martial arts proverb?

[Quick Question]

Hi all,

I teach several technical drawing and computer modeling courses at Oregon INstitute of Technology. One of my students was telling me about a Japanese proverb he had learned in his martial arts class that I would very much like to trace down. HE did'nt remember it exactly, but the gyst of it was "learn the rules, apply the rules, break the rules".

Does any one know the correct version of the proverb? I would love to have both a phonetic pronunciation and the kanji characters.