Kung Fu IS

A few weeks ago, a situation developed which caused me to fear. I guess I had grown complacent over the years, thinking that I was in control of my future and my family's. The situation proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not. The future as I had imagined it, may entirely not happen, and I was consumed with a fear for my future, the future of my daughters, the mental health and financial security of my family. Over the weeks since I came face to face with this situation, my fear has gone from all consuming, slowly ebbing away for a time, and then stealthily creeping back into my thoughts, bringing with it feelings like guilt at my complacent attitude, regrets, bitterness, flashing rage.

Thank goodness for kung fu. The classes themselves, and the training focus are welcome respites. In tossing a fan, helping with classes, dreaming of great demos, pushing my physical limits, my fears melt away and I find therapeutic spaces of pure relaxation and peace.

Thank goodness also for kung fu, for providing the framework through which enduring, honest and supporting friendships can thrive. I have leaned heavily on Sihing Lilienskold these past weeks.

And thank goodness for kung fu, for bringing into clear focus, the essential need of every person to surround themselves with people that mentor, support, and expect more of eachother. Jill's coach and life mentor at the badminton club, Mrs. Folinsbee, is one person I sought out today because I was struggling with the fears. Mrs. F has accepted Jesus as her Savior, and she wears her faith on her sleeve. At 60 odd years old, she's had her fair share of trials and tribulations. "Sometimes," she said, "Its like I'm running up a corkscrew around a mountain. On each turn, it feels I'm no closer to the top. And at each turn I say, 'Here we go again'. But you know, each turn makes you stronger. If you can relinquish that fear, because God is in control of the plan, and He gave you the strengths that you have and you must focus on those. And things will work out in the end. Maybe not how you imagined. But they will work out because thats how they were meant to work out". I hung on her every word. And as she turned to help out a gentleman whose shoes had come apart, I took my leave of her, went to a nearby park and picked up a book about Lance Armstrong that a fellow kung fu student, Mr. B. Young, had reccommended. I had read something about relinquishing that fear in this book the previous evening and I wanted to find it and reread it. Lance Armstrong is a cyclist, and his book is about his struggles with cancer early on in his cycling career. I'll just quote without comment. The book is called ' It's Not About the Bike; My Journey Back to Life', by Lance Armstrong, published in 2000.

"What is stronger, fear or hope? It's an interesting question, and perhaps even an important one. Initially, I was very fearful and without much hope, but as I sat there and absorbed the full extent of my illness, I refused to let the fear completely blot out my optimism. Something told me that fear should never fully rule the heart, and I decided not t be afraid. . . . I asked myslef what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, I wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organized religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking, and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a theif, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a God at the end of my days, I hoped he didn't say, "But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven." If so, I was going to reply, "You know what? You're right. Fine." . . . Beyond that, I had no idea where to draw the line between spiritual belief and science. But I knew this much: I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. . . Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit. So, I believed."