Pleasure

As part of the discussion on focus in class, we have been instructed to think about techniques to control our emotions. For example, when you are frustrated and angry, techniques you can use to feel pleasure again.

Techniques that spring to mind for me are:

1. Any interaction with my wife is calming. Just seeing her, her touch, the sound of her voice, even seeing her text when instant messaging can make me feel happier and calmer.
2. Breathing. Closing my eyes and taking deep inhalations and exhalations through my nose. Living my yoga off the mat.
3. Stretching, it feels like it releases me from the confines of tight muscle.
4. Self-massage. Hitting a painful trigger point and feeling the rush of endorphines into my body as a natural high and pain-reliever.
5. Video games. Currently World of Warcraft. Pure fun and escapism for me.
6. Being outside in nature. A few minutes surrounded by the trees in my yard puts everything in perspective.

Pleasure is such an important part of our lives and we should be making effort to plan periods of pleasurable activities in our lives rather than just hope that pleasure will find us during our daily activies.

Nick
Yellow stripe sash

Empowering

I now have a yellow stripe sash. The demonstration was a lot of fun, my wife - Jennifer - turned up to watch for the first time and see what I do. An interesting lesson from the day was when I first tried to put my new belt on. The way you tie your sash needs to make sure that the stripe is on the outside, not something I had neededed to think about before. I approached a senior grade in my team to ask how it should be done and his answer was to figure it out myself. It took me approximately 2 seconds to come up with the solution. His answer may have appeared to be initially rude, but was much more empowering than just simply handing me the solution. The is an example of great leadership in my team.

Nick
Yellow stripe sash

End of semester 2

My second semester has now finished at Maurys Kung Fu marking 6 months of training for me and there is the sash ceromony to look forward to tomorrow. There has been testing during this week's classes and they have stepped up the intensity of the training which has lead to greater feelings of achievement at the end of the classes and there has been a very intense bond growing in the team.

We talked about what we have learned this semester and the thing that has stood out for me is the teamwork. My 11 years of TaeKwon-Do training seemed to be very focused on the development of the individual where as this Kung Fu school has a strong focus on the team. The team demonstration is a great example of this; eveyone is working together in harmony, giving their all and working like a well oiled machine. It is a beautiful thing to be a part of a gives me enormous satisfaction. The teammates are so encouraging and inspiring and are able to bring me to pushing myself much harder than I would push myself otherwise.

It was great to hear how other people in the team have responded to the training. A woman in the team appreciated how much respect she received from everyone in the team. She was used to being made to feel a little inferior for being female in a very physical environment like this and has only experienced complete respect here. The school does a great job of that. Anyone who comes in is greeted by everyone and made to feel welcome no matter who they are and what age. We will bow in respect to and give a polite "good evening ma'am" to a 5 year old girl that is in the school.

Next semester I want to improve my sparring. I want to be relentlessly in pursuit of my opponent, not giving them an inch of breathing room and work on combinations of 6 or 7 attacks rather than 2 or 3. I want to go in search of that 'mindless' sparring mental state and stay as relaxed and aware as I was in the 'sticky hands' drill.

Nick
White sash

Focus

In the classes this week we have been talking about focus in our kung fu and in our lives. The key points being having a target to aim for and approching it with only a positive determination to get there, not dwelling on the fear that goes along with it. An interesting point made last night was that a way to achieve focus is through asking questions to yourself. Every question you ask yourself triggers your brain to go into a solutionizing mode and it will carry on working until it finds an answer while you are unaware of this. The answer will surface in your conciousness at some point, when you first wake up in the morning for example.

So the key thing is to be asking yourself positive questions and not negative ones. If you wonder why you suck at Kung Fu you brain will come up with all sorts of answers for you. Alternatively if you ask yourself what you can do to improve your kung fu again, your brain will come up with solutions. It is better to have the positive solutions floating around your grey matter than the negative 'why I suck' answers. So we need to train ourselves to ask ourselves these positive questions.

This got me thinking about the idea that we all know the answer to whatever dilemma we have, we just need to bring the answer to the surface. Counciling helps with this - a psychotherapist doesn't give us solutions, they allow us to explore our thoughts until we stumble across the answer that is already there. Some people can open a bible and look at any passage and it will strangely contain the answer to their dilemma. Does this mean the bible has some strange unwordly power? Maybe, but I would suggest that the same thing would have happened if they opened the cartoon pages of their Sunday paper and looked at the first cartoon they saw.

I have meandered from the original subject of focus. The first step is to focus on something, in kung fu it is easy - we want to master our new form, obtain our next sash or reach black sash. In life outside the school it can be more challenging. What is a worthy focus? Promotion at work? Is that going to really change anything? Happiness? How do you know when you have achieved this? I think our biggest challenge is to move from surviving to achieving something we really want, even identifying what this is is challenging. I would suggest that we try and start there.

Nick
White sash

Change

Last night Sifu Sarah talked about change and how great martial arts training is to enable us to cope with change in our lives. In our training we are constantly learning how to change and adapt, continually put in situations where we need to adapt and rethink our approach. Change is challenging and disturbing, particularly if you are anything like me who feeds on stability and an understanding of the situation. Our martial arts training allows us to cope with the situations in life where there are sudden changes that occur which uproot us and create anxiety. During these times when it seems that we don't have the time or energy for our training are the very times we need it most.

The path to happiness

Something caught my eye recently which is worthy of mentioning here as it has stuck in my mind. I was in a book shop on Martha's Vineyard last week and picked up a book by the Dalai Lama. I think it was called "The secret of happiness" or similar. On the back cover it said something like:

The actions that people take are done to try and make themselves happier in some way. Once we can understand that it allows us the get closer to others.

Wow, so much wisdom in a small paragraph. It is beautifully simple and makes so much sense and yet it takes some real true understanding to totally grasp it. I can understand that our bitch from hell tenant who is finding any way she can to sue us and screw any money from us that she can is doing it to try and become happier. But this understanding doesn't give me any more compassion or prevent me from hoping that she dies in a freak meteor strike incident. I guess I have a long road to travel yet to being at peace with my fellow beings in our shared global conciousness.

Nick
White sash