Monday, November 3, 2008

Of sharing knowledge and art........

There was once this Sifu who instructed 2 of his disciples to each go and seek out a different kung fu style each (one attacking style, the other defensive) so that they can share out and exchange them once they are back. One is a senior disciple, the other a junior. And to motivate them, as part of the task, the Sifu organized a friendly sparring session to pick out the winner among them.

But there’s a catch though……..they can only spar using the skills that the other disciple has taught them.

2 months had past…..and both had past on their knowledge and skills to the other. The day of the test of their new found kung fu skills came by….and they sparred, in front of the other disciples and their Sifu.The match ended with the senior disciple clearly won by a mile…..out witting and out muscling the junior.

Then the Sifu asked the others of their opinion who had won the match……the answer was rather obvious......its the senior disciple.

But the Sifu answered differently…for him, the match was not won by the senior. He actually had lost. The only reason the junior disciple lost instead of the senior is because the senior had not imparted all the knowledge to his colleague but received instead, everything that the junior disciple had learn from the task.

Every one was stunned……later the senior admitted his selfishness and made amends.

This is a real story........

The Sifu is Yip Man.
And the junior disciple is Bruce Lee.

‘Art is the expressing of oneself feelings……honestly and unselfishly’

9 comments:

-kar- said...

Deep!

Unknown said...

I agree with morale of the story.

Nicholas Leong said...

The spelling should be Ip Man as shown on all the movie posters :P

Amino @ Lordmint said...

Bang, thanks for sharing the story. Sharing is caring :)

zamrud photography said...

Actually both Yip Man and Ip man are correct.....

following has been extracted from wikipedia....

Yip Man (traditional Chinese: 葉問; simplified Chinese: 叶问; pinyin: yè wèn, Cantonese Jyutping: jip6 man6; alternative spelling Ip Man; also known as 葉繼問; 1 October 1893-2 December 1972) was the first martial arts master (Chinese: Sifu) to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun openly. He had several students who later became martial arts teachers in their own right, including Bruce Lee.

But I guess the story is more than just the spelling....

Nicholas Leong said...

Haha just pulling your leg. Now to see when I can go tap your knowledge. Oh, btw this is zio. Bugging you from SA all the way to here :P

zamrud photography said...

I knew it's u zio......

And btw.....there's little knowledge to tap tho.

libpuritan said...

interesting story. =)

and i would like to contest your statement to zio/nick: lots of knowledge to tap. and m'sia photography community is blessed to have you. =)

Unknown said...

words of wisdom, Zamrud, photographer and philosopher .. :)