Mindful Wing Chun is an “Internal Martial Art”. So what is it to be ….. “Internal”? The short answer is “Awareness”. A deeper, more complex answer is the ability to have “Casual Neutral Attention”, as one of my instructors aptly put it. To have a very light idea with a non bipartisan attitude with the perspective of observation, and then to place that idea, that feeling, with delicacy and intention to a definitive place.
“Activated Relaxation” is the movement of this “Casual Neutral Attention”
There is no need to “Activate” the idea with a conscious thought. The idea is activated as a natural part of the general observation. Your “Intention” will automatically be where you detect threat, intention does not come from a conscious thought. We don’t think about intent, we feel into the intensity of the intention. Not unlike a conscious thought of love compared to feeling about love. This observation of intent is a growing awareness of a feeling of knowing , of confidence removed of ego. To increase this feeling, we need to throw ourselves off a cliff, so to speak.
We need to believe and have confidence in this feeling. As the power increases, it feels as though your awareness and observation are all increasing, your belief in it is unchallenged. And quiet the opposite happens, if you create doubt, or judge yourself, or worried about reputation and repercussions. i.e. you lose your sense of presence.
“Activated Relaxation”
“Activated Relaxation” is like a fitness, in that everyday we reach our comfort zone of this feeling. The zone grows ever so gradually. Its not a boundary that one can seek, it is one that you find with neutrality, awareness and observation. It is a feeling of your ability to have this awareness, rather than a conscious “ohhh there it is”. In fact , as soon as you think of that…its gone. You are left searching for a shadow like a whisper in the wind.
This intelligence is not a knowing of conclusions, but a deep understanding of your level of awareness, your ownership and control of self. It is as though you are staring at a raw truth of self.
Power of the Experience
When you are so absorbed by this awareness with your intention so delicately weaved into it, with the tiny idea of your mind pointing to an elusive definitive place, you will not crave to be elsewhere, or be distracted by other thoughts or desires. At this point you will experience the awesome power of the experience.
You will seek not a destination or an objective, but just to be present. In awe with more of what you are feeling, its a heightened state of awareness with a lack of fear. The lack of fear results from not a feeling of knowledge, but from acceptance of what you know and whom you are and where you are at with your current state of awareness.
It has no boundaries as you reach out over horizons. It’s a feeling of blind faith as you step off a cliff, to discover more. In doing so you are rewarded with more of the same…more observation…more detail…more acceptance…more awe…more stillness…..more peace and ultimately more latent power.
– Keven Tate, Mindful Wing Chun Hong Kong Grade 5 Senior Student, March 2018