What is “up” anyway. To whom’s perspective is “up”.
As we stand on this earth, “up” is an easy concept to grasp and one that is never really questioned. Once we leave this earth, Astronauts have big issues with this concept. Vertigo and sickness can come very quickly just by viewing another college whom is upside down reading or working.
What is happening is the subconscious mind lose’s its confidence. In its understanding of “up”, of your perspective of your footing basically.
Can we train the brain to get use to having no reference of “up”? I believe we can.
In Wing Chun we develop ideas to simplify our old ideas, eventually stripping away concepts ages old that were part of our every day conscience. Eventually we are left with a “tiny idea” as the cantonese describe it.
This idea, is extremely difficult to describe, but ill do my best ; its is our starting point, its our foundation, its our expansion point, its also movable. Its a feeling that you observe rather than being a part of. It becomes so tiny that I like to conceptualize it as a “pixel”.
This is the point from were my conscience is, it feels as if everything I am aware of and control begin at this point.
Once I have created an equanimity of awareness of my body and my surroundings I can start to play with the idea of “up”. Who am I to say that this is the vertical, and what does that mean anyway? This is the question I asked to begin exploring if this was an idea , I needed to dissolve.
In space, there is no Up
The only way to develop “up”, is in reference to gravity. But if your in a pod centrifugally swinging around an axis, then your idea of “up” is limited to your pod.
Even here on earth our idea of “up” from a global context is North. But apparently, technically our south is “up”, its just that sailors labelled North, before scientists of the 21st century understood magnetism.
Standing on this planet, “up” is only relative to your grid reference.
What Im trying to do here is convince you that “up” is an individual and localized or gravity effected idea for our body as a whole, as it stands on two feet.
But what if I’m a “pixel”, a tiny tiny idea, and everything else on my body is attached to this idea.
The wonderful thing about this idea, is that to become a tiny idea, one must create gross awareness. It is from this awareness that you can feel and observe at the same time.
Its the observation that becomes the tiny idea.
The perspective of it
Once we have this tiny idea and understand the fragility of the idea of “up”, we can then change what “up” is. It can then become nothing or multi directional. Its just a matter of belief.
So the difficult part is not developing this new idea, but breaking down the old ones. Once we have broken down the old concept of “up”, we just get out of the way. We observe our minds reaction to the creation of a questionable confidence, until a new confidence arrives. With the ability to rotate in any direction around our “pixel” our centre with this concept of “up”.
– Keven Tate, Mindful Wing Chun Hong Kong Grade 5 Senior Student