Ivan Arthur > Quotes

“Yes,’ he told her. ‘I had to learn not to fight first. Only then they would teach me how to fight.’ ‘Who taught you?’ ‘My kalaripayattu masters.’ ‘Kalaripayattu?’ ‘It’s a very old martial art of South India from where I come. But it is more than fighting.”
― Ivan Arthur, A Village Dies: Your Invitation to a Memorable Funeral

“Learning was easy, practice was not. Not so much the techniques of combat as the control of thoughts and the reining in of emotions: anger management, the resolve never to fight, to know when fighting was needed, and in those rare cases when it would be needed, never to fight in anger, because anger would consume the energy needed for combat. Fighting”
― Ivan Arthur, A Village Dies: Your Invitation to a Memorable Funeral