Optimist or Pesimist?

 

Half empty or half full?

 

Life is full of ups and downs, and although we can try to create (and therefore look forward to), the ups, usually there is very little we can do to prevent the downs, as these often come from an outside source such as bad weather on your wedding day, the cancellation of an event you’d looked forward to, and so on.

 

Although we cannot control the downs happening, we can try to control how we deal with them.

 

Anyone suffering with such burdens as Bipolar, Mood disorder, Cyclical personality syndrome and so on, will have to face these traumas on a daily basis, and not only is this a terrible situation to deal with emotionally, it is also exhausting physically.

 

Personally I will often have this down feeling after taking a holiday, the time away is wonderful but then the moment you return, there seems to be a world of issues for you to have to deal with.

 

So how can our Wing Chun help us?

By trying to focus on the positives and stay in the moment.

 

This is usually easier to say than to do, but it is possible.

 

Over recent months I have looked into many various ways of playing the Siu Lim Tau, focussing on the aerodynamics of the techniques, keeping the shoulders back, playing it close to a wall (to prevent overreaching), playing the first section fast and the other sections slow, training explosive energy in the first section and elbow energy in the rest of the Form, and so on….

The idea behind this is to try to keep the Form fresh, even though NOTHING in the pattern has been changed, and it is this same energy that we can use in order to keep ourselves on top of these emotions.

 

Over the last 30+ years of teaching, I have lost count of the number of people who have stated how amazing they thought Wing Chun was, and how sorry they were that they had not started earlier, having ‘wasted‘ all those years training their previous style.

To this I tell them that this should not be their thinking, but instead be happy that they have spent that time acquiring another method of Martial Arts, AND, that if they changed anything they had done in the past, their path would not have brought them to this moment of happiness right now.

 

So with that in mind, if you are having a bad day, try to think of one element, one thing that you are really glad about in your life, right here and right now, and remind yourself that if anything had been different, you would not have that thing now.

 

If a drinker was constantly surrounded by drinkers, it would be hard to be anything else than a drinker.

If a gambler was constantly surrounded by gamblers, it would be hard to be anything else than a gambler.

If a drug user was constantly surrounded by drug users, it would be hard to be anything else than a drug user.

 

So sometimes a change of scenery may be the answer, change your surroundings and therefore your mindset.

 

Be positive in your training,

Be positive in your thoughts,

Be positive in life.