Comparing Western Physical Training and Eastern Martial Arts

1. Westerners concentrate on building up their bodies and are more concerned with their appearance than their performance. If people were racing cars, Westerners would only be interested in the shell. Eastern martial arts are not about caring how big that shell is, but how aerodynamic and functional it is. Asians train their body to have function, not to look good.

2. When Westerners train, they concentrate on one kind of sport; they use the sport for the body. For example, a sprinter just wants to be fast enough to win. If they want to do gymnastics, they concentrate on that. So some parts of their body are overbuilt, and some are under built. They have developed their body in one direction because they want to win at their chosen sport: they use the sport to train their body, rather than using their body to train the sport.

Traditional martial art uses the training to develop a strong, powerful, healthy body – not to win something. The body is used for survival: to protect their family, to protect their village. Through that kind of training, you can even become Emperor. An emperor is not a king; many people do not understand that an emperor is a king of other kings. A good emperor who is able to survive for a long time has to learn the highest martial art techniques because everyone wants to kill them and take their place. They have to focus on function, not on sport.

3. In self-defence, you have to be able to concentrate your whole body to have power in every direction because you will never fight in just one direction: an enemy can come from anywhere. You have to learn to make the whole body stronger; people don’t know how to do that.

In the West, every part of the body is trained separately, so despite their strength, they don’t have the ability to focus their power in one direction. Our DNA is a spiral, so the ancient Chinese martial art of Tai Chi matches the deep information of our DNA: rotation power into every direction.

4. Western sport is just for honour, for winning a competition, becoming famous, and making money. Eastern martial arts, when you reach a certain level, becomes more than just being aware of your body, it becomes spiritual power. There is something more than a human being’s life. It goes beyond what we can perceive, what we can receive, what we can be aware of, and then into meditation.

Meditation is when your senses go beyond being human. With that style of meditation you can actually hear far away, you can even read people’s minds, you can close your eyes and feel their intention, you can see the future before it happens. You can also use inside energy hidden inside the body.

Many people have seen me do high level meditation, and have huge amounts of energy shooting out. Anyone who has seen it: raise your hand. Anyone who has seen Sean Pig try to copy: raise your hand. You can see the energy flowing strongly, even stronger than the light. That energy is normally running inside your body.

When a martial artist reaches a high enough level, the energy is released; you can change the colour, depending on what energy you use: Inside our bodies there are seven different chakra energies; they mix together to create even more energies. Anyone who has seen different colours around people: raise your hand. If you have seen the energy when someone is practising Chi Gong then raise your hand. So you realise there is something more than normal human. When that potential is realised, then martial art rises to a spiritual level.

When Westerners exercise for sport, they don’t have such things.

5. In Eastern martial arts, when you reach a spiritual level you are open and can connect to nature, to the air, the earth, water, and the wind. You learn how to use breathing to create a joyful feeling, to reduce all the tension. You know how to use deep breathing to do crazy exercises for a long time. You can store oxygen in your cells and change your hormones through deep control of your mental state, your psychology.

Then you can create extra energy and power to make you explosively fast. All of this is from inside to out, from consciousness to the external world. Westerners are more from mind, from desire. “I want to win.” They use their eyes to observe science, and knowledge to work their bodies.

One method is learned directly from experience and the heart. It makes you aware of your body and the relationships between your body and nature, and the health benefits from that relationship. The other is more from science and recorded by the eyes. A lot of people are not very aware of their body.

So from the complete whole view you can see that Eastern martial arts go really far. It makes you aware of your body, aware of your spirits, and aware of how you are connected to the energy of your surroundings. If you truly understand it, it will benefit your whole life.

For example the healing of my leg is a miracle; using this power I have helped over 2500 people. It has created many miracles. One person had bulging discs. I met him when I sat next to him at Sushi Train. Now I have healed him 3 times. The third time I fixed him, I said “If you damage yourself again, I’m not going to fix it.” Sean Rat has also created many miracles. So this healing power has been a benefit to me and a benefit to many other people. If your understanding is deep and clear, then it is going to benefit your whole life.

After breaking my leg, I was told that it would not bend very far, but I can bend all the way, which was a miracle for the doctor. When I showed the doctors, they were all shocked. They said in some cases with less damage than mine, the patients would be in a wheelchair for the rest of their life. Now, it’s not as good as before the accident, and I have lost 70% of my energy to heal it, but 30% energy still lets me beat all these big guys as in training, whether in speed or explosion. So it is amazing wisdom.

On this trip, I want to make you aware of as much as you can. I want to help you eat good quality, healthy food. Spending a lot of time with nature is important. Soaking in hot springs, whatever will help your body be more relaxed is important. All of this is necessary if you want to make your energy level high. You have to make your body relaxed, be free from worry, calm your mind, and then the exciting child power will arise.

Still, that’s not enough: you need wisdom to train your body properly. The wisdom comes from the history of martial arts, the master Zhang Seng Feng. He was 100 years old when he created Cloud Hands, then Tai Chi Yin and Yang power. He is the number one martial art legend.

He taught using philosophy poems – many of you know them, but some don’t – and I have realised there is one I haven’t taught you yet.

You are living on the Earth, so you understand that you need good posture all the time. You are not a robot; you cannot always have good posture. Look at all the animals: it doesn’t matter if they lie down, run, or jump – their body is relaxed and works together.

Consider the puma: any picture you take of them looks perfect, relaxed, and beautiful. Human beings have the ugliest posture of any animal now on Earth because we create a lot of tension and move so much power into our mind. Having mental power is a new experience for humans, but not for all the consciousness as some humans already have Intuition Power.

Animal survival power is called desire. The next higher level is called Emotion Power: they have sharing, caring for their infants, working together. Human beings have one more level called Thinking Power. It’s new for us so we send much of our energy into the brain, then don’t have power to be aware of our body.

For animals to survive their body awareness has to be perfect. They cannot have any injury or anything wrong with their balance. They have to be aware of their centre because if they lose their balance, they will be eaten. So they have a lot of awareness, sensitivity, and centre power. After few thousand years, the master Zhang Seng Feng explained this understanding of what’s important.

Not all human beings are in the Mental Power stage. Some humans finished developing their mental power in a past life and graduated to the next power, called Intuition Power. That ability directly understands all knowledge through the symbols, through the few perfect ideas that connect to all the angles of wisdom, which is called philosophy. Through Intuition Power, they immediately see what they mean and how to live properly.

When those consciousness became human beings, they used their mind power to codify perfect ideas about how to use Intuition Power. They wrote down philosophies that teach you how to live strong, healthy, sensitive lives in harmony with your body and with nature. Life will be free from suffering, worry, and stress. There are two philosophies that are strongest: Taoism and Buddhism. I mix the two together now to benefit everyone because they have benefited my life.

Zhang Seng Feng’s philosophy is from Taoism.

Every move is rotation. If I stand up, I don’t go straight up, it’s really ugly and stiff, and when I do it naturally I will do it with a twist. If you don’t use rotation power, you create a little bit of tension. If every move has a little bit of tension, then the result is a whole day’s worth of tension.

Tai Chi is yin and yang, you have to learn how to really be relaxed and then move powerfully without tension. That flow is beautiful. You have to have this beautiful flow on both sides, that’s what the Tai Chi sign is: yin and yang, and then curved across the centre. Always use rotation power.

To create that power, you first have to create a centre. With a circle, there is always a perfect centre. Tai Chi is actually around two different centres which are not the perfect centre: that’s the true centre. These two centres are for your feet and they can swap, so you have to learn to swap beautifully, not stiffly. You have to learn to do this even while standing. Be aware of it to swap: the swapping power has a curve to it.

The Chi Gong form helps you learn how precise and flowing your centre is. Then the curve is how your hand moves with no tension, through your foot, how to change poses – puma, tiger, and stork – how your leg moves, also with no tension. With people who have graduated from Chi Gong, you can see how smooth and elegant they are, and it’s not easy to make it look natural.

The other important thing is to be sensitive: that’s Waterman technique. You are being so sensitive you actually find joy in your movements. When you become sensitive enough to feel another person, you don’t even have to laugh. You are happier than laughter. To laugh is “Ahahahaha”; it’s more superficial, it’s a low-level happiness. Open, sensitive concentration power is something with deep intention. It is self-assurance; when you live with a sensitive awareness you feel your internal and external life at the same time.

After finding the centre, after following the curve, after sensitivity, the new idea is to keep the joints open.

I see many people doing Chi Gong very stiffly, so how do you open your joints? Imagine there is a cushion of air between the joints; then you start to become free. You have to feel that between every pair of bones there is space. When the space starts to open you can feel like there is no tension any more.

The whole centre has one point which is the centre of the centre. From this rises the vertical centre line, and this line connects to a central point: the third chakra. That one controls how you are going to move. It’s connected to the feet and the brain, energy rises from the foot, rotates up into the third chakra, and then guides you in whichever direction you want.

Observe the weight of your body pressing down against the ground, and then push against it. Use gravity to bring your body back to the centre. Let the energy pass through the third chakra and change direction. Without tension, let your body flow in any direction. Then your whole body power is united.

Tuck your chin in slightly so your neck is straight, gently proud without tension. Focus on the seventh chakra gate: imagine a piece of string is pulling it up. Feel all the joints in your spine expand, and then you will be able to do Chi Gong more perfectly.

Imagine filling all the joints separating, filling with joy. Be sensitive, but don’t use mental power; don’t think, just feel. Feel the body weight pressing into the foot and then rotate back to your third chakra. From there, change your direction to wherever you want.

If you practice this all the time, you will be able to feel whether you are out of balance or have tension. You become your own doctor; before any part of you get out of balance, you are already aware of it Your body will tell you “I don’t want this, fix it.” This way you can live your whole life without damaging your body.

I found a book which says that the reason that human beings die is not because death comes in 80 years, but because we damage it in that time. So, health comes from learning to be sensitive, staying perfect, and not causing damage.

This is the general difference between Western sport and Eastern martial arts.

From a talk on 26 August 2011.