A New Beginning

by Sifu Nick Francis

Image of various vegetable seeds.

Over the years that I have been learning Wing Chun, I have noticed how the process has impacted me and even changed the way I view personal growth and change.

When I first started training Wing Chun, I have to admit, I was driven. I had constant, internal, competing values. I wanted to try to learn as quickly as I could and yet I also wanted to be proficient, or "maybe", dare I say it, even good. 

I don't think my desire nor drive was wrong, in fact in many ways, I would call them virtues. However, over time, it became more and more obvious to me that neither of these virtues was going to get me to where I wanted to be as quickly as I had hoped. In fact, these attributes actually started being counter productive.

The very thing I was pursuing,

was being hindered by the way I was pursuing it.

Wing Chun is one of those things that you don't just learn. Wing Chun is something you actually become. I guess that is why it is Gong Fu or Kung Fu, "Hard-Working skill".

Yes, even though we may learn to block, deflect and punch, does this mean that we have learned Wing Chun?

If Wing Chun is principle based, theory based,

what if there is actually much, much more to learning?

Consider, what if chasing techniques only is like walking around your local fast food chain, collecting leftovers from other patrons. It's quick, easy, and we get fed. Now, compare this to being invited to a five-star steakhouse to sit, savor and enjoy whatever the Master Chef has inspired for you on that particular day.

Wing Chun in my mind, is like the latter. It's not only an invitation to something special, but also an invitation to the details that make it special.

When I first started learning Wing Chun years ago, I recall sitting and have a chat with Sifu Terrence of the Dennis Lee Ving Tsun Association in Singapore. Over several weeks of training, he demonstrated to me the concept and application of internal energy.

I found my first experience with this to be both profound and befuddling. On one hand I was fascinated by the power, structure and relaxation that was available but I was also deeply perplexed about how to access it, develop it and harness it, let alone explain it.

I recall asking him,

"Can you tell me more about internal energy in Wing Chun?".

His answer was (and I will never forget),

"There is no internal energy in Wing Chun.

There is no external energy in Wing Chun.

 There is only Wing Chun!"

As a westerner, it was intuitive for me to separate the distinctions and try find a learning path that made sense. You know, check-off the lessons on the list.

However, I was making a grand mistake by thinking this way. Wing Chun is a discipline that demands the unity of both internal awareness as well as external application. Not just selective energy but full awareness of energy.

If I know anything at all about Martial Arts, it is this. It is a path towards self-discovery and even self-mastery. It is not a path toward knowing techniques.

Back to my competing motives.

Looking at Wing Chun as a collective of blocks, punches, stepping, kicks, techniques etc. is to negate the experience of how they offer a path toward personal wholeness and life benefit.

Focusing on the external alone, ignoring the emotional, relational, physical and even the spiritual, to rush through learning the shapes and positions in forms, is to terribly undermine growth and learning.

You may have heard the phrase, "Slow down and smell the flowers."

This phase accurately captures the invitation of the Wing Chun journey. It does us no good to rush, press, chase, or force learning. The invitation is to savor, ponder, mediate, and enjoy.

Stopping to smell the flowers is the lesson!

Learning Wing Chun demands more of us because we are not learning self-defense,

we are learning a new way of being that equips us with many skills in addition to being able to defend ourselves.

Certain things cannot be rushed in life.

• A child cannot quickly become an adult.

• A tree cannot reach great heights over one season.

• Fruits, vegetables, and flowers, all need their natural timing to produce fruit.

Simply put, and I get why this is common, but many of us want to grow faster than we are ready and able.

This was certainly true for me. I wanted to somehow dictate the growth process.

My first time through the system that is!

There were many issues that arose because of this. And quite frankly, this is the point.

I think it is important that we ask ourselves,

"Why we are rushing?"

When we are young we want to be like the big kids.

When we are a big kid we want to like the teenagers.

When we are teenagers we want to be like the grown ups.

... then, and funny as this is, when we are old, we wish we were young again!

Why are we rushing?

What are we rushing to?

What are we rushing for?

I am convinced that this temptation can steal all the joys of our journey unless we recognize it and make an intentionally, different choice.

A choice to slow down.

A choice to begin.

A choice to begin again,

A choice to begin again, again and again. 

Fortunately, I wasn't robbed of the joy that comes from the love for learning.

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This is why I want to invite you to join me on the path of beginning.

If we are aware, we are all in the season of beginning something.

• Beginning a new day

• Beginning a new skill.

• Beginning a new perspective.

• Beginning a new relationship.

• Beginning a new conversation.

• Beginning a new meal.

• Beginning a new job.

• Beginning a new _________.

Now, as I am writing this, please understand, I am not saying this is an easy matter, but nor am I suggesting it to be difficult. I am just suggesting that,

"Everything can be new beginning, if we let it be..."

...because it actually is!

Only a couple of weeks back, I was sitting when all of a sudden I had an epiphany, a surreal type of experience, which in this case was quite visceral. In my Wing Chun and even in my life,

I felt like I was starting all over.

I felt excited.

And then (strangely) I felt discouraged.

Then I felt encouraged again.

I concluded that this is precisely what it is like to have the mindset of the beginner!

It's a moment when we are grateful for what we have and happy with where we are. It is even a place where we the choose to start anew with the life pieces currently in front of us. Sometimes, I have found, that the new pieces build on what I already know and other times I see them being pieces for something entirely new. Sometimes they are just ideas, that I am not even aware of yet, of what they will grow into.

Like lego bricks in a pile ...

What will we build today!

In this specific scenario, I felt like I was at the end of journey. And at the end of every journey, there is a new one beginning (if we can see it).

Sometimes it's a choice.

Sometimes it's an agreement.

Sometimes it's a struggle.

Sometimes it feels easy.

One way or another, what I know is that today is a great day to begin building something that we love and something that we care about.

This image of various vegetables seeds pulled me into its perfect analogy. Did you know that you can go to the garden center today and start planing for the season harvest?

You can collect all types of seeds, which when mature will offer you nutrition, health, strength, vitamins, antioxidants, and all kinds of things our bodies need to grow and stay healthy.

 But currently, the seeds alone offer us very little.

 • We have to plant the seeds.

• We have to give them an environment where they can grow.

• We have to wait until they are ready to consume.

New beginnings are equally about the soil,

as they are about the quality of the seeds.

Learning Wing Chun is like both the seed and the soil.

The seeds are the lessons.

The soil is the time, patience and practice.

Ip Man said, "There are no secrets in Wing Chun, just time and practice."

If the purpose then, is about getting good fruit! We must be aware that there are a collective of things that destroy good fruit:

• Poor seeds

• Poor soil

• Impatience

• Misunderstanding

• Rushed process

• Bad conditions

• Not enough rain

• Not enough sunlight

• Too much sunlight

• Too much rain

• etc.

Beginning again is really about harnessing the power we have to make sure our future has the best chance to be something remarkable. It is the moment in our training and perhaps evening our lives that we choose to view every opportunity as something new.

Following our seed analogy,

Last seasons harvest is gone and has nothing left to offer.

There is wisdom in letting it go.

Cultivating the soil today and planting good seeds is our best path forward.

"The Lancaster Wing Chun Association exists

to build people through learning traditional Ip Man Wing Chun

in a safe and supportive environment."