gongfu

 A lot of people new to gong fu, get very frustrated, when they are told to relax, but can’t. Some people look like they are thinking “piss off dude, you don’t know me, I am relaxed”. Hopefully, the reason that a teacher is pushing you to relax more than you can, is to encourage you to look at why your not able to fully relax your muscles. Your arms are forceabley bent, you keep adjusting your head and back, your legs shake. Your not relaxed.

 Never, in gong fu, have I heard it spoken, how it is that the muscles are able to relax to the level needed for a person to become proficient in gong fu. A ton of people that come from countries outside of China, that get well known as gong fu exponents, never get that classic gong fu look to their build. And the reason, is really quite simple. Flexibility.

 It’s something people overlook. Even when they are stretching daily, and really able to achieve something looking a lot like a split. What people don’t seem to realize on the large scale, is that real flexibility is the pinnacle of gong fu. Every single part of your musculature should be supple, and have a full range of motion. That is the only way a persons body can relax. It’s also part of how you are able to transfer power from one part of the body to another, and an enormous part of speed, and changing techniques.

 When the muscles are supple, flexible and relaxed, Chinese medicine conciders the body in it’s natural, correct state. A baby is extrememly flexible. There is even a verse in the dao de jing that goes something like ” living things are supple and soft, dead things are rigid and hard”.  You can still build up your physique and be as flexible as the next student, you just need to work very hard. Nothing in gong fu comes easy, save sometimes general information. Gong fu is usually translated as “hard work” or the fruit thereof. A person has to work very hard to attain true flexibility. But it is an essential component of gong fu.

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