Kung Fu Is What We Are

One of my main mantras in teaching kung fu is:  Kung Fu isn’t something you do, it’s something you are.

In the western world we have a tendency to occupy ourselves with things to do.  Tennis, golf, yahtzee, poker and countless other distractions are such things.  Very often, even our careers are something to do more than something we are… at least in the context I’m trying to unveil here. But, Kung Fu is unique,  It is clearly something we do but it is also something that we are:  body, mind and soul.

Kung fu transcends the realm of occupying our time and becomes a very part of our life essence.  It reaches a place where we cannot separate ourselves from it nor it from us.  We are Kung Fu.  We are its philosophies, techniques, etiquette and so on.  It isn’t a hobby.  We are not our own hobby.  We are……… and most important, we are our Kung Fu.

Once we begin to really understand that and begin to live by it, our lives are transformed forever.  We shift into another realm:  not a realm of perfection but a realm of self awareness and skill that will continue to improve our lives forever.

In time and effort, we begin to understand its principles.  We become them over time.  We lose some of ourselves in order to gain the depths of it.  We lose impatience:  we lose the urge of temper.  We gain confidence:  we live in compassion, tolerance and the way of forgiveness.  The more we become Kung Fu, the more generous we can be through our confidence and love for mankind.

Some folks look at Kung Fu as violence.  I look at it as something that completes our abilities:  to love, to forgive, to protect and to live a long life.