My earliest encounter with Chinese martial arts was on the big screens of Terere Cinema at Ikare. Black and white movies with dialogues in an incomprehensible language. But I loved it. The audacity of Bruce Lee and his capacity to conjure victories from the jaws of defeat was exhilarating. As a little boy in my early years of secondary school, fighting like Bruce Lee was a dream.

My real life encounter with the arts was not until I was sixteen during my basic training as a G-man. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the Bruce Lee movies and real life Chinese martial arts were a world apart. My encounter with the martial arts thought me some lifelong lessons. Lessons that still guide my attitude to life till this moment. What are these lessons?

1. Power is nothing without control: This maxim was later made popular by Pirelli Tyre. What is the essence of uncontrolled use of power? The Second World War May perhaps have had a different outcome if Germany had not invaded Russia and Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor. Why take on too many enemies from different fronts at the same time? It is called the arrogance of Power.
2. Never fight without a purpose: Every battle must have a significant purpose beyond the need to satisfy the animal instinct for aggression. Every fighter must ask… what is this battle being fought for? What value will it add to me or the society?
3. Never fight other people’s battles: The most difficult battles to fight are battles fought on behalf of other people. Such battles usually lack a genuine purpose and is often fought without conviction. Almost all proxy battles in history had disastrous outcomes. Check out the battles fought by the USA in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. Even with all the arsenals at her disposal, the US withdrew from all the battles after experiencing humiliating setbacks.
4. The cost of Vengeance is high: the price paid by those who go into battles to seek revenge is often too bitterly heavy to make seeking revenge unnecessary. When you spend all your energy seeking revenge, you many never get to enjoy the trophy when it is won. This is better illustrated with the story of Abu Bakir in Cyprian Ekwensi’s book, ‘An African Night’s Entertainment’.
5. Avoiding battles is not an act of cowardice: Tsun Tzu, the acclaimed father of mother military strategy wrote in his book, ‘The Art of War’ that … ‘the warrior who wins hundred battles in hundred wars is not a good warrior. The good warrior is a general who wins hundred wars without a battle’. Why do battle when you can earn victory without one?
6. Respect your opponent: The biblical Goliath met his Waterloo in the hands of Little David because he disrespected his opponent. He was unaware that as little as David was, he was backed by a mighty God. A white man should never measure the power of small pepper by the size of the bell pepper.

A lot of people may wonder why China is not competing with Russia and USA in the quest to build the most powerful army in the world, even as it ascends the global economic ladder. Perhaps it’s because Chinese leaders are well grounded in martial arts. Or perhaps they realize that strength does not come from brute force but from the mastery of the mind. Rather than investing in military might, the Chinese have invested in building a strong economy that is entwined with the prosperity of its adversaries. So America knows that it would suffer if the economy of China suffers. Rather than relying on brute force, the Chinese have decided to rely on the power of the mind. Every man that seeks power must first of all learn to master his mind and not his muscles, because the mind is after all the true source of power.