How Easy It Is To Close Your Mind Off to a Better Way of Martial Arts
September 13, 2024
I had studied a version of Yang style for 11 years by the time I met him, but within one hour, as he explained Chen style and demonstrated some body mechanics to me, I knew I had to start over in Taijiquan. I had won medals with the Yang 24 in competition, but when I studied with Jim, new information about body mechanics and principles flew at me like from a firehose. It was overwhelming.
I was a "black sash," teaching the system I had learned, and now, I was learning just how empty my art was, and how little I knew about internal strength and internal movement.
It would have been the easy thing to do, when faced with something of higher quality, to retreat back to what I was already doing. Wouldn't that have been easy? I could have said, "That's not my style," or, "I study a different frame." I saw this photo a couple of days ago and the memories came flooding back -- the feeling I had trying to understand these strange but sophisticated details -- a "black sash" feeling like a child, like a complete beginner. But I stayed with Jim (and Angie) and took one baby-step at a time. I'm so glad I did. Knowing them opened the door to a new world, a new depth of martial arts.
The moral of this story, boys and girls is this: Be open to new information and different (maybe better) ways of doing things, even if it isn't convenient, even if it is a different style, and even if it means starting over. Yes, it's the easy thing to do to ignore it. But it's a far more satisfying thing to change your course and travel a more complex, difficult, and higher-quality road.
--by Ken Gullette
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