Shun Shifu

Social media is abuzz with vitriol about rape and sexual harrassment. Statistics are thrown around that clearly imply that all men are bad. And those statistics are, without a doubt, leading the narrative. Leading the narrative with memes is a simple thing to do. The majority of the population will not dive deeper and try to understand. Our brains do not naturally do so. Our brains want ideas nicely packaged up like a big mac and fries. Grab it and go ideas.  Unfortunately, when we fail to think, we are easily controlled. And those ideas can be about as healthy as the toxic food served at the drive-through.  Not cooking? Not thinking about the toxins we shove down our throats in traffic at 60 miles per hour? Hell, we don’t even get out of our cars. And the same goes for the ideas we quickly consume. Absorb, scroll, absorb, scroll. Speed reading at it’s finest (I’ve never been a fan of speed reading, seems counterproductive to me) This is dangerous stuff here folks. Nothing short of mind control. And so easily down. Let’s take a quick think and see if we can figure out what’s going on in the “all men are bad” scene. Statistics say that most women experience sexual harassment and a large percentage have been raped. I don’t know the numbers. Just that they are reportedly large, and that is horrible.  I do agree that, as men, we have a responsibility to do something. Why? Because we are men, and men protect. That’s what it means to be a man. Despite what you are told it does not make a woman weaker if a man protects her. It simply makes her more protected. I think if you follow that logic out a bit you’ll know where the idea came from…and where, at least a part of the problem is coming from. (Yep, another meme populated idea) Commonly men are told, “If you’d taught your sons not to rape we wouldn’t have this problem”. I have my doubts that that is the problem. Let’s go back to stats and numbers. Simple thought experiment. Let’s say we have one predatory man in 100 men. If that man sexually harasses 100 women in a year then statistically most women would have been sexually harassed. Not all because some would have not experienced it due to geography, demeanor, or other reasons. So some would have been multiple times. Over the course of a working career this would result in statistically a woman being sexually harrassed 30 times. Now, as I said, I don’t know what the real numbers are. Does anybody really?  But what I do know is that it only takes one creep and a couple memes to make all men look bad. With the reality of this now being obvious the answer is much more simple. As men (and women) we must 1) Teach the creeps to not be creeps (methodology can be found in any of my videos) 2) Eliminate the predators from society Yet instead the idea that all men are bad is propagated. Without understanding the problem the solution is impossible to see. And as usual, the real problem is being obfuscated by memethink. And taking this just a bit further I think you can see that memethink is the reason many problems are never solved. Think before you meme.

Ah, a fresh start. Feels good right? Get rid of all that old baggage and start a new path. Awesomeness! Except… A fresh start is really starting back at ZERO. Some people get addicted to fresh starts. Failing miserably at whatever it is they continually fail at. Then finally crashing hard into the same wall they’ve crashed into over and over. Then announcing to the world that they have turned a new leaf. Announcing a fresh start. It’s better to call it what it is. Starting at zero. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. If you continually have fresh starts you will spend your life going nowhere. However… If you learn a lesson from the failure this is truly not a fresh start. You are now starting from a new place. It may feel the same. Maybe you’re single again. Maybe you’re broke again. Maybe you are sober for 1 day again. If the lesson was learned it is a completely new place. Same scenery but you look at it differently. This then is an adjustment, not a fresh start. You have navigated a path forward. Not hit an impassible wall. Choose your euphemisms wisely. They can be lifelong sentences. And the key to the jail cells they build is only a few well-chosen words.  

Martial arts taught to 29 year olds. Seems to coincide with neuroscience findings thaat the Pre-frontal cortex is not fully developed until late 20’s in males

It seems that there is a fundamental belief that when we enhance male energy we are diminishing female energy. This is not only false, it is also the opposite of the truth. Strength is a masculine energy. Its feminine counterpart is not weakness. Depending on context it could be support. It could be harmony. We say things like “masculine and feminine energies are out of balance”. Implying that they are in opposition. They are not. When the masculine energy is enhanced it allows the feminine energy to be enhanced. And vice versa. The two build together. The opposite of strength is weakness. The opposite of masculine energy is non-masculine. Masculine energy is attractive and useful in males. As it is in females. Feminine energy is attractive and useful in females. As it is in males. Somehow this idea that masculine negates feminine snuck its way into our society without anyone noticing. When I speak of masculine energy I can see it on the faces of students and in their responses. The thinking is wrong. In Shou’ Shu’ this is obvious. Strong stances drive relaxed weapons. Yang drives yin. Yin turns to yang at impact. As yang is exhausted it changes to yin. Yin regroups and supports. Yang explodes and reinforces. Yin allows the energy flow. Yang delivers it. Neither is effective without the other. Carry this logic out a little further and one sees that the same mistake is made in asking if an art is a hard style or soft style. The question makes no sense. But that’s a subject for another post. The true goal (in martial arts) is not to enhance one and denigrate the other. The goal is to enhance both and build the skill of integrating them. It can be said that the true skill of a martial artist is in how well their masculine and feminine energies combine. There is a parallel in society. I suspect that all the uproar between feminism and, well whatever the opposite of feminism is, might be just a misunderstanding. But I really can’t say. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that ideology. I like to watch this interplay in pack animals. I have a female Siberian Husky. She has very strong predatory instincts. Shifu Miller has a male German Shepard and female German Shepard. I often observe them out it in the mountains. When the pack percieves a threat the male runs straight towards it. The females run to the sides and generally conceal themselves. They are not avoiding the fight, they are flanking the threat. If the beast were to actually emerge from the forest I suspect it would be the females to take it down. It’s a beautiful display of masculine and feminine energy working naturally and efficiently (Well then there’s also zip, but he’s small and wiry dog, not sure where he fits in) If we watch closely we can see the beauty of the interplay between masculine and feminine. It is everywhere. Each enhancing the other. Each existing because of the other. The assumption that these energies conflict rather than support one another is deep rooted in our language and our culture. If our language expressed the truth and beauty of their interplay and the power that comes of it, it might be a different world.  

One of my teachers, a highly skilled martial artist, would often talk about the horrible teachers he had coming up through the ranks. He would talk about how he got through it and how he knew much of what they told him was wrong. I used to just write this conversation off as ego talk. Now I am convinced that the crap teachers were instrumental in making him a great martial artist. And I’m sure that sounds like a big load of crap to you, dear reader. I have had my share of poor teachers as well. I’m also quite positive that if I were to ask any of the great teachers around me they would say the same. Some months ago, when when we