5 Karate Kid Quotes for Today’s Sigma Nu
By Drew Logsdon (Western Kentucky)
Netflix’s newest hit show Cobra Kai has taken off since it came to Netflix from YouTube Premium, but before that, there was the original hit film Karate Kid. The original film (we promise no spoilers) featured a standard story for the 1980s teenage-focused films. While the movie’s main conflict was around teenage hero Daniel LaRusso and teenage bad-boy Johnny Lawrence, a critical piece of the film was the role of Mr. Miyagi played by the late Japanese American actor Pat Morita.
Like any film from the 1980s, we were left with some amazing one-liners (Sweep the leg!) but also some amazing pieces of wisdom, almost exclusively from Mr. Miyagi, that still hold water today for any Sigma Nu.
“No such thing as a bad student, only bad teacher.”
Consider your chapter’s candidate program and the critical role that brothers play in ensuring they’re modeling the way for candidates. Many candidates join a chapter after just a few weeks of school, which is important for ensuring they’re establishing an important support network early on, but it also means the chapter needs to ensure they’re getting the right tone and example from the very start.
“If come from inside you, always right one.”
Be authentic! There’s only one of you in this entire world, and that’s important. Too many college students believe they must be the inauthentic version of themselves to be welcomed, but that’s simply not the case for every chapter I’ve met. If anything, your chapter welcomes your authenticity and uniqueness.
“Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better.”
Are you balanced right now, or do you feel like you’re barely standing upright? Sigma Nu will be a critical piece of your life, but it shouldn’t be the only critical piece. Ensure you’re making time for other things that interest you on campus, your hobbies, and especially your academics. And that goes both ways too, because a life committed to Call of Duty leaves little room for academic and fraternal excellence.
“Never put passion in front of principle. Even if you win, you’ll lose.”
Sigma Nu calls us to adhere to its founding principles of Love, Honor, and Truth. But it can be easy to put your passion in front of those principles for the sake of winning an argument. We can be passionate about the things we care about, but if we’re not putting that passion through the filter of our principles then we’re failing our oath.
“You trust the quality of what you know, not quantity.”
Frequently, those who are a jack-of-all-trades are a master of none of them. The same goes for knowledge. If you have an opinion, be sure that you’re also looking at it with a critical eye and not finding more of the same in the echo chamber to reinforce it.