Tag: mindfulness

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Why Am I Suffering?

Steve Rowe

Why are we suffering? What did we do to deserve this? If you think like this you are trying to apply human justice to a much broader perspective and it clearly doesn’t work. Suffering exists in all forms and our body will experience it affecting our emotions and thoughts, but we are not our body, we are not our emotions and we are not our thoughts, we are more than them. We don’t need to ‘believe’ this, we need to directly experience it. This is the point of our Shi Kon neigong or ‘inner work’ deep breathing calms the body, … Continue reading Why Am I Suffering?

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Shedding Skins

Steve Rowe

Shedding skins As you train, meditate and grow, it’s inevitable that you will leave some family and friends behind. When you don’t fulfil their expectations and they don’t get what they want from you, they can become bitter, disappointed and accuse you of changing, if they aren’t big enough to accommodate the ‘new you’ a parting of the ways is inevitable. You will reach a point that the relationship becomes toxic for both of you and no reasonable compromise can be reached, don’t be afraid to let go because it’s best for all concerned, sometimes we have to shed our … Continue reading Shedding Skins

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Setting The Right Goals

Steve Rowe

Looking at the conversations on FB this morning it struck me that many people are perfectly happy learning and teaching a martial art at a superficial level and I guess that’s the same as any other art or sport and creates a gateway and introduction for many people, but what happens when you want to go deeper? Firstly you have to decide your goals as deeper can be anything from Buddhist priest to street fighter, so the search for deeper instruction becomes the major difficulty. I could never find THE instructor I needed so had to got to various sources … Continue reading Setting The Right Goals

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Steve Rowe

I’m not normal, I acknowledge that. I’m out of synch with what is accepted as ’normality’. I don’t have to try to think outside of the box, I have a problem understanding the logic of inside of it. I have never related to our culture, was a very troubled person until I discovered the intelligent analysis of Buddhism and Asian philosophy. It didn’t bring me to normality but helped me to understand that my cursed mind in our culture was also a gift that has helped me to share my ‘outside the box’ thinking with others who feel out of … Continue reading

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The Power Of A Logo

Steve Rowe

This is an original handmade piece of glass made by Ruth Dathorne for our Dojo and is important to me as it is the only 2 logos I’ve ever used in my 50 years in the Martial Arts. ‘Logo’ means ‘word of god’ and represents the soul and ethos of my path in the Martial Arts. The person in the foreground was hand drawn by me in the 1970’s and is a yin/yang representation of a technique used in both Tai Chi and Karate and was our logo, badge and used on the front of the book we did in … Continue reading The Power Of A Logo

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The Name Tai Chi

Steve Rowe

There is often a misunderstanding about the name ‘Tai Chi’. It translates as ‘grand ultimate’ and as ‘chuan’ means ‘fist’ which is the generic term for martial arts most people read it as ‘Grand Ultimate Martial Art’ and see it as arrogantly stating that it’s the best martial art which is wrong. Tai Chi is a kung fu system and had many names like ‘deceptive boxing’ and ‘soft cotton boxing’, what most people call the yin/yang symbol is properly named the ‘tai chi’ symbol and existed for a long time before the art representing the harmony of Taoism, so legend … Continue reading The Name Tai Chi

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Instructor’s Eye

Steve Rowe

You think your instructors can’t see behind your BS, your excuses, your mask… but the truth is they can see right into your soul. It’s just polite for the instructor to not reveal what they see, so they smile patiently as they listen to the excuses, the distractions and only help or reveal what they see when appropriate. It’s up to the student to tread the path, to put in the time and effort, to sort out their life and emotions, an instructor has to wait until the time is right to put in their bit. But don’t think for … Continue reading Instructor’s Eye

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Being Different

Steve Rowe

I was considered stupid right up until my mid 20’s. I just couldn’t get on with the way our education system and culture worked and was therefore considered lazy and disruptive, failed all my school exams and was kicked out into a succession of low paid jobs ending up in the security world not even having read a book. When I saw Japanese writing the pictatorial aspect of it strangely appealed to me. When Japanese karate came to the UK the zen ‘life and death’ simplicity also appealed dragging me in. Karate made me more violent but I had found … Continue reading Being Different

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Enemies Of The Mind

Steve Rowe

The mind is the hardest and most important ‘muscle’ in the body to train. Nothing can be achieved without training it. The 2 enemies of the mind are laziness and distraction and this applies to both coaches and students. How many times do you correct the same points on the same students for months and even years and yet they still don’t make the correction themselves each time they move? That’s right – unconscious laziness. They think they are ‘training’ when they should be paying attention. How many times does the coach look at the student and not do the … Continue reading Enemies Of The Mind