Читать книгу The Power of the Warrior - Néstor Galarraga - Страница 5

Personal power is a fundamental asset. All we do, all we decide, all our decisions throughout our life depend on how we feel about ourselves. Even if we do not realize it, the smallest details, the way we walk, we dress, our choices, our thoughts, our feelings and all our actions depend on that personal power. Humanity walks behind power; thus, a major part of our society runs after it, money, prestige, fame, sex; the power granted by having, a power that lives outside. We have fallen in love with our ego and our reasoning; we have launched ourselves into a path that will make us lose all our intuitive learnt abilities or, at the very least, these will be replaced by others.

Society today considers wealth and power over everything to be the model of happiness. And, of course, these “values” are installed beyond us. This is why I have the impression that human beings are moving towards a path that will make us lose ourselves.

I have practiced and taught martial arts for over 40 years. I have delivered Taekwon-Do training seminars all around the world, including both Koreas, North and South, country where martial arts stemmed from. I have devoted myself exclusively to this discipline. Taekwon-Do has been a lifestyle, a way of living, of being and conducting myself in this world; it has been my path and my destiny, which has allowed me to have a full life, with many satisfactions. I achieved 100 times over the dreams I had as a child. Life has been generous to me and a true box of surprises. I do not belong to the group of people who dreamt and made those dreams come true, since I have achieved more than I have dared to dream. In truth, I could say we are even: Taekwon-Do gave me everything and, in turn, I gave Taekwon-Do everything as well.

Every time I stand in front of a class, course, lecture or seminar, I ask myself if I could leave something with them, something that could stay with them, stuck forever. As my dear friend Viviana Lowe used to say, «if I am left with the feeling that I stuck some knowledge to the skin of my students, I have scored…». I am aware that this could sound pretentious or arrogant but, every time I start to teach something, I do it knowing that I am there to contribute with something, I am there in favor of art, culture, the technique and because I have in my hands a tremendously powerful tool, with the ability to bring something positive to the life of our students and always from Taekwon-Do, because I have practically had no personal life. However, when I go through what I have learnt and taught, I realize that some ink was left in the inkwell, some matters have remained unfinished. What I learnt —by harvesting experiences through life— about the development of personal power, I have not taught yet. And, since it is impossible to go backwards, to retrace history and to return to all those paths, to all those places of knowledge that I ignored, where I learnt who I am through what I do, I have decided to respectfully place it in this book.

It is about the development of power and, within its pages, you will find messages with much detail and information based on real experiences and on the certainty of how to reach the goals we set our minds to. In sum, it comprises everything that leads towards the discovery and development of personal power. It is not a history book; I will not go over the process of the different events I lived, which guided me towards my present conclusions; yet, sometimes I meticulously go over some fragments of history that are little know by the public. It is not a technical book either; nonetheless, I provide some thoughts and I include new concepts, based on recent investigations, with the main objective of generating new tools, so as to keep contributing to the technical development of our discipline.

This book speaks of common spaces, martial arts, Taekwon-Do; it talks about all of us, about you and me; it tells us about the road travelled, the emotions, the thoughts, the inner feelings that any person seeking to develop said power goes through, the meaning of life and everything that dwells in our own hearts.