Already Gone; Not Very Good

I’ve got an idea in my head.  I’ve got this idea of what I want my Chun to look like and where I want to take it – and I think I just want to master a few key things before I decide on whether I need to go in a new direction.  I do like the ‘look’ of some of the WSL Wing Chun because it seems to have an ol’ style boxing flavour.  I’m a sucker for boxing.

As I said to yesterday’s training partner, “I’m not very good.  But I’m not too bad either.  If I can get together with some of these folks and out-skill and out-gas them, then I very cautiously think I might be on the right path for myself.”

It’s also important to follow Rule #6.

Share What You Love

Owner of My Darkness

I got lost in the night,

without the light of your eyelids,

and when the night surrounded me,

I was born again;

I was the owner of my own darkness.

Pablo Neruda

Lightning In A Bottle

Big up Bassnectar and The Glitch Mob!

http://lightninginabottle.org

CTK

The Enemy

Give me hope in silence
It’s easier, it’s kinder
Tell me not of heartbreak
It plagues my soul, it plagues my soul
And bury me beside you
I have no hope in solitude
And the world will follow 
To the earth down below

But I came and I was nothing
Time will give us nothing
So why did you choose to lean on 
A man you knew was falling?

What Music Taught Me About Martial Arts (Deliberate Practice)

I played piano for a few years until junior high where I played clarinet right through until the end of high school.  Now my children are learning piano through Music For Young Children.  Music taught me a lot about deliberate practice and how I could approach studying other subjects.

In martial arts, and in life, as in music – timing is everything.  The issue becomes apparent when someone is trying play a piece and is speeding up the easy parts and slowing down the hard parts.  There are three easy fixes that are not always clear:

1. Stop playing the whole piece from start to finish in hopes that the difficult parts will somehow become less difficult with them adjacent to the easy parts.  This is a waste of time and energy.

2. Practice the hard parts over and over, breaking them out.  You already know the easy parts, so nail down the difficult parts and then put the whole piece back together.

3. Nobody likes to hear a piece with a mismatched tempo – and a combination of techniques that runs out of control only to slow to a crawl during a highly technical portion doesn’t work either.  If you can’t get the timing down fast – slow the whole piece down to as slow as you need to go for the difficult portion.

Make it yours,
CTK

Sick Of The Lies

Big up to AJ for the find.

Somebody That I Used To Know

I Let You Go

Glitch

If I Get Old

If I get old, I’m living easy
Find a nice, old country home
Let the land do what she wants to
Leave her wild and overgrown
When I’m sure my days are numbered
Find a nice place in the fields
Thank that little voice inside my head
For such good company

Survive It by Ghostpoet

“Adversity is the first path to truth.”  Lord Byron

The Mystic

Freud argued that the very idea of a soul or spirit refers to the perception of one’s own mental life.

He furthermore asserted that magic, like animism, is a fundamentally psychological phenomenon.  According to his definition, “Magic reveals in the clearest and most unmistakable way an intention to impose the laws governing mental life upon real things” and “replace the laws of nature by psychological ones.”

Freud continued, “It is easy to perceive the motives which lead men to practice magic: they are human wishes. . . . The basic reason why what [a person] sets about by magical means comes to pass is, after all, simply that he wills it. To begin with, therefore, the emphasis is only upon his wish” ([1913] 1955l, 91, 83).

Excerpt from Wearing My Tutu to Analysis by Malawista, et al.

Earthquake by Labrinth

On Escape

The most important lesson on Gung Fu that I learnt today was during a Performance Racing Car training course I went to at a disused airstrip.

The Lesson
Immediately figure out out your nearest escape route and focus your body on formulating a way to make good your escape. This means that whilst you are aware of the dangers at hand you are not necessarily giving all your resources to dealing with them. Being aware of the problem and allowing your subconscious mind to allow your body to deal with them, while keeping your focus on the escape is the best way to go.  

The logic appears to be that by keeping your focus locked onto the nearest escape route your body will automatically be oriented on the escape, allowing your subconscious to drive the skill set in dealing with the physical danger. Alternatively, if your conscious mind is focused primarily on the attack, then chances are the attack will become protracted and the attempt at escape, hesitant.

Focus on the escape, and you make it so.

The Art of Vania Zouravliov

Gung Fu + Dubstep

Optimus Prime Was Right

Wounded

Hands search for an open wound. Find nothing. Mirror deceives me. See only a well formed muscled reflection. My trust falls sh0rt of silver lined glass. I step back. The hole is gaping now. Maybe its not on the outside after all.

Fizzy Flow