Do you remember when the first time you ever memorized something – like the dreaded times tables? You memorize and memorize, giving the brain a workout, over and over until you are bored silly? Then all of a sudden, there you are at the math test and a lightbulb goes off you realize you have access to a whole new level of information?
Its almost like walking through life with your head facing down, and then you look up, and you’re in an entirely different place? Like a quantum leap of sorts… Well, that happened to me recently and I wanted to share.
Some may know that I’ve been training in tai chi/kung-fu going on 2 years now. It’s one of those things that I’ve come to truly love and look forward to like nothing else. The gym never worked for me, I’m not a big fan of exercising in groups, I prefer private lessons. Of course, the budget doesn’t allow for alot of those, but my one indulgence is this art.
Even pilates grew tiresome and eventually didn’t fit into my schedule. There’s something about martial arts that taps into a deeper part of my soul. But it’s not all roses, there are some weeks when I feel like I’m doing the same thing, over and over, and get annoyed.
It’s always those moments though, that have the greatest to offer in a sense of learning. So the last 2 months or so we’ve been working on a series of forms to develop a “type” of energy or jing that does all this funky stuff. I feel so incredible afterwards, so alive. So, some of the basic training elements are simple – squats, punches, kicks, wax on, wax off type stuff. You do it over and over. And over and over. But sometimes a class can be like sex without an orgasm (as my SIL used to say) – you do it over and over…and over and over and nothing… but I digress…
But then, over the weekend I had one of those moments…I get the click-click-click, the sound of the tumblers in the lock all falling into place. And I’m looking into a bigger world with greater understanding.
I was doing one of the forms we had been practicing, and I felt it, I felt the power that my sensei has been talking about. Zing…Whoa….omg what was that? Then it was just “there” like it was always there. But I had never felt it before, quite that way, until that moment in time. I’m not going to describe “what” I was doing because it will be confusing to explain (one of these days I’ll get a video rolling) but that isn’t really the point.
The point is that I’ve discovered I am living for these poingnant moments, to deepen my understanding, to rediscover something I already knew, and take those quantum leaps. As it is with most things, its the transition points that give us all the leverage, and we just “exist” in the moments in between.
What about you? When was the last time you had a moment like this? Would love to hear about it.
Until next time…
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