“Sparring is a form of training common to many martial arts. Although the precise form varies, it is essentially relatively ‘free-form‘ fighting…” Wikipedia.
World champion Peter Ralston and author of the books Cheng Hsin, Zen Body-Being and The Book of Not Knowing agreed to do some ‘free-form thinking’ with me. I did sent him some questions and he was so friendly to give us some kind of training with his detailed answers. Thank you, Peter!
Let’s do a warm-up:
5. Feelings: Anything we experience only has the value we put into it. If you feel hurt, who did *really* hurt you?
You have to experience not just that you are creating your emotions, but feel yourself in the act of creating the emotions.
6. Work: It seems we struggle day in, day out. What is the highest level of fighting?
One of the most important dynamics I learned while attempting to master fighting is that whenever I had trouble with an opponent ”” when the relationship was characterized as a struggle for me ”” I always found that I was mentally resisting the opponent being exactly the way that he was.
8. Love: Love is being the first one to give. Why are we afraid to love?
When you are afraid to love, or afraid of anything else for that matter, you imagine future negative consequences. If you didn”™t imagine something bad might happen, then you would love freely, wouldn”™t you?
Are you ready for the full, detailed training?
Continue reading “ZEN-Sparring with Peter Ralston”
When you read Real Down, what concept does your brain present you? Maybe some not so comfortable feelings come up. In the ups and downs of life most of us try to avoid the way down. While sinking, we feel like the Titanic.