The last few years of my life has been.... strange to say the least...
In the last 5 years, I've been paralyzed by pain for 3 days, limped around crippled by pain in my right foot for 6 months, summoned up cosmic entities, talked with the dead, travelled abroad more than I have in the previous 10 years, learned how to ride on a motorbike, walked around town in a period costume and now apparently... I'm learning this whole fighting stuff....:P
Most people my age would worry about car loans, housing mortgage, kids... career stuff... I'm worried about a guy who wants to teach me the whole warrior thingamagig.. but also.. I suspect... wants to egg me on to fight him.... funny thing is.... with dark circles around his eyes, he kinda reminds me a bit of kungfu panda's sifu.
Yeah well... kungfu panda....:P I kinda really empathize with him right now :( I highly suspect that in the history of Italian swordfighting.... there is probably no more woeful student than I .... haiz....
As it turns out.... I'm taking an abnormally long time to learn this whole swordfighting thing....:P Not only was I terribly unfit when I started out... (yeah... I could give panda a run for his money).... I cannot remember a darn thing I am taught....
See... most people will be able to "get it" when a certain move is demonstrated once or twice.. but it takes like 10 - 20 times for me to figure anything out. And yeah... I forget the whole thing just as easily.... :P
This kinda makes me wonder if the lifetimes I saw in my meditative and night time visions are actually true.... I mean, if I was a soldier so many times in the past... this thing whole fighting thing won't be so hard to learn... right?
I mean, I'm not expecting to be some prodigy but SURELY.... it won't be THIS BAD.
I quizzed F about this... and her explanation is that.. well... I haven't been very active in this lifetime.. and was I more active... this learning curve won't have been sooooo....BIG... then she mentioned something about making the mind-body kinetic link and that I'm in the process of making it but... thanks to years of inactivity its taking goddamn long.
F has no doubt in her mind about what I was and am. I just wish had that kind of faith in myself.... but faith comes to her easily.... that's her gift.
Wolfy's explanation was that it's the Creator's way of making me appreciate learning the skill.....
My comment to that is....
...........
I want to say WTF!... but at this point... I have said it enough times already.
I was aware when I joined the classes.. that somehow up there would utilize this opportunity to teach me a few important life lessons... after all... this situation is a direct manifestation of my personal karmic patterns. Sometime last year, I said to myself and to up there.. hey man... I'm ready... just throw whatever you want at me... I mean.... its taken so long to get here.... I'm ready to stop fucking around with my life and get serious about this path I am on.....
So I knew I would meet people, situations ... stuff... that would force me to confront what I have put off for so long....
I just didn't think it would be ... this... tedious.
Soooooo.... has it been a complete washout? Actually no.... According to Wolfy.. I'm now looking trimmer and personally... I'm starting to be able to do proper push-ups and sit-ups (no, before this I have never done a single sit-up in my life.... not even my yearly physical fitness test in school ever made me able to do a single sit-up....)
Some of you might wonder... am I just making a mountain from a molehill? Is this situation really being used by up there to teach me what I need to learn? Am I just being too credulous or arrogant... (I mean, seriously, why would up there bother with insignificant gnats like humans, right?)
Honestly.. I did wonder myself.... until 2 weeks ago....
As it turned out... I went to F's for a meditation.... started talking to her about a student I observed in class.... and well.. something happened....
See... F placed a glass bottle of water in the middle of her 2-seater sofa... that very firm one everyone loves.... she put it there in lieu of a table and sat in a chair facing me... (sofas aren't really good for her back... and no, she was not touching the sofa.. AT ALL).... the bottle was very securely nestled in the middle of the sofa between 2 cushions...
However, the moment I started talking about karmic stuff and the student in question... and F interrupted me saying that my assumption was incorrect... the bottle... and I'm not BS-ing here.... rolled as though someone was pressing down hard on one of the cushions...
That's right...a heavy glass 1 litre bottle rolled off the sofa apparently on its own power!
It broke with a smash just as F commented on my assumption about the student.
It was such a shocking incident that we realised something was... amiss.... so to speak.... I guess we realised that the whole bottle incident happened because we were talking about this person...
I don't think the bottle smashing was done by the person we were talking about (through some weird cosmic power) or by entities related to said person... F commented that it seemed more like a kind of cosmic emphasis to draw our attention to something in the conversation. After we established what it was we were supposed to note about the conversation... nothing strange happened after that.....
I must say.... this isn't the only weird.... "objects moving on their own incident" that happened in the last few months...:P There are others but I'll leave it to another time.
So yeah.. I know that I'm not attending the classes by chance... besides... I have dreamt of the place where the classes are held before I went there... and I did dream about the people I would meet... the truth is ... MOST of the students who are there now are people I have expected to meet for a very long time... and their faces.. though new... are familar to me...
I say MOST because there are a few people who didn't appear in my dream.... and I suspect aren't supposed to be there.... I could get into the discussion about karma and coincidences about this, but I'll leave it for another opportune time.
Anyways, being on this path has taught me a few things about how the "system" works... a person or situation will be thrown my way to help me to learn a lesson.... this person or situation will not disappear until I have "learned my lesson" so to speak. Usually the person or situation might be a karmic mirror for me (that is mirroring to me my own lessons) .... If I am able to understand the lesson and overcome the main issue that caused this lesson to occur, the person or situation in question will either disappear or fade into the background. If I choose to avoid the person or issue, similar issue will arise that will force me to confront the problem... usually of the same magnitude.
Since the breaking of the glass, I have come to understand the issue that the student in question was reflecting to me. We both "suffer" from a similar malady/disadvantage and that has helped me to reflect on my situation and to learn from it. That student has now faded into the background for me....
Unfortunately, 'cos I learned the prior lesson.... the next lesson has stepped up.... now my panda-eyed instructor is constantly in my face... so to speak... unknowingly (to him at least) he has become the "mouthpiece" of the universe to make me understand....
I suppose knowing my karma, it could not have been delievered by another kind of person...
Wolfy said to me that if I deflected him or the situation .... another like him will take his place.... possibly a person with a similar character and of similar magnitude....
It IS possible such a person might be redirected by circumstances to stop by Singapore.... no matter how far away he or she might have to travel.... this HAS happened before.... I laugh to think of there being another swordsman in Singapore of the same magnitude as my instructor... I think if they ever met, they might feel the dire need to see who is better.
So I have to learn... or keep seeing the same guy... again and again.... how tedious...
So what is the lesson?
I think it has something to do with courage... or as ol' "Flower" says it.... ("Flower" is the translation of the name of the guy who wrote the martial arts manual that we study from.. I have included a page from his book right on top... yeah yeah... okay you guys can stop laughing now... our founder is a minor Italian noble named "Flower"....).... courage, fearlessness.... audacity, is what "The Art" (of swordplay, combat... breaking people's bones) is about
In his book, where he uses 4 animals to describe the qualities of a swordsman, I remember reading that audacity is the most important of all the qualities.... the so-called "heart of a lion" - Audatia...
Yeah... despite my own natural aggression... sadly... I fight like a chicken.... I know I have fear in my heart, but I don't know how I can overcome... unfortunately this is one of those cosmic lessons that don't just go away just because I understand the lesson...
I guess the root of the problem is belief.... that's just something that is not my gift.... I'm the guy who questions beings who call themselves gods.... not the one who embraces faith.
I have seen things that most people would thankfully never ever have to see and in the last 5 years, confronted things that would cause most people to shrivel up in terror... So how is it that I have the audacity to question... nay... shake my fist at a god and none to fight a man?
I mean...How the hell should I know?
Well... that's my problem... really.... I'm still searching for the answer... or as my senior would put it... I'm trapped in the prison that is my own mind.
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