in·er·tia | \ i-ˈnər-shə , -shē-ə\
a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force
I always get this same question, and this past weekend was no different. My daughter had her engagement party, and through the course of the cocktails and chit chat, inevitably somebody asks me, what you do, which is always a difficult question for martial art people because no one really gets it. They always say, “Ooh, you have a black belt,” or “Your hands are registered as lethal weapons,” and you have to educate them somehow in regards to what you really do as an educator within the martial arts. They inevitably ask you how long you’ve been doing this, and you say the several decades or more, and they look at you with this glazed disbelief and say to you, if you’re a master then why do you keep training? I spend time training on my own, teaching my students as well as spending several days with my own teacher each week, 30 plus years into it, and this baffles them. They don’t seem to understand why. I was thinking about it the other day as I was explaining something to some students and yes, Kung Fu is completely and utterly subject to the laws of inertia. Inertia – that’s a really weird word. When I was kid, I never understood what the hell that word meant, but now I know that everything that’s alive and moving is subject to the laws of inertia. Basically, the laws of inertia state that an object (aka you) in motion will stay in motion and continue in the same direction it’s going, and an object that is still will remain still, barring interference from some external force.
Training for us “old timers” that have been involved in Kung Fu for almost 40 years or more is not an option. There is no opting out. A Kung Fu brother of mine that everyone knows (Sorry, brother, I’m going to put you on the spot), Sifu Tai Lik Johnson, trains and teaches every day. He’s an animal; he doesn’t stop. I take inspiration from this. There is no haphazard training; there is no on and off schedule. I don’t want to be doing the hokey pokey. You all know the hokey pokey, right? You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out? I don’t want to be in and out; I want to be all in. I’ve seen too much of this, and I understand that inconsistency only breeds inconsistency. You have to be consistent in your consistency to make any kind of stride or gain. You’re not allowed to get rusty. You’re not allowed to sit back. A body at rest stays at rest. You know who stays at rest? The dead. Unless you plan on being a Kung Fu zombie, at some point you have to get up off your ass and start moving. Another Kung Fu brother of mine, Sifu Rik Kellerman (sorry I’m calling out to all you guys but I want to use you as an example) hurt his knee recently, but he didn’t opt out. He just kept training and trained around the injury. He is healing himself and he’s going to come back even stronger. I also take inspiration from this. I also want to make a shout out to my Kung Fu brother Sifu Bill Fong who has always worked harder than everyone and just came back from having open heart surgery and I know he’s not going to let that stop him. None of us are going to rest. We’re going to keep moving forward.
As you start growing and moving forward, there is no way to cool down. Once you stop actively practicing, regardless of what stature you’ve achieved in your prior achievements, it’s just that. It’s prior achievements. You’re not going to surpass yourself. A great analogy is that Kung Fu is heated water in a pot, but if the flame is too low, the water cools. If the flame is too high, the water burns up and dissipates. I’ll tell you what else Kung Fu is like when you slow down and you stop. Kung Fu is like cold pizza and warm beer, and if you tell me that you like that, I’m going to say you’re weird. No one likes cold pizza and warm beer. You have to work it every day. We have to learn how to utilize our energies to keep moving us forward. You have to practice every day, and I almost want to say that it’s a relentless type of practice. I love the quote from Henry V, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends.” I feel that this is the call to arms on a daily basis for myself and many other martial art practitioners that we need to have in order to constantly see progression and improvement in our work. We’ve seen many high ranking individuals, students and/or teachers reach a certain level and stop because they say to themselves, since no one’s at this level at this point in time, it’s good enough. What’s good enough? The question rises in your mind. How much money is enough money? How much vacation time is enough vacation time? Kung Fu falls into the same category. How much Kung Fu is enough Kung Fu? How much knowledge is enough knowledge? Knowledge goes hand in hand with power. How much knowledge, power and understanding is enough? This is something we have to ask ourselves all the time.
As I’m writing this blog, I’m actually working out at the same time, playing a few movements on the bench, trying not to stop the flow of energy, spirit and attitude which is required in order to do Kung Fu properly. The practice is all consuming, at least where I’m concerned, and I think many artists can speak to the same thing. I was trying to explain my angst about this to a very good friend of mine, another Kung Fu brother, and he basically came to the conclusion, “You have an illness.” I said, “What is my illness?” He said, “You’re a perfectionist.” I said, I think you’re absolutely right. This is an incurable disease that is inflicted upon most Kung Fu practitioners and artists in general. The practice is something that, for lack of a better term, possesses you, and in this possession, you are driven to a constant seeking of perfection. Therefor you must always be aware of the laws of inertia being applied to you. We cannot stop. In one end of the spectrum, it’s a constant daily grind and it is difficult to maintain, but once it’s done you’re so happy that you’ve done it and you know you’ve accomplished something. On the other hand, it’s something that I look forward to and is the highlight of my day to be able to keep it moving, keep it going, keep all the plates spinning simultaneously. It’s a personal challenge that the individual must undertake. It’s your own personal gauntlet that you have to take up and make the strides not only to maintain but to be better at everything you’re putting out there. The inertia factor coupled with the perfectionist mentality of a martial artist is something that we all work with, struggle with and need in order to move forward and better ourselves.
If you stop training altogether, things are not going to be the same. It’s so hard to warm things up again after you’ve let them cool down. You may say to me, am I not allowed to take a day off? Can’t I go on vacation? I’m not saying you have to do this 24-7, but you always have an opportunity to train. In the confines of your mind, you will find limitless space and time. Many times when an individual doesn’t have the physical space and time to train, you can sit there on the train or the bus or in your favorite chair and mentally visualize and train yourself even if it’s just for 5 or 10 minutes. Obviously, this is a form of meditation, and this will also help to keep you active. If you cannot visualize doing something in your mind, it is going to be rather hard if not impossible to do it in the reality of the physical state. So it’s extremely important to understand that the battle against inertia is fought upon the physical as well as the mental plane. Sometimes, it’s both simultaneously; sometimes it’s one or the other, but nevertheless it’s an unending battle to continue.
Either you keep moving, or you die. You may say, oh my god, am I going to die tomorrow if I stop doing Kung Fu? You won’t, but let me tell you, it’s a slow, self-imposed stagnation. Stagnation means you’re going to get stiff… you know what a stiff is, right? I don’t have to tell you. You slowly sentence yourself to this inevitable end, which we will all come to, but I want to go down in a blaze of glory. I want to be kicking and screaming all the way. I guess it’s something akin to what the Spartans say, a glorious death. For me, there is no slowing down. The tiger is on the move, and I’m going to keep moving to the best of my ability as much as I can, as often as I can. I’m going to do my best to keep myself going physically, mentally and spiritually.
To do this, we have to train hard every day. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the good old days. Let me tell you about the good old days. First of all, there’s no such thing. There’s only the here and now. I feel sorry for the individual that peaked when they were 17 years old. They were the big man on campus, a football or baseball star in high school, and now they find themselves ready to have a midlife crisis or worse, just dreaming about the good old days. The good old days are right here and now in this moment in time. I’m not sixteen or seventeen years old anymore. We have to train more frequently, more in depth and harder (in the proper sense) than we did when we were teenagers because when you’re young, you’re stupid. This goes for everyone. No one is excluded from the laws of inertia or the laws of stupidity, which are prevalent when you are young. As you get older and have more sense and awareness of yourself, you have to use that to bring in a tighter focus and understanding. You have that constant motivation to keep on going, to keep on striving for the better, to make today and every day coming in the future a better day than the past. You don’t have to sit there and dream about your glory days when you were young. Even though I’m older, I’m younger now than I was before. Because you have the right attitude. Inertia doesn’t like the right attitude; the right attitude is the antidote to the laws of inertia. We’ve all seen examples of much older individuals, people in their 80s and 90s, that seem to stay young, and it’s because they keep themselves occupied and active, challenging themselves to do the most that they can every day. That’s what keeps older people young, healthy and vibrant in all aspects of their life.
When you have the proper mental attitude, you create a positive cycle of energy that allows you to do more. The more you train, the more you will understand that you don’t understand. Because you’ve come to this conclusion, you want to train more. This is the law of inertia. Even if you do poorly, because you have a positive mental attitude, you can take inspiration from that and continue to forge forward. I don’t care if you did well or didn’t do well; you still have to train. Many times when you “win,” you lose, but just because you “lose” doesn’t necessarily mean you lost. People are under the misconception that because they “got it right” on the first try that you actually accomplished something. Let me tell you, it was a fluke. It was what we call a happy accident. It’s not something that you can reproduce. Real Kung Fu, because it’s a skill, can be reproduced again and again. That’s something that you have to work for. It’s something you have to mess up countless times before you grasp the real understanding and actually can produce what you’re looking for continually. Here, we come back to the concept of consistency. You must be consistent in your action, in your speech, in your thought, in order to have any kind of forward mobility. The problem comes when people meet pressure or stress, but true learning will present those issues to you. Only with external pressure can we become better. Only through adversity and challenges can we overcome our circumstances and truly make ourselves what we’re supposed to be. So now, as I’m writing this blog to you, the Queen song “We Will Rock You” is playing, and I’m thinking about the lyrics about overcoming adversity to get out there and rock you. This whole blog is about overcoming the adversities that have been placed upon you or that you place upon yourself. So in essence, the inertia that you feel is the inertia that you’ve created… You must constantly fight against yourself not to get comfortable being comfortable. This is the test that you must go through in order to get to the next level.
You learn from your errors and your mistakes. You must inspire yourself to work harder and try again. Kung Fu is a daily pursuit, a daily devotion. Good days and bad days all add up to make you what you are, and you have to accept both wholeheartedly. Most people just want to have the good times, but you can’t have the good times without the bad times. That’s the contrast. That’s the yin and yang, the sweet and sour. You have to have those bitter, hard, not so pleasant moments in order to understand what truly is and what should be appreciated and striven for. We don’t care if it’s a good day or bad day, we still do the work. Day in, day out, we keep moving. Don’t stop your own progress. Once you stop, you’re f***ed. This is the law of inertia.
In conclusion, I think we’re in good company. From Aristotle to Galileo to Newton to Einstein, let’s get in gear with these fine gentlemen and don’t slow down.
-Sifu Paul Koh 高寶羅
