Just recently I went on my 2nd Chi Kung, Meditation and Kung Fu retreat. Basically we packed lots of warm clothes and headed up to the Pocono mountains for a weekend.  Once there, we kept busy training, meditating, journaling and sitting in the woods to reconnect with nature.

Retreat View

There were points when we would spend time with others walking or sitting in meditation outside in complete silence. If you think about it, how often do people spend time together as a group without having the need to constantly be saying something. I found those moments to be a rare pleasure.

Knowing you are all there for a common purpose, sharing an experience without exchanging any words is a refreshing change from every day life. It was in those quiet moments when it felt like it was a true retreat experience for me – a chance to recharge. The unhurried pace, the utter lack of the usual demands and pressures. Even being told when to move on to the next thing meant leaving the worry about time and schedules to someone else. I got to just ‘be”. That was a gift.

Fully engaged with a heightened awareness is the only way to describe one particular experience I had on that retreat. I can’t get into the details unfortunately, but suffice it it say that it was an eye opening experience.

Happy Trails.

Think you are aware of what is going on? It’s so easy not to pay attention to what is going on around us -but why? Well, first of all it takes focus to be aware. You cannot be lost in your own thoughts and be truly paying attention to everything going on around you.  Secondly I think, depending on where you live, we are lulled into a false sense of security. Generally speaking, most of us can walk around or drive somewhere in our car and expect to arrive at our destination safely. Yet, it is easy to miss something if we aren’t paying attention and how keen your awareness skills are can make a real difference. After all, we all know that life can change in an instant. Best to keep your wits about you. 

So how aware are you? Think you are pretty good? Why not check out this video for a minute and take a the  Awareness Test  then come right back and let me know how you did.

Kind of fun right? Part of being aware of your surrounding is the ability to see all but not focus on any one thing in particular. I find that for me to do this takes real focus. Our tendency seems to be to look at specific things yet with time I think this can become enough of a habit that we can take more in of the world at a glance.

So why is it important to be aware? Well for self defense is one obvious reason. Pretty much any martial arts school you attend will teach you that being aware is the first line of self defense. The more aware we are of our surroundings, the less likely we will be surprised to find ourselves in a bad situation. 

Often we get nagging feelings when something isn’t right yet we eithe tune them out or let our intellect talk us out of heeding that inner voice. But that is a whole nother topic isn’t it? Tuning into that little voice often called intuition. Look for more on that topic in the future.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. A special day for giving thanks. But I wonder why we need a special day on the calendar to remind us to be thankful?  So much to be grateful for every day when we stop and think about it.

I don’t come from a “glass is always half full” upbringing.  So remembering to really focus on the good in a situation rather than the bad is a learned behavior for me. One that takes practice. But as with anything with enough practice it wil become habit over time.

Just the other day I was driving my kids home from school using my husband’s uncle car while my car was in the shop.  None of us really enjoy being in that car because it is rarely used and so has a pretty stale smell to it. My daughter complains each time she is in it. So as I drove home she brings up how much she dislikes riding in it - again.  She wanted to know when I could get my car back because this one smelled so bad. You know what? I was on the verge of agreeing with her and then caught myself. 

Instead, I decided to point out how bitter cold it was out that day and how their school is a pretty far walk from our house. Would she rather be walking home with her ridiculously heavy backpack that contains everything just short of the kitchen sink?

I told her I was grateful for the car because without it I’d be in a bind. How would I get to get to work, to their school, to kung fu class etc.  I told her I, for one, was grateful to have this car to use in the meantime. Wasn’t it better to focus on that that rather than complain?

Did she get it? No, but over time…she will… if I keep instilling it . One day, she will look at her glass and see it is half full.  She will learn to look up at the sky, not just to check for rain, but to give thanks. Thanks for the brilliant colors in the leaves of fall, thanks for the mittens on her cold hands, thanks for sun helping to warm her face.  

One day she will look around and see many things to be thankful for… and it won’t even have to be Thanksgiving.

Martial Arts Retreat

Well it has been too long since I last posted and am feeling guilty but guilt is such a wasted emotion I will quickly move on to tell you more about my retreat.

It was about 40 degrees out when we gathered together at 6:30 a.m. sharp to go sit in the woods and do some awareness meditation. It was our job to locate where we sat the prior day and settle in for a good hour of connecting with nature. What does this have to do with kung fu training you may ask?

Good question. The answer is quite a lot actually and on several levels at least from my own perspective. First off, by sitting quietly alone in the woods you start to reconnect with nature. The rhythms, the sounds, the animals slowly emerging and the changing of the light. I love to observe the trees and always find so many analogies to them with people.  Some so tall and strong, others with broken branches yet still surviving. Some are dead and yet still manage to stand up and be counted as if they are still alive when inside they are  really dead. Some people are like that don’t you think? Standing there really only a shell yet outwardly they appear to be amongst the living? Ok, I’m off on a tangent just a bit…

Anyway, by sitting out there and experiencing the elements, primarily the cold in this case, you begin to realize how powerful nature really is. The cold can kill you. No, I’m not claiming my life was in any danger but you do start realize and appreciate nature’s potential. It can kill you with cold and keep you warm with the sun. Let me tell you how good that sun felt when it finally came out and I stepped out into a clearing an hour later. I just drank in the warmth of the sun and the feeling it had on my face. Now, do you think that would have felt the same to me if I had just stepped out of a heated cabin? No way.

You see you realize how you really cut yourself off from all of this when you spend too much of your time indoors. It makes us soft doesn’t it? Discomfort, dealing with it and truly experiencing it makes us feel not only more alive but it toughens us up. Yes, it’s cold and yes, I’m dealing with it.

You start to see how this might relate to martial arts classes can’t you? When you are on the floor toughing it out - you are feeling something. You are getting past that feeling (hopefully) of “this is too difficult. I can’t, I can’t”.  You see, martial arts is just a microcosm of the real world. What you experience in the dojang is really analogous to what goes on in the real world.  The dojang is supposed to be a “place of enlightenment”.  This is your opportunity to work on yourself.  So that when you step outside into the world you are better prepared to deal with challenges. In this case, my “dojang” or “dojo” as some call it, was nature and while sitting there I got just a bit more enlightened and connected to my world. 

By sitting there, paying attention to every sight, sound, smell, feeling and even taste you stop tuning out the world and start plugging into it. By actively trying to use all my senses, I could see how helpful this might be in a self defense situation.  If I rely not just on what I see or hear but all my senses don’t I increase my changes of noticing something is “wrong” before it happens?

My teacher has said that when they interview victims of crime, they often say they “sensed” something was wrong but ignored the feeling.  Awareness training helps you develop the ability to not only detect things that might otherwise go unnoticed but also PAY ATTENTION to them. If you “feel something just isn’t right,” go the other way. Whatever you were going to do just isn’t that important.  Pay attention to your surroundings and listen to your gut, not your brain, if something doesn’t seem right.  You see the first rule of self defense training is awareness. Get yourself out before you find yourself in a bad situation.

Well, I hope you got something useful out of this post. I’d love to hear from others about their own experiences either sitting in nature or when they encountered a self defense situation or attack where it was preceding by a feeling of foreboding.

Well I just got back yesterday from a really great experience. I went on a retreat with my kung fu classmates and teacher for the weekend.  We started out the evening going into the woods to find a spot that “called” to us and got sat for awhile. Our mission was to really take note of our surroundings including sounds, smells, sights how we felt while sitting completely quietly. We also needed to explain why we picked that particular spot and needed be able to find it again as we would be returning there early the next morning.  Each time we did this we wrote about our experience. So after that first afternoon, it was then onto a quiet dinner and then working out for a couple of hours. We did some great partner work that got our blood going and did some really good focused, repetitive kung fu. Loved it. We then went to sit quietly outside on some benches in the dark. It was COLD let me tell you.  After a while, body temperature cools down and you felt it.  I had to do the breathing techniques I was taught that I know also helps me to keep warm to keep warm. It worked though. I was cold but never shivering.

Up at 5:45 and awoke to very cold morning. Not easy to sit at our spots for an hour but we all did it. It was worthwhile in a way that is difficult to convey if you never really sat in nature listening to the natural rhythms.  Really tuning in to the animals, the change from dark to light the sound of your own breath. It is not my intention to get overly personal here with what my own thoughts were while I sat. I can only encourage you to try it and discover what it is like to fully plug in to your senses. You see we did have periods where we did meditation on the retreat but this was more about awareness training. Fully engaging your mind.  More on the kung fu retreat to come…