One high Chinese official had an only son. He grew up as a smart boy, but he was restless, and no matter what they tried to teach him, he showed no diligence in anything, and his knowledge was only superficial. He knew how to draw and play the flute, but artlessly; studied the laws, but even the scribes knew more than him.
His father, concerned about this situation, apprenticed him to a famous martial artist in order to make his son’s spirit strong, as befits a real husband. However, the young man soon got tired of repeating the monotonous movements of the same blows. He turned to the master with the words:
- Teacher! How long can you repeat the same movement? Isn't it time for me to study real martial art, for which your school is so famous?
The master did not answer anything, but allowed him to repeat the movements after the older students, and soon the young man knew many techniques.
One day the master called the young man and handed him a scroll with a letter.
— Take this letter to your father.
The young man took the letter and went to the neighboring town where his father lived. The road to the city skirted a large meadow, in the middle of which an old man was practicing a punch. And while the young man walked around the meadow along the road, the old man tirelessly practiced the same blow.
- Hey, old man! - the young man shouted. - The air will beat you! You still won't be able to beat even a child!
The old man shouted back that he should try to defeat him first, and then laugh. The young man accepted the challenge.
Ten times he tried to attack the old man, and ten times the old man knocked him down with the same blow of his hand. A blow that he had been tirelessly practicing before. After the tenth time, the young man could no longer continue the fight.
- I could kill you with the first blow! - said the old man. - But you are still young and stupid. Go your own way.
Ashamed, the young man reached his father's house and gave him the letter. Unrolling the scroll, the father returned it to his son:
- This is for you.
In the teacher’s calligraphic handwriting it was written on it: “One blow, brought to perfection, is better than a hundred untrained ones.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru