Yin Yang Symbolism
15 November 2019
Many people ask about the Yin Yang symbol that the academy uses; wondering about any religious significance. Although the Yin Yang symbol is the recognised symbol of Taoism, I for one consider it to have a more philosophical significance than religious, though both are there for those who look. The Text of the Tao Te […]
Our Philosophy – The Tao Axiom
15 November 2019
Truth is like a jewel you finds in the mud, you might not be looking for it, you might not have known what it would look like, but when you find it, it stands out for what it is. Much of what we do at Norwich Kung Fu Academy is based around our philosophical approach, […]
Perspective
15 November 2019
Seen from high enough all of life’s problems are small. An economist, when asked why he had no economic model for the long term, only the short and mid term, responded that, in the long term we’re all dead. This has always impressed me as a way of putting things in perspective. I recall having […]
Chi Kung
15 November 2019
Chi Kung or working with energy. I’ve recently had one or two people ask about the Chi Kung we do in class, so I thought I’d make a few comments about it. I should say that Chi Kung (or Qigong) is very ancient. It pre dates any of the philosophical or religious traditions that have […]
The Elements
15 November 2019
As students progress through the Masters’ Course they develop their understanding of the Elements that they have been learning about during the Advanced Course. I thought it might be helpful to introduce some of these ideas here; there is no particular reason to leave these ideas to later if you are interested now. Remember, when […]
Meditation & Self Hypnosis
15 November 2019
Meditation and Self Hypnosis Before reading this I suggest that you read the Understanding Stress Blog Stress is the result of prolonged activity of the sympathetic nervous system. It is the curse of our age. There is more information in one edition of the times than a medieval man would have read or heard in […]
Understanding Stress
15 November 2019
The sympathetic nervous system arouses the body, preparing it for vigorous activity. Often referred to, inaccurately, as the “fight or flight response” it is a complex psycho/chemical mechanism that enables us to behave appropriately in very particular situations. A sound, an image or even a smell can alert us to danger. This need not even, […]
The Learning Process
15 November 2019
I was considering the down times in the learning process. Those points when we are likely to quit. You might find these thought provoking. The foundation course is for many the hardest. It is during this stage that they go from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence. That is, when they begin they don’t really know […]
The Unconscious
15 November 2019
We learn to create the world we live in. The unconscious processes billions of bits of information per second and makes automatic judgements about which information to bring to our conscious attention; about 2000 bits of information, out of 400 billion. It accesses filtered memories, knowledge and provides the insights of creative wisdom. It runs […]
Who’s Reality?
15 November 2019
Enlightenment through Koans, just join the dots and a picture emerges. A Koan is a story or a question that encourages the listener to reframe their view of reality; see things from a different angle. I have found such devices profoundly useful in teaching high school students. The idea is to shake the set of […]