Sun Tzu

Friday Knight News

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The great Chinese sage Sun Tzu tells us: "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." I have been advised that we never lose if we can gain knowledge from the loss. So in order to win I have sought to find an outlet for my only skill and knowledge as I have been cut off from martial art instruction due to a host of difficulties. After moving and closing my dojo I fell back onto a life long passion of reading and writing. I chose writing an outlet for my work as everyone can do it, and I can do it from home. This allows me to still practice martial arts, and gives me freedom to do my physical exercise training in between having to lay down to stretch my back to stop the pains I get from standing, sitting, or moving. 

I do better with dealing with the pain as long as I keep up my training. The trick is for me anyway is to do everything in moderation and in short burst. On a average day I still get a few thousand repetitions in on martial art skills and around three hundred reps of various calisthenics combined. If I take more than three days off from training the pain goes up, and it goes higher if I fail to keep at it. I keep in mind the example of a childhood inspiration Jhoon Rhee; I followed the example that he and others set with doing high repetitions of calisthenic until injuries prevented this, but I learned new method to train.

  

By the time this photo was taken I had been in three auto accidents, all that I went away from after only being jostled around a bit. None of them had been my fault and one of which happened while I was sitting at a red light when we were rear ended by a car doing 70 miles per hour. I also had at this point been bumped by cars several times during traffic stops, shot twice, (bullet and an arrow), a hit and run on my bike by a speeding car, and thrown from a speeding vehicle, three or four if you count being knocked off of a tractors hay wagons onto the road or field doing twenty in between bailing. This is what brought me to writing.

I have found that the most successful writers advise the rest of us to write about what we know and so I write about my ever evolving views on martial arts and in my fictional works I write with dealing with things I have seen and encountered in the martial arts and life in general.  The book "Conversations with a Sage" is the first book in the (Dream Walker), series. It shares training ideas and mystic experiences of the books hero; Xander Davidson. After losing his mother and never meeting his father he become a social outcast due having “visions."  Xander develops an interested in the martial arts that help him discover his personal power and it inadvertently helps him discover and begin to develop his mysterious gifts and talents. 

His martial art instructor (an old military friend of his step father), helps Xander through some difficult transitions and gives him much needed guidance and support. Questions remain about Xander missing and unknown natural father and the force behind Xander and his mystic dreams or visions. Xander continues to face set backs and struggles even after people find out there is more to his visions than just mere day dreams or fantasy. New doors open and Xander changes schools where he finds new friends both in and out of his school and martial art classes. Xander has an epiphany and from that point on he begins to use his new skills and philosophy to cope with the problems of life and his previously unappreciated talents.  My hope that writing in this way allows me to find the victory that Sun Tzu spoke about.

Conversations with a Sage (The Dream Walker)
by R. David Lawrence (March 8, 2013)
5.0 out of 5 stars   (1)

Kindle Price: $7.95