3 Badass Women of History
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast where we forget about yesterday. We don't worry about tomorrow. It's what are we going to do today? This all matters because you've only ever had or will ever have the fantastic twenty four hours a day you're about to embark on. So hopefully this episode is going to give you some daily dose of wisdom that you can take action on today to improve your life.
Speaker 1:Remember, all it takes is one day at a time. Good morning everyone it's Monday new week, new chance to have a good week basically if you've had a weekend where you felt meh, if you had, maybe you had a little binge session at the end of last week or whatever it may be if it's something that's playing on your mind forget it, it's gone, it's done, today's a new day so get over what's happened and today is twenty four hours to make the most of it. Right? What else is important today is International Women's Day And, I have mentioned this book before, but it's called 100 Nasty Women of Brilliant Badass and Completely Fearless Women Everybody Should Know. I'm gonna read two stories from this book, they're short.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of swearing. I'm not gonna cut that out because it adds to the humor, I think. I'm gonna read two of them which are relevant to us. Well, one of them is very relevant to this challenge and, yeah, let's get some badass stories to start our badass week. Here it goes, is the first one.
Speaker 1:The five elders of Shaolin may or may not have existed but if they did they may or may not have lived at the Shaolin Temple which may or may not have been destroyed by the Qing dynasty of China in either 1647, '16 '70 '4 or 1732. If these events did happen then one of the five elders may or may not have been Wu Mei also known as Nmu and if she was then she was she is the inventor of several powerful and deadly martial art forms. For the sake of argument let's just say all the following is true. Once upon a time a young woman named Yim Wing Chun said she'd only marry some crappy local warlord whose proposal she had rejected if he could beat her in a fight. She wasn't into him at all so she went to our girl Wu Mei to learn how to fly kick a man in the face which as everyone knows is the best reason to undertake any type of exercise.
Speaker 1:Wu Mei said that her system was inspired by a fight between a snake and a crane. It was such a deadly method that she generally kept it to herself that she went ahead and taught it to Yim Wing Chun according to the doctrine of sisters before misters. And so young Wing Chun kicked that warlord's ass and the martial art style came to be known as Wen Chun. It's a system which your attack and your defense are wrapped up in a single move like when you're at a club and avoid the advances of a creepy creepy rando by making out with some okay seaman looking dude. If our girl Wu Mei did exist she also may or may not have chopped off the head of a tyrannical emperor before retiring to become a Buddhist nun, a nun who fought for justice with the power of a flying kicking men in the face and she may have once kicked a kung fu master in the neck in the defense of a 14 year old boy or she may not have, who's to say.
Speaker 1:That's all we have about Wu Mei but honestly it's more than we deserve. Now you might be thinking Wing Chun, I've heard of Wing Chun. Wing Chun is the martial arts that Bruce Lee was taught in. And Wing Chun is, basically what Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do is based off. So like more than 50% of Bruce Lee's martial art style is Wing Chun.
Speaker 1:When it comes to now woman. She started it, this badass Wu Mei who decided to help a girl called Wing Chun in a fight against a guy and you know, she kicked his ass. So that's where Wing Chun comes from, is a quite a cool history if you think about it. So fair play to her. So yes, women are meant to do martial arts, of course, like some women started the best one, which Bruce Lee did.
Speaker 1:So without Wing Chun, without the woman who may help him, Wing Chun the woman, Bruce Lee may not have been the person he was. So you know and also that's probably it's probably helped loads of other martial arts as well. Anyway, next one. This one's funny. Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is Ching Shu. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Listen, the most important thing you need to know about Ching Shu or Zheng Shi is that not only was she a pirate who fucked up vast stretches of the sea in the nineteenth century but she was the most successful pirate in the history of the world. She up that glass ceiling has been holding lady pirates back too long, she commanded a goddamn fleet of tens of thousands of pirate underlings, she up the British, she woohoo the English, she fucked up the Portuguese and the British and the Portuguese were some of the worst motherfuckers on the sea. She saw the Qing dynasty, she thought well hello there and fucked it up too.
Speaker 1:Qing Shi was born in 1775 in Guangdong China and started out as a sex worker in a brothel, does this matter? Fuck no, it doesn't matter who you are or where you start from as long as you work hard and become the most fearless pirate of all time. She started her proper pirate and after marrying her pirate boo and together they joined the pirate activities. At some point he fucking died, men always let you down. Qing Shu carried on commanding their fleet of ships and turned it into an even bigger one.
Speaker 1:Her fleet had it all, it had loot, it had men, it had big ass ships, it menaced the goddamn ocean, it was so rich and so successful that it ended up fully fledging business empire, thriving off taxes from captured coastal towns. She taxed her pirate underlings on their booty lol and she got fucking rich. Qing Shu Pirate Empire had fucking laws. If you broke the laws RIPU. If you captured a wife but weren't faithful to her RIPU.
Speaker 1:If you raped someone you were dead. It was well, it was a very well oiled machine and they called her the terror of the South China which is pretty metal. The Chinese government was so sick of her shit that they offered her and all her pirates amnesty if she would just fucking stop fucking him around for a second. They even let her keep her loot. She was such a fucking good pirate that she lived long enough to retire from piracy and take up bingo some shit instead.
Speaker 1:She actually got married and had a kid and opened a Cambly House. Where are the lady pirates in our children's stories? Where are the strong empowered lady pirates who don't need no man pirates? We need more lady pirates. We need a take to the seas.
Speaker 1:Girls study your navigation, it's time to take to the seas. Why don't we know that the most successful pirate in history was a woman? Why when we think of pirates do we dress up as goddamn Johnny ass tech instead of ass kicking cool ass bitch Ching Shu? I'm livid. These are questions someone must answer post haste.
Speaker 1:That's what you need to know about Ching Shu. Oh god, That's funny. This book, the way it's written is is hilarious. I think the author's done a great job. But there are two stories.
Speaker 1:The best pirate of all time, messing up the biggest empires at the end of day and China, mind. So British the British, Portuguese and the Chinese in one go, lived lived all the way to the end and the same with the the Wing the Wu Mei who who invented Wing Chun. So two highly successful badass women. So there's your inspiration for today. So hopefully you're inspired by those two women I mean you know maybe you can kick some ass, maybe you should go, maybe you should have a fight I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't think you should kill anyone but I think there's some good take on points from there. I'm not responsible for your ass kicking today if you are gonna do it you know, Cobra Kai's open before waiting. There's no mercy. So it's up to you. What you do with this newfound information, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, week five, two more weeks to go. Don't panic about that. There's more information coming on the turtle membership in week six, so don't worry about it at all. Just focus on today. What can you do today?
Speaker 1:What's your one big thing? And I'm thinking of doing so an idea for you guys, I'm thinking of doing something I'm calling CrossFit for getting shit done. So it's not actual CrossFit, but basically, it's gonna be like a thirty minute session, maybe on a Monday morning after Max's workouts, where we're gonna go through like all our to dos. So you'll have two minutes to do write down all your to dos. Then you'll have two minutes to put then you'll have a minute to think of your ninety day goal, your thirty day goal.
Speaker 1:Right? And then you're gonna have three minutes to create an Eisenhower matrix, is like your urgent task and you're gonna put all the to do is you just wrote down into your Eisenhower matrix. Then you're gonna pick your one big thing from the urgent list to do that day. Then you get a few more other minutes, it'll be break, I'll be you know guiding through this. Then you'll have like a few minutes then to put all the other tasks that were an urgent into your week and then after that you're gonna schedule the work that you're do.
Speaker 1:And then basically within half an hour, you're gonna sort your entire week out. You're gonna have all your urgent tasks like listed out. No one we're gonna do them as you one big thing. And you're gonna feel a huge relief of stress because you're gonna go like, you know what? All these are in my mind and now on a piece of paper, I know exactly what I need to get done this week.
Speaker 1:But more important than that, I know exactly what I need to get done today. So let me know if you fancy that idea. It'll only be thirty minutes and I'll be guiding it guiding you all through it in like two minute chunks on Monday mornings maybe going forward. But other than that one big thing what is it let me know happy International Women's Day sadly you know comment below your favorite, your most success, the woman you look up to the most comment below I want to know what's the story, why, who is it, Put it in the comments and let's get chatting and I'll see you in a Q and A later with a big Dawn. And that's it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the one day at a time podcast with your host, Scott Fleer. Hopefully you understood something I said. I hope that some wisdom kind of distilled through into your mind, and I want you to now action it today. I don't want you to think about tomorrow. I don't want you to think about yesterday.
Speaker 1:I don't want you to think about leaving a review on this podcast. I don't want you to think about going to another website. What I want you to do is as soon as this podcast ends, you will take action and make the most of today. Ground yourself today. Follow the one day at a time philosophy, and your life will change.
