Some people go their entire lives locked in to some type of martial arts worship, totally losing themselves in the process. But you see this will never be for me as I like to step outside the conventional and go places others fear to tread.
You see, in life most move through our lives in a state of waking sleep, a state of psychological, cultural and yes even spiritual hypnosis. Instead of experiencing life and ourselves consciously from moment to moment as living breathing human beings we are conditioned by society to follow like sheep.
Instead of asking and reflecting on the hard, deep and truly meaningful questions about our lives, about who we truly are and where we are going, most look for answers to questions that just don't matter. Most people experience life based on external considerations fashioned on the conditions and social ties of out upbringing, education and social culture. We become what other people expect us to be rather than what we truly want to be.
Every person is born into a crowd that is already conditioned by society. The parents are conditioned, the teachers are conditioned, the whole community is desensitized and conditioned. Awareness is all too often sacrificed to conformity.
Existence becomes a trap, a cog in the wheel of the great machine that is modern society. It is to be observed that there are more than one way of looking to the world. One is to read the morning paper and nightly news (or the conventional path of martial arts) and believe everything we are conditioned to believe never truly asking questions for ourselves. We remain conditioned like sheep by those in "positions of authority". Or we can begin to question the mass hypnosis and awaken to the new perspectives and possibilities of our own making. This is the same within life as it is within the martial arts. I know which path I choose to walk .... Do you?
I have two banners in my Wushu Guan which I look at daily:
The first one says:
"Tranquility. The peace that comes when energies are in balance, relationships in harmony".
The second one says:
"Become loyal to your innermost truth. Follow the way when all others abandon it. Walk the path of your own heart".
These are qualities I try to internalise in my students.
“Don’t surrender your individuality, which is your greatest agent of power, to the customs and conventionalities that have got their life from the great mass ... Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself”
~ Ralph Waldo Trine, 1886-1958 American Poet & Writer ~
