Health-Effectiveness: A lesson from Wing Chun applied to life and business

After not attending Wing Chun Kung Fu classes for about 10 months, I finally found some time last week to attend. I had been travelling extensively. If you are new to Wing Chun, it is Kung Fu. Legend has it that a Nun conceptualised and formed the fighting principles of the art, which is considered soft, uses your opponents strength against him/her. Do check this site from Donald Mak, a Wing Chun Sifu (Master) for a quick introduction. Wing Chun is the first martial art that Bruce Lee studied. He studied under Grandmaster Yip Man. Check this article out with a photo of Bruce Lee doing "sticky hands" practice with Grandmaster Yip Man.

Anyway, back to what I was trying to say. An essential part of Wing Chun training is known as Chi-Sao or "Sticky hands". It is an exercise where two opponents hands are in contact and each opponent practices techniques, angling, defense and stricking in a safe environment. This is not done in a fix pattern. It is free flowing and each opponent is free to try different techniques without prior agreement. This is quite close to actual fighting, but done in a safe environment. I realised that after that length of absence, my reflexes and sensitivity was still intact. My sifu said that if your fundamentals are well formed and strong, it takes a short time to get familiar again with being sensitive. As the lesson went on, it clearly showed my sifu was right. I surprised myself too! :-) I also learnt that the more relaxed I was, the better my reflexes and sensitivity, as taught by my sifu. The more tense I was, the harder it became in getting back into the "groove". I could relax during chi-sao because my foundation was done well and taught well by my sifu.

I tried to relate this to my own effectiveness and business. It brought back a concept that Robert Kiyosaki (author of rich dad poor dad) wrote in his book "Before you quit your job", where he stated that one should practice setting up and running a business in order to gain experience in running business. Set up a company and try it out in a safe environment to learn and gain experience. I now truly realise what he was saying in his book. I have not started my business yet because of my fear of starting one, not having started one before. With this, I now intend to seriously look into starting a business to practice!

Similar to what we do in chi-sao in Wing Chun, I want to learn and practice setting and running a business in a safe environment, but as close to the real thing as possible. It may be as simple creating a business entity and begin selling or distributing a simple product first, low cost, low risk.

This concept may sound shallow to some, but it works. I am striving to be more effective one day at a time, one concept at a time, one step at a time. A journey of a thousand miles being with a single step.

In my next blog entry, I will share about my experience on authentic Thai massage at a Thai Wat (temple) in Bangkok that helped heal my shoulder injury and about the entrepreneural spirit of the Thai people.