3 Life Lessons From Wing Chun Practice

3 Life Lessons From Wing Chun Practice

3 Life Lessons From Wing Chun Practice

I have committed to a daily meditation practice for 8 years. This practice has taught me the way to hook up with the vast cavern of quiet stillness that resides behind all of the brain chatter which may if left unchecked, run our lives and cause inordinate amounts of suffering. Eventually, I started to yearn for self-defense that might allow me to draw upon this reservoir of silent power and put it into action. Enter Wing Chun.

Although I still flush out exciting relationships between Wing Chun and life generally, I would like to specialize in three profound life lessons that struck me immediately as I started my spiritual journey into the guts of Wing Chun.

Move Forward And Lean into The Sharp Points

A common saying that any fledgling Wing Chun enthusiast will encounter is: "Greet what comes, escort what leaves, and rush on the loss of contact." "Greet what comes" means when an opponent directs a blow at you, the primary goal is to move forward and to form contact thereupon energy-not to back away so that you simply gain some control. the purpose is to satisfy the offensive energy head-on. If someone withdraws an attack, you follow it and "escort" it away, but not thus far away that you simply lose your center. And if you are feeling a niche or a hole in your opponent's defense, you "rush on the loss of contact" with a fierce attack. The principle here is progress.

Naturally, when someone strikes, the standard response is to flinch or to withdraw. But this simply allows your offender to "rush," as a niche has opened in your defense and get in touch with has been lost. This jogs my memory of readings in Buddhist philosophy which explore "leaning into the sharp points" of life. Wing Chun is a perfect example of this concept. When the steepness of the mountain becomes more offensive, you want to dig in and summon up greater energy to satisfy its demand in order that you'll overcome it. the foremost exquisite vistas are only experienced via the trouble and forward intent of the climb. this is often true of numerous aspects of life. Leaning into the sharp points means you'll experience the best joy by looking at life right within the eye and meeting it head-on, including its tougher or unsavory aspects. the problem of the climb is essentially associated with how great and expansive the resulting view is going to be.

What are the "sharp points" in your life? Does the anxiety you are feeling prepared to talk publicly cause you to avoid the occasion altogether with a timely excuse? does one then slink away and suffer the emotional pangs that come from knowing you've did not express your potential yet again? Or does one meet the nervousness head-on, bravely risking judgment and rejection so you'll feel the joys of sharing your message with an audience?

So, subsequent time you greet an opponent's strike with a bong, roll your arm into a tan to cast the strike aside and finish with a palm strike, marvel at the lesson contained within that Sil Lim Tao form. At its very core lies the simplicity of "leaning into the sharp points" with forwarding intent, and thus moving bravely into your own potential as a person's being.

Just Enough

As newbies to any physical pursuit, we frequently focus our concentration on the fundamentals of physical movement because the nerve connection pathways to our muscles aren't yet developed. But an excessive amount of concentration invariably creates rigidity. consider your very first golf swings, or awkwardly trying to serve your first birdie in badminton. no matter the new endeavor, your brain isn't yet focused on the essence of the flow of movement. Rather, your brain directs an excessive amount of attention here or there, making your movement pattern rigid, clumsy, and lacking flow.

The Wing Chun practice of Chi Sau or "rolling" makes this relationship between concentration and rigidity very apparent. once you are rolling during this sensitivity drill with a partner, you're simultaneously reading the energy in your partner's movement pattern so as to seek out a hole in their defense while directing attention to your own defense. Both of your hands do various things in an active dance that's completely different whenever you are doing it. This drill teaches you to not push an excessive amount of attention into either of your hands, but rather to intuitively feel the general energy exchange happening together with your partner. If you're caught placing an excessive amount of bent fixing your attack, it'll cause a rigidity that your partner will immediately feel and be ready to exploit.

The key's to drive "just enough" concentration into each of your arms in order that your movements are swift, exacting, and capable of unleashing lethal attacks should the proper gap appear in your opponent's defense-but, not such a lot that your intentions are recognizable and felt by your opponent.

Have you ever felt yourself gripping or grasping something much harder than is required to urge the work done? I often find myself gripping the handlebar of my all-terrain bike with more pressure than is important on a steep incline, wasting valuable energy that would be redirected to efficiently drive the powertrain, which is way more useful. or even you recognize someone who over-grips the wheel once they drive, white-knuckling at 10 and a couple of. this type of rigid grip creates a jerky ride and reduces response time.

This lesson has profound implications for your life. Imagine that your health is often symbolized by a wheel, with each spoke representing the various aspects of your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. If you place all of your attention on one spoke only, the wheel as an entire will immediately spin of balance, becoming ovoid instead of circular. Imagine riding a bicycle with an oval tire-not exactly smooth sailing! we frequently see people, for instance, who place an excessive amount of importance on their physical self, leading to the risky behaviors we commonly see like fad diets, cosmetic surgery, steroid use, eating disorders, etc. You get the thought. an excessive amount of attention paid to anybody's area of your being can cause an instantaneous loss of balance.

Observe whether there are many examples in your life where you pay an excessive amount of attention, or not enough, to anybody thing. Is it causing a rigidity that's dampening your overall performance, health, or preferred outcome? Are you overly frugal, taking coupon-cutting to the extreme? does one place an excessive amount of attention on your child's progress, fretting and worrying about every bump, scrape, or bad grade?

As a chiropractor, I see many patients who experience muscle tension in certain parts of their bodies. once I ask them if they will attempt to focus their attention and relax, they often find that they need the power to voluntarily reduce the strain therein area. It's as if their body has become wired during a specific muscle-stress program that makes pain and imbalance, but when attention is directed to smooth this tension, the matter abates. Try that specialize in what proportion of tension you hold in your jaw, or within the area between your eyebrows. These are samples of just these sorts of muscle-stress programs, and lots of them are often helped just by smoothing out that energy with a simple focus from within.

There are many samples of how our imbalanced attention can cause the flow of our bodies, minds, and lives to urge all jammed up. I feel the essence of a life well-lived is exemplified in Wing Chun's practice-placing "just enough" attention on exactly what's necessary within the dance of life to permit yourself to heal, explore, grow and conquer new personal frontiers.

Path of least effort 

In Wing Chun's practice, if a hole exposes in your opponent's defense, you want to strike with a fierceness that is meant to finish the fight as quickly as possible. If your strike is deflected or blocked, you're trained to instantly drop the attack's intent, allowing the rigidity of your strike to dissipate. This prevents the rigidity from getting used against you; your opponent could use your stiff arm as a lever to throw you off or to tug your body into their next attack.

All of your strikes and hand forms require full commitment in each moment-just until the precise micro-second when your intent must change in response to your opponent. the instant that your blow is deflected or blocked, you want to immediately allow your hands to become flaccid in preparation for subsequent attack.

In numerous of life's pursuits, we set a selected path so as to realize a goal. it's only too easy to become rigid therein plan as we encounter barriers or conflicts. When things, people, or circumstances block our intended path, many folks react proudly, with fear, anxiety, or anger, often making the goal far more difficult or impossible to attain. We grind to a halt on negative emotional states, and as we grow old, our viewpoints can become more focused, we will become judgemental, we will develop less tolerance due to our opinions, and we can get hung abreast of all our preferences. I once heard, "If you would like to suffer, have many preferences".

Intuitive essence is often felt within the spaces between seconds during Wing Chun's practice. you'll literally feel how over-commitment to a strike will create a plus for your opponent. you'll feel how if you meet strong resistance by a deflection or block, you want to flow around the resistance and become flaccid, opening yourself up to a replacement path. That path remains within the direction of your goal, but now it allows the presence of life to guide you, even as water flows effortlessly around rocks. And what a gorgeous lesson is that?

* * * * * *