What is silence?

Silence occurs when the mind becomes quiet and still.
This process cannot be forced. The mind must naturally settle and relax.

Taijiquan creates a situation where your attention is absorbed with where you are and what you are doing, so the mind becomes quiet automatically.

Unlike concentration, you allow the mind to open and become expansive.
You feel, hear and see everything around you.
The chattering of your thoughts will begin to fade.

Notice things

The first indication of a growing sensibility for quietude lies in your capacity to notice the world around you.
Instead of driving past in your noisy car, you walk slowly.
You see.

Insignificant-seeming things catch your attention: a butterfly, a leaf, a flower, the sound of an insect or the call of a bird.
If you experience genuine awe and delight, then you are learning.

Lost

To find lost places you need to become a little lost yourself.
Not lost in drink, drugs, illusion or stimulation.
Quite the opposite.

You will need your wits about you.
You need to step off the familiar pathways of your life and walk somewhere different.

Apprenticeship

For many years the disciple must avidly seek to 'steal their teacher's art'. This involves being exceedingly cunning, diligent and earnest.
The aim is to pass belts rapidly and skilfully; to race through the syllabus.

The apprentice must work much harder than they expect to. Harder than every other student in the school. They must outpace all competition.
They must meet the master's standards, not their own. 

The apprenticeship stage lasts for the equivalent of 7 years full-time study: approximately 10,000 hours of quality tuition and practice.

Conventional training

External training methods such as push-ups, running or sit-ups are not part of the kung fu repertoire.
We do not need to train weights either.

Conventional training will not necessarily improve your kung fu. 
Many exercises actually create muscle tension, and tension impedes the natural movement of the muscle itself.
The slower the muscle can move, the less effective you are in combat.

Strength

Set aside talk about relaxation, qi, softness and other concerns...
Your body is flesh and bone.
It is moved by muscles.
In order to be strong, agile, flexible and adaptive in combat - you need to strengthen your body.

Eight internal styles

There are only eight known styles of internal martial art:

• Taijiquan (supreme ultimate fist/absolute boxing)
• Baguazhang (8 trigrams palm)
• Xingyiquan (form/intention fist)
• Liuhebafa (water fist)
• Tongbeiquan (spreading power from the back fist)
• Ziranmen (natural fist)
• Bajiquan (eight extremities fist)
• Yiquan (mind fist)/dachengquan (the great accomplishment) 

We teach the first two arts: taijiquan and baguazhang.

Misconception

A common misconception is that any martial art offers the opportunity to reach an 'internal' level of practice i.e. a karate man can become internal.
This is not true.

Internal forms are quite different to external ones.
They were designed to be a vehicle for the exploration of a very unique way of moving and using the body.
Movement is initiated by the centre (not by the hips) and entails moving every part of the body as one fluid unit. The joints do very little work.

The combat skills and sensibilities of the internal martial arts require a perceptual shift: blending, yielding, listening, stickiness. 
There is no blocking, struggling or forcing involved.

What is internal?

Exploring the internal martial arts is not the same as practicing a mainstream/conventional/external martial art.

There are many different considerations:

Conventional martial arts		Internal martial arts
Obvious		Hidden
Combat is the main concern		Health and combat equally important
Straightforward		Significantly more detailed and sophisticated
Favour military-style warm-up exercise		Strength is built using unconventional means
Uses existing body habits		Body must be trained to move in a manner that is unfamiliar
Mechanical		Organic, natural
Jerky		Flowing
Typically focuses on striking or grappling, seldom both		Striking and grappling trained together
Blocking/resistant, force versus force		4 ounces of pressure, stickiness, sensitivity
Favours the younger, stronger student		Age is less of an obstacle
Fighting/competition		Incapacitation is the aim
Aggression/emotion		Composure
Forcing		Allowing, leading, misdirecting
Speed		Spontaneity and timing
Isolated limb use		Whole-body movement
Extended		Close-quarters
Linear		Circular
Planning		Listening, sensitivity, adaptation
Struggling		Blending
Being in your head thinking about what to do next		Being in the body and sensation-oriented
Denying your vulnerability		Feeling your vulnerability
Contracted, locked musculature		Loose, fluid and relaxed musculature

Simplicity

Simple things are valued more than complexity. At the heart of everything lies the essence.
This is what matters. Not the outward show.
And the essence is always simple.

Strike to the heart of all things in life and you interact with the real.

Remain at the periphery and you dance with shadows and dreams. The maya of the floating world.

Thought is the verbalisation of influences.

 (Krishnamurti)  

Quiet

There are quiet places to be found in every city and every town.
You just have to seek them out.

Lost places, where people seldom go.
Leaves overgrown the streets and wildflowers are abundant.
Nature flourishes.
The air is cleaner and there are no cars and few people.

A bubble of stimulation

Most people exist in a bubble.
They wake in their own home, get into their car and then go to work/shops/wherever.
There is seldom any time spent in the fresh air.

Homes, cars and public places are usually filled with noise and stimulation.
Visual images, flickering screens, twittering voices, gossip...
Where is the peace in your life?
The stillness?

Aloneness

Find time for solitude in your life. Switch everything off and walk away. 
No phone. No iPod.
Leave your car behind and make sure that you travel alone.

Get to know yourself again.

Spend some time thinking, feeling, contemplating and living.
Go out in the early hours and walk along the surf. Hear only the splash of the sea and the babble of your own thoughts.
In time, your mind will calm and the inner noise will fade.

If you cannot find somewhere nice to go, spend time alone in a room or simply walk the streets.

Do not try to share this with anyone else. Set aside your insecurities and stand alone. Be strong. Be you.
This is a journey for you alone.

When you understand the peace of aloneness, you will become silent within.
This will permeate your life and you will also know silence without.
You will have found your quiet. And you will know that it is not meek at all. It lives. It breathes.
Potential resides within.

Direct transmission

One major feature of discipleship is the hands-on one-to-one training with the master.
This is vital.
Hundreds of hours of training are required.

The student must literally 'feel' how the master moves, learn their secrets, their rhythm, their timing.
The physical is-ness of the art cannot be passed-on by words, by watching or by willpower.
It must be experienced through touch.

This process is beyond words.

Ignorance

Awareness makes us acutely conscious of our ignorance. It wakes us up. We are not enlightened or saintly. 
Our perspective has broadened a little and some barriers have fallen. Nothing more.

An awakened person can only feel happiness and freedom when it is not at the expense of others.
What use is freedom when another person pays for your pleasure?
Compassion compels us to live a considerate life. A life of kindness and equanimity.
We see balance. We see discord and harmony. We see possibilities.

Keeping quiet is essential.

If you draw attention to yourself, you tread on somebody else's feet.
This creates discord.
It is far better to remain silent and unknown. Anonymous and silent.

A quiet person does not parade their skills or demonstrate their accomplishments. They remain humble and reserved.

Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colourful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed.

Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonymity and his safety. His fear makes him servile - he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience, and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes.

But this fear, this servility, this dependence, had developed in Smiley a perception of the colour of human beings: a swift, feminine sensitivity to their characters and motives. He knew mankind as a huntsman knows his cover, as a fox the wood.
(John Le Carre) 

Freedom

Free of pride and vanity we capable of being the best that we can be...
 
Not the top of the class. Not the one with the medals and the trophies or the public acclaim.
No, we aim far higher than this.

We reach our own potential. We grow into ourselves. We see who we are and stop 'becoming'.
This is done in order to please ourselves. For its own sake. Not for a reward. Not for approval.
There is no need for attention. We do not require a witness or an audience.

We excel because anything less would be half a life. A waste of the possibility before us.

Humility

Humility cannot be cultivated. It comes from perspective and awareness.
Knowing that we are only one human amongst billions gives perspective.
Realising that humans are just one species amongst millions that share our world is a humbling experience.
The complexity of Earth and all its intricacies is staggering, yet beyond our world lies a universe of possibility.

Arrogance. Pride. Conceit. Vanity. Pomp. Self-importance. Ego. What silly creatures we are.
We are incredible specks of life; both wonderful and deluded. Believing ourselves Gods yet enslaved by our cultures and traditions.

Humility comes from the realisation that existence is unimaginably vast, and we are imperceptibly insignificant.
Although one human make indeed make a mark within our own culture, what does it matter when the entirety of existence is your meter?