Welcome to the Jungle

In the Summer of 1987, when I was a little 11 year old kid in Sunnyvale, California, Guns ‘N Roses came out with the song Welcome to the Jungle. The song was used in a Dirty Harry movie and was a huge hit. Today, the lyrics stick out as a reminder to us of the problems we face as a society…

“Welcome to the jungle We got fun ‘n’ games
We got everything you want Honey we know the names
We are the people that can find Whatever you may need
If you got the money honey We got your disease”

We live in a hedonistic and materialistic society. We Are Not Whole in Modern Society, Unless we Play the Game of Greed and Materialism.

My Goal as a martial arttist is to help each person who comes to train with me, One-By-One, to eradicate this egotism… this dependency on constantly feeding the ego’s desires for materialism and greed, the acquirement of wealth and the constant desire to inflict violence on those we are unable to identify with.

In the 21st Century, we are like animals in the jungle. But We Do Not Have to Be Animals. We can help each other, with Love and with Kindness… to be whole human beings who choose to end violence and help one another to live fuller lives. We can Add-Value to the lives of others by small acts of kindness and love.

Training in the martial arts helps us to physically understand that we are not our egos. We are not as powerful and physically strong as our egos would want us to believe.

If you have never been in a true physical fight… having to defend yourself from physical injury in the face of an attacker who is trying to truly inflict injury upon you… you have never felt true suffering. But in our lives… suffering is what brings us in touch with our human side. When we understand suffering, we understand that we are connected to each other spiritually.

Martial art training allows us to safely immerse ourselves in human suffering, so that we may allow ourselves to be one with the energy of the universe and understand that we can ultimately transcend suffering and become en-lightened individuals.

When we allow ourselves to walk in the jungle, we become one with the universal life-force that does not care about how much money we make, what degrees we have earned, how much our homes are worth, or what designer brands of clothes we wear. We understand that we are all animals struggling for a piece of peace in this world filled with mystery and hope.