When you train kung fu/karate, you step into another world. You walk, kick, and punch through the hands and feet of the ghosts of the past — but you are actually becoming that past, now present. It is a spiritual step. It is a step of trust and ethic. It is a step of faith, that all those who proceeded before you passed along the truth to you and you follow it in the light of that faith, that trust, that truth.
What this means in simple terms is, therefore, that every time you train you should train with great humbleness, without ego, and in the shadow of the masters who came before you. Each breath, each move, everything in your system combined, is them, is you, is both. The masters respected you by paying it forward in a way; and now, it is your turn to pay it forward as well — by being the best you can be in each workout, each move, each breath.
Kung fu/karate is not something you do: It is something you are!
Keep that on your mind: Keep that in your heart.
Peace and Blessings,
pgmb
Thank you PGM Baird for paying it forward for me, that I too may do the same
Wouldn’t it be great to sit down to dinner with all the masters of the past (from our style). I think of that often. What an experience that would be!