| INSIDE U: How to Become a Master of Your Own Destiny by Grandmaster Byong Yu, with Tom Bleecker The following excerpt is taken from the new book Inside U: How to Become a Master of Your Own Destiny. Anyone who works with a computer knows the importance of routinely deleting files and folders that are no longer useful to make the machine run more efficiently. If you don't clean, scan, and defragment the hard drive, it can lock up or even crash. Women perform a similar cleaning with their purses. Every now and then, they dump the entire contents on a table, put back in those things that are useful and then discard the rest. By the same token, if you want to keep your mind running efficiently, you should occasionally empty it, reorganize it, and then, as with a computer, reboot it. In the late 1960s when I had my martial-arts studio in Berkeley, one of my students was a juvenile court judge. One day he asked me to come to the courthouse and join him in his chambers. He was dealing with a kid who was well on the road to becoming a habitual criminal, so he asked if I would be willing to take the boy under my wing. The judge had seen firsthand the positive results of martial-arts training and wanted to include such discipline as one of the conditions of this kid's probation. I agreed to give it a try. The following Monday this kid arrived for lessons, and by the end of two weeks, he was testing my boundaries every chance he got. He arrived late and wanted to leave early. Several times he showed up without his uniform and wanted to know what was wrong with training in jeans and a T-shirt. And he had a mouth that wouldn't quit. By the end of the third week, I'd had enough. When he arrived for his lesson, I told him to forget about suiting up--instead, he should follow me out back. There was a vacant lot behind my studio, and I walked this boy to the middle of the field and pointed to a pick and shovel I had placed on the ground. "Your training today is you're going to dig!" I said. The kid looked at me with defiance and retorted, "Dig what?" "A hole. Eight feet long, four feet wide, and six feet deep!" I barked back. The boy was aghast. "You want me to dig a grave?" "That's right. If you refuse, I'll call the judge right now, and he can send a police unit over here to drive you to that detention center. I have had it with you." The boy argued with me for a few minutes but finally gave in. It took him nearly two hours in the hot sun to dig that hole, and when he was finished, I reappeared. "Get in!" I said, pointing down at the bottom. "What, are you crazy? I dug the hole like you said." "What I said was 'get in!' Lie down on the bottom -- on your back with your eyes looking straight up!" Reluctantly, the kid did as he was told, for he knew I meant business. After clearing away some rocks, he lay down on his back with his arms at his sides. "I'll be back in an hour," I informed him. "And I'll be checking in on you every now and then, so just stay in that position and don't even think about going to sleep!" The kid seemed relieved that I wasn't going to start shoveling dirt on top of him. I did check on him several times, and at the end of the hour I peered down on him. His eyes were bulging, his face was ghostly white, and his body was drenched in sweat. It was hot down at the bottom of that hole, but the sweat that covered him was caused by fear. "All right, get out of there!" I ordered in a firm voice. The boy scrambled from that hole like he was being chased by a great white shark. He dusted himself off, wiped the wall of sweat from his face, and then stood staring back at me. "How was it down there?" I asked. "Horrible. I'm glad I'm out," he replied in a weak voice. "I'm sure you are. Now I'm going to tell you something. You keep leading the life you've been living -- hanging out with those gangs and running off that mouth of yours and disrespecting your parents, teachers and every other authority figure in your life -- you'll be back in that hole a lot sooner than you think. Only on the next trip, your eyes won't be open, and you won't be breathing, because you'll be dead. Do you understand what I'm saying?" "Yes, sir," he replied. It was the first time I'd heard him speak sincerely. I could tell that he was scared -- he had tasted what it would feel like to die an early death, and he wanted no part of it. "All right," I responded. "Come back into the studio. You're not finished with today's lesson." "Yes, sir." He followed me into the studio, where I sat him down and handed him a tablet of paper and a pen. "I want you to write down all the things you don't like about yourself. Write about that militant attitude you have, about the things you've done in your life that you're not proud of, and your unkind thoughts. If you'd like to see me dead because I put you in that hole, write that down. I'll be back in an hour, and I want to see those pages full." "Yes, sir." That kid worked hard for the full hour. In fact, he became so engrossed in what he was writing that he asked for an additional 15 minutes. Finally, he appeared at the doorway to my office and told me that he was finished. He handed me the tablet, expecting me to read what he had written. "I don't want to read it," I said. "And no one else is going to read it either. Follow me." We walked back to the hole he'd dug in back of the studio. I pointed at the bottom and said, "Throw it in." After he threw the tablet into that grave, I told him to take the shovel and fill up the hole. Fifteen minutes later the job was finished. This time I talked to him in a much softer voice: "What you've done today is to tend to your mind garden. You've cleaned up a big mess that was in there and buried it forever. All those things that you didn't like about yourself are no longer a part of your garden. They're buried and gone." For the first time in years, that kid heard something that made him feel good about himself. He fell into my arms and broke down in tears. After he had a good and long-overdue cry, we returned to the studio because he wanted to resume his training. He took a quick shower and put his uniform on. Those next two hours with him were some of the best I've ever spent with a student -- that kid gave me his best, and he was proud of his accomplishments. Over the next six months, I intensified his training. The change in him was miraculous. Ultimately, he completed his probation without incident and graduated from high school with good grades. Years later, he married and fathered two fine children. I often hear from him, and he tells me that his life just gets better and better -- and it all began from the day he emptied his mind and buried the parts of himself that were preventing him from becoming the best person he could be. You can do a similar exercise that will empty your mind of all the negative thinking that's causing you to be your own worst enemy. Set aside a few hours and go to a quiet place where you won't be disturbed. Take a tablet of paper and pen and write down all the things you don't like about yourself. Be sure to include the times in your life where you have done or said things that have been hurtful to others. When you've finished, find a place to bury that tablet. You don't have to dig an actual six-foot grave (unless you want to) -- you can throw that tablet into the bottom of your garbage to be taken to the local landfill. What's important is that, from the moment you discard that tablet, you walk away from it with the conviction that you have buried the negative side of your old self forever and that it will not be returning. If you've done this with sincerity and honesty, I guarantee you that you'll be amazed by how good you'll begin to feel about yourself and the world around you. Inside U: How to Become a Master of Your Own Destiny was published by Hay House, Inc., and is available in August 2003 in all bookstores or call 1 (800) 654-5126. Copyright © 2003 Grandmaster Byong Yu and Tom Bleecker |
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