I have engaged into a Kung Fu Training. When I visited Nam Yang Kung Fu Retreat, it made quite an impression on me. For the first time I felt like a place and its people could have the necessary tools to help me develop both physically and mentally and arrive at a stage where those questions would inevitably be answered by the only person who could figure them out: myself.
As a huge Pearl Jam fan, I can immediately see some points of contact between some of the songs I’ve been listening to all my life and what draws most of the people to the Kung Fu Training. Let’s go through the verses and take a closer look:
The first song it’s Can’t Keep from Riot Act. As Vedder beautifully sings it:
“I’ve lived all these lives like an ocean in disguise
I won’t live forever, you can’t keep me here.”
A feeling that a lot of us get in the western societies as if by living we were being more and more pulled away from our essence, from our potential. Remind ourselves that we are oceans in disguise is the key which takes me back to that inspiring Tennesse Williams quote:
“A prayer for the wild at heart locked in cages.”
Once one steps out of that “comfort zone” the song that immediately comes to my head is Life Wasted and the incredible live version of Wasted Reprise:
“I have tasted life wasted, I’m never going back again.
I have faced life wasted, I’m never going back again.”
After you have a taste of the potential, you don’t want to go back living a purposeless life. As in the extraordinary verses Eddie Vedder created for the soundtrack of Into the Wild in the song Guaranteed:
“On bended knee is no way to be free.
Lifting up an empty cup I ask silently
If all my destinations will accept the one that’s me
So I can breath!”
And then we come to Just Breathe whose title speaks for itself. Kung Fu is all about breathing, flowing as you breath. It’s like learning to breath again. So it takes time, hard work and practice to feel any results and the key is never stop breathing and doing it with awareness, so:
“Let’s just breathe!”
Last, but not least, the song I Am Mine whose powerful lyrics go like this:
“Me, I figure as each breath goes by
I only own my mind
North is to south what the clock is to time
There’s east and there’s west and there’s everywhere life
I know I was born and I know that I’ll die
The in between is mine
I am mine”
The chance to do something good with life is here and now. So let’s take it! Let’s take the chance to master our minds, to master ourselves.
Choosing Kung Fu is basically saying no more shortcuts. It is saying no to wasted time. It is constantly working in self-development and improvement. It is flowing, it is learning to follow the rhythm in the cosmic dance of life. It is not an easy road. It is a road one has to get back to every single day when one wakes up and commit to it. But practice does bring results. And that’s what I’m here to experience. Stay tuned!
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