Official Blog of City WingTsun Kung Fu & Sifu Alex

It is Si-fu saying hello from Berlin and trying to get used to this European style keyboard :-)  It has been years since I used "QWERTZ" instead of a "QWERTY"...lol. Also, please excuse my lack of apostrophe use as well as it does not seem to be working on this laptop.

I am having a great time here in Berlin with my brother Kenan as always.  He has taken me out everyday and shown me a really good time.  Tomorrow we are off to go-cart racing and bowling.  Yesterday we saw a Vegas style show with celebrity imitators which was a riot.  It is really nice to finally have a vacation, but I do miss all of my students a lot.

I had a very interesting experience here in Berlin today and I hope one day I will be able to write freely about it.  I just need to process it first so that I can distill it in a way that will hopefully be a good lesson for all of my students and readers of my blog.

All I can say now is this:  No matter how good one is in anything (wingtsun for example), it is of ultimate importance to stay humble and open and aware of your own fallibility.  Often times people who are self-styled gurus lose touch with reality and believe their own hype.  So much so in fact, that they can not even listen anymore - they can only lead monologues.  Full of anger and rage they do not "self-style" a life of self-realization and discovery (though they may claim to be doing just that), they just promote a teaching based in anger, resentment and ultimately fear.  I learned tonight that I am in a really good place, surrounded by truly incredible people and that which is in the past is in the past.  I move forward with more confidence and determination!

Before I check out of here tonight from my Si-hings little laptop here in the "dangerous section" of Berlin (Kreuzberg...lol) I want to leave you all with something I have been thinking about a lot lately.  It comes from a book called "The Four Agreements" and I read it because my late friend Klaus was a subscriber of this philosophy.  To honor my dear friend and student Klaus I wanted to read it to perhaps understand better how he was such an incredible person.  The four agreements are:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Dont take anything personally.
3. Dont make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

What I saw tonight was the antithesis of this.  It taught me a lot.  That is your legacy for me Klaus.  Thank you.

Si-fu