Love is the Secret Ingredient

If you love it enough, anything will talk to you.
George Washington Carver

I have gone through a love/hate relationship with training. When I first started studying kung-fu, I loved it and I could not wait to wake up the next morning to practice. I would take every opportunity after class to go over something with my fellow students. Then I went through a phase when training became a chore. It became something I was supposed to do and not because I loved it. I began to question why I began studying kung-fu in the first place and at one point I thought about quitting altogether. I had many drastic changes going on in life and kung-fu seemed like one obligation that I could do without. My attitude changed and I have come to love my training again. When I am practicing in the park first thing in the morning, my hands are cold and there is silence save for the occasional jogger or person walking their dog. I enjoy training, whether it is doing Qigong, Taiji, Xingyi, Bagua, Black Tiger Fist or any of the other material I am working on. I end my workout feeling so invigorated and alive. I love the feeling I get when I am going through forms. Trying to push myself to move as powerfully and as gracefully as I possibly can. To push myself so my stances are lower, my movements are fast, my punches and kicks powerful. I feel truly alive and free.

I think that if training becomes an obligation rather than an act of love, it will become something that we dread instead of value. It'll become something to check off our list. We won't pour everything we have into each session and in doing so we cheat ourselves of the opportunity for true growth. The opportunity to make our art a part of ourselves and to get the chance to gain true mastery instead of mere competence.

I have come to appreciate the gifts of Kung-Fu training. The ability to hone the mind, body and spirit. The gift of being able to apply what I have learned in the Kwoon to other areas of life. To apply the same skilled practice and focus to my work and my home life. I have learned to love Kung-Fu and all martial arts for the many gifts they give. Discipline, Focus, Respect, Strength, Health and Inner Peace. I love the soreness I feel after an intense training session. I love the camaraderie with other students. The many different areas of training (Internal, External, Hard, Soft, Empty Hand styles, Weapons). I love the poetry of the forms. How two people can do the same technique completely differently and everyone can give it their own essence. I am grateful for all that martial arts has given me and I am in the process of trying to come up with a way to pay that gift forward. I hope that maybe one day after I have poured enough love and sweat into the art, I will be able to truly understand all that it has to say.