The Journey Within

Have you had an injury but you just can’t pinpoint where the pain is? You know it hurts, but you just don’t know where it hurts. And if you don’t know where it hurts, you don’t know the source, and if you don’t know the source, you can’t fully heal the injury.

From my basketball days, I know sometimes that the source of the injury can be obscured by the lack of nerve endings. If you prick your finger, you’ll feel the pain immediately, and you know which finger was pricked without looking at it. We have plenty of nerve endings there. But if you sprain your ankle, the pain won’t be as sharp. The pain is an area. There is no pin-prick precision to it. There’s no X-marks-the-pain-spot. You struggle to find where exactly does it hurt.

A recent wrist injury was like that. I know it hurts my wrist, but i’m just not sure where on the wrist. And I didn’t try to test the wrist on where it hurts most, until I visited a doctor. The doctor basically twisted my palm around the wrist until he found out where it hurts most and started therapy based on that information. He was a doctor trained in both Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the mainstream western medicine. For the purpose of the wrist, he used some physiotherapy techniques and some TCM.

The thing is, finding where it hurts most seemed like the most obvious solution to him, but my layman brain did not find it that obvious at all!

Whenever I’m down with sickness, I go to the doctors, and something is prescribed. I normally rotate among a TCM practitioner and a western doctor, without knowing the difference between the two. I was once told that TCM practitioner focus on the root of the problem, whereas a western doctor focuses on the symptoms. Although this could be true, to enhance the credibility of Traditional Chinese Medicine, I believe both systems try to find the root cause whenever they can, but just fail to find it on certain occasions, if not most occasions.

My most recent visit to the doctors due to stomach upset painted this picture vividly. The diagnosis process went like this:

“So, what’s wrong with you?”

I have diarrhea and vomitted several times.

“Any more symptoms?”

My stomach feels bloated.

“Ok, i’m going to give you some medicine for the diarrhea, nausea and the bloatedness.”

Ok…

And i realised i forgot to mention I was running with a temperature as well. I’ve let myself out of the door already. And the diarrhea just ran its course for another 2 weeks. I didn’t want to go back to the doctors. I just kept my faith that the body will heal on its own and kept to light diet – less oil, mostly rice porridge, for another 2 weeks before I started on normal food again.

In this instance, the doctor didn’t know how to heal where it’s most painful. The body however, knew.

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I would like to share with you a recent revelation that I hope it will help you too. In my various sports activities, I am always told to relax my wrist, relax my grip, relax my footing etc. The not so annoying comments come from table tennis and badminton where relaxing the wrist and relaxing the grip is normally the order of the day. In the world of Tai Ji, the word-count for “relax” is probably highest of any activities I know of! The teacher will say “relax your shoulders, relax your elbow, relax your arm, relax you neck, relax your back, relax your waist, relax your kua…” the list just goes on irritably.

Digressing into the book i’m still reading, The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett & George Soros, the first chapter is devoted to the power of mental habits. And the very first element needed to sustain a mental habit? – a belief that drives your behaviour. The book says that the Master Investor has a strong belief that he/she DESERVES to make money. Without that belief, or if other thoughts are limiting that belief, such as thinking that nobody deserves to make THAT much money, you will then not have the mental habit strong enough to actually make that much money. It’s sort of a self-prophesizing attitude.

This initially sounds a lot like having the “i can do it” attitude, sort of psyching yourself up so that you can achieve your greatest potential before the big match. I believe the mental habit method above goes deeper than that. Chanting the “i can do it” mantra can only give you results momentarily. This method actually asks you to change your mindset, to change your belief system.

Having a belief system helps us make decisions in our everyday life activities. If I want to be healthy, I know I need to have a balanced diet and a balanced exercise regime. This will then dictate what I buy in the supermarket, what I have for dinner, how much should I eat for each meal etc.

If you’re like me, I have a lot of self-limiting beliefs. I want to be healthy, and yet I still like to eat – I can always watch my diet tommorrow. Everytime I psyche myself up to lose that tai ji ball i have gathered around the waist, I can do it for 1 week, maybe 2, and then it’s back to square one. Consciously, I know I want to lose weight and in order to lose weight, I know I need to eat healthily and exercise. So i set myself some targets of say, running in the evening for 30 minutes, or have fixed meals per day. Often, they will work for 1 week, 2 weeks at most, and then I’m not meeting the targets any longer. Unconsciously, I don’t think I actually believe that I will lose that belly. That’s why I set myself unrealistic targets, or realistic short term targets. These targets are not meant for the long haul flight that is weight loss. Losing weight is easy, maintaining it that way is difficult.

What i’m actually missing is that I have unknowingly limited my belief to lose weight. I know my belief is to lose weight, yet I limit that belief by unknowingly telling myself that I can’t lose weight. I set myself targets but because of the limit I impose on myself, the targets that I set will never be met. What I don’t realise is that I first have to take away that self-limit, i.e. to actually believe losing weight is possible, and let that possibility flourish. Then the so called “targets” will take care of itself.

Coming back to the initial topic of relaxing your body parts, what I’m proposing to you is this – relax your mind! And your body parts will just take care of itself. Relax your mind into thinking that you are actually able to relax your wrist, elbow etc. You are actually allowing yourself to entertain the possibility of a relaxed body. It’s not something that will create miracles, but it’s the seed required to achieve a relaxed body. You have to believe in miracles for miracles to happen. If you don’t, even if miracles happen right under your nose, you won’t be able to recognise it. Just as the Master Investor believes he deserves to make money. If you don’t, even if money opportunity knocks on your door, you won’t be able to seize it.

So, have you relaxed your mind lately?

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Another night of table tennis. I always dread going to it every Tuesday night because I think I will be side-lined again. The players there are good – so good that I think they don’t really want to play with me! It’s very much a “child-in-school-who-no-one-wants-to-play-with” syndrome. Of course, I still go. I like going. I think this is the only place I can improve. To play with people much better than me.

Today turned out to be quite different from the other nights. A guy just walked over and told me “let’s do some drills”. And so we went. The forehand, the backhand. Nothing new there, still as inconsistent as ever. Then we started on some chopping drills (slicing the ping pong ball in mid-air). Now this turned out to be quite interesting as I have never done it before, not in a drill fashion. Forehand slice, backhand slice. Because the movements are small, and the ball is slower, it actually increased my focus. I was able to learn to get the rhythm and the feel of the ball. Further on into the drill, I could actually judge how much, or rather how little effort i required to control the slice. “Just relax and slowly tap it over” he said.

Later on, we went back to the forehand drives. Amazingly, my consistency improved dramatically! I was able to control the ball over 20 rounds and still kept the ball in play! I was so surprised that I felt elated throughout the night!

Then, I began to watch other players play. I began to understand how they could execute the shots they are executing. It was a wonderful night.

While walking home, I begin to mull over what happened in the drills. Why did the chops improved my game? The answer came quite unexpectedly from my tai ji training. I felt that the repetition is actually quite meditative, as is the practice of tai ji. It increased my focus and at the same time, kept the mind calm. The slowness of slicing also encouraged the mind to focus on the nuances of each stroke – again, that’s why tai ji is done in a slow manner. And after the drills, it just lifted my whole ball game – the execution improved becaused I was trained in a slow manner, which I believe tai ji would do to, although my level is not there yet!

Maybe I’m just biased towards tai ji. But it has helped me conquered a lot of my inner demons in various aspects of my life. Has it been true to you too?

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It’s a hall with 5 badminton courts, walled off by concrete except for the viewing glass on one side of the hall – the shortest side of course! Don’t think the local council would want to spend that much on a badminton hall!

I was on one of the courts, trying to hit the shuttle all the way to the other side of the court, only to find it falling short of the base line by quite a margin! After several attempts, the coach finally stopped the drill and started us on games. I sat out on the first round, and found myself standing next to the coach.

We started chatting and then he finally said something about my shots. For a “clear” shot, which is the standard term for geting the shuttle from one end of the court to the other end in the highest trajectory you can manage, you need to imagine that you’re trying to hit the wall at the far side of the court. For a “smash”, don’t try to imagine where you’re going to smash, but imagine a point beyond the smash point. He called this changing the “thought spot”. It’s a change in perception rather than changing the technique of the shots.

We have heard of this analogy before e.g. moving the goal post, or shoot for the stars. By aiming higher, we might just hit the target that’s within our intended reach. When I was doing my professional exams, I had to aim to score high on every single question just to pass! Now, if only i have some way of reminding myself this everytime i’m on the badminton court.

In the heat of the moment, the thought spot is everywhere! There’s no one single spot! Maybe that’s the key, to accept your limitations and then change your every single thought spot! My… that’s hard… breaking a habit is hard. Changing perception? Can the adult mind change as easily as a child’s mind? Since we’re on the topic of changing perception, why don’t we just imagine we’re a child, learning to walk. Yes, that should work. I’m a child! I’m a child! (repeat 10 times)

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Another round of badminton yesterday. the first after the festive seasons… actually it’s the first of any exercise! really felt like i was lugging a big lump of fat around the court yesterday. i was literally sliding all over the court.. it might be the shoes or the fact that fat is slippery…

anyway, came back with a tub of KFC (after all that exercise.. i know!) and had a quiet night in with a movie – Wimbledon. It’s about tennis (obviously!) and it’s about love (hollywood had to appeal to the masses apparently, not just tennis fans!). the interesting bits were actually the bonus features on the DVD. they had a tennis consultant (for those of u who knows tennis.. Pat Cash). he had to train the actors and actresses to play Wimbledon-level tennis in 4 months! there were a lot of CGI, so the training focused on getting them to “look” the part.

then came some interesting ideas that these professional tennis players talk about – the inner voices. this actually featured throughout the movie but i didn’t realise it. it just felt like another movie with someone narrating in the background. John McEnroe was there as well (remember him? the obnoxious tennis player?). They talk about how the smallest things that happen can cripple your game e.g. strings break, bad eye contact with someone, shoe laces untied (tennis players are very superstitiuos apparently!). they’ll plant a seed of doubt in you and that’s all it takes to win or lose a game. it’ll trigger the incessant inner voices, battling it out in your head – “i’m tired”, “my back hurts”, “my ankle hurts”, “why am i not winning this guy” etc.. and before u know it, you’ve lost the game.

hey, i just came back from badminton, and all these did happen! the incessant inner voices… i didn’t realise i was talking to myself THAT MUCH! maybe there’s a way to drown out all those voices.. i’m sure you’ve heard of phrases like “in the zone”, “on fire”.. i think that’s being able to drown out the voices, the doubts. i think that’s the level to aspire to! now, i’ll just need to get a good racquet, good shoes, good t-shirt etc.. i’m still blaming the tools if u haven’t noticed!

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why is the urge to win so strong? is winning a game everything? to some, it is. when i come back from a game of, say badminton, the common question from others is… “Did you win?”

i think winning is good. it gives u a good feeling. what feeling is that, i’m not sure. is it a superior feeling? is it because you’ve shown that you’re the better player? or was that your boss you’re trying to beat just because u feel suppressed at work… (i don’t play any games with my boss thankfully! i’ll be trying hard to let him win!!) whatever the feeling is, i guess it’s just a sense of satisfaction.

we don’t think of these things after the game. if you lose, you feel bad. if you win, you feel good. end of story. but i have been dwelling deeper into why i feel the way i feel. i don’t feel good when i win. i feel best when i was able to conquer my inner demons, winning or losing.

i can get really frustrated if i can’t execute a shot. was i not patient enough? was i not fast enough? was i just not good enough? actually, none of those matters. it doesn’t matter that you’re not good or fast enough. you can always compensate by really knowing where your limitations are and work on your strengths. but when it comes to a game, i falter because i do not have that extra edge, that extra strength to hold on just that bit longer.

if only there’s a way to remind yourself just to hold out that bit longer… it makes all the difference! i think the same concept applies to life, love and everything else that’s worth doing… by holding on that bit longer…

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