top of page
"Jiu Jitsu uses us to express itself, and the best thing we can do to is to become a vehicle capable of expressing Jiu Jitsu with all of its perfection minus our imperfections."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Skill quotes

"You can read in the space of a coffin, and you can write in the space of a toolshed meant for mowers and spades."

"True dexterity is not just in books; It is giving from above, we learn it, it is nurtured, it is applied and it is developed. He who do not know what has been giving to him from above, shall never know how to use what he has been giving effectively and efficiently."

"If you dread ending up in the bunker, practice these tricky out-of-the-sand shots until you master them. Think of it as insurance-we all have learned that, once you know you can make that shot easily, you will seldom need to!"

"The skilled artisan uses the same iron to make a horseshoeAs he does for a polished mirror for the King."

"I have had an aversion to good spelling for sixty years and more, merely for the reason that when I was a boy there was not a thing I could do creditably except spell according to the book. It was a poor and mean distinction, and I early learned to disenjoy it. I suppose that this is because the ability to spell correctly is a talent, not an acquirement. There is some dignity about an acquirement, because it is a product of your own labor. It is earned, whereas to be able to do a thing merely by the grace of God, and not by your own effort, transfers the thing to our heavenly home--where possibly it is a matter of pride and satisfaction, but it leaves you naked and bankrupt."

"To be a better cook, cook more. To be a better writer, read more."

"To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."

"A whetstone, though it cannot cut, may sharpen a knife that will."
Explore more quotes by Chris Matakas

"The best indicator of a man's philosophy is not what he reads or says, but the way in which he lives his life, the way in which he acts."

"We are the estranged orphans of our nations and tribes, and we now bear the weight not of survival of the group but of personal identity."

"We see that the vast majority of our suffering is needless, and simply arises from the misidentification with our thinking mind."

"I have seen far by seeing through the lens of Jiu Jitsu. I have exchanged a great deal of physical health for these insights, and these were trades worth making. My efforts were worth the return. I have sacrificed much in the name of this craft. Not for trophies or belts or prestige. For these fall away like dust. I pursued this art so fervently because it was not actually Jiu Jitsu I pursued. It was myself."

"When you realize you are no longer made of glass, you lose the desire to demonstrate that fragility in others."

"Jiu Jitsu gives me an ideal to strive toward. Technical mastery lies on an infinite continuum and completion of this skill is impossible. Every time I train I have something that I can improve upon, and this will hold true for each and every training session that lies between me and my grave."

"Your potential for growth is directly proportionate to the degree to which you are willing to make mistakes."

"After I received my blue belt, I soon recognized that the belts were simply an external representation of an inner experience, and that they mattered little compared to the person I was becoming."
bottom of page