Wax On, Wax Off
Happy Friday, friends of Speakeasy Tattoo, Los Angeles! How’s it goin? How’s the civil war goin? How’s 2021 goin?
Yeesh….anyway. Let us not dwell on things. Let this be your weekly respite.
Who’s seen Karate Kid?
Who HASN’T seen Karate Kid?
Who doesn’t love a tale of an old guy teaching a young kid to beat the hell out of another young kid? God I miss the 80s **sniffs**
“Oh god, Sweeve is going on another pop-culture tangent again.”
No no. Fear not. This won’t be a repeat of last week.
In Karate Kid, our protagonist, Daniel, is taken in to be trained by Karate master Mr. Miyagi. He begins Daniel’s training by having him perform laborious chores such as waxing cars, refinishing Miyagi’s fence, painting his house and so on. Naturally, Daniel gets frustrated, disenchanted, ready to quit.
This isn’t Karate. This isn’t teaching me to beat Johnny Lawrence’s ass!
So why am I talking about this?
Not a week goes by as an apprentice at Speakeasy where I don’t think about Mr. Miyagi’s “wax on, wax off.” Be it while folding a million paper towels or waxing one of the 74thousand motorcycles in the shop. Much like Mr. Miyagi, Mr. Glazier has, what may seem at first, an odd form of trai
There is also a contemplative, meditative aspect. In either Karate or Tattooing, there is a recurring theme of “excellence in everything you do, no matter how mundane.” (After all, one is permanently altering another’s body. You must be exact. There is zero room for error.) The underlying thread in this concept is meditation – a truly enlightened mind is meditating all of the time. Martial artists and tattoo artists alike often seeing their art as a meditation, find practice in everything they do. This is the deeper significance to disguising technique as chores.
Ultimately, or mastering most skills, there’s nothing better than being in the hands of a master teacher, one on one.
So next time you are folding laundry, take the time to reflect on the process. Don’t view as a chore that needs to be completed but as an opportunity to meditate. To be exact. To be excellent.
Thats all from me this week. Enjoy your weekend. -Sweeve