Newsletter 955

The Eyes Have It in the Martial Arts

I’ve got a student
and he can’t look at me.
His eyes focus on me briefly,
then he looks somewhere else,
down at the ground,
off to the side,
someplace,
and I know he is unconscious.
Unconscious being not conscious of me,
or,
taking his eyes off his attacker.
In the martial arts
if you take your eyes off the target,
the target hits you.
So I asked him,
have you ever flipped anybody off?
He got self conscious,
nodded and mumbled in the affirmative.
I said,
NO YOU DIDN’T!
Your body flipped them off,
and you told your body what to do.
There is a separation
you see,
between body and spirit.
I asked him if he ever took a leak.
He laughed and said yes.
I said,
NO YOU DIDN’T!
Your body leaked.
You didn’t leak,
you told your body to leak.
And he started to get it.
And here is the lesson.

You don’t look at the chest,
and try to see everything.
You don’t look at the hands/feet.
You look at the eyes because…
THE EYES ARE THE WINDOWS TO A MAN’S SOUL!

If a car was driving towards you
should you look at the driver or the car?
You look at the driver
because he is controlling the car.
He is the spirit behind 2000 pounds of metal.
So you look at the eyes,
and you look for the awareness
that is driving a 150 pounds of flesh and blood.
And that’s where you look.
Period.
And somebody who disagrees,
is simply WRONG,
and I prove it with my next words.
you see,
I told him one other thing.
A very important thing.
What is the one reason
you always look forward,
always keep the eyes open?
The answer is simple,
and yet so hard to grok and do.
The spirit radiates in all directions.
It is aware from the center of a sphere,
looking outward in all directions.
So the one reason a person always looks outward
is so that he doesn’t look inward.
You can’t defend yourself
if you are looking inward.
If you are looking inward,
you are not aware of what’s coming to hit you.
Remember:
the one reason,
the only reason,
for looking outward,
is so that you don’t look inward.

Here’s the obligatory advertisement,
do yourtself a favor and go there…

4ac Rolling Fists

This is the one drill I use
to train people to look outward,
it works,
and it is better than ANY drill
in ALL the martial arts.
I developed it myself,
putting the missing pieces into
some of the lop sau drills in other arts.
This is the complete and real deal.

Have a great work out!
Al

4ac Rolling Fists

A WIN!

Al,
Allow me to say that in 27 years of Chinese martial arts your Lop Sau instructions are the most clear and cogent ones I have ever in my life encountered. ~ Justin H

“There is no comfort in the growth zone and no growth in the comfort zone”
Unknown