ACHIEVING
WING CHUN GOALS
by Jong Gau Lin Carlos Colorado
“A man with definite aims to be accomplished may be compared
to one digging a well. To dig the
well to a depth of seventy-two cubits, and stop without reaching the spring, is
after all throwing away the well.”--Mencius
It is a well-known adage that if one fails to plan, one may as well plan to fail. Without a well-defined aim, and a tactic or plan of action, life’s finer things will slip by one’s fingers and all hope of success will be dissolved. Many businesses exist to provide planning aids for those who would work hard for a fruitful life. It is widely taught that all success comes from fulfilling short-term and long-term goals. Let us therefore talk of a personal Wing Chun goal; say, a 5-year plan.
First,
however, lets talk of crutches…
Misfortune
visits men and women unannounced. A
broken ankle, a twisted knee, or a sprained muscle can make walking painful and
nearly impossible. Though not the
most comfortable device, a crutch can be a tremendous aid, lending mobility to
the injured. There is, of course, nothing wrong with relying on a crutch to get
around when one is injured. But the
human body is a dynamic thing. Tissue
is formed and replaced daily; movements are learned; blood is created and
destroyed; bone grows and heals; change is the most constant thing. With such an
efficient organism, very soon, a crutch outlives its purpose.
Were one to continue relying on crutches for too long, a limp, an ache or
a loss of mobility may become permanent. One
may even be left a cripple from a less-than-severe injury.
A crutch is therefore, only a temporary aid.
It is never a solution in and of itself.
It is never the cure; it can hold no promise of health.
Now,
back to the matter of goals…
When
fighting, most people will enter the conflict with the firm goal to hurt their
opponent. Sometimes a specific
goal, such as breaking a nose or an arm will dictate every move of the fighter.
Others merely have as a goal, to win at any cost.
They are well motivated but such a frame of mind is no more than mental
tunnel vision. When focusing too intently on an object, during a fight, the
eyesight dims and freezes and can soon see no more than blackness.
In this very same way, the fighter’s ego inflates and traps itself
within its own designs when one fights with a certain goal or plan in mind.
Instantly, one has forsaken Wing Chun.
When change occurs mid-fight, flexibility suffers.
Seldom can the pugilist recover or mold to the situation. The outcome of such a fight can be nothing more than a
crushing defeat, or a tense, lucky lack of injury.
The warrior is ashamed to call such a fight a victory, regardless of whom
is left standing. The fighter who
“wins” in this way may indeed be a good fighter, but is certainly not
a Master.
By contrast, a Wing Chun disciple fights with a calm unperturbedness.
The goals of hitting or even of winning are the farthest things from the
practitioner’s mind. To hold the
line, to relax, to dynamically fill the space of the conflict; those are the
things he holds to. Forward,
flexible energy fuels each movement. Lightning is nothing more than nature’s
way of balancing the difference in charge between the heavens and the earth.
In the very same way, the fast, tempest-like moments of a fight are, to
the Wing Chun practitioner, nothing more than an attempt to realize an emergent
stasis. Competition is not even
present. When fighting is
approached in this way, one will never taste defeat.
Fighting and living are exactly the same to the Wing Chun student.
Principles impregnate one’s entire outlook and hopefully fuel every
choice. The Eastern mind is far more concerned with the virtue of fulfilling the
present than with the harnessing of the future.
Complete faith can be had in that the future holds good things for one
who lives only good moments. The
future is, after all, an accumulation of now’s.
Thus, planning and goal setting are nothing more than crutches to the student of Wing Chun. How is one to plan one’s progress in Wing Chun? How will one measure the acceptance of principles, and set timetables to the process of true learning? These and other advantages of setting goals and plans are meaningless to the Kung Fu practitioner. He who achieves much through goals may be a go-getter, but is certainly not a Master of life. Goals and plans rely on the element of time, and attempt to dictate the unfolding of events in that element. It is arrogance to attempt to subjugate the impending, unforeseen changes in life, but such is the way of the western mind. Thus, the discipline we study is ill defined by a western mentality. Goal setting can be viewed by the Wing Chun practitioner as nothing more than a crutch that one may use to accomplish a simple, unimportant chore. But as a lifestyle, sooner or later, the practice will clip the wings of creativity that the student must have to become a Master. The path to mastery takes long, but again, it is not “then” but “now” that the student must look to. Patience is, after all, one of the one hundred and eight principles.
Make
no goals of advancement. Look no
further than the present. Practice
your forms today; read a good book today; learn and improve today. Yes, it takes
tremendous faith. Choose to do the right thing today.
Be today the person you desire to be. And as for that 5-year plan…
…merely
hope to learn to live in THE ETERNAL NOW.