Slave of Freedoms

(Dave Chappelle NOT ME!)

I made mention a long time ago on my youtube that there were 8864 movements in our style of Bagua. Later I came to find that the actual amount of movements was infinite; an eternal math equation that extends into the universe through the movements of the human body. For years I struggled to understand how to write efficiently with an alphabet that contains an endless amount of letters. It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that that all of the 10,000's of movements are only variations of one technique. The thousands of techniques all expand from a single point into a grid of thousands of possibilities and then back into one single point again. Meaning that even with millions of options in our training and in our life, there is only one truth.

Trying to train the thousands of movements thousands of times was exhausting and unproductive. Although the techniques all carried the power and logic of Bagua, they were missing their connection to each other and to myself. This made it impossible for me to reach the ultimate goal of our lineage which is endless change, Bagua being a university allows for thousands of different goals just as majors in a university. Yet my path was troubled and uncertain. At the same time I was juggling 5 different jobs and had very little time left for sleep. I was using too much energy in my training and in my life. Luckily I had already learned that any problem I was having in my training would relate to my life. Therefore by solving my training problem, I would solve my work problem.

The jobs I was working were all jobs that I enjoyed. I loved teaching martial arts, writing, performing, acting, teaching dance and every other odd commercial that I was lucky enough to fall into. Yet I began to grit my teeth at the thought of the things that I loved because I was imbalanced.

I decided to walk the circle until things began to make sense. After walking the circle for about an hour, I felt my thighs demand that I stopped my training, but I didn't listen. I ignored the barrage of discomforts that attacked me. I ignored the mosquitoes that gave me extra bumps that stung as my salty, thick sweat ran over them.

Three hours later, I was finally  unable to block out the pain and fell to my knees on the concrete. I had an hour before I had to get on stage and I didn't find the answer I was looking for. This quite naturally made me feel even more disdain about working.

Rapping was something that I had gotten comfortable with over the years in Taiwan. I had learned the key ingredient to making people have fun, was to have fun in front of them. I took shots with everyone, chatted, helped them get into their rhythm. My job was to get people excited. So when they started jumping up and down, that means I could take a rest in a dark shadow.

Something about the training, thoughts or lack of sleep seemed to make this night move in slow motion. I listened to the sounds of a hundred different laughs and shouts. The music, the movement, the atmosphere was filled with thousands of variables. Yet as I sat in a dark corner to catch my breath, the only thing that I could hear was my own heart beat. Just like that, I found the connection between the 10,000 moves and the 1 technique.

The heart is not responsible for every function in the body, yet if the heart stops, the body stops. This is directly related to the training I was looking for in the circle. The circle may not be used for every technique that I needed to practice, but without the circle non of the other techniques could exist. The circle is a single palm strike that never ceases in movement being the link in connecting all techniques.

This came to my mind today because I realize now that people are actually enslaved by their freedom. Freedom to do what ever you want may sound nice at first, but wouldn't you rather have truth? If I am free to do math anyway I please, how would I ever get a correct answer?

In today's society we say "that's his belief". We do this as a way to attempt to accept each others differences. But being politically correct is stripping us from many very simple truths i.e. "spare the rod and spoil the child". Letting kids be free from REAL punishments of their actions is the direct cause of bullying in schools.

When we say it is ok to be greedy, our economy ends up the way it is now. Our society can not find freedom until we first finish our evolution. We still use the lowest Qi chakras in the body: reproduction, control, and pleasure. This means that we will always see all things in terms of only money, sex and power. Money being the only thing that separates us from the animals. If all of our decisions are based on these three concepts, then no matter how much we believe we are free or what education level we may reach, we are still slaves to money, sex and power.

It is the next three Qi Chakras that we must continually reach for: wisdom, unconditional love and non judgement. These are traits that can only be borrowed from God meaning the key to your complete evolution is Christ. It's the one truth among the 10,000 possibilities you are faced with every day. But once you are connected, everything you touch will be blessed.

This is why I don't have to work 5 jobs at the same time and I am still making more progress than I ever desired. My own efforts were a form of me trying to manipulate life into a desired shape of my choosing. Once I stopped trying to succeed I finally succeeded. The only thing I needed to change in all of my thousands of moves was my heart.

Stay in faith