“You are all suffering from ‘magpie mind’….”

Sifu looked around at the gathered class to see what effect his statement had.

And of course it worked…. “Magpie mind? Wassat when it’s at home then Sifu?” asked Amanda.

“It’s a mind that’s attracted to ‘shiny objects’” said Sifu.

“You mean that we’re not concentrating on the form and our mind is wandering too much” queried Jane?

“That can be a part of it,” replied Sifu, “but it’s more than that. Even when you are concentrating on the form, your mind is attracted to the ‘shiny objects’ that are the beginning and end of the technique. It’s bound to happen when you think about it, because it’s the way you have to learn the form when you first start. It’s a bit like learning to draw by numbers but never getting to join up the dots.”

“So even if we can focus our mind on the form, we’re only focusing on the ‘dots’ and not the bits in between?” asked Amanda.

“Exactly,” said Sifu

“How do we solve that? asked Jane.

“By developing ‘video mind’instead of ‘snapshot mind’. At the moment your mind is like a camera taking photographs at the beginning and the end of each technique, because that’s what it is attracted to. It needs to be more like video camera, on all of the time and following each complete technique, studying each centimetre of movement” answered Sifu. “Now try doing the form again maintaining the right kind of mind.

We had only got as far as lan chiao wei (grasp sparrows tail) when Sifu stopped us.

“Ji Yu Kata is a natural evolution of formal kata training.”  Sensei was beginning the lesson…

“In some ways it is like formal kata but in other ways very, very different.  Tonight I’m going to show you why….”  It looks like it’s going to be an interesting lesson. “If your formal kata training doesn’t lead to ji yu it will definitely 

‘Ji Yu’ means ‘free style’ and most people these days when they hear the words ‘free style’ kata think of music, flashing lights, glittery gi’s, box splits, flips and cartwheels, but we knew that Sensei wouldn’t be talking 

“Okay guys, pair off.”  We each found a partner.  “What I’d like you to do now is for one to attack the other in slow motion using a ‘street type’ of attack from any angle.  The defender should wait until the attack is initiated and react in slow motion with a strike that would disable the attacker.”

“How’s that possible Sensei?” queried Jeremy, “surely we would have to block the attack first before we can respond?”

“Thathis is what this training is all about” answered Sensei, “I want you to see what your natural reactions are and train them.  I want them to be the reactions of a hunter.  I want your awareness to be heightened and you to have the confidence in your reactions from your training.  If you think, you lose – even at slow speed.  If you think of defending and blocking you will probably lose.  The only thought you should have is that of attacking and disabling your attacker.  Trust your reactions, trust your training, you should utilise the ‘wedge’ and ‘spirals’ naturally in your response.  If you feel that its life and death, go for vital areas, go for targets that will do the job, not ‘tournament’ style responses.

It was a warm night…

With three children’s and an adult beginner class previously, the air was quite humid.  Sensei had worked this class through a good ‘warm up’ and some highly corrected basics before it was time to work on kata…

Sensei had divided the class up into small groups with a black belt in charge of each group as this class would be followed by the dan grade session, we had quite a few black belts in already – and the kyu grades could get almost private instruction from them, with Sensei moving between the groups. 

As more black belts came in and sat on the side awaiting their class, they would add a little bit of instruction wherever they thought it might help.  Sometimes though it was a bit like the old saying ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’…

Andy was taking some 2^nd kyu’s through Naihanchi kata.  “The kata is all about the stance guys, you’re ‘armouring’ with your muscles and this is throwing you out of your legs – you need to soften down through the body.”

“With all this work we do to improve, do you think there’s a time that we’ll start getting worse?”

We welcomed the break in between Tai Chi classes, apart from the physical break, it gave us the chance to discuss anything from the latest kung fu movies to the deepest Buddhist philosophy with Sifu.

Teresa had a stressful job in accounting, worked long hours and would come into class looking tired, sigh with effort at the beginning and end of the class but the years would slip away as she appeared get younger and always seemed to lose her ‘cloud’ whilst training.

“Why do you ask that?” queried Sifu.

“I was just wondering what it was all about, we come along here twice a week, work and study really hard to improve our technique, train every day at home and chances are that we will eventually get worse over a period of time as we age and then die…..  is it all worth the effort?”

“Aren’t we the cheerful one!” laughed Joseph.

“It’s alright for you”, moaned Teresa, “but I’m nearer the ‘getting worse’ part than you!”

“Do you think it’s a case of ‘good and bad’ then?” asked Sifu.