12: Balance: Safety in the Center [Episode 12]

     Regardless of whether you want to complete your basketball season, get from point A to point B, or deliver a healthy baby... the safest place to be is cushioned in the middle of a protective “bubble”.

    This week's episode really packs a punch - and a few kicks - as McCall has three conversations with different martial arts practitioners who offer their insights into the importance of finding an equilibrium... where one is not teetering at either end of two extremes, but instead expands that line to an encompassing sphere - at the center of which, lies safety and security.  

Beth W. practices a Kabbalah connected martial art in NYC. 

Rich H. is learning Jeet Kun Do, created by Bruce Lee. 

Masters Tanya and Wally Bagot, who run Sunset San Soo in LA, explain to McCall that this style of Kung Fu is not for sport, but self-protection. 

And what do they all have in common...?
Balance, training, mindful awareness, and flow. 

Also, featuring the wise words of Bruce Lee and Joseph Campbell, on dangerous dichotomies, following your bliss & finding the safe balance of the center. 

Quotes

 “One of the basic Kabalistic concepts is that God creates the universe anew - every day. The world is in a constant state of creation.” -- Beth Wilensky 

“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless -- like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend." --Bruce Lee 

“Whenever one moves out of the transcendent, one comes into a field of opposites. These two pairs of opposites come forth, as male and female, from the two sides. What has eaten of the tree of the knowledge -- not only of good and evil, but of male and female, of right and wrong, of this and that, and light and dark. Everything in the field of time is dual - past and future, dead and alive. All this. Being and non-being. Is/isn't. They always come in pairs and put your mind in the middle. Most of us put our minds on the side of the good, against what we think of as evil. It was Heraclites, I think, who said: ‘For God, all things are good, and right, and just. But for man, some things are 'right' and others are 'Not'.’ You're in the field of time when you're man. And one of the problems of life is to live in the realization of both terms. That is to say, ‘I know the center. And I know that good and evil are simply temporal apparitions.’” -- Joseph Campbell 

“Follow your bliss. …with a deep sense of being informed. And … then going where your body and soul want to go. When you have that feeling, then stay with it! And don't let anyone throw you off.” -- Joseph Campbell 

“Martial arts means honestly expressing yourself.” -- Bruce Lee 

“Humility is a willingness to learn.” -- Wally Bagot 

“Running water never grows stale.” -- Bruce Lee 

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