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If the motivation in learning the art is primarily to gain skill as a boxer, then motivation will impede learning. To learn combativeness becasuse of their self defense value is a confession of weakness, of being unable to resolve interpersonal problems rationally. But if the internal is viewed , as it should be, as a form of meditation that in time bequeths boxing skill and other useful values, then progress will be more rapid. For the ionternal emphasizes meditation and exercise, out of which the combat technique emerges, but the combative is always under control of the meditative. The internal requires quite, stillness. But this stillness is not simple the absence of sound. It is a total presence, an attentiveness, which must be a part of the dicipline if excellance is to emerge. I beleive that the silences a man must live with in training in the internal themselves produce part of the skill that ultimately comes. When the silence releases its new energy, a quite mind is produced, and when this happens, the whole being becomes truly active.
The internal, is dynamic training of mind-body. An old Taoist saying goes:
... By its very nature, the internal is cooperative. It breaks down when it becomes overly competitive. Springing for Taoism and Buddhism, it stresses being and becoming, rather than thinking and doing. Learning is aided if one remembers that there is no opponent-only ourselves. Transfer of power roots at the foot, goes through the leg and is controlled by the waist. The waist isi similiar to the transmission in an automobile: it distributes the amount and direction of your power (through your spinal column to your shoulder, elbow and finally your fingertips). After long periods of practice and standing such as embrace the moon, the transfer of power will be direct from the waist, following the spine up etc. The control of the power transferring process is located in your spinal column. |