On this day

November 24th

Subtraction with Nima King →

Published November 24  ·  

Subtraction with Nima King

What happens when you stop trying so hard and learn to find power through subtraction rather than addition?

Wing Chun training in a Hong Kong living room involves hours of standing still with no sparring, forcing practitioners to confront inner demons and abandon Western goal-seeking mentality.

I’ll tell you, Craig, this was the hardest thing at that time that I had to go through, both physically and mentally, because […] it’s just so difficult, you know, standing still there, not moving. It’s just so difficult! All these inner demons start to come up. You start thinking, and you know, there’s nowhere to hide.

~ Nima King (5:17)

Nima King describes his journey from training as a teenaged bouncer in Sydney, to becoming a student of Grandmaster Chu in Hong Kong, where his expectations of intense sparring and rooftop battles were replaced by hours of standing practice in a small living room. The training focused on empty hand forms rather than fighting techniques, creating a physically and mentally challenging experience where inner demons surfaced and there was nowhere to hide. Grandmaster Chu provided hands-on guidance through tactile cues, manipulating posture and stance to help students release tension points gradually rather than through sudden breakthrough moments. The practice required abandoning the Western mindset of conceptualization and goal-seeking in favor of embodied experience, with Nima’s teacher eventually banning him from asking questions to force this transition.

The conversation explores how martial arts principles apply to modern life, including parenting and professional goals. Nima discusses the challenge of not trying too hard despite his natural inclination toward the mentality of pushing through pain and injury. The practice teaches that letting go of control represents a powerful act rather than laziness or apathy, and that vulnerability challenges conventional masculine ideals of strength through aggression. Grandmaster Chu exemplified this power through humility, always bowing lower and greeting students with warmth rather than displays of dominance. The art becomes about subtraction rather than accumulation, finding ways to achieve goals with less effort by allowing things to happen rather than forcing them.

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Until there’s nothing else →

Published November 24, 2024  ·  

Jokes are fine. But not every reply chain or comment thread needs to become a place to try new bits for a never-to-be-performed standup routine.

~ Nick Heer, from Letting the Joke Overtake the Source Material

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Go read! Also, this reminds of another insight about sarcasm: You don’t say.

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Knowing when to stick and when to walk away →

Published November 24, 2023  ·  ,

Among the vast options every day, how does one choose well? Should I observe guardrails and steer down the center of the easy path? If I can see guardrails which are clearly “that would be, or create, a true problem” and “that would be a quagmire of ongoing struggle”, why would I ever want to not steer down the middle of that path?

And finally, some problems get better if we’re willing to talk about them. Some situations, on the other hand, simply get worse when we focus our energy and community on them.

~ Seth Godin from, Working with problems

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Any time I choose to walk away, I can also choose to widen my perspective. From a wider perspective, any time I walk away is simply the next step in my path.

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An imaginary life →

Published November 24, 2022  ·  , ,

We are not satisfied with our real life. We want to live an imaginary life, a life in which we seem different in the eyes of other people than we are in reality.

~ Blaise Pascal

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Utterance with Mary JL Rowe →

Published November 24, 2021

How does the concept of “utterance” shape personal reflection, communication, and creative processes?

The dynamic interplay between internal dialogue and outward communication shapes the creative journey.

The intent— The intent to influence— …and that means, if you want to influence, you’ve got to be at your best and you’ve got to be as pure-hearted as possible.

~ Mary JL Rowe (4:22)

The conversation revolves around the concept of “utterance” as a multi-faceted tool for personal reflection and creative expression. Utterance involves intentionally speaking thoughts aloud, which transforms not only how they are communicated but also how they are understood by the speaker. This process fosters clarity, emotional depth, and self-awareness, offering insights into how one’s words can influence others.

Other topics include the challenges of curating meaningful content, balancing personal authenticity with audience expectations, and crafting a compelling narrative. The idea of creating safe, structured spaces for creativity and collaboration also emerges, emphasizing shared understanding and values such as compassion and mercy.

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Identity →

Published November 24, 2021  ·  ,

Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?

~ Charles Bukowski

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Habits, goals, inspiration →

Published November 24, 2021  ·  

Nothing will change your future trajectory like your habits.

~ Shane Parrish from, Habits vs. Goals

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This article is a great overview. It’s basically the article I wish I could have written… or at least one that I could have found decades ago.

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Past and future →

Published November 24, 2020  ·  

The infinity of past and future gapes before us—a chasm whose depths we cannot see. So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress. Or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.

~ Marcus Aurelius

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Road trip to Dylan’s →

Published November 24, 2019  ·  ,

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series The interviews from my perspective

Dylan Johanson / Episode 15

I met Dylan Johanson in 2013. I went to an ADAPT certification course at Kutztown University run by Parkour Generations, and Dylan came down from upstate New York. He hadn’t really had a chance to train with a lot of other people, so this was the first time that he had had a chance to be in a group of roughly 27 candidates for the course, which was enormous. He was just so happy. He was basically running, jumping or laughing the whole time because he had never found such a large group of people with the same passion.

The first day he was sort of playing the, “I’m old,” card because he was in his late 30s at the time, having started parkour after quitting his previous business life. When he eventually bumped into me, it was like, “hey, fellow oldster!” We just sort of clicked, and we wound up walking from the training spots to where lunch was and back and forth. When I started doing the podcast years later, I was always thinking his story was interesting because of—as he talks about in the podcast—his early “days of the ninja”; He would just pick a straight line through Kingston on a Sunday when everything is closed and run over fences, dogs and all that.

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Once may be your last chance →

Published November 24, 2018  ·  

So it stands to reason that if you want a clean house (or anything else) you have to a) put in the effort to get it there — completely there — and then b) police it for little broken windows. Things sitting out. Tasks that have been ignored once. Duties that have been ducked once. Promises that have been broken once. Twice is too late; you have to start again.

~ David Cain from, How to Fight Crime by Making Your Bed

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The broken window theory is, in fact, very much open to debate. But setting that aside for a moment.

I definitely have a habit of chasing things down to their root cause on the first instance of trouble. I’m not anywhere close to perfect! But my first instinct is to stop what I’m doing and figure out what that thing just happened. I’m an imaginer of processes. I go around trying to find one solution which fixes two things, or better yet, fixes two things by fixing one and eliminating a second.

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That was quick →

Published November 24, 2013

Kitchen is finished.

…that only took 18 months. :*)

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