Train more than you sleep

Now, to be perfectly honest, it’s been absolutely ages sine I’ve done any meditation or Nei Gong practice. What I have been doing is training in the Martial Art I study and going to the gym pretty regularly. So I suppose all is not lost…

What have I learnt from this period of no meditation. Well, compared to when I was meditating - ie doing the 100 days and the 5 Tibetans, I can surprisingly definitely feel a difference.

• Getting out of bed in the mornings is harder
• My mental state seems a bit more fuzzy (sorry about the bad description here)
• I feel that I am having more problems concentrating and recalling knowledge

The main thing that I feel is that I’m wasting time. Why wasting time? Well what the bloody hell am I not doing practising? Not practising is wasting time in my book. Mas Oyama (who apparently graded my flatmate once!) once admonished that one should, ‘train more than you sleep.’ Now, I love my sleep, there’s no doubt about that! So how can I train more than I sleep? That seems to be another area where the meditation had helped - I felt that I needed less sleep, or maybe just that the sleep I was getting was better quality; who knows? But as far as I am concerned I’m definitely worse off not meditating, so I’m going to start it back up sharpish!

My decision to get back in the saddle has in no small part been influenced by my re-reading of Glenn Morris Soke’s Shadow Strategies book and also my renewed interest in Pressure Points as applied to combat. Some Pressure point related book I can recommend without any worries are:

‘Foundations of Martial Science’ and ‘Advanced Martial Science’ Volumes I and II by one of the Dragon Societies’ Masters, Michael Patrick - These books are without doubt the best and most lucid explanations of TCM applied to the combat arts I have ever heard of, let alone read! Just get yourself to the Dragon Society (DSI)
website or go to the Café Press website and get them to run you off some copies.

Also (and it’s been such a good month for quality books!) you would have to be a Goddamn idiot not to have these books in your library: The Essence of Internal Martial Arts - Volumes I and II by Master Jerry Alan Johnson. There is so much authentic good stuff in these books I don’t even know where to start. If I had to thank the author for every good piece of information that I hadn’t seen anywhere else that’s in these books, I’d be at it all week. Go to his website and [edit: they have changed the page location, updated the link] buy some copies.[Edit: it's out of stock there though, but try the mighty Monabooks site they have it]

As well as the books above, I managed to pick up the best Pressure Point/Kyusho atlas I now have the privilege of owning. The graphics in this bad boy are outstanding. Yes, even better than Marc Tedeschi’s - Essential anatomy for Healing and the Martial Arts. It’s called ‘Pressure Point Locations - The art of Kyusho Jitsu’ by Justin Partridge. This bloke’s an Aussie, so it’s a job well done there. You want to get this, email info@kyushokarate.com and tell them this blog sent you.

The last of the notable mentions, and defiantly not the least, goes to The ‘Okinawan Kyusho Jitsu / Tuite Jitsu Study Guide’ by Gary W. Rooks - This is the guy that introduced the energetic sound projection to martial arts in the 20th century and he manages to pack a lot of goodies into this pretty thin volume. Go to www.RooksKarate.net to get your self one of these

Gone a bit off on a tangent with post. Basically I’m going to start practising again.

A Story

Funny how a story you've heard so many times before needs something to happen to you before you really understand what it's going on about.

Two monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, carried her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and left.

As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out.

"Brother, our training forbids us to have physical contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!"

The second monk replied, "I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."

The more I think about it, the more importiant it is that it's involving forgetting a woman.