Topic: mental training
The emotional training of a style is very important. Like meditations, emotional training is often removed by people who are "fixing" a style. As such, few people have any experience or understanding of what this means. I will say that many people do approach the emotional side of training, but they are inefficient and incomplete.
The process of emotional training has a large component of social awareness. Emotions have a place and time. If that given emotion is expressed, then it will add power to any action. If the emotion is withheld, then the body must contain it or it will damage the physical body.
Emotions also have a direction. If a technique is in the direction of the emotion then it will be strengthened. If the technique is in another direction then it will be weakened.
These factors come together and create a pattern which efficiently teaches a person a given martial art.
The pattern I will be going over pertains to the variation of monkey that I have trained.
Every animal style has a quality which represents a beginning of it's path to mastery. Monkey starts with desire. Obviously they have to desire kung fu skill. Specifically, it is the quality of desire that wants you to constantly get more information. Whether the techniques work, or are even possible, is secondary to whether they exist and can be learned. Monkey wants all of it. This apparent ADHD does eventually get in the way of training. which brings us to our next stage.
Obsession allows the Monkey stylist to limit the training to a manageable level. It is also the beginning of the end of communication with other schools. While the total amount of information becomes limited. The level that Monkey takes it to will easily transcend the limitations that other schools work with. I personally have had whole schools stop talking to me after demonstrations. They thought they were masters and I could do more. It becomes a source of depression until the next stage. This obsession requires an explanation. It does not make you a dick. It simply causes you to work on a training program and see how far it will go. You read, see, or hear of a limit and you need to go there and look for yourself. People tell of sitting in a horse stance for two hours as some transcendent stance work. I have done it and it is no big deal. Literally, the first ten minutes is training and the rest is just boring. If you have a book, TV, or friends then the time just blows by. You can have children do it simply by having them take turns with story time. I read of how Bruce lee could do ten push ups with two fingers. The story was vague so I trained to do the two finger push ups one handed as well. It turned out to not be a big effort over my normal workout. I eventually trained to do ten push ups on any two fingers. The pinkie sucks. Since it did not improve my punching or finger training, I stopped it. You may read this and think I am lying, get in line. I train everything like this and it is a source of anxiety for every teacher who thinks they have achieved the most of anything. The only time I truly enjoyed this experience was a San Da person who had a list of subjects which Traditional Martial Arts practiced and were useless. Low stance work was supposed to be slow, hindered kicking, and was easy to grapple with. When he was proved wrong with each opinion; as in low stance work could be fast, you could kick high with power from a low stance without rising, and was easy to defend against grapplers; he just walked away and stopped talking to me. He actually pretended that he had never spoken to me. - this level of emotion tends to coincide with perception abilities and training.
The next level is selfish.The only thing which keeps this level from being an addiction is survival. If the Monkey stylist doesn't get what s/he wants, they won't die. However they want it and they are going to get it. This is the point in training where the artist decides to make the Kung Fu the number one priority. This has to be explained since the number one priority is never the one people say. Many people want to be loved, safe, rich, the center of the universe or some other nebulous concept which colors every decision they make. Every Martial Artist must, at some point, make martial arts the number one priority in order to achieve mastery. This point for Monkey is when they become selfish. They are simply important to everything. Their friends are the best. Their training is the best. Their way of life is the best. The best way to protect and enhance all of this is simply to master Kung Fu. This level of emotion tends to coincide with compassion training and skills.
Beyond this level of emotion nothing is explained. This is not withheld for any reason, it is simply beyond most people. You can be told but it will have no meaning. There is simply a description of the Monkey style and it's actions.
The Monkey Style has a perception of a perfect balanced world. All under his protection will receive the benefit of his skill. Monkey is the master of all and yet loyal to the least among his crowd. He carries all with him. If he sees it, it will belong to him. In Myth the Monkey style is described by the monkey king in China and Hanuman in India. Monkey is power, control, loyalty, and protection. Monkey is beyond your perception, out of your control, and too subtle to be noticed. The technique can not be stopped, controlled, or predicted.
The Monkey perceives all, feels all, and has all power.
If this does not help, Monkey may not be for you.
