One of my all-time favorite sayings from my teacher, GM Choi, was “dragon head—piggy tail.” A quick google search yielded a similar Chinese phrase of Dragon head, snake tail, which was described as something that starts off initially very promising but then ends up disappointing.
We recently used this phrase in our mat chat, but I feel it bears repeating and further elaboration here. In class, we typically use it when someone is inconsistent with different aspects of technique or performance. Good form with good power but a weak kihap (show of spirit.) Or the opposite—loud answer, intense look to start, and then an unfocused and sloppy form. It is someone who starts the match or roll with lots of fight and enthusiasm but quickly wilts when things start going wrong. From these examples, you can tell that it is typically a disconnect among mind, body and spirit—where one or two are there but another is lacking.
But the phrase doesn’t only pertain to physical examples. Sadly, I see as many, if not more, curly tails in the realm of discipline and attitude. My goal is to be a black belt!….until it gets hard and requires work, even outside of class to improve my areas of deficiency; I want to win this upcoming tournament…but not enough to work on my cardio, and it is a nice day outside so maybe I will skip just this one class; I am serious about getting good at BJJ, but the grass needs mowed.
I see it in parents: I am bringing my child here to learn discipline and perseverance, but I am going to let them quit the minute they complain and don’t show discipline and perseverance.
I see it in the black belt who peaked at his test, has backslid, and now looks more like a colored belt in everyday performance.
I see it in other martial arts instructors who give lip service to discipline and healthy habits but are obese.
I see it in myself—just last week I bemoaned how the weekend seminar was taking away precious family time, but I still got sucked into my phone for 20 minutes when I got home. I missed workouts. I have fallen behind on my Korean language study goals.
To be human is to be part dragon and part pork. Naturally the phrase isn’t limited to martial arts and can be applied to the many common cases where we humans fall short. Anytime where we talk a good game and put our dragon face on, and maybe we have a great start, but we end up making more of an oink than a roar: in education or work, relationships, fitness and nutrition, or budgeting and finance, just to name a few.
It should be no shocker that I think martial arts is one of the best activities to help us avoid having our tail coil up. By experiencing challenging situations and facing fears, we gain the discipline, resilience, and perseverance needed to power through. Either through a belt test, tournament, or simply rolling in class, we are held accountable for our follow through (or lack thereof.) You can’t hide what type of tail you have in class. There is no team of dragons to hide behind if you are an oinker. Under pressure you either show you can breathe fire, or you cry wee wee wee all the way home.
Dragon head, piggy tail, is a colorful way of saying talk and initial good intentions are cheap, but you must follow through. Martial arts teach us this lesson the hard way, but thankfully the mats are an insulated world, where we can learn that lesson without it having as painful of ramification as it could in the other areas of life I mentioned. Failing this lesson on the mats doesn’t lead to flunking out, divorce, a coronary or bankruptcy. The DO, the martial WAY, instructs us to take that lesson from the mats and take it into the world. Ironically, one can be dragon head, piggy tail in applying that lesson into our everyday lives, so I wish you don’t take this rant to heart but still end up bacon. Personally, I am off to catch up on Korean and hit the gym.
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Gentry Martial Arts--the rants of a martial arts eccentric 