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The historical significance of balanced mind / body training in Kung Fu

Historically within the Eastern teachings of martial arts, the yin/yang principle of balance between the body and mind was central to correct training and development.   Yet, many martial arts taught and practised in the West have lost sight of this and focus on training the body alone, overlooking the importance of training the mind.  This, in my opinion, is unfortunately true for many (but not all) UK schools of Wing Chun.

One ancient style of Martial arts which we are familiar with in the West and has strongly retained this balanced mental / physical approach is Shaolin Kung-Fu.   They recognise that in order to become a true practitioner of their style, the training a student must undergo is much deeper than physical development alone – it is the rigorous preparation of the mind that forms the foundation from which all Shaolin techniques flow.  To this end, Shaolin teachings are divided into two facets – Chan and Quan.  Chan refers to the Buddhist spiritual awareness, and mastery over perceptions of the mind.  Quan refers to the physical side, but Quan itself is rooted in Chan.

It is clear that the superhuman feats that the Shaolin masters can perform come from complete control over both the body and mind, forged through hours of focused, dedicated training.  These amazing skills have awed and inspired generation after generation into martial arts, yet only a very small percentage would have gone on to achieve anywhere near the level of skill and strength of their heroes.   The reason is that this level of mastery requires a huge investment in training the body and the mind.

These same skills are required in Wing Chun and in the rest of the article I will go through some simple techniques to start getting you focused on developing these.

Ways to embrace mental development in your training

The reality for most us in the modern age, especially here in the West where daily life involves working 9-5 rather than spending all day training in a monastery, it is difficult to fit in the time needed to train.  This is especially true for an ‘internal’ martial art like Wing Chun which, although quick to pick up as a fighting system, takes many years to master.  The temptation is to put the time available in to the physical aspects of the training as these can seemingly bare the most fruit for the least effort.  Yet this is why it is even more important to manage your training, because physical training alone will take you only so far.

Many Wing Chun practitioners quickly progress through the forms and feel they have reached advanced levels, yet lack any real substance – they lack the correct relaxed structure and focused intention that can deliver the fast, powerful, controlling and devastating attacks that are the foundation of Wing Chun.   Without training the mind to an equal degree as the body, the developing student can only ever hope to progress a relatively small way along the Wing Chun path.  Many people with skill who put in a lot of time training the physical aspects become frustrated because they are never able to master Wing Chun.

There are a number of different areas where you can develop your mind – for example, this may be to develop your mind so that it feels comfortable going into attack mode i.e. developing a fighting spirit.  This is not the focus of this article.  Instead, the specific focus here is to look at how you develop your mind so that you can use it to control your body and your emotions – at least controlling these in the sense of being able to transition from the everyday experience of use to using these in the targeted way necessary to develop and apply your Wing Chun skills.  We will refer to this through the rest of the article as a mental ‘toughness’ – which equates to the increased strength and ability that physical exercise builds up in the body. It is the kind of mental strength that allows the Shaolin master to psychologically endure the intense training they are put through – albeit endlessly going up and down stairs on your hands and feet, or being hit with wooden poles.

Those who succeed in achieving their goals and going above and beyond others do so because they are different; they want it more and are prepared to give more to achieve it.  It is true in all areas, not just in martial arts, that mastery over anything requires effort, commitment, focus and consistency – all of which takes mental discipline.   Anyone who is looking to change their lives, either in dieting, giving up smoking, or in advanced physical training knows that where this starts and ends is in will-power backed up by a structured approach – the dedication through techniques to keep going when it would otherwise be easier and less painful just to stop.

People who are mentally tough are not born that way; they choose this path for themselves and gradually build ‘toughness’ over time.  A key part of this is developing new techniques to attain self-motivation, optimism and emotional self-control. This is something that must be trained minute-by-minute (pushing through the painful set up reps), hour-by-hour (keeping running through the exhaustion), day-by-day (staying strong to avoid the urge to eat that cake or smoke that cigarette) and so on.

Mental training techniques

There are several simple techniques that you can use to train your mind to develop this mental toughness.  Below we will look at several of these and, specifically, how you can use these techniques within your Wing Chun training.

Be focused

While it takes continuous daily effort to reach your goal, focusing on your long-term expectations will help you find the strength to keep going even when you come up against temporary setbacks.  And, ask anyone who has trained in Wing Chun and they will tell you that it comes with the territory that you will face a lot of challenges and set-backs.  Only those students who recognise these set-backs are necessary hurdles and pitfalls they must navigate along the path to their destination can overcome these.  Those students who lose sight of their long-term goals and allow themselves to get ‘lost’ in the set-backs will unfortunately join the many casualties who fall by the wayside.

Within your Wing Chun you should think carefully about what your long term aim is – whether this is feeling confident in self-defence skills or mastering Wing Chun and teaching this to others.  Write this down, along with why this is important to you – the act of committing this to paper and having defined your emotional reason behind this will reinforce the significance of this in your mind.  Have it visible where you train at home, and bring it to mind when you step into your training class.  In doing so, you are actively reminding yourself of why you should give 100% when you begin training.

Mentally strong people focus on long term outcomes.  So, make sure you have a clear understanding of what it is you are looking to achieve from your training and actively focus on making progress.

Set clear goals and work towards them

However focused you are, putting in hard work without seemingly making progress is demoralising and quickly results in even the most determined giving up.  This is why it is important to make sure you have a training plan – setting clear goals and actively tracking your progress in achieving them in a structured way.  When you consistently stay on a path of reaching your daily goals you are certain of attaining success.  How do you walk a thousand miles? One step at a time.

Traditionally, Wing Chun did not have grading levels or belts – this is something that has been introduced in more recent times to help the developing student because learning Wing Chun is not easy.   This artificially introduces a training structure with staged goals which can help the developing student understand the importance of a structured approach.  Those in the traditional Wing Chun schools must learn this lesson the hard way (setting their own goals and managing their own progress under the watchful eye of their Sifu) and, those who do not drop out, develop a deep ability to focus.

The simplest approach to help you have clear goals and accomplish them in your Wing Chun training is a pen and paper – it is that simple.  Write down your goals and track your own progress.  As Wing Chun is not sequential in how you develop, the linear path often feels like spinning several plates and trying to keep them all going at the same time.   This may include trying to develop a new section of the form, trying to practice and embed a single arm technique, trying to relax the shoulders whilst also trying to sink down into the stance without your legs stiffening up.  Each of these on their own is a challenge in itself, but trying to work through these together can be become overwhelming.  The act of writing down where you are and tracking your progress across each over area puts you back into control.

Mentally strong people are sure of what they want to accomplish and they do not lose sight of what it necessary to do to achieve this. In doing so they develop a mental strength – so define your goals and actively work towards these and you will come to realise that you can work in a structured way to deliver results.

Always take action

Mentally strong people are always working towards their goal and taking action. Taking action means not only are they willing to put the effort in to achieve their goals, but also that they don’t simply wait for an opportunity; they actively prepare themselves for it.

In Wing Chun, the importance of daily training cannot be understated because you have to reprogram your mind and body and this involves a lot of repetition.  It is often said that it takes 10,000 instances of doing something to embed new actions so they become an automatic, natural response.   Even with the limited number of techniques within Wing Chun this still adds up to years of training.  If you actively train seven days a week for a year, it will take someone else training only one day a week seven years to put in the same number of hours.  Setting in place a daily routine also means you build up regularity and do not have big gaps between training sessions where you can forget the ‘feel’ of the body or mind refinements you are developing.

Now, not everyone can find dedicated training hours seven days a week but this is where the dedicated Wing Chun student can make time and actively seek out opportunities to train – this can be practising your spine and neck alignment whilst you are sat at your desk, practising your stance whilst you wait for the kettle to boil, or fitting in some stepping whilst you wait on the sidelines watching your son play football at the weekend.   The best way to find time to train is to find a way to fit Wing Chun into your daily lives, into everything you do.

Mentally strong people are sure of what they want to accomplish and they do not lose sight of this. In actively taking action regularly, they develop a mental strength by coming to the self-realisation that they are capable of putting their mind to things and putting in the required effort to achieve results.  By having regular training sessions working on your goals or actively building your training into your daily activities you will develop a habit of commitment to training.

Keep emotions in check

Even with the best planning and preparation in the areas above, things will not always go to plan in your Wing Chun training, and it is only human for this to manifest itself emotionally.   Rather than allowing their emotions to get the best of them when things are not going right, mentally strong people develop techniques to build their resilience and adjust their strategy to positively manage their emotions to help drive them forwards rather than hold them back.  This does not mean fighting with your emotions, but instead recognising that an emotional response is a natural human reaction and something that you have to reprogram to work to your advantage.

It may be that you hit a training plateau and get frustrated that you are falling behind some of your classmates.  It may be that you hit a training wall and, despite all you best efforts, get despondent because you cannot seem to break through.  Whatever it is that causes the emotional response it is critical to remember that keeping your emotion in check will allow you to stay outside circumstances that will deteriorate your success.

A simple example may be you notice you start to use muscular force in Chi Sau as you slowly lose position as you roll with a partner.  Rather than get frustrated about it, or mindlessly ploughing on until you burn your shoulders out just stop. Treat this like training any physical technique – if it doesn’t work, then get your training partner to repeat their action so that you get to try it again and again.   The Wing Chun classroom is a safe place to practise this and get it right so that you can replicate this when facing a real-life conflict situation.

If you are working alone through the form and are finding you are getting cross because you just cannot seem to get it right, then stop and try again, and again.  If you still cannot get it then seek help from your Instructor or a training partner.  If you still cannot get it, then write down where you have got to, the thing you are struggling within and come back to it.  There are so many other things you can work on, that you can always come back to things once you have made progress elsewhere and got back into a positive state of mind.  Sometimes this is enough to get you back on track and sometimes you find in Wing Chun you need to develop other skills elsewhere before you can progress in an area you are stuck with.

Mentally strong people recognise the power of their emotions and actively seek ways to channel these to their advantage.  They recognise that this is another area that they must develop this ability step-by-step through focused, targeted training.  Take time to mindfully recognise how your emotions motivate you to new heights in your training and where they hold you back.  Once you have learned to recognise these, you can then begin to control these for your own advantage.

Be flexible

Change is a constant factor in life. You cannot deny the need for flexibility and adaptation to constantly meet with change. Mentally strong people understand why this trait is important and actively adjust their mindset to deal with changes in their daily activities and in their lives.

Although they don’t realise it, the new Wing Chun student faces more change than they could ever imagine on their Wing Chun journey.  Mastering Wing Chun will involve reprogramming their bodies and minds to work in a whole new way, which will also have a huge impact on how they perceive themselves, others and the world around them.

Many Wing Chun students who focus on the physical side of their training quickly realise how hard it is to let go of muscle strength in order to find relaxed, structural power.  This change is not something that is possible to achieve without a structured approach to managing the change.   A big part of this is the mental change that has to go hand-in-hand alongside the physical changes to achieve this.

Those students who are unable to move beyond the physical quickly become disillusioned because they cannot replicate the power they feel that muscular force brings as they attempt to transition to relaxed structure.   This is a difficult period where the student has to mentally let go of what they have known all their lives, they have to accept that in letting go of muscular force that it will be sometime before they have grasped relaxed structure and in the meantime, they will have no power.  It is a difficult change pill to swallow that a smaller, weaker student (although more advanced in their skills) will be able to defeat them in class, in front of others.

The trick to develop mental toughness in handling change is to reframe the way that you think about change.  Actively choose to give the change a positive meaning rather than a negative one – do not see that you are losing the power in the punch that you had, but that this is a temporary thing that will mean in the near future you will develop a punch that is 5 times as powerful.  It certainly helps also to tie this into your long-term goal – so that you see you are making progress towards your long-term aim even if it feels you are going backwards in the short-term.

Use the mental skills that you have started to develop from the techniques covered above – start to recognise change in your life, and embrace that this is something that you cannot suppress but can actively control to use for your advantage rather then something which stops your training in its tracks.  To avoid letting it get hold of you emotionally, you can find a structured way of dealing with it.  This will always look like a process – it is not like an on/off switch, instead it is more like baking bread where there will be many steps and many ingredients to get to the required result.  A couple of examples of ‘ingredients’ you can use creating a change process are provided below.

The first example is to adopt an attitude of expectation and learn to welcome change as an opportunity.   To get from where you start (as an inexperienced normal person with no martial arts experience) to where you want to get (a physically and mentally finely tuned fighting machine) you are going to have to go through a lot of changes.  This change will be painful and challenging – in your physical training this will look like the pain in your aching legs from standing in the damned crazy Wing Chun horse stance through to the red, aching arms with half your skin worn off from the hours of drills.

The second example is – give yourself time and pace yourself.  Letting go of old ways and learning new ones takes time; Bruce Lee did not develop his physique or martial arts skills overnight and you are not going to either.   We often forget the painful process we each went through as a child when learning to feed ourselves, walk and talk.   These are skills we all take for granted now and forget the tremendous mental and physical effort this took at the time.  These are good examples of the level of physiological change that the Wing Chun transformation actually requires.   It will take a long time for your mind and body to get used to the required changes; if you try and force this change you will fail.  Talk to your instructor and the seniors in your training class to find out how long it has taken them to get to where they are.  This will allow you to set realistic expectations of yourself….if you put in the same level of effort, of course!

These are just a couple of examples, and there are many more.  This article never intended to spoon-feed you all the answers, so be proactive and seek out others that you can constructively use in your training.

These are just a handful of the mental techniques that the advanced Wing Chun practitioner will have painstakingly gathered in their bag of tricks.  They are not mysterious secret techniques, although to someone who does not possess these they can seem that way.   A commitment to training the mind with equal effort to the body is a big step and it certainly takes a lot of time and effort to master – doubling the already significant training load you will have to bear.  But the reward is worth it – your training will never be the same again.

Summary

Mental toughness is not something we are born with, but it is something we can actively learn to develop through our Wing Chun training.  Although disciplined mental training is often overlooked, there are a number of ways you can introduce these into your training and see real differences.

In order to reach the higher levels of Wing Chun and become a skilled fighter it is necessary to train the body, mind and spirit together.  You must develop your physical ability, mental toughness and focused intention and be able to express them holistically in fighting application.

Recognising the need to put in the same level of effort into developing your mind in unison with your body, you will become proficient in each of these techniques over time – initially this will probably look like learning how to utilise each technique individually, but then combing a few of these together until eventually you are capable in using all these techniques and others.  Although this will take time you will quickly see the positive benefits that this brings, enabling you to develop the necessary depth of internal understanding that is at the heart of Wing Chun which will ultimately allow you to wield your highly tuned fighting skills as a devastating weapon.

A final note

The personal challenge of mastering these different elements of your character soon overtakes the original goal you had in mind; rather than seeking to be a skilled Master you realise there is no actual end-goal to your training.  Instead, you come to accept the journey itself is the amazing part and the end goal becomes an on-going refinement to be the best you can possibly become.

Furthermore, having developed mental toughness in your Wing Chun, this is a skill that will roll-over into every other aspect of your life.  You will feel more confident, more capable and can achieve more than you would have ever of thought possible.  This is why in mastering martial arts the ancient Eastern teachings were about mastering yourself; allowing yourself to reach new levels of understanding and capabilities than are normally achieved – becoming super-human.

This makes all the hard hours of training and effort worthwhile – change is never easy, but with focus, dedication and commitment to balanced training you can forge your body and mind like the Shaolin and Wing Chun masters of old.  In doing so you will develop self-respect and respect from others, and perhaps even inspire the next generation to take the first steps on their own Wing Chun journey.

Copyright @ Craig Sands 2016