Here is your mental health break of the day. Featuring a story about Jackie Chan.

I know this is not a usual topic here, but I am a huge fan of Jackie Chan, and I thought this was a great anecdote.

It also reminds of an incident that happened when I first started training in martial arts.

My instructor was a twenty year old Chinese Kung fu protege from a very rural area of China, who had immigrated to America with his family, and who briefly settled in Alaska for reasons which were never really explained to me.

I have often described him as possibly the MOST moral person I have ever met.  (He was a Taoist, I think.) He refused to eat meat, never injured or killed anything (Not even a mosquito sucking his blood), and when he was insulted he bowed and thanked the person calling him names.

One day while we were training, a fly came in through one of the open basement windows, and he suddenly told me to stop.  I saw the fly and went to swat it, but he caught my arm, and wagged his finger in my face and said, "He has done you no harm. You must return the favor."

For the next several minutes he used quick hand movements to guide the fly back toward the window, never once touching it, until it had flown to safety. Afterward he beamed with pride over his accomplishment and we went right back to work.

Now just to provide contrast I should probably tell you the story of the concrete cinder block,

We found it on one of our bi-weekly runs, and he made me carry it the two miles back to the basement, where he hung it up with a heavy chain from the beam that ran the length of the room. It hung there for a number of days, until one day when he was attempting to explain how to focus one's Chi.

He was trying to explain it to me in his usual broken English, but I could barely understand what the hell he was trying to say, or how it related to my breathing. Suddenly he stopped and held up his finger, a sign to wait, and then walked over the the cinder block.

Suddenly, while standing in a very relaxed stance, his hand shot out and the cinder block exploded, not just broke, but EXPLODED. Afterward all that was left was one side of the block that the chain still managed to maintain in its grip.

You can bet I was suddenly VERY interested in Chi. (Just to answer the obvious question, yes I did manage to develop a comparatively pitiful ability to focus my internal energy, and NO I never was able to break a cinder block. I did break some boards and a brick or two, but the best I could do was to hit the block hard enough to make it swing. That, and render my hand unable to open for about two full days as well. It still aches on cold days.)

Anyhow when martial arts movies became popular I saw all of them, and I do mean ALL of them.

Many of them were quite horrible, but then I discovered Jackie Chan. Even a relatively bad Jackie Chan movie, and there ARE a few, is still a pretty great day at the movies, usually filled with plenty of humor and jaw dropping stunt work.