The way that can be spoken about is not the eternal way…..
– Tao Te Ching

Entering and understanding the wordless mind is a very important stage in the training of a Martial Artist, it’s the point where the direct, intuitive knowledge of doing and being exist.  It’s one thing to know about something, to understand the meaning of the words and to actually do or be the reality that the words are inadequately trying to express.

Your body is your oldest friend and has a wordless language of it’s own – how fluent in that language are you?  Training injury pain, muscle seizure, low immune system viral infections, chronic fatigue and insomnia, are often your body’s way at shouting at you because you were too insensitive to listen in the first place.

The problem is that many martial artists see their body as their ‘enemy’, trying to ‘forge steel from the fires of the furnace’ with mantra’s like ‘no pain, no gain’ and they try to beat their body into submission and force training through injury and illness.  The media hype is the same way – training is always seen in action movies as driven by revenge, hate and the desire to fit into the media ‘perfect body’.

Meditation and neigong (inner work) is essential to develop the sensitivity required to learn the language of your oldest friend.  Each day ask it how it feels and listen to and ‘feel’ the answer, take it through qigong (its natural range of movements) in a caring manner and help it to ‘ease’ itself into a healthy balanced condition.

Your oldest friend loves to move and exercise, it’s a very sensual being and loves to play with its friends, that’s why we love the Martial Arts!  Exercise needs to be enthusiastic with the body smiling along with the mind – not done out of guilt, revenge, body dismorphic disorder, hate or anger.

Martial Arts training then becomes a pleasure each day and something to always look forward to, the body will be easy as a result of your friendship with increased levels of communication and will respond to you in a far more positive way constantly feeding you with information.  Your technique will improve immeasurably!