Much is made in some martial arts and some gung fu gwoons of esoteric Eastern philosophies.
Be it Taoism, Buddhism or Confucianism or 5 element, Ba Qua or Yum Yeung (Yin Yang) theory, there are teachers expounding them - or variants or combinations of these ancient teachings. But where is the application to modern life, modern martial arts? I am not simply interpreting the Tao Te Ching as others have already done this quite ably. What I hope to do is to present food for thought in this piece - of which there may be others based on the Tao Te Ching or other writings - on my thoughts on the application of some of the core concepts in parts of the Tao Te Ching to modern gwoon life.
Let us begin at the beginning:
"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The unnameable is the eternally real..."
Some sifu just simply have something about them - a presence - charisma. They have skill which is of a quite observably different order. They are relaxed, they are themselves. They perform their art in a fashion which makes it look effortless, easy. It has an "I can do that!" quality - but when you try - you can't! The Japanese would refer to such masterful and "easy" performance as "yugen" - akin to perfection. Students of such a sifu convey not a cocky one-upmanship or a distasteful braggart's aggression but a quite humility, calm, confidence and polished performance of technique and understanding of their art. Try to explain the success of these sifu and their gwoons and you may find it is hard to do so. Like their art, it is impossible to capture in a formula. You can't paint the "Mona Lisa" or carve "David" by numbers no matter how hard you try! Sometimes others try to emulate such sifu - but their uniqueness is not transportable - you can't capture "it". To try to explain "it" would take you a great time and a lot of verbiage - which then might not hit the mark. This "it" is what highly experienced sifus see when they observe another skilled person's performance of gung fu or watch classes or demonstrations.
The sifu with "it" focuses on quality and precision - but also gently ensures their students do likewise. They have their sense of purpose in teaching their art as perfectly as they can so their students, in turn, can be as perfect as they can. The sifu with "it" produces commitment to themselves, to their art, to the gwoon - not the blind and ignorant hero-worship and the brainwashed cult-like idolatory of a sigung or sijo or branch of their art - but genuine commitment to universal moral values, logic, common-sense practicality and a genuine respect for the efforts of those who brought them the art. They produce students who become life-long learners, fully committed to their own complete grasp of their art and to preserving and passing it on without embellishment or pseudo "improvement". They are not aggressive, cruel, show-offs or braggarts. They don't care what others think. They teach both their gung fu and how to live decently by example.