The Journey Within

In push hands, one of my teacher’s favourite quote is to tell us not to push your partner into oblivion.

Push 70% and leave 30% for yourself (逼人七分，留三分给自己）

I’ve unconsciously recorded this in my mind, only to realise I like the quote because I used it in my teaching as well!

The reason he gave? If you push all the way, there is no turning back. You force your partner into a position where he’ll get hurt and that’s not good. You’ll hurt his body as well as his ego, especially if you do this umpteen times. It’s also less of a learning opportunity for both if all you do is push the guy away. Most importantly, it’s for safety.

The Book of Five Rings, a book about the way of the Samurai, says that

the fighting instinct is greatest when an animal is cornered with no place to run

Similarly, when cornered into an apparently no win situation, our survival instinct would mean us using all means necessary to lift ourselves away from such position. You could argue that this brings out the best in you, but to what extent are you willing to do this? Hurting the partner? Hurting yourself? Doing something you’ll regret later?

This quote recently surfaced again when there was some verbal abuse going on at work. We don’t need to fight all the way. We can choose to leave some retreating ground for the “opponent”. It should be enough to show the opponent that no further fight is needed, but not too much to show your opponent who’s boss, tempting the person to come back with a revengeful heart.

Of course, all this is well and good in theory. In the heat of the moment, the compassion may not shine through and leads to a lose-lose-lose situation – you lose the respect from your opponent, you lose the lesson, and most importantly, you lose control of yourself and gave in to circumstances.

A compassionate teacher always loses, but is the lost worth it? Are you willing to win to lose yourself, or lose to win yourself? Or is there a third way? I think by not forcing your opponent all the way, you win your opponent, win the lesson and win yourself. Why choose any other way?

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Ok, a recent weigh in clocks my weight at 76.7kg. I have to say, it does feel like I’ve swallowed a Boeing 767! I’m 1.76m tall, which puts my Body Mass Index at 24.76, which according to the same people who devised the Body Mass Index, that I am bordering on being overweight. I can’t help to notice the recurring number 76.

After the rambling to state simply that I need to lose some weight to avoid buying new trousers, I’ve recently started running more regularly. I started with a goal of running 10 runs in 4 weeks (Nike plus makes it easy to set this with some pretty graphics). I’m at my 6th run with 11 days to go.

I was recently told that the first 20 minutes of a run will only burn 20% of fat and 80% of carbohydrates. The next 20 minutes will have the ratio closer to 50/50. After 40 minutes, 80% of fat will start burning compared to 20% carbohydrates. My runs vary between 3km and 6km, and they never exceed 40 minutes. I guess I’ve only been burning the donuts I had during teatime. No wonder the waistline is still expanding. I think the donuts have to go…

Of course, I didn’t take you through my uninteresting attempts at losing weight to tell you about the donuts I had. I want to highlight a point which keeps popping up about learning. It’s interesting to note that only after 40 minutes that more work is done. It’s only when I’m tired that the real learning begins.

I’ve been trying Chi Running every time I run, adjusting here and there to improve on the technique, and let pain be the teacher. But it’s always after a certain period that pain starts to set in. Then, and only then, the learning begins. I try to adjust the body to do away with the pain so that the Chi Running technique is more refined. It’s only during this period that the learning is at it’s peak, or at it’s bottom, if I give up due to the discomfort.

I believe this is probably true with anything you’re trying to learn. You learn less during the initial period of learning, a period when you’re eased into the learning material. You most likely will find the initial learning easy, or even trivial. But it’s only when you’re at it for a certain period that the real learning kicks in, when the learning material really challenges you.

So give it a try. Whether you’re learning something new, or want to re-learn Geography, realise that you’ll learn less during the initial stages, but don’t give up once the learning curve takes an up-turn. This is when the learning really begins, and this is when you’ll feel best about yourself, after you ride out the pain to take learning up a notch. It’s true what they say, pain can be a real teacher, but do challenge yourself sensitively, and not just fight pain for the sake of fighting it!

Now, where’s my donut…

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If I know I am dying, I would like to be like Anita Roddick (Body Shop founder). Well, even if I don’t know I’m dying, there’s no reason not to share her wisdom on how to live! To quote her “I could be facing liver cancer tomorrow. It makes me more determined to just get on with things”. She contracted Hepatitis C due to a blood transfusion.

The sad part about reality is that death is a certainty. We are all going to die one day. So how is our not knowing about when death knocks change the way we “get on with things”? Why can’t we just get on with things, period? Knowing that death is just round the corner doesn’t actually give you any new information about death itself. You will still die, and you still need to get on with life. So go on, get on with life, don’t wait to find out that death is round the corner, because that possibility has always been there, and death itself has always been a certainty.

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I’ve been doing the Sun style form since my first lesson with my current teacher. After learning the whole form, it’s been doing it over and over again. The one consistent message which keeps coming through is this – my form lacks substance.

I’ve been trying to figure out what this “substance” is. I think it’s the peng quality that should be present at all times, yet my teacher’s peng is so hidden, I only realise it when i’m already off balance in push hands. It could be the whole body movement thing. Whatever it is, I was brought to a realisation of what “no substance” is instead of what “substance” is.

One of my push hands buddy gave me an empty push – he was pushing with his hands rather than any movement of the body. And it was done with such speed that it gave the impression of overpowering. It was then I understood what does “no substance” mean. Like a child waving a branch at a cat, the dead branch does not have any substance. If the child plans to whip the cat with the branch, the branch will then contain a kind of tension waiting to be released upon contact – and that’s substance.

From that child and branch analogy, I guess what I should be looking for is to have that kind of tension stored in the body at all times. Wouldn’t that be tiring? I’m not sure. But I already know what the second step is – to hide the tension, which I suppose, I need to relax the whole body, which in turn might be the first step towards having that kind of hidden tension my teacher has. It sounds like relaxing is the key so that you only release that kind of tension when you need it.

Relax to have tension. The statement is an irony in itself. Am just chasing my own tail?

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I am slowly aware of how different kind of teaching suits different people, now that I’m experimenting with my own students. However, the method that my current teacher is using, may not suit most people. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is – is he even teaching anything?!!

I’m still doing Sun style. I don’t think I’m trying to perfect it, but more of trying to feel the qualitative difference between whole body movement and “broken” movements. I am more or less been left alone trying to “feel” it. It’s different from what previous teachers do. Some try to bombard you with the hoard of knowledge they have. Some doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Some will correct every little bits to the nth degree. And now, no correction at all.

I’m not saying which one is best. I think the best teaching is that which suits me at this time. Sometimes, I wish he corrects me more, but sometimes, I think this is actually the kind of teaching I need at this point, because I already know the correction, just need to internalise the message into my body. So less is definitely more now. I’m struggling to break the barrier of “feeling it”. If you’re at a lost of what i’m trying to say, don’t worry, that makes 2 of us. I somehow feel that the breakthrough is just round the corner, and yet, it’s proving to be as elusive as ever.

I think my teacher realises this, and he tries to tease out this feeling through push hands as well as the form. We’ll see where will this take us.

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Ever wished to be a Hero? A hero like Superman? Spiderman?

You don’t have to have superpowers to be a Hero.

That’s one of the quote from a TV series titled “Heroes”. The TV series is about a group of people with special powers. Some of these people think about the amount of good they can do with these powers. Others, prefer personal gain or world domination (think X-men without costumes). Of course, there are some who just want to lead a normal life. The series depict the light and dark side of people with powers. Kind’a like our world isn’t it?

I do like the series, so if you get a chance, do watch it.

As an aside, I was lucky enough to win a pair of tickets to meet some of the cast from Heroes. Got some memorabilia, a long wait, and a brief encounter with the cast. I thought they would have at least come down and gave some autographs, but it was just up on stage, “thank you fans i love you”, and a not so discreet exit. I guess being a Hero on TV and in real life is really the same – you do not have much time for everyone.

I think I’m too old to be here. I don’t even have a banner like the girl below.

There was girl with a poster which reads “Mohinder, marry me”, and another with a dotted line drawn across her forehead, with a caption “cut here”. (If you watched the series, you’ll know why). The closest shot I got was when Greg, Ali and Masi Oka entered the stage.

I think I still prefer to be on the couch watching them.

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