How Watching The Tube as a Boy Made Me a More Disciplined Grown Up Today
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When I was a boy at public school, way before I moved on to the harsher times of highschool, I believed that there were three types of heroes in the world:
One: The superhero - guys like Spiderman who could triumph over evil despite looking pretty sketchy in their spandex outfits.
Two: The anti-hero - like the Incredible Hulk who tried to do good but was still treated like an outcast.
Three: The everyday hero - common folks like you and I who could do superhero things, with some training -- like firemen and policemen.
While the first two kinds were awesome enough, you never felt like you could be just like them. After all, how many times would an overdose of gamma radiation personally hit you? But the third sort Anybody could be like them, even a funny little kid like me. And, nowhere was this truer than with the 'Kung Fu' TV series.
It may be because it was so normal that I enjoyed it as much as I did. The hero didn't resemble the Hulk on steroids, and he didn't have to don a mask to hide his identity he'd take on all challengers and be proud to show who he was. All I knew was that between 1972 and 1975, at exactly 6:00pm, I'd be crouched in front of the television, hunched just like a meditating Chinese martial artist myself.
That program was also the first thing to introduce me to one of my favorite actors as well, David Carradine, who played the main character, Kwai Chang Cain. Okay, so he may not be the greatest actor on the planet, but you show me someone who is as laid-back as him and I'd bet he could lay the smack down on them. The fact that he was actually a trained martial artist made 'Kung Fu' an even better TV show, since he seemed to me just as scrawny as I was!
Born of an American father and Chinese mother, Cain becomes orphaned and becomes an outcast, and maybe I related to that, as my father passed away when I was very young, too. Taken in by Shaolin monks, they turn this scrawny little kid into the man that even Bruce Lee would respect. Discovering he has a half-brother called Danny, Cain (as an adult) he sets out on a journey across America to find him.
Though no specific episodes stood out for me as a kid, I always remembered the little lessons in every episode the philosophy of why I should strive to improve myself through honor and discipline. It must have worked, because 30 years later, I'm really earning my black belt in karate.
When I found out that you could get the complete 'Kung Fu' TV series, I almost wet my shorts (but my strong karate discipline stopped me, thank goodness!), since I never enjoyed the newer version of the series (which also starred Carradine as a descendent of Cain, and was shown in the nineties). Now all I need is my own little group of kids in my dojo, so I can share with them what made me the man I am today.
