Drunk Without Wine Quotes

“Self-defense. Take the word apart. Fence — from defendere, to strike the threat away. Self — same root as "same," whole, undivided. For thirty-five years I taught people to defend the usurper who'd seized the throne. Real self-defense isn't blocking a punch. It's handing the throne back.”
― Sensei Max, Drunk Without Wine: A New Self-Defense, All the Way Through

“Combat Zen doesn't start with meditation. It starts with the fact that you're cold, you don't feel like it — and you get into your stance anyway.”
― Sensei Max, Drunk Without Wine: A New Self-Defense, All the Way Through

“Real certainty isn't about no longer doubting. It's about allowing yourself to be uncertain — letting doubt exist, letting fear exist, letting the shaking exist, without demanding you be a rock. The person who lets himself shake is no longer a slave to the shaking.”
― Sensei Max, Drunk Without Wine: A New Self-Defense, All the Way Through

“Anxiety doesn't live in the present. It can't — presence leaves no room for it, not for a single real second.

It survives behind eight locks. Guarding it. Feeding it. Keeping it standing long after whatever built it is gone.

One key opens all eight.

Wrote a whole book about it — "Drunk Without Wine”
― Sensei Max, Drunk Without Wine: A New Self-Defense, All the Way Through