Restaurant Kung Fu

I was recently discussing the various merits and drawbacks of alcoholic beverages with my friends, when it reminded me of some of my time in China. Master Liming Yue had organised a get-together with some of his martial arts friends. There was a Shuai Jiao master (Chinese wrestling), some various modern Wushu practitioners, a young boy who was learning Shaolin and a couple of Tai Chi practitioners. 

I had just received my instructors certificate, but was under no illusion that I was in the company of people with far more experience. Things were very formal. Everyone was polite. We went to a restaurant, and ate a hearty lunch together. As per normal Chinese custom, we started toasting each other. As the beer flowed and inhibitions dropped, the young boy (prompted by his father) got up and did some Shaolin Long Fist form. Everyone cheered and clapped. 

Then up stood the Shuai Jiao master, who wanted me as his stooge. He showed me some locks and throws - very interesting techniques. Then as the drink continued to flow, I think just about everyone got up and showed their skill - me included. There was no hint of competitiveness or ego. Everyone wanted each other to do well. 

With all of the problems that alcohol causes, it is interesting to note that in this situation, it was a definite aid to conviviality, and a big learning enabler for me. I wonder how little I would have learned that day, if everyone remained polite, formal and defensive?

Lessons Learned from Traditional Exercises

I subscribe to a Facebook group for martial arts teachers. One of the most interesting exchanges started when I posted the following query:

"Injuries - in our profession, they are almost unavoidable. What injuries (if any) do you currently have, and how are you coping with them?"

The responses took me totally by surprise. Almost all the teachers replied with a long list of injuries, niggles and general physical complaints. From toes to necks, the cumulative list read more like an anatomy book.

Of course, as martial arts teachers, we are more likely to hammer our bodies. Injuries are inevitable. But it made me think more about the way martial arts are participated in China and how we can learn from this in the UK - not just as martial artists, but as a society.

In China, the young start off learning flexibility and balance.



As they reach puberty, the training changes to improve the strength and resistance to external force.



It is these external practices that are the quickest way of becoming proficient in martial arts. However, the nature of the training is that the body is stretched and damaged, so that when it heals it is stronger than before. What you are doing is making your body become increasingly resistant to damage.

As the body gets older, the rate that it can repair itself decreases. It takes you longer to recover from injuries. Once this is acknowledged, the Chinese martial arts practitioner transitions to a more internal form of training. Typically, this type of training is lower impact. The emphasis returns to flexibility, but the way these exercises are done has far more circular movements and less linear stretches.

So is it possible to derive a philosophy to apply to everyone? 

• When you are young and small, making yourself as flexible and balanced as possible is the foundation for future health and growth. 
• In your teens to early 30's, you can shape your body as you wish due to it's ability to repair itself. 
• When the body's ability to repair itself slows down, make sure you keep it flexible with regular exercise to avoid stiffness. 
• As the body ages, keep it stretched with regular exercise, but make these exercise movements more circular to reduce stress on joints and tendons.

Health authorities all over the world advocate physical activity to improve longevity and fight disease. What is important is that the activity you choose is appropriate to your age and your ability to recover from injury.

Another Open Weekend at PSR

On the 7th and 8th of May, Parsonage Side Retreat once more opened it's doors and invited everyone over to share their knowledge and craft. PSR's second "Open Weekend" since inception promised to be broader in scope, bringing guests from far and wide (Estonia and Spain to name a few).

The breadth of skills on display was impressive, list of contributors - Rhonda Sexton (Bowen Technique), Beltran Melgar (Monroe Institute), Graham Nicholls (Out of Body Experiences), Kathleen Knecht (Bodytalk), Luciana Haill (EEG monitoring), Kimberley Lovell (Reiki Drumming), Ruth Brammal & Kath (Crystal Skulls), Tim Wheater (Healing Mantras), Angela Delglyn (Self maintenance for the physical body), Fran Bridle (Crystal Cave Meditation), Jenny Ann (Clairvoyance and Much More), Christoffer De Gralle (Moving Sound)... oh, and yours truly teaching Tai Chi and Evolution of Consciousness.

Despite the patchy weather, the field next door was packed with cars as PSR filled with people eager to broaden their knowledge and challenge their limitations. I managed to attend many of the lectures and practical demonstrations and was impressed with the professionalism and care that shone through. The first day drew to a close, and we were serenaded by "Second Nature", a quartet of musicians and sound healers (Look them up on Facebook - they are fantastic). I finally dragged myself - exhausted - to my bed after deep, deep conversations with Beltran, the Hemi-sync facilitator into the night.

I think I must have collected too much energy over the day, because I awoke very early in the morning, still fizzing. So I killed some time by practicing Tai Chi in the rear field. As the rest of the guests came out, there was more sharing and insights from the previous day's experiences, and we all became eager to discover what the new day would bring.

From what I saw, Sunday was more relaxed in focus, but the content was just as illuminating. I learned a great deal during my two days, and I found a common link with everyone I saw, and wove it into my lecture, talking about Tom Campbell's consciousness and reality model - MBT (My Big Theory On Everything).

I then had to get away soon after lunch, so I sadly missed the other lectures and the closing.  Given the events I did witness throughout the weekend, PSR is well on the way to consolidating a bright future as one of England's premier consciousness centres.

Making starts

All martial arts are about action. They are about crystallising sensory input, consciousness and physical dexterity.

All actions start with a thought. A single decision must be made before we can move. That decision is "it's time to move". 

In 2008, the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig published their research into the relationship between thoughts and actions. Basically, they set up experiments where they could measure the brain activity of a person who was conducting physical activity. Their brain signals were monitored and timed. 

In the study, published in Nature Neuroscience, participants could decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hand. They were free to make this decision whenever they wanted, but had to remember at which time they felt they had made up their mind. The aim of the experiment was to find out what happens to the brain in the period just before the person felt the decision was made.

What they discovered was quite amazing. It seems that before we make a "conscious" decision to do something, our unconscious mind is already preparing us for movement. Scientists have surmised that this would prevent our conscious minds being clogged with the many thousands of minor decisions that make up our day.

So what relevance does this have to martial arts? There are practitioners who seem to move like lightning, and with reflexes that are simply amazing. This is no accident, and does not come from building big muscles and heavy exercises. Sharpness comes through repetition. Even slow training like Tai Chi will eventually increase speed of reflexes, as the memory of the movement helps the unconscious mind to prepare for movement in detail.

From a philosophical standpoint, the Buddhist saying is "a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." 

...Only we now know that even before we decided to take that single step, our unconscious mind had made that decision for us. 

... Or perhaps, the single step is an unconscious thought that we have yet to perceive.

Either way, as we struggle to make the right decisions, perhaps the answers are there already. We just have to find a way listen to our unconscious mind.

Latency in Martial Arts

Ever had an argument with someone and not come out of it well because it happened so fast that you could not express yourself correctly? It's terrible. You spend the next few days thinking about all the things you could have said. It can play on your mind for a long time. 

One of the biggest deciding factors in any conflict (physical or verbal) is your personal latency. 

The word Latency is used in many fields of industry. For the sake of this article, the engineering definition for latency is as follows:

Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured.


My definition of latency for a martial artist is:

Latency is a measure of time delay experienced between the sensory observation of danger and the correct physical reaction.

My father told me a story of a soldier who came back from war. His family celebrated his safe return by throwing a party. During the party, his daughter surprised him by jumping on his back, and he swung around and smashed a glass in her face. Although this is a very sad and  extreme example, the soldier interpreted his sensory input as danger, and as a result, did not  deploy the correct physical reaction.

Whether it is a heated debate, or someone trying to mug you for your money, life forces you to make decisions quickly. If you do the wrong thing, it is probably because the parameters of your latency have been compromised. The price you pay can be high. So what can you do to improve your latency and enable you to make the correct decisions quicker? Let's take a look at some of the things that slow you down and how to make improvements:

Body weight: If you cannot handle your own body weight correctly, you cannot hope to physically react quickly - whether it is running away or just moving out of trouble, making yourself physically mobile is your highest priority. 

Economy of effort: Learning to move correctly will not only reduce your day-to-day physical stress, but will improve your ability to move quickly. Any martial arts class will give you a way to do this. 

Experience in physical contact: Self-defence classes and martial arts classes are very good at putting you into non-threatening physical contact with other people. They enable you to discover more about how the human body works.

No formal training: Violence is - by it's very nature - chaotic. Having a technique - a set way of defending yourself is very important. Having faith in that technique is even more important than you think.

Sensitivity: By this, I mean two things. The first is the ability to read situations and people's body language. If you are aware that you are angering someone, you can change your approach or walk away before the conflict becomes physical. The second is in a physical conflict, where you should be able to use all your senses to observe your opponent's state. This will give you the important information to end the conflict.

Fear, anger and other negative emotions: This is by far the largest barrier to your latency (remember this is about making the correct physical reaction). Fear roots your feet to the ground, turns your brain to mush or makes you over-react to situations. Anger makes you resort to violence where none was required.  One of the biggest differences between modern martial arts that have evolved in the ring, and the more ritualistic, traditional arts is that the modern arts do not have any strategy for calming the mind.

The more ritualistic traditional arts have elevated their practice to a higher level than mere ring craft. They transcend physical conflict and in doing so, resolve many of the reasons for it. There is a taoist phrase that sums it up:

"There are two types of people. The warrior and the sage. The warrior is a powerful person who covers his own weaknesses and exposes the weaknesses of his enemies. The sage merely has no weaknesses. He gives himself up, and in doing so, gains everything."

Making room for things

There's no getting away from it... My house is full. Two children, all their toys. It's bedlam here. Something has to change. But what? Do we have a throw-out of old toys and junk? Do we buy a new house? Do we get an extension on our present house? Do we re-organise furniture? 

There are so many options. 

When meditating on this problem a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by a realisation that our lives are like this. Sometimes we want to change, but we cannot  because there is no room in our lives for change. It made me think about the bigger picture of how I was living my life.

I came to the realisation that there was a lot of emotional clutter caused by useless activities I was doing, simply because other people wanted me to do them.  I decided to stop doing these things. Now let me be clear, there is a lot of things that people ask me to do, which are useful. These things, I continue to do. This is not a slackers mandate.

I started this two weeks ago, and although at times it has been challenging, I have space in my life again. But a strange thing has happened. New opportunities have started to present themselves to me. It seems that the meditation is correct - you cannot possibly get new things and change in your life until you make room for them.

As for the house - I guess a clear out is on the horizon. Now I just need to work out what we need and what we don't. As far as my stuff is concerned, it is easy. Somehow, I think my Wife and the children's stuff will be a more difficult issue.

Something new is coming

I recently attended a social evening at a new consciousness centre in Somerset.

Nestled in the tiny hamlet of Otterhampton, the Parsonage Side Retreat is the brainchild of the Bexx family and the culmination of many years of hard work. They have taken an old set of buildings  and created a nurturing space with accommodation for 17, and large rooms for hire and meditation spaces.

Those who are familiar with the Monroe Institute and their use of Binaural technology will feel right at home with PSR's state-of-the-art CHEC units. Nestled within these small rooms, advanced sounds are played to alter your state of consciousness and allow you to experience profound states of meditation, learning, focus or relaxation.

Other more conventional activities are already planned, with healing, meditations, chanting and consciousness workshops. Visit the website to find out their up and coming schedule.

As I sit and ponder this impressive facility that the Bexx family have created, my mind is drawn to one of my favourite quotes by Rumi: 

‎"Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love."

To me, it is clear that they have been strongly drawn by love to create a space for exploration, contemplation, healing and discovery. It is evident in the very fabric of the building - a building that will be the foundation for positive change for many, many years to come.