"Any man who says 'I am king,' is no true king." -Tywin Lannister. I never anticipated that I would use a Lannister quote in a positive manner in a karate blog post, but there it is! For those of you that aren't familiar with the Game of Thrones universe I'll catch you up quickly, Tywin Lannister is a very powerful leader and the right hand man to the King of the realm, his teenage grandson Joffrey. Joffrey is basically the medieval version of Sid, the kid from Toy Story who tortures toys for fun, Joffrey's toys are citizens however. In a particular moment of twisted evil plotting Tywin puts his foot down and tells his grandson that enough is enough. Joffrey naturally responds back with 'but I am the king!' Leading Tywin to say my favorite line of the entire series, and the reason this blog was sparked today. "Any man who says 'I am king,' is no true king."
I haven't been in the world of martial arts as long as I want to be, but I've been in it long enough to see my fair share of ego, and boy is there a lot of it on Facebook.
Here are my top 5 favorite (and by favorite I mean most annoying) ego types
1) The ones that post all the time about how tough they are.
2) The ones who "challenge" others, both intellectually and physically.
3) The ones who feel the need to defend a decision they've made relating to their martial arts journey over and over and OVER again.
4) The ones who hijack comment on other's posts in order to talk about themselves/promote themselves/stroke those pretty ego tail feathers.
5) The ones who can't stand someone outranking them so they post vague hateful statuses to rally the masses into a big hate frenzy.
Of course that's not all, but those are the ones that seem to be most common; when I first started Kenpo I was a wide eyed 18 year old and I was about as naive as you can get. I added every martial artist that requested me, because I wanted to immerse myself into this new world and meet and communicate with as many martial artists as I could. Well that turned out to be good and bad. I've met some wonderful people that have changed my life and impacted me in such a positive way. On the other hand I've ran into so many egotistical people that I may develop tendinitis from all the back peddling I've done via the "Unfriend" button.
Here are some of my favorite quotes that I love from Mr. Ed Parker's book The Zen Of Kenpo that I relate to egos.
"Whatever the attitude, so is the response." Pg. 6
"A martial artist who boasts of being IN the art longer than another forgets that the person being accused may have been AT the art longer than he." Pg. 10
"When one willingly and continuously boasts of his loyalty, anticipate toasting his departure," Pg. 10
"For every champion in the ring today, there are at least two who remain unknown and uncrowned." Pg. 12
"Communication occurs when both parties talk and listen. When only one does all the talking, he certainly is not listening." Pg. 20
"A loss can be worth the experience if you gain something more valuable from it." Pg. 35
"One becomes great when he comes to the realization that what he knows is very little." Pg. 46
"How we see ourselves is not necessarily how we are." Pg. 90
So, my advice is simply this, take an extra moment before you click the post button to review the status you just typed, or that macho photo you're about to share. Be sure that it reflects the kind of person you want to be, and what you want other people to see. Hide your weapon my friends. Just like good old Tywin said; "Any man who says 'I am king,' is no true king."
I'll leave you with one more quote of Mr. Parker's from his Zen book; "I would rather be showered with humility than be sprinkled with conceit." Pg. 46
