This one should actually be titled, when did the irrelevant become relevant? If you haven't had the chance to visit China, go, I implore you to find a way. China makes no sense whatsoever, yet it is a society that has functioned for thousands of years long before we (the west) figured it out what to do with ourselves. How it functions is actually unfathomable but looking from the outside it seems to be based around filtering bullshit.It is truly a wonderful place that I cannot do justice to in a simple blog. I promise to write more about it in the near future. In basic terms China changes you. I am a very lucky guy to have experienced it a few times now but I remain jealous of people doing it for the first time. It's not so much an assault on the senses, it's more like being asked a question in a quiz you don't know the answer to nor the rules of the game you are engaged in: ie you may fluke the correct answer but still not win the point! A good 85 to 95% of the time you do not know what is going on, the culture is so far removed from what's normal in the west that it is preposterous to even try to get a handle on it. If you try to achieve something it fails for a number of intangible but perfectly reasonable reasons. You may try again but eventually you give up and appreciate that whatever you were trying to achieve really wasn't that important in the first place. If you don't have this ability to say "fuck it" then perhaps you are not felicitous for life in the east, that is not the fault of China more a character flaw within yourself. A minor anecdote if you will indulge me. We were asked to demo our skills after a meal with various Masters which included much drinking of Chinese white spirit called Baijiu. So we moved next door to a theatre owned by a local film star where we were added to the bill of an ongoing show. We then demonstrated our martial arts to sound effects provided by one of our top instructors who had been introduced previously as a professional singer from England, who had just completed a stint singing "You are my Sunshine" From this Demo a job was offered to teach the entire Hunan Police force arresting techniques to one of my Sifus!! I Swear you can't make it up. some say truth is stranger than fiction. I say China is weirder than a bottle of crisps. I loved every second of the trip and there were many more stories to spring from it which I will put down in this blog.
Truth is I really struggled this time to readjust to life over in my homeland. My outlook has changed and I see the irrelevance of many things over here. So much so I had to disappear for a couple of days to Buddhist community on a secluded island just off the west coast of Scotland. For real check out the great work going on on the Holy Isle.
http://www.holyisland.org/ Life in the west has lost it's focus on what is important. We have put too much time and effort into pointless ventures that hold no bearing on what is needed in society. Not just at this point in our development as a Human race but in general, we have strayed very far from the path that most matters. Until today I was sure there were only two ways to knock someone out, either Neurological means or vascular methods. Then I sat through some IT training, to be fair it was a bit of a combination of both. Neurological from boredom and vascular from lack of air in the dryness of the delivery. I have shifted in my consciousness and see the world in the bigger picture, much of the credit goes to Grandmaster Li Zhiyi and to China. There is a man who has it right. Again a blog shall follow about this unique man (pic)
I need to sum it all up, what is today's message? I wish I lived in China? Yes maybe. But relevance still exists in Martial Arts. It is one thing that will always be relevant in a world full of inconsequential training schemes, jobsworths and enhanced advertisements (seriously that's a thing now-check out
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/shazam-introduces-engagement-metric-tv-ads-150450 also fuck me there is a website called adweek.com)
All Martial techniques are valid, sure we can learn locking, chokes and Chi Na even though in reality we'll just slug someone. Even though we know punching someone in the street is not as valid as using an open hand, you know what? we'll still feed them a haymaker against all our training, it's life it's who we are. But we need to maintain those techniques- if we engage in a debate with someone who has all the facts we will lose. If we engage in a scrap with someone who has more physical answers we will lose . Keep your martial arts relevant but above all keep your life relevant.
