Personal Development
Wing Chun
or Ving Tsun kung fu is a traditional style of southern
Chinese martial art. It is widely
known as the style Bruce Lee studied
before shooting to Hollywood
fame.
The Wing Chun Federation is a collective of like minded groups and teachers
primarily concerned with the teaching
of quality Wing Chun kung fu. We believe
that political infighting only serves
to divide, and will not enhance our
martial arts in any way.
Wing Chun
is a simple system based on common
sense, directness, practicality and
the self-development of ideas. Learning
Wing Chun is not a process of collecting
techniques, it is a process of stripping
away the unnecessary. This is like
a sculptor chipping away at a rough
stone until the true beauty of form
is revealed.
Mind
and Body Metamorphosis: Conditioning
Techniques for Personal Transformation
Chinese boxing, or kung fu, was first developed
by the Shaolin Monks of Northern
China as a means to defend themselves from bandits
while travelling across the country. The techniques at the root of
kung fu were in fact introduced to the monks by Buddha when he
arrived in China
from India.
Buddha found the monks to be in such poor condition that he
developed a series of breathing exercises for them to practise.
Over hundreds of years, these breathing, meditation, boxing and
callisthenic exercises evolved into a highly efficient, scientific
training system, putting mind and body in a state of readiness for
confrontation.
Eastern wisdom for the
western world
Consistent with it’s
roots, kung fu does not in fact mean martial art, boxing or even
fighting. The term kung fu, which does not have a simple
translation into English, really means attainment. Developing
fighting ability, or martial kung, is only one element of kung fu.
Attainment can also be expressed as learning to remain calm under
trying circumstances, to maintain physical constitution against the
effects of age or inactivity, or simply improving ourselves through
better knowledge of our own abilities. Fortunately, life and death
fights are rare these days for most of us. However, these other
areas of attainment make kung fu as relevant as ever today – maybe
even more so.
Eastern strategies for
fitness
The last decade or so has seen an explosion of
fitness training as a means to better physical condition and
health. Therefore, it is fair to ask whether mind and body
metamorphosis will help you become fit. An even more important
question is just what we mean by fitness. Fitness is a fairly vague
term, usually taken to mean something like being lean, muscular and
able to run a mile or two without too much trouble. Fitness for one
person, however, may mean little to someone else. A long-distance
runner is fit if they can endure for miles at a time, but they
would probably not be fit to enter a weightlifting competition as
their training is not geared to the demands of lifting heavy
weights. Fitness is more properly defined by the demands of what we
are doing and our readiness to meet them.
Demands of daily life
Whether you are a specialist in a particular
sport or not, we all share the demands of daily life. The last
hundred years in particular have seen an unprecedented transition
in the way we live. We have moved from a rural economy, in which
most of us performed manual work, toward largely sedentary
occupations, in which the principal burden is the accelerating pace
of technological change. As a direct result, we are becoming
increasingly anxious and depressed, overweight and under muscled,
prematurely aged and vulnerable to disease.
Mind and Body Metamorphosis
for everyday readiness
Everyday readiness, and the
training to attain it, are defined by the demands of our
lives. The following list could doubtless be expanded, but evidence
suggests our readiness attainment strategy should target:
Self-confidence - maintaining a positive view of ourselves.
Weight control -
maintaining body fat at reasonable levels.
Age prevention -
maintaining the strength of muscle and bone.
Disease prevention - maintaining the health of internal organs such
as the
heart.
Mind and Body Metamorphosis delivers
these objectives with a training syllabus
systematically directed towards:
Mental relaxation - the ability to enjoy life and see things
calmly.
Breathing and mobility - the ability to move joints freely and breathe
fully.
Stamina - the
ability to keep going and have energy to spare.
Strength - the
ability to carry and lift with ease.
The logic of such a syllabus or routine should
be self-evident, and there are various exercise systems based on
it. A typical exercise programme will, however, usually fail to
deliver on its promise. This is not necessarily the fault of the
strategy itself, but rather the participant’s inability to keep
interested and involved. The effects of exercise are short-lived,
lasting hours or days, and only continued participation will
deliver lasting results. Most fitness and health promotion
programmes retain only 5–10% of entrants, so few enjoy much
benefit. In addition to the basic elements of a readiness
attainment, the strategy must itself deliver the key elements which
evidence suggests will keep us interested. In addition to its basic
objectives, the advantages of mind and body metamorphosis are:
Inclusive - anyone
can join in.
Confidence -
systematically develops a positive attitude.
Challenge - enough
difficulty to grow, but not put us off.
Progression - seeing
and enjoying improvements.
Variety - enough
scope to change the strategy.
Enjoyment - scope
to imagine, play and have fun.
Convenience - no
special equipment or clothing required.
Portability - can be
performed anywhere.
Flexibility -
adaptable to time and personal constraints.
Adaptability -
applicable to our own objectives.
Range - good
for groups or those who would rather exercise alone.
Mind and Body Metamorphosis
and life-long readiness
The exercises are arranged in a rough order of
difficulty, in a sequence designed to develop a relaxed mind,
positive focus, enhanced stamina and enhanced muscular power. This
is not dissimilar to the natural evolution of kung fu itself. Each
series of exercises forms the foundation for easy progression to
the next. While they at first appear novel, each exercise is
thoroughly illustrated with easy-to-follow steps.
The kung fu system implicitly includes elements
to help us remain encouraged and keep practising over the long
term. I have included interesting variations for many exercises,
along with advanced alternatives and routines for specific
objectives. These are all graded by colour (like the belt systems
in judo and karate) so you can choose exercises appropriate for
your own ability or level of comfort. Almost anyone can therefore
engage in these exercises at some level and observe progression. I
have included elements explicitly aimed at breaking down barriers
to practice. The system of exercises is sufficiently flexible to
adapt to almost any need, location or time constraint, and
guidelines have been provided for this.
Further, realising the mind’s direction is
essential to success; there are specific strategies to help
preserve your enthusiasm and prevent the urge to give up. The
resulting system is direct, complete and effective.
The Mind and Body
Metamorphosis syllabus
Mind and Body Metamorphosis is delivered
over a 12-week period. Starting out
with developing calm focus we progress
through increasingly more demanding
stages from Yellow to Black. As we
master one series of skills, another
is added at the most basic level.
Each part of the syllabus develops
key skills to get the most out of
the following stages.
We begin with calm focus to put us in the right
frame of mind to get the most out of training. Chi Kung breathing
gives us a strong foundation for the demands of stamina training.
Developing muscular power begins halfway through the course and
only when we have properly conditioned ourselves for the demands of
hard work through a few weeks of stamina training.
The martial arts from which this book evolved
are more than systems for fighting; at their deepest level they are
systems of thought and a way of life. Mind and body metamorphosis
will not teach you to fight, but by the end of the 12-week syllabus
it will equip you to face many other important, and hopefully more
frequent, challenges in daily life. Ultimately, wherever you go in
that journey, these exercises are a tool to help you get the most
from it.
Taken from the new book Mind
and Body Metamorphosis: Conditioning
Techniques for Personal Transformation
(Dr.
Mathew Mills)
The Wing Chun Federation
352 Priory Rd, St. Deny's,
Southampton, Hampshire,
UK SO17 2LQ
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