About All That Fear....

I think... at least for me... there is no better place to learn about the crippling effects of fear than having someone take a flying punch at you.

I spent half my life living in fear.... Fear of what other people might say, fear of what my own parents might say... fear of the supernatural... fear of .. what if I "can't make it"... fear of.... well, a very long list of STUFF... mostly trival and nonsensical.

I had a challenge about 2 weeks ago... a sorta fear trial.

My sister, as all of you know, is a martial artist.... I probably don't know anyone who knows more about Chinese martial arts than she does 'cos she's been doing it for years. And for years, I've been interested in martial arts, but I was too chicken to take it up. Mostly because she's taking it up and there has always been a bit of competition between me and my sis. I have no desire to compete with her, but she's always had the desire to compete with me in stuff... and honest to goodness I have no idea why.

And then there's all that bit about what my folks would say... blah blah blah...

In short, I was too afraid. 

Anyways, before I decided to take up the whole swordfighting thing, I decided to sound it out to my sis. It's so that she'll know we are not doing the same thing... and also, to get some support. See, in my family, if my mom and sis either support an idea, don't care about it or remain neutral towards it.... the idea goes ahead. If they highly oppose it, life can get nasty... they are terribly good at using their mouths to undermine stuff....

The reason I need their support or otherwise need them to remain neutral is cos I think the person who is going to pose the biggest challenge is my dad. My dad was initially very resistant to the idea of my sis doing Chinese martial arts... he felt that the whole Chi thing was a very very non-Christian concept..... I said at that time to him that... it wasn't about religion... "for heavens sake, we are CHINESE!" The whole concept of Chi is cultural and wasn't really a religious matter.

No one says "No" to my sis ... so she just did what she wanted... I guess at that time it was a lesson to me... but I didn't learn it by observation...

Unfortunately, when my sis heard about my own desire to learn swordplay, she found it terribly funny... she also said... pretty nastily.... "What, you're gonna pay someone to teach you how to move around in heavy armour...????" Her concept of european swordplay is well, knights with clumsy weapons... and she sneered at the idea... adding that Chinese swordplay was a lot faster.....

Well, no one says "No" to me.... not especially anyone who talks to me in that manner...I am glad I went ahead.

Funny thing is, I never knew how liberating it was to have someone punch you. I mean, I have always been adverse to pain and getting hurt.... but after having had a brush with that, I realised that my own fear of pain was just that... a very tiny fear.... I also realised that all my fear about my own physical abilities was just ... a lot of hogwash.... 

I can actually do all the stuff I need to to learn what I need to learn from swordplay... and well, although it will take quite a bit of work (I'm terribly unfit), I am now confident that I CAN actually DO IT. 

I mean, I believe that I was incarnate as a soldier, warrior, fighter for many many lifetimes... If I could do all those warrior stuff back when in whatever era, I should still be able to do it now in this time... or in fact in any time period. This at least is my own belief which is part of my current spiritual path. 

Now, that is not to say that I'm some kinda super soldier or something.... but that doing physical stuff or at least martial arts stuff shouldn't be so "out-of-place" so to speak, that I would be totally adverse to it or that I'll completely fail to achieve something from it. 

The way I see it, there is no better way to put my faith in my beliefs to the test... heck as I said to myself, "If you believe all that bullshit about urself, then there's no better proof than putting it to the ultimate test."

And I realise now that the test never was about whether I could really do splits or flips or cartwheels... it was whether I could conquer all of my fears and doubts and just believe I could DO whatever it was I thought I could do... 

And now I know that I CAN.

Anyway, I just decided to mention again to my sis that I'm learning this european swordplay thing on Sunday.... Surprisingly, she responded well to it... at the most remaining neutral. Why? Well, cos she needed my advice on some supernatural stuff.... and I think she's a bit unsure about it... Also, I realised that despite all her training in Chinese swordplay, she's never actually cut anything with a sharpened weapon.....

This point was brought home to me by a fellow student who also studies chinese swordplay.... he remarked that although Chinese swordplay does teach all the stances and movements, there isn't any real practical training... as in, hardly anyone cuts anything with a sharpened Chinese sword.... and also there isn't much discussion about how to actually stab someone with a chinese sword method... so how the heck does anyone know if their swordplay actually works?

I have also never seen a sharp Chinese sword outside of the museum context.

No wonder my sis asked me if we ever wielded sharp weapons.... :D

I kinda realised that no matter how much someone trains with a blunt or training weapon, there is still a need to at some juncture, wield the sharp thing... why? Well, only by wielding a sharpened weapon can a person actually know how much force, precision and balance is needed to actually cut something accurately. 

Oh yeah, there is also that whole beginner's fear when wielding a sharp weapon... (eg. what if I cut my ear/shoulder/head....) 

Sooooooo.... about fear.... yeah... I think its about time I stopped having so many fears.... a friend commented to me on Sunday..... "What if the people you work with know that you wave a sword around in your free time?" 

I said, "So what?" 

At the best they might think its cool... at the worse, they'll just say its some stupid historical fantasy of men in chunky armour. The best thing to do is just to smile and say, "That's what I like... so?"