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“For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense. But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.”
–Ecclesiastes 7:12
As a member of Generation X, I have to take a moment to jump back in time to talk about an epic ‘80s teen action movie that hit the big screen back on June 22, 1984. The popular film that I want to discuss involves a powerful coming-of-age story about a young teenage boy named Daniel LaRusso (played by Ralph Macchio) in the movie The Karate Kid.
Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you’ve seen this movie, but just in case you haven’t I’m going to highlight and summarize the most profound moment of this film here.
In the movie, The Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso is a teenage boy that moves to a new town with his single mom. In the process of moving into their new apartment Daniel meets an interesting old man downstairs named Mr. Miyagi (played by Pat Morita).
As it turns out, Mr. Miyagi happens to be the maintenance man that works at the apartment complex where Daniel and his mother move in.
As Daniel tries his best to settle into an unfamiliar town and school as the new kid, he immediately starts to encounter problems. For Daniel, these problems manifest with some local kids who end up bullying him; to make matters worse, they also happen to be a part of the Cobra Kai karate dojo.
One night Daniel ends up getting chased by these bullies from a Halloween party. Luckily, Mr. Miyagi ends up intervening and having to demonstrate his own elite martial arts skills in order to save Daniel from Johnny Lawrence and the other Cobra Kai students. After this encounter, Daniel is amazed with Mr. Miyagi’s ability to fight off the group. This is when Daniel asks Mr. Miyagi if he can train him so that he can defend himself against the Cobra Kai students.
Initially, Mr. Miyagi refuses to train Daniel, but is eventually convinced to do so, agreeing to help Daniel settle the matter by training him to face his bullies at the All Valley Karate Tournament.
It’s at this point that Daniel thinks Mr. Miyagi is a bit crazy for agreeing to enroll him in the tournament, but, at the same time, he’s excited that Mr. Miyagi has agreed to train him in the discipline of Okinawan karate.
When it’s time for Daniel to show up at Mr. Miyagi’s house to start his training, he’s caught off guard when Mr. Miyagi hands him a couple of sponges and two pails of water while instructing him to wash and wax all of his classic cars. In the process, Mr. Miyagi demonstrates to Daniel how to wax on and wax off by performing an outside in circular motion with his hands to properly do the chore.
Once Daniel completed waxing Mr. Miyagi’s cars he was then instructed to sand the floor of Mr. Miyagi’s deck. Again, Daniel’s disappointment clearly shows as Mr. Miyagi demonstrates to him how to perform the opposite movement of wax on, wax off by instead performing an inside-out circular motion with his hands in order to sand the floor of his deck.
As Daniel finishes sanding the deck, he’s then asked to paint the tall wooden fence that surrounds Mr. Miyagi’s property. Once again, there’s a very specific technique involved with performing the chore where Daniel is expected to maintain a wrist up, wrist down motion when performing the long paint strokes.
Finally, after finishing the fence Daniel is then instructed by Mr. Miyagi to paint his house. Again, the technique was very specific in this chore and involved long side-to-side brush strokes to perform the task. It was clear at this stage of the work Daniel was extremely frustrated and when he sees Mr. Miyagi, preparing to go fishing, Daniel finally snaps and confronts him accusing him of using him for slave labor.
It’s at this point that Mr. Miyagi transforms Daniel’s effort in performing these tasks into a demonstration revealing to him that his muscle memory had developed from the work without him even realizing it.
In a stunning moment of truth Mr. Miyagi then asks Daniel to show him each movement involved with each of the chores that he had used to perform the tasks around his house. Mr. Miyagi initially gives Daniel a small reminder involved with each technique before asking him to put the movements together in a way that a fighter would perform in a standing ready position.
Mr. Miyagi then asks Daniel to show him wax on, wax off, but it’s at this moment that he throws a punch at Daniel after making the request. This results in Daniel quickly reacting to block the punch with the wax on, wax off handmotion involved in the movement.
Mr. Miyagi then goes on to demonstrate the same thing to Daniel with the ‘wrist up, wrist down’ paint-the-fence movement, the ‘side-to-side’ paint-the-house movement, and the ‘big circles’ with the sand-the-floor movement. In each demonstration Mr. Miyagi throws a different strike at Daniel with Daniel successfully blocking every strike that Mr. Miyagi throws his way.
Mr. Miyagi, having assigned these tasks, ensured that Daniel had mastered the exact neuromuscular motor skills that he needed to subconsciously train the ability to parry the strikes. The power of this was that Daniel had mastered these tasks without the “interference” of conscious thought.
The payoff is the result of one of film’s most powerful revelations. When Daniel finally erupts in anger, Miyagi launches a series of strikes in Daniel’s direction. Instinctively, Daniels hands fly into motion successfully deflecting every strike due to the physical movements he had developed from his labor.
The stunning look of disbelief that is left on Daniel’s face says it all as he realizes his “chores” were the result of his newly developed skill. This testament of Miyagi’s wisdom leaves Daniel completely astounded as true mastery begins when you don’t even realize that you’re learning.
So, what does Daniel’s profound experience with Mr. Miyagi have to do with the Maximalist Strategy, President Trump’s main thesis, and the dominos of falling proxies in today’s big episode reveal?
Daniel never realized the profound power of Mr. Miyagi’s wisdom until he had endured the challenge of discipline in carrying out the chores that were placed in front of him. Like Daniel, the chores for you acquiring your wisdom must involve your own discipline of action.
If the ‘Wax On, Wax Off’ of the last four years has been your subconscious training, then this is the moment you can finally deflect all the strikes that are flying in your direction. To bypass the Rehoboam Drift and secure the full hardware of the Maximalist Strategy, you must now Uniform Up with an annual $50 commitment.
Join the Zenith Vanguard today to authorize your seat and witness exactly how the proxies fall.
