Monday 5 July 2010

Eye of the tiger

There's a new instructor at the kung fu club I go to. Very laid back and every bit the identikit hippy. He speaks in a very soft but focused manner - you know when he speaks he's often got something worth listening to.

Today we were going through a bodily movement sequence, something which over the last couple of years I've done dozens upon dozens of times. As I came to a particular moment in the routine he noticed that I was not quite flowing as much as I should have been. He came over and said, "Now just get aware of everything around you. You're still in your head." I was so heavily focused on the internal workings of Wing Chun that I was getting a bit lost in my head. Overthinking, overanalysing and becoming detached from the reality around me.

On the way home from the class it got me thinking about a couple of previous blog entries, one that talked about "zooming out" and the other that discussed finding a balance between the internal and external realities. I realise now that I have a bit of a habit of getting lost in the fog of my thinking, analysis paralysis or simply drowning in the details of what's right in front of me. By doing all that I tend to lose sight of the need for a better connection and balance with the bigger picture. If I can get used to being more fully aware and live less in my head, I think I could be onto something very interesting indeed.

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