I usually spend 12 minutes or so doing some meditation. (sitting or standing) Then I spend another 20 minutes doing my SLT everyday.
Can I just do my slt and focus on my breath to kill two birds with one stone? If my body can be relaxed in my horse…i would think so…
any thoughts?
cha kuen- you asked- so FWIW.
There are different kinds of meditation for different purposes.
Doing the sil lim tao “mindfully” and zazen or dhyan
are not the same things though they share some perspectives.
In slt you focus on specific aspects of martial motion…lots of things to “correct” while you are it. And you go slow only in the first section.
BTW in making this comment I am using both my wing chun and non wing chun(dhyana) backgrounds. While I have been in wing chun a long time- referring to a different point made on kfo- there are students who are senior to me in my line in basic Chinese terminology-I have several elder kung fu brothers and one elder
kung fu sisters associated with headquarters. None of them bother with inter net kung fu lists.
Same for sifu.
Can you go into deep meditation using the first part of SLT…?
Some lineages go slow the entire form. Ultimately (but not initially) I don’t think it matters exactly what your physical body is doing while meditating. I for instance try to recreate the wonderful mime routines of Marcel Marceau while done up like Mr. T.
Can you go into deep meditation using the first part of SLT…?
Can you do SLT without your lungs and your heart?
Ultimately (but not initially) I don’t think it matters exactly what your physical body is doing while meditating.
Ultimately and initially, I beg to differ. 
That’s Ok. What’s your view on it?
My view is that it is difficult to relax deeply while you are moving. And it is difficult to do SLT without moving.
Fau kiu
Cha kuen,
I think that is 32 minutes well spent. My understanding is there is a form of drilling that requires you to to enter into a meditative state then perform some SLT the actual term for this escapes me right now I believe its part of our faht ging training though. So I believe you are right on track in your training.
I spent three years doing about thirty minutes of menditation a day. The people I were involved with in this had a weird agenda, along the lines of my “False Prophet” article on Rene’s site, and these days I am DEEPLY cynical of many such practices and the whole MA/spirituality/satori/nirvana line of thought, if that is not a contradiction in terms on some level.
The main questions for you IMHO are:
What do you want to achieve through meditation?
What do you want to achieve through SLT?
Are the goals of the practices compatible?
If yes to the last, you can probably double up. If not you can’t.
The time saving, efficiency and economising line of thought probably violates some tenets of some aspects of the practice (do it THIS way and achieve enlightenment in not 32, but 12 (TWELVE!) minutes per day!!! Call now, 1-800-AUMMMM!). But then I suppose so does having goals (even to reduce the time spent to reach the results you’re not supposed to seek after anyway).
As I said, I don’t really buy into this. Enlightenment’s right here, right now. The harder you try to reach it, the more practices and layers and organisations and gurus and teachers and masters and Sifus you put between it and yourself, the further away it gets …
It’s a window manager on my Linux box.
Anerlich,
To answer your questions, I’m practicing sitting meditation right now to help with my spirituaity. However, chi kung is also a form of meditation and helps with spirituality as well.
I do my SLT to work on my wing chun and that’s it.
So i’m doing my SLT and then my sitting meditation. At first I was thinking of doing a tai chi standing post meditation instead of the sitting one because I can work on being connected and rooted at the same time as I work on my spirituality.
Then I thought, what the hell- why don’t I just do my SLT in a meditative manner such as concentrating on my breath and such. I believe that when I get into deep meditation and learn how to get Deep easily, I can apply deep meditation with anything. Even taking a sh*T !! haha.
Yes I agree that spirituality is right here and now and that I don’t need to talk to any dai lalama or masters. It comes from within. I personally had these “awakening” expereince that were like a natural exstacy!! I want it so i’m working for it.
I don’t believe in joining a spritual lesson class that costs money. F- that.
SLT &/or meditation
If it came to be a choice between SLT and meditation it will be SLT. However, I think that a standing meditation will help your SLT. Seated meditation will also, but I don’t think quite as well as the standing. If you are unable to do the standing meditation for at least 20 min., I would recommend putting that time towards other WC training.
Marty
Thanks for the advice but I don’t think I will ever have to choose between meditation (spirituality) and martial arts.
As for the “put more time into wc” that is something that has alwasy bugged me. Many people say “instead of doing that, just put more time into your training.”
That statements is saying that we all have a full schedule in our lives and have no extra time slots. What if I have a lot of free time? Then I could do this and that and it wouldn’t matter. It would be like instead of me playing basketball, I would meditate. Or instead of watching 30 minutes of TV, i take that time to do standing meditation or hell, even learn BJJ.
Most people misunderstand that since someone is talking about 2 things, related to the martial arts, they suddenly switch to a "either or " mode.
Example. John is doing wc and wants to learn BJJ as well. Some may say, just spend more time working on your wc. What if John does spend an hour everyday doing wc, and he still has time and wants to do BJJ? Are you stil gonna tell him to spend more time on wc? Why can’t he go learn BJJ? It’s the same thing as him spending 2 hours a day watching MTV, instead he goes to learn BJJ. (or meditate, standing or sitting)
Not much relevant to the original post topic but I think it’s a point to be brought up since many poeple in the MA say " spend more time doing ___" as if we are all slackers with 100% busy schedules. =]
cha kuen- doing slt “mindfully” and sitting meditation are two quite different things. They can be complementary but they are NOT the same.
Re: Making my SLT into meditation
Originally posted by cha kuen
Can I just do my slt and focus on my breath to kill two birds with one stone?
You could, but you wouldn’t be improving your Wing Chun or at least, not as much as you could be.
There are lots of different types of meditation. I think that doing
SLT while being mindful of your SLT can be a meditation of a sort,
but it would be different and perhaps not as effective a meditation
as, say, zazen.
It’d be best to do both, I think.
Thanks…
for the lashing of your keyboard. I see I’m to be the recipient of your frustration of people saying “put more time into wc”.
FWIW, your original post suggested you were open to thoughts. I gave you mine.
My point was this: your time would be better spent doing something worthwhile than spending only a small amount of time doing meditation.
BTW, meditation doesn’t have to be spiritual to be beneficial.
Also, as time goes by, SLT will become more meditative; though I am not sure I would say that it is meditation.
Marty
Marty,
I wasn’t thrashing you. I was just simply talking about another issue that you brought up and thank you for brining that up. I have always been told things like that and I’ve been meaning to post a topic but never got around to it. (Because i’ve been practicing so much wc! j/k)
Your post just reminded me on it and I just wanted to take the opportunity to talk about it that’s all. I’m just giving another perspective that most people may not see.
I did put a happy face at the end!! =]
Didnt mean to thrash you.
regards,
cha kuen.
Yuanfan,
Would you say that praticing SLT and standing meditation are the same? They are very similar aren’t they? SLT and tai chi standing post?
no problem.
The tone of your post seemed pretty harsh. Even with the smiling face.
I know you were just ranting, but I wanted to determine if that’s all it was or if you were really a jerk.
just a rant. good.
Marty
cha kuen asks:
Yuanfan,
Would you say that praticing SLT and standing meditation are the same? They are very similar aren’t they? SLT and tai chi standing post?
Cha kuen: If in ygkym you do not make the martial hand motions but let your hands hang on the sides or even the front you are doing something parallel to the taiji standing post. The taiji folks
do not pronate their toes in, the pelvis and kua arrangements are different- but the functions are equivalent- knowing each gravitational path with relaxed but sound structure, storing energy, and calming the mind.
If you do the hand motions then you are focusing on doing the martial motions willfully for martial development.
I dont see a problem in doing the both standing and the motions
as separate things…one for personal development and the other for martial foundations.
I think seated, still meditation is great, if you know what you’re doing. The thing is, I no longer have time and silence for this practice. I do my Yoga meditatively, it’s pretty nice.