I personally think that relaxation by itself (relaxation meditation, or relaxation massage) is only really good done very infrequently. Relaxation, like meditation, or like exercise, or life, should be an active process. Then you learn something about your state…you become a participant in the state of your body.

For people interested, look into a nice Autogenic Programming or Progressive Relaxation recordings, or Eckhart Tolle’s first book - The Power of Now. All of the exercises from Power of Now are in the “Power of Now: Essential Teachings” book, if you’re short for time or want to just get right to it.

Zhang Hongjun said “What does it mean to have gongfu? The 1929 Leitai tournament in Hangzhou is a classic example of how we should understand the term ‘gongfu’.”

In the tournament, Cao Yanhai (a student of the Central Guoshu Institute who eventually placed fourth) met the iron palm master Liu Gaosheng. Liu Gaosheng was famous in Shanghai for his mastery of iron palm and Ziranmen (Natural Gate); he was the head trainer of security guards for Shanghai’s 4 largest department stores and had close to 3,000 students, and was one of the favourites to win the tournament. Liu was not only a master of iron palm, he was also adept at hard qigong. Meeting such a tough opponent in the first round put Cao under pressure. At the beginning of the bout, Liu immediately launched a palm strike at Cao. Cao took the strike, thinking to gauge Liu’s power, only to find that half his body went numb – he could barely withstand it! Fortunately,Cao was calm under pressure and didn’t crumble. He took a deep breath, shook himself and hurriedly changed his tactics. Instead of taking Liu on head-on, Cao evaded as much as possible, trying to use sweeps and low kicks to attack Liu’s legs. This tactic helped Cao to go on the offensive. In the second round, Cao saw his opportunity and laid Liu out with a punch, winning the match. The next day, Zhao asked Liu how he could have lost: Liu was so vexed he punched the ground, breaking a brick in half, saying “Dammit, dammit”.

Purely from looking at the results, Liu Gaosheng’s gongfu was no match for Cao Yanhai; but Cao Yanhai could not split a brick – how can we explain this result? The reason is, Cao Yanhai often sparred, so he was good at adapting his tactics. Liu, on the other hand, rarely fought: day-to-day practice only involved testing his palm strikes, which of course most normal people could not withstand. In the bout, even though Liu’s palm strikes were devastatingly powerful, he could not hit Cao, instead being knocked down. Thus, one should not mistake hard qigong for combat skill. In a real encounter, the winner will be he who reacts faster, hits harder. Li Jinglin, the Wudang sword master, head of the Central Guoshu Institute and organiser of the 2 Leitai tournaments, once said “If I were to be knocked down, I should respect my opponent’s gongfu: we should recognise that ‘he who can knock me down has gongfu’”.

Nice story, nice lesson!

By the way Geo, we met your student Ben the other night, real nice guy! We’ve been having lots of fun with Luo Laoshi. Once again he is younger than he was last year, and moving more proficiently than ever.

Tonight we work some more on Hsing-I, can’t wait!

Take care,

Jess O

So Forest’s jaw was dislocated by one of the earlier shots, and caused him hearing loss. And then it got shattered later on, and he was advised to go straight to the hospital after. Forest’s one tough MF for continuing to fight.

Jess O

I think that something as “general” as a person’s past experiences with not being good at something (anything, or, many things) can cause them to stop trying sooner than someone else who had a more supportive experience in the past when they were bad at something. It can even be that the person wasn’t actually bad at it, but perceived themselves as somehow inadequate…

I definitely tend to shy away from things that I feel like I’m not good at, or not as good as the other people who are doing it are. Unless, of course, the other person/people are very supportive and are able to “tone down” their skill to help me avoid my own frustration with my ability level at it…

I think you’re right, George. The belt system can help a lot with this. As long as the teacher is careful, and watches out for older students who might abuse their rank, or newer students who might feel inadequate because of their level.

You don’t need to “cater” to everyone, but at the same time, you do…hahaha. I find this question of motivation especially important nowadays. Aside from having emotional “baggage,” most people have so many demands on their time (constructed or actual) that it’s hard to prioritize at times…