strong and teaching people who want to teach people. That's how you make an impact, by teaching teachers. That realization that that could motivate a man, a human being to become one of the best that has ever existed on the planet. Said to me again that it's critical to understand why are you doing this? Why are you getting up every day? Why? Why are you motivating yourself? What is it about? Why are you doing it? The what is important, but the why is more important. It is the why that will get you up out of a cold bed, sometimes next to a hot woman, and send you down to work out in a cold garage, or to go off to a class or to sit at your typewriter or to do anything else. It's going to take a thousand hours or ten thousand hours. Why do it? Before you set out on the path of mastery, make sure you've got a reason that is so big that you'll be able to use it for a lifetime. Realizing that bullies make life miserable, but that bullies can be beaten even by smaller people. With greater purpose that can motivate you for a lifetime? What's your motivation to take care of your body? What's your motivation to find the love of your life? What is your motivation to build a career, a business, perhaps, that can support your family and serve your community? Figure that out and you got it handled. This is Steve Barnes talking about. Well, Fire Dance. How do you align yourself in just a few minutes a day to have the best day of your life every day? And you go to www. Firedance and join us. Our mission is 1 million awake, aware adult human beings. And please, if you can commit to teaching 10 people, I will work my heart out to teach you. Take care. Www.firedancetaichi.com.