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Relationship Premises

dogcatI’ll tell a little story about life here at the kungfu school. Our dormitories are located in a former hospital, in two buildings with a courtyard between. But when I first came here in early 2008, the kungfu school only occupied the front-most  of the two buildings. Shifu acquired the back building shortly before I started studying here full-time.

The rooms of the former hospital had been being used for residence for a while, and there was one occupant who would not leave when the kungfu school took over. In the spirit goodwill, I imagine, no big fuss was made and that man– an older, retired herbal doctor — has continued to live at one end of the dormitory hallway. As a matter of fact, he is my next-door neighbor.

For various reasons, tensions between the kungfu students and my neighbor escalated. Not the least of these was the intrusion of pervasive Chinese culture shock into our ex-patriot stronghold, the one place in China we hoped to call our own. Also, he did not share our training schedule, so when we desperately needed rest he might be having a loud and alcoholic card game with his friends or stomping down the hallway or loudly and revoltingly clearing his throat and spitting on the floor. For a while we even shared a bathroom with the guy, and finding the remains of his having cleaned fish for dinner in your shower drain is never fun. Things bottomed out with multilingual screaming matches in the hallway and hard feelings all around.

But for me there was a significant turning point where my relationship with the guy stopped getting worse and started getting better. That was the moment when I realized he wasn’t going away. I think subconsciously my fellow students acted on the premiss that they could choose not to have this relationship, that if they antagonized him enough, he would move out. When I accepted that he was not going to move out, and that I didn’t want to be the kind of person who would drive him out, the question became not if I was going to have a relationship with this guy, but what kind of relationship ours would be.

There is a degree of satisfaction to be gained just by committing to a thing, that can’t be found while we withhold acceptance of that thing’s actuality. New people or circumstances are like a new piece of furniture that surprises you by appearing in your living room; if you can’t fit it out the door, it is better to rearrange the furniture and make a place for it than to leave it sitting in the middle of the floor.

As for my neighbor, all I really did was smile at him when I saw him in the hallway and compliment him once in a while if I liked his clothes or something. More than my external behavior, my internal behavior changed. When I started acting on the premiss that he was part of my life here in Wudang, his noise, his smelly cooking, his loud TV, it all stopped annoying me because I acknowledged his right to be there.

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Another Turn Around the Circle

SL373145I have returned to Wudang, China, once more. I am in the agony of what I have previously dubbed “Week One Syndrome,” though it has been a light week and really not as excruciating as I was afraid it would be.

I had a wonderful time at home, though it was by far my most stressful trip home for work and family reasons I won’t get into right now. While I was home this time, I let myself relax a bit on my kungfu training and focused more on my internal training, trying to keep deep breathing and keep my emotions steady in the face of the above mentioned stress. And — and I hope you can understand what I mean — I tried to consciously unclench the fist of self-discipline I had going on and hold my emotions and will in a gentler grip.

I felt this was immensely constructive, and it got me thinking about another aspect of self cultivation. I think that, inherent in the ability to push yourself to be better is at least a grain of self-criticism. You have to be able to look at yourself and find your own weaknesses, find the things about yourself that are not satisfying to you. I spend a fair amount of time in this mode during my training, always looking for ways to improve. On the other hand, the best way to exercise the powers developed in training, and to find the satisfaction that is the goal of the training, is to accept yourself and, indeed, enjoy the fruits of your hard work.

The trouble is that we often get stuck in one or the other. Too much self-criticism makes us unhappy and stressed, too much self-acceptance makes us complacent and stagnant. This puts me in mind of something my kungfu uncle Zhou Xuan Yun said during his talk in DC in January. I paraphrase, but he said that life is what happens when Yin and Yang interact. So if self-criticism and self-acceptance are pure concepts defining the extremes of yourself, growth and life are only possible when moving naturally between the two, holding one but easily and regularly reaching for the other.

The challenge is to find real balance between the two in our subjective worlds. Our only guide is past experience, and if you have never pushed yourself hard enough or accepted yourself completely enough, moving toward balance feels so unnatural that you think you are actually losing balance. Disciplined effort seems too hard, and you think you just can’t do it. Loving yourself feels too alien, and you think it’s not real. Real hard work is required to understand the two extremes enough to accurately sense where the healthy balance really is.

I think this is a good thing to meditate on in times of transition like I am facing now. The only constant is change, after all.

 

 

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Art In Mind: VIsual Arts Program

AIM_Giacometti
This past Monday, February 18 was the first Art In Mind (AIM) session for students and friends of Balanced Life Skills! The pioneer group of 12 elementary-aged students had a great hands on experience learning about Alberto Giacometti and his sculptures – read the attached PDF file here for more information about their project!
The first class of the Art in Mind 6-week series begins Thursday, February 28th at 4:30 – 5:30. Students can come to all six hands-on workshops, or just drop-in for each class that interests them. Tuition can either be paid on a drop-in basis, or you can pay $75 up front for all six sessions.

In order for the instructor to have enough materials prepared, students do need to REGISTER HERE for each class they plan on attending! This workshop series is open to registered and non-registered BLS students.

Week look forward to seeing you there! Keep an eye out for the “Museum Night” featuring your child’s art exhibits at Balanced Life Skills!

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Wudang in Washington

A little belated, but here’s the round-up on this nifty event that happened in DC the weekend of February 1st.

First, Thursday the 31st we performed at the Chinese Embassy’s Chinese New Year party hosted by the Meridian Center in D.C. My brothers Ben and Dave and I and many other martial artists with connections to Wudang backed up our kungfu uncle Zhou Xuan Yun (remember how kungfu relationships work? He is my master’s kungfu brother) in the exhibition. We did two performances over the course of the evening, each of us demonstrating a particular form or technique, taking turns. The guests at the party seemed to enjoy it, and we had very flattering responses from those of the audience we were able to talk to. The other cultural exhibition at the party was a fashion show of Chinese silks. One thing I particularly appreciated was the wonderful professional musicians that accompanied our performance. They were so intuitive and attuned to our actions — a far cry from an mp3 as an accompaniment.

The next day Ben and I went to the Library of Congress to hear our uncle Zhou Xuan Yun give a talk on Daoism and Wudang. I don’t know how I can encapsulate this part of things. His talk was wonderfully informative and insightful, focusing on Daoist history and culture. Julianne Zhou  did a wonderful job translating and contextualizing his lecture. Check out Zhou Xuan Yun’s website http://daoistgate.com.

And the next day Ben got on a plane and I went to the workshop held in Rockville to demonstrate again and give a little talk. My theme was the role of traditional martial arts in the modern world. I talked about the martial arts as a war-time skill displaced in an increasingly peaceful world where what violence exists is carried out using technology and skills not found in traditional martial arts. I argue that the traditional martial arts are more relevant than ever in our modern world, where while physical attacks grow increasingly rare, we find ourselves under constant siege from media, stress, and our own life styles. It represents the further development of some of the ideas I have written in this blog.

In the free moments between these events, we talked a lot about the future of me and my classmates, the men and women who will finish our training in two more years and come back to the west. It is a difficult topic to come to a definite conclusion on so far in advance, but we focused on how we might preserve and continue the spirit, practices, and values that we are learning in Wudang for our own students.

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Chinese New Year/ Wudang Workshop in Rockville

Busy week this week. My Wudang brother Ben from Australia is in town to lend his presence to upcoming events. First among these is the Chinese New Year Celebration of the Chinese Embassy in DC. Martial artists, teachers, and masters from the DC area will be sharing their art as a cultural exhibition during the party. It should be pretty neat.

What I really want to get the word out about is the workshop on Saturday in Rockville. Many of those same teachers and masters will be speaking and teaching at an event open to the public.I am going to give a short talk myself. The theme of the day, as I understand it, is examining the definition of a martial artist in the modern world. It should be interesting to hear the thoughts of this group of people on the subject.

The workshop is from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, at 9400 Key West Avenue in Rockville, MD. You can find more information on the event and registration for the event at http://wudangspirit.com/5.html.

 

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2013 Wudang Qigong Seminar

I am once again excited to offer a winter Qigong seminar at Balanced Life Skills while I am home in Maryland. I like to teach Qigong while I am home because I feel that it is a health practice that I can offer a student in a fairly short time, and if that student sticks to the practice they will find growth and improvement even without close supervision from a teacher.

What is Qigong? As I said describing it last year, imagine the practice of martial arts as a line. One one end is fighting, and on the other end is purely health oriented exercise. Qigong would fall near one end of the line, and it might look like this:

Literally “Chi Work,” Qigong is a kind of moving meditation. In a series of dynamic poses combining breathing, flexibility, strength, and mental focus, it seeks to nourish the internal health of the body. It is adaptable to the level of the student; a sedentary newcomer and a conditioned athlete will both find challenge and growth.

The goal of this seminar is to provide parents and students in the Balanced Life Skills community and anyone else a balanced and self-contained health practice. Is your kid in Taikwondo class? Come do something for your own health while you wait. All are welcome.

The seminar will be held January 21st through March 5th, on:

Monday 5:15 pm

Tuesday 11:00 am and 5:25 pm

Students should plan to attend at least one hour-long session a week, but are welcome and encouraged to attend additional classes for more guided repetition. Those interested are welcome to try a class in the first week for free. Seminar fee= $20/week. Come try the first week free.