Shang Lee » Life around Us

You are where you are and that’s where you start

Shang Lee — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 09:59:14 +0000

You are where you are and that’s where you start. Be practical and take the time to assess where you are and what your current goals are. Common sense isn’t always common practice. Taking a little time can make all the difference between failure and being on the path to success, even before the planned changes have begun to take hold.

I’ve been following Wujifa for a while now, and they are one of the rare ones who offer practical strategies in practising Tai Chi who does not give the all too familiar “health claims” or “calming effect”. They just do it. Check them out, if you’re ready for the truth.

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We can all do with more hugs

Shang Lee — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 09:49:39 +0000

I really enjoy that whole Jerry Maguire – Rod Tidwell style of relationship. It makes business so much more fun. Why shouldn’t we share hugs with all the people we work with… I think formality, even in business, is just stupid. I bought into that type of keep-your-distance communication style for years. That was not so coincidentally the time period when my business tanked, sinking into debt year after year.

Maybe Steve is on to something. Hugs may be just what the doctor ordered for the sick world.

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A Tai Chi teacher got a heart attack

Shang Lee — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 02:24:25 +0000

I am tired of people thinking that Tai Chi is the miraculous drug that will cure all physical and mental health problems. When a Tai Chi teacher got a heart attack, it sort of drove home the point – a Tai Chi teacher is still a human being.

I didn’t do Tai Chi for its health benefits. I do it because it allows me to balance the paradoxes in life. I train hard at it because the line is so thin balancing the good and bad in life that holding that line takes tremendous effort.

I do understand marketing. I understand that a lot of people swear by the health benefits of Tai Chi. I think there could be some truth in that. But I rarely see real Tai Chi being practiced out there. So i have to surmise that there is a strong placebo effect of practicing Tai Chi. For most people, maybe it’s just the difference between taking some slow action versus sitting on the couch watching TV. For others, just the thought of doing Tai Chi could make them feel good about themselves. I think the placebo effect of Tai Chi is very real, so I wouldn’t discount that.

If we circle back to the health claims of Tai Chi, let’s just be clear. Your health is still dependent on a host of other factors e.g. diet, work, stress, relationship, your perception of life etc. Tai Chi does not make them all go away. What I think Tai Chi does is make all those seemingly unconnected issues rise to the surface, so that you can view them consciously and with a clear mind.

Know why you’re doing Tai Chi. That will determine how you train Tai Chi. If it doesn’t meet your purpose, I would suggest you stop doing it. Just don’t blame Tai Chi (or diet, or stress…) when it does not meet your purpose. You are the one taking action. Inaction is also an action. Blaming rarely helps. Just do something about it.

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The gravity in you

Shang Lee — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:10:47 +0000

Defying gravity is often a feat that is rewarded and celebrated by society. Able to achieve super-human feats, especially when the result is just a hair breadth away from a miracle, is always well received. My understanding of gravity has somewhat taken a turn. I find that gravity is elusive, and yet it is omnipresent.

There are plenty of literature about finding gravity for people who practise Tai Chi. I am still on that path, but another path has just opened for me – finding gravity within people.

Physics gives us a clue – everything that has a mass has a certain gravitational pull. However, as the human mass is so small (relative to the sun, say), it is difficult to identify where this gravity is in the human body.

The gravity in the human body, is actually the intention. As I am able to feel the intention of someone else, I am actually drawn to it, hoping to exploit it to my advantage. This sounds to me very much like gravity.

I now believe we are not trying to defy gravity. We are trying to understand gravity, and work with gravity. Defying gravity will split us away from earth. Nothing good will come out of the separation. We are all symbiotic in nature, no matter how much we hate to admit it.

We are all connected.

Do not defy gravity. Search for the gravity, and flow towards it. Fly high, stay grounded.

That’s working with gravity.

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Snail – the ultimate Tai Chi master

Shang Lee — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:34:03 +0000

I don’t remember having a class outdoors where we consciously observe a moving animal and learn from it. It seems like a story from the “olden days” where the Master will teach the Student to observe the Grasshopper. Wait, that’s also from TV. Today, my training ended up with watching the ultimate Tai Chi master – the Snail.

It’s becoming less common to see animals in the city, so spotting a snail after a rainy day is quite refreshing, until I start to notice how the snail is moving. It is so slow as though it is not moving at all. And yet, the movement is concerted. It moved “as a whole” rather than bit by bit.

I was doing push hands with my teacher previously, and seeing how the snail moved just nailed the lesson for me. Moving together is so difficult, it’s amazing how the conductor of an orchestra can move all the musicians to play together. I’m the conductor for my own body, and they still don’t listen to me. Actually, it is I who don’t listen to them. They told me that they can’t go further, but I didn’t care. I pushed my legs further. They retaliated. I sweat. None of us is getting anywhere.

The trick is to treat them like children. Let them find out the joy of relaxing into the posture. Let them find out the ease of moving together. Then, we will move like the snail. Time for me to speak to them again, I mean treat them to an ice-cream.

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Earning the right to learn

Shang Lee — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:06:11 +0000

My journey within has brought me to understand more deeply about the economics of teaching and learning. Our current economic structure requires payment in monetary terms in exchange for teaching. This solution is actually quite elegant, as it avoids the uncertain non-monetary payments e.g. do I take the teacher out for dinner or get him a gift etc to show my appreciation? Money seems to be easier. Yet, in exchange of that, I witnessed a student who required a high “return on investment”.

I believe there is an expectation to learn something once you have paid for something. That is how a school does it. That is how a university does it. That is why an MBA course can charge so much for it. Unfortunately, whether you actually learn something is another matter. So what do you do in such an instance? What do you do to prove that you have actually learnt something? Exams is an obvious answer. A form of test. What I don’t see often, is a form of test to check whether a student is ready to learn, i.e. has the student earn the right to learn?

To put this into context, let me explain what I witnessed.

A student was at every instant asking the teacher to point out his errors. To this student, the teacher must always be giving tips. This method is rather unfair in a group setting but the teacher always obliges. It is only later that I understood why. In a group setting, whenever you’re teaching one, it’s never for that one. It’s for everyone.

Unfortunately, after a few weeks of such “taunting”, the teacher did crack. The student has not progressed from previous weeks’ pointers but wanted more. From my point of view, the student has not earned the right to learn anything, as his cup is overflowing with his ego. In his mind, he thinks he can absorb anything the teacher throws at him, and that was what made the teacher ignored him eventually.

To let you know how strong his ego is, after one lesson with the teacher in push hands, he started “guiding” other students, saying how relaxed he is and how stiff the others were and they should relax like him. He is no where near relaxed…

I guess the point is this. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. They are rarely equal. Once you have paid your price, you can never change the price that you paid. But you can change the value that you can receive. If you are not prepared to receive any value, you will not get any, no matter how high a price you have paid. If you paid me $1 million dollars, I might fake it and say you have learnt something, but you will know the real deal. Come to think of it, maybe not. With a full cup, it’s hard that you will ever know the real deal.

Drop the ego. Smash the cup. Or pay the price.

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How I found sanity by joining an asylum

Shang Lee — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:37:05 +0000

I really think these people are on drugs. Seriously. Who in their right mind will devote so much time and energy to make other people successful? They have nothing to gain (not much anyway). Their current hourly rate is probably closer to $20. Respectable, but for 16 hours a day? Including weekends? Most unions would have come pounding on the corporate slavery wall, but no… not these people. These people are serious. They are seriously motivated and they are seriously passionate about what they do.

I couldn’t keep up with them.

I couldn’t keep up with their pace. I couldn’t keep up with their knowledge. I couldn’t keep up with the slew of information coming my way. Just look at the stuff that is being churned out… on a DAILY basis!! Is it time to play catch up? Maybe you just want to Eat like a Human. Or learn what dancing with Parkinson’s Disease can teach you about inspiration. Or go back to basic and grab the Beginner’s Guide to Juggling Life. These are only a selection. There are more. Many MANY more. I am not even talking about mediocre stuff here. These people write, and they write well, getting better with each posting.

I just wish they have pills for this. I wish I can just pop some magic pills and become like them. Unfortunately, they don’t sell those. They will be rich beyond their wildest dreams if they did. They are only selling the truth, which most of the time, the truth is harder to swallow.

They tell you directly what’s working and what’s not. They tell you right in your face that what you’re doing is not right. They knock you down, but pick you up again. They knock you down further, and let you go some distance before picking you up again.

Now, I’m popping pills to prevent me from going insane. That is why I am in this asylum. I am getting daily (if not hourly!) dose of sanity pills. They are now part of my support infrastructure to improve myself, to improve my writing, to improve my thinking, ultimately to improve my journey within and to share my journey with you.

I do hope you will join me in this asylum as well. If you don’t believe me, you can see what Aileen has to say below.

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I can’t beat you with my fist, so I learn Tai Chi

Shang Lee — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:42:33 +0000

Today, I sat with my Tai Chi teacher, watching other students perform their Tai Ji movements. I thought to myself… my god, I must look like that the last time! They are so stiff! I believe it’s only through push hands that I learn how stiff I really was. This is when I realise application of a theory is really important, although push hands is just a half-way house between real application and pure theory. These days, you won’t find many “real application”. You don’t fight anyone anymore. And I don’t intend to fight any time soon as well.

I’m not the fighting type. Maybe that is just a loser way of saying I can’t beat you with my fist, that’s why I learn Tai Chi. But my interpretation of Tai Chi has come to this. I believe the fighting arena has shifted from the physical to the mental. We no longer fight with our fists but fight with our mind. The winner is whoever has the stronger mind. The winner is the one who has a more flexible mind. It is no longer survival of the fittest body, but survival of the fittest mind.

I continued watching their movements and discuss this with my teacher. Even though I continue to exhibit their tendencies of being stiff, I could now have a visual interpretation of what being stiff means. This visual interpretation did not come easy though. It did not come by watching people. The interpretation came from actual experience. My body knows what it’s like to be stiff. I can recognize it now in other people, only because I went through the lens changing experience that is push hands.

I know a lot of people who do Tai Chi for health reasons. I know self defense is not in your agenda. Know this. They are not separate. As an excerpt of this book says…

The practice of Taijiquan, if one follows a complete curriculum, leads to martial skill and good health concurrently. Attempting to separate the two leads to something that is not balanced, and not Taijiquan.

It is like learning anything. You will only truly understand the thing when you apply it. I’m not asking you to go fight someone now as I believe our battle is no longer in the shape of who has the faster punch. Your body needs to assimilate a physical connection with your mind so that you are poised to fight the mind battle while using your body. Just as there is no difference between learning Tai Chi for health or for martial art, there is no difference in learning to control your mind and learning to control your body. Both learnings tap on the same need, to be better. Doing one would necessarily improve the other, but both learnings have to go hand in hand.

This has been a weird post for me, but it has been brewing for a while now. I believe it will continue to brew.

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You urgently need to believe in magic

Shang Lee — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:28:37 +0000

I love magic. I love the surprise. I love the awe that it inspires. I love the jaw-dropping moment when the illusion is complete. I love to see the wide eyes of disbelief. I love it more when I found out magic is difficult, although it looks effortless. So, imagine my disappointment when one day, I was told to “GROW UP! Magic doesn’t exist“. I begged on my knees to differ.

I believe magic is everywhere. I believe you can make the most mundane things on earth to appear like magic, when you get the right thing, to the right people, at the right time. Just like the ingredients for magic – you need the right props, the right audience, and impecabble timing.

Sometimes, the things we do may not appear magical to someone, but in a different setting, to a different bunch of people, at a different time, you will inspire awe to the brink of being idolized.

So why do some of us stop believing in magic?

It can’t be because it doesn’t exist, as you just need to get a magic kit and add water, or just get the right ingredients in place.

It can’t be because you can’t perform it. You can always get someone else to perform or get a different group of audience.

Could it be because you think you’re an adult and magic no longer applies to you?

If you loved magic when you were younger, why can’t you love it now when you’re older?

I think magic still has a lot of tricks up its sleeves. These are the things I learn from being a fan of magic.

Magic is not just for kids

It’s obvious by now that magic is not just for kids. If I am able to solve a problem which has been bugging you for months, I just performed magic. If I am able to cure the common cold when it has confounded centuries of doctors, I have just performed magic. If I am able to ride a bicycle and you can’t, I am doing magic. If I can do Tai Chi beautifully and you can’t, I just did magic for you.

Magic can change your perception

This is a useful tool when you begin your journey within. The surprise element of magic will make you wonder… “how did he do it?”. If you can figure out the way he did his magic, you have just changed your perception, that not everything needs to be done in only one way. If he could finish his project on time, could he just be smarter, or did you just find out that you spend too much time watching TV while he is on his way to the ice-cream parlour celebrating his completed project?

Magic improves your sex life

We have heard of the magic pill. The thing about the magic pill is this, any sufficiently advanced technology will appear like magic. The magic pill began as an idea. So is any technological advancement you can think of. Isn’t this proof of magic?

Magic is environmentally friendly

Magic can be recycled. Gone are the days where magic is secretly guarded. The more magic is being recycled, the more magic is being kept alive. Recycling magic is not just reusing them, but reusing them in a different context, for a different group of people, at different times. I find that just magical.

Magic can change the world

Magic ultimately has to do with creativity. To be able to see what others cannot see. To be able to express what others cannot express. And this is done with just a thought. Thoughts are the seeds required to change the world. Magic is the result.

Magic is fun

This is the best reason I like magic. It is fun. It is humourous. If only all things were fun, but then again, if all things were fun, it will be really hard to identify “fun” from “really really fun”! Magic has thus earned its place as the hard thing to do that is fun to a lot of people.

I can’t imagine a world without magic. There will be no phone. There will be no roads. There will be no cars. There will be no iPad. Even without all these technology, I believe magic will still survive. It has great entertainment value.

I urge you to believe in magic. Our world depends on it.

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Escape, but where?

Shang Lee — Thu, 13 May 2010 16:08:01 +0000

During my escape, I met a lot of potential accomplice. Some of these people are ex-offenders, some are prisoners, the others are just wardens watching us prisoners, hoping to get a piece of the action. Today, I want to tell you a story about a particular ex-offender. He became my mentor in some ways. I almost decided to be under his tutelage, until I found out more about him. He owns more businesses and more properties than he has time for his health and family.

Tom* can be considered, by most measures of success, a successful businessman. A serial deal maker, he started off with a family business in one shop, and extended that into a chain of shops. During that time, he held down a day job as well, which he used as a platform to look for side deals. He helps move supplies from one country to another, brokering deals and arranging shipment. He knows his way around the legal culture in shipping, ports and customs of different countries. He has a good control of cost and makes a sizeable profit margin.

He is always on the look out for these deals. He is also always on the look out for potential partners. I became one potential.

As I looked for buyers for my business, I came across Tom. We talked about my business. We talked about his business. Of course, his business is more interesting and much more varied than mine. So I asked him plenty of things which I wouldn’t have found out in the normal course of my working day.

I remember one of our longer sessions. We were sitting in a cafe. After talking about all things business, I started noticing he was breathing heavily. He’s been doing this ever since we sat in the cafe, but initially, I thought it was because we might have walked too fast to the cafe. But no. He was breathing heavily throughout our conversation. He was also perspiring. We were in an air-conditioned cafe. There weren’t many people. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t hot either.

I began to ask him about his family. He is a Singaporean*. He said he has a property in Australia*. His wife and his kids stay there. He goes back once in a while, but because he’s always searching and brokering deals, he needs to travel often. He was telling me how good some of the places were to visit. How good some of the food were in these places. But his travel plans meant that he doesn’t spend as much time in Australia as he wanted. He then opened up his wallet and showed me a piece of his family – it was a photo of his daughter.

I began to wonder, if everything he’s doing is worth it. I began to wonder if he even realises if he wants to be with his family or not. I asked him if he misses them. He said yes. But he proceeded rather defensively to say that he only needs to find a few deals a year. And then he’ll be sorted for that year.

The big house. The big car. The good education for his kids. The overseas property. Just a few deals. And everything will be sorted.

I was interested in what he did. I was interested in the businesses that he does. The ideas that he came up with. It was exciting. There were plenty of things I didn’t know and I found them all interesting. It is also lucrative. But some things just didn’t add up. He was overweight. He was sweating in a cold room. He doesn’t see his family often. He ate plenty when he travels.

I realised money can come from anywhere. And I realised I don’t want to be like him getting those money.

Do you know where your money is coming from? Do you know the effect of those sources of money on you?

*(not his real identity or place of residence)

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