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Kung Fu Journey by Kirby Walsh

 

I started Kung Fu with Sifu Scott Jensen back in high school when I was 17. Back when the school was still pretty new. At the time, I had many family issues at home, fights in school, and other sorts of trouble and frustrations. I desperately needed an outlet, and I happened across the schools website.
I called Sifu and he invited me to come try out the class. Six years later I am still using his teachings, but not always in the most obvious ways. Here are the ways Kung Fu influenced my life.

First, class became a great outlet for stress, frustration and anger while fostering a sense of tranquility and peace. The forms required energy and concentration and by the time they became muscle memory they were a fast paced workout. The full contact sparring really let me blow off steam in a relatively safe and acceptable manner.

The meditation is where I learned how to control my body and emotions, balance myself and be at peace. Going to class regularly and training through my last two years of high school resulted in a much better life and state of being for myself and those around me. Yet these are fairly obvious and immediate consequences to his teachings.

The more critical and subtle influences are both lasting and pervasive in everyday life. In short, it is discipline. Behavioral, mental and physical. Upon arriving to the University of Central Florida, I enrolled in in the United States Air Force ROTC program. This is where I would learn how much Kung Fu affected me.

This program is extremely competitive. Everything is quantified, physical fitness, aptitude tests, classes, GPA, commander’s ranking, everything. This creates a stressful environment and competition among cadets breeds hate, drama, rumors and other nasty things under the surface. This is where behavioral discipline comes into play.

I was hated by many, rumors went around, and jokes at my expense were made. Yet, Sifu taught me better. To stay calm, to breathe, to think about my actions and their consequences. Words cannot express the aide this provided to me as I made my way through 4 years of the program. I would breathe, smile, and let it go.

We train for fights as a last resort and that is what I intended to do: fight as a last resort. I would meditate from time to time when things would really pile up, something as simple as sitting under the shade of a tree on campus while focusing on taking in nature’s good Qi and releasing the bad Qi, as we practiced in class. Even 5 minutes of this would clear my head, my body and open room for good decisions and plans of
action.

This was not just for ROTC either, this was for life in general. Life is pretty adept at keeping us on our toes and feeling a full range of emotions. This is where I found that I retained something many of my classmates did not: mental discipline.

I believe it comes from Kung Fu as well. At least for me, there is a sense of detachment from one’s body in
Sifu’s class. I would always be feeling what I’m doing, really honing in on the muscles the thoughts the applications as I went through class. That detached analysis is what I call mental discipline. As I went
through ROTC, college, work, life I would have tons of things to get done, and on top of that tons of things would just happen that I couldn’t prepare myself for. How I carried myself beyond each occurrence, each event was my choice. If I failed a test, instead of letting it ruin my life for the rest of the day I stopped, said to myself “It’s over, I need to move on there are other things to get done.” It was precisely this detachment that kept me on a clear cut path to my ultimate goals. I needed to keep moving, and time spent worrying or
complaining is time wasted that I won’t ever get back.

Now, by this time in college I have long stopped training forms and weapons and sparring like in class. However, I do train often and very intensely with running, sprinting, weightlifting, swimming, cross fit etc.

As a pilot candidate, and before that a Special Forces candidate I am always doing the hardest
workouts. If you’ve done a hard workout before then you know how painful and brutal it can
be. What is interesting is how many that train this intensely have learned a specific sense of physical discipline. I got mine from Kung Fu, others get it from wherever. This unique discipline is hard to describe, but I’ll try my best.

Imagine being on a cold beach at night. It’s winter in Virginia. You’re in a full uniform, soaked with 48 degree sea water boots, pants and sleeves filled with sand grinding your numb skin. The sergeant forces you in the water to begin ab exercises as the waves crash up into your mouth and nose as you gasp for air. You have only just begun, and there is 10 more miles of this ahead of you. Yet you keep going.

Your body is now a machine and you are operating it, monitoring it, driving it, but in a detached sense. Your mind is in a serene place completely focused on breathing and operating the pain dissipates. This is the physical discipline as I can best describe, it’s a state where you can push your body as far as it will go and then some. As they say in the Special Forces, “it’s 90% mental 10% physical”. It’s a state where your mind refuses to yield and it commands the body to push and maintain steady breathing, focus, and mental
acuity.

Sifu and Kung Fu instilled these subtle traits in me, and I will always be thankful for that. They will make me a better student, athlete, pilot, officer, and human in general. They will aide anyone who chooses to capitalize on them and hone them. So, you don’t always have to train Kung Fu, to train Kung Fu.

Thank you, Sifu.

 

 

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