功夫 Gong Fu- Time, effort, [energy], with attention to detail. –Grand Master Wang Tian Min and his Honored Student Shifu Ed.
When you watch a master of Chinese martial arts (or any discipline) perform their art, what you are seeing is an expression of their Gong—the minutes, hours, days, and years they devoted to honing the details of their art. When a Master expresses their art form, it appears unique, effortless, natural, and is inspiring to the observer.
Mastery is earned over time. Natural talent helps, but is not a requirement—Time, energy, effort and attention to detail are required. In this light, Gong Fu offers an equal opportunity to all, regardless of age, experience, or any other demographic.
Mastery does not require perfection. In fact, it is the graceful adaptation to “error”, in a manner that is seamless and does not distract or defeat, that is the true mark of Mastery. The Masters in our lineage look for errors like prospectors search for gold. Errors are places of high Empowerment potential, where we can add energy and evolution follows.
While mastery of Chinese Martial Arts may require vast sums of time, gaining the benefits does not. It really only requires a few minutes of inspired exploration each day.
A few minutes too much? Start with one minute and see what happens. One minute too little, add more minutes. It is the student's responsibility to invest time. Steal it from watching TV, gaming, binging on social media, etc. If there is true power in the lineage and virtue in the Shifu, then you can trust the gains will follow. I am offering the video to foster trust in the integrity of what I am teaching.
The philosophy of yin and yang as illustrated in the Tai Chi symbol makes visible an overlooked key to success. "The difference between difference between nothing and something is far greater than a little and a lot.”
In order to maximize the return on your Tai Chi training investment, it furthers one to have a clear sense of purpose to inspire you to train consistently and to have clarity of details to train with.
Without a clear sense of purpose, there is little training consistency and progress is slow. Without clarity of details, efforts are clouded with vagueness which leads to doubt, frustration, and quitting.
This may seem obvious so some, but it's not as simple as it seems. From the person who signs up for an 8 week class, to the person who aspires to mastery, to anyone who wants a return on their investment of time, energy, and money, it is beneficial to stockpile sources of inspiration and motivation for training.
Why? The truth is you need to train regularly and you wont always want to. For me, “wanting” to train was so random and fickle, I ditched it as reliable inspiration for training. Additionally, my biggest gains came on the days I didn’t want anything to do with training. That's when I really started to mature as a martial artist and grow as a Master. This spilled over into other aspects of my life. (Like writing this blog post: I was not inspired at first. I trained and added energy and now I am struggling to stop.)
Adding Energy Fitness and adaptability to your list of training motivations is critical to success.
In addition to being two of the greatest benefits of our school’s approach to training, these are attributes that a healthy, empowered lifestyle requires. Why not infuse this into your training? Personally I now train Chinese Martial Arts to be Energy Fit and highly adaptable to life. Self Defense, great mental, physical, and spiritual heath, happiness, freedom of movement, dedication to my art, my devotion to my family, my Shifu, my students motivate and inspire me; but the key to them all, that allows me to continue to grow in power, is Energy Fitness and high adaptability.
Without Energy Fitness and adaptability, life’s demands will most likely inhibit your growth. With these, your growth will continue with interruption.
In 27 years of training I have seen the most dedicated and devout students stop training. Shifu and I understand why. “Eddie, it’s not right to waste a dedicated student's time. We will give them power.” –Shifu Wang Tian Min. It is tragic to see someone invest all the time and money into training only to plateau at what amounts to a beginner’s level. It’s what moved him to share with me the details and culture that are key to unlocking the profound powers and perennial benefits that is the heritage of a 5,000 year old lineage. It is what moved him to empower me.
I want you to have a real opportunity to grow into an empowered Martial Artist. I want you to have all the Energy you need to Win the benefits you seek AND gain the power that is the heritage of Chinese Martial Arts.
Some points to keep in mind
Shen Fa is the discipline of organizing the body to move with energy, from Center, for power. Learn this well, it is the foundation and method of power.
Shen Fa is the process of turning your body into an A.E.Q. Energy charger.
Power is units of work over units of time or units of energy transferred over units of time.
With this in mind, I give you:
Shen Fa x Time = Adding A.E.Q. Energy
Shen Fa + A.E.Q. Energy x Time = Building Power
Shen Fa x A.E.Q. Energy – Time = Using Power
With this knowledge, the Way from beginner to master is paved. Remember, knowing is not enough, you must do. Make sure you do with an experienced master who knows AND can use the power you seek.
Here is the Shen Fa reference video with the added introduction that connects this style of training for dealing with the challenges we currently face. We live in time of high demand, my intent is to empower and inspire people to face crisis as an opportunity to grow and evolve.
Keep Adding Energy,
Shifu Ed
What follows is a transcript of of what I say in the intro part of the video "5 minute to addling Energy with Shen Fa"
Hi, I’m Shifu Ed from The Fire Mountain School of Chinese Martial Arts and Energy Fitness Training. The video that follows was shot a couple of weeks before the Coronavirus pandemic and the stay in shelter order. It’s 8 weeks at least since we shot this video. Originally it was designed to serve as a study aid for the beginning students as a reference for them to have to begin learning warm-ups. Then the pandemic hit, and we entered into a period of uncertainty and change and conflict and suffering and stress that’s unprecedented in the history of humanity.
The school was founded on the belief that energy is the key to unlocking human nature and limiting the worst in human nature, and also keeping us healthy and adaptable through periods of change like we’re in right now. Because currently, the stress management techniques, they center around a couple of basic principles, and I want you to have something to augment it. First - most stress, avoid right away. Avoid whatever stress you can, resign yourself to whatever stress you can’t avoid, and you kind of grit it out until you get the job done, and then afterwards you seek relief, you kick back and relax. But, we don’t have those options quite now. We are living in a state of perpetual demand, uncertainty and change, so I want people to have the energy they need that empowers them naturally to be adaptable and healthy through times like these.
In the past [demand/stress] was like a micro-burst and it ended in a period of time, but we don’t know when this is going to end. We don’t even know if we get out of the quarantine, if we’re going to stay out! So there’s so much uncertainty going on and you don’t have to worry about that. You focus on building your energy, and things have a way in the human spirit of working out for the best. Even when we go through times of terrible change, pain, suffering, loss, grief, and all the stuff - something is resilient and amazing in the human spirit, and it’s my belief in our practice, that it’s the energy, the inspired energy, that makes it possible. (More about that in another video.) One of the other videos we released you’ll see in the video list talks about “a charger for you”, so this builds off of that. If you have any questions feel free to contact us
ShifuEd@TheFireMountainSchool.com
#HuoShanShifu on Instagram
I wish you well, and I hope you enjoy the video and that it’s helpful.
