A good chef can make good kung fu

I was having an interesting conversation with my brother who is a Chef and surprisingly I found some strong similarities between the art of cooking and martial arts.
What makes a good chef?
We must consider internal and external factors. A very skilled chef cannot prepare a good dish without good ingredients. Conversely, if he has top quality food but few skills; dishes will still be mediocre and so on and so forth!
The skills and knowledge of a chief can only be as good as the ingredients and tools he has.




Teamwork is also important because complex menus can only be cooked by chefs with combined complementary experience! All of this can be translated in kung fu. A good practitioner needs to have excellent knowledge and skills, healthy mind in a healthy body, team-work and leadership.

How do you plan to perform your shaolinquan if you can barely run for 4 minutes when the form requires 10 times more effort than running?
How can you perform a tao lu if you cannot remember the basic movements?
How can you do a flying kick if you can barely throw a front kick?
How can you do a group performance if you are not aware of your surroundings?

I saw good athletes who perform well solo but are very bad in group performance.
I saw athletes with excellent stamina, strength and flexibility not being able to focus on 4 simple movements.

So if you want to be a good kungfu practitioner you need to have the basic ingredients (body & mind), the knowledge (techniques and philosophy),teamwork (other awareness).