Freestyle Practice was new to me when I started training with Master Fung. Until then, my training focused on fixed forms and exercises (kata) or choreographed self-defense techniques (waza). We would mix it up during sparring and grappling but most of our focus was doing form and technique 'the right way'.
The WAY of INTENT takes a different approach. As you will see, the bulk of our training is what I like to think of as 'pre-technique'. We focus on developing qualities that can potentially elevate all techniques.
Let's use the example of the Internal Orbit. One procedure we have for activating this feeling state is to align our frame with the flow of gravity, release excess and localized tension and allowing our autonomic balance system to kick on. When it does we can experience balance as constant change, the frame dynamically correcting to center equilibrium. I like to refer to this feeling as the Internal Orbit because, to me, it kind of feels like a ball bearing circling the inside perimeter of a spheroid, basically orbiting the center.
We then use permutations and combinations of shape, stance and step to experience the Internal Orbit in a variety of positions becoming more consciously aware of how the frame can move while maintaining balance. The result is an integrated structure that can move without breaking that integration. This awareness and conscious control of the Internal Orbit is not a technique yet it can be applied to or expressed through almost any self defense technique. Think of what we are doing as updating the firmware so the software runs better.
If you are into math you can run some calculations. Add up the basic variations in the major categories of shape, stance and step. How many permutations can be made from those variations, how many combinations? You will quickly find that the number gets big fast, and, as your practice grows and you become aware of even more variations the number gets astronomical.
Enter Freestyle Practice. Rather than slave ourselves to the endless extrapolation of variations we use those extrapolations to reach a point where we can maintain the Integrated State in any variation. For at least a while we relax our calculus, forget the rules and let go, letting the feeling state take over.
At first, this can be a difficult transition as the rules and procedures were exactly what induced the Integrated Feeling in the first place. They can be hard to let go of. Hell, those rules, shapes and patterns can even be mistaken for the art itself.
You guessed it, time for a reframe.
Freedom Through Discipline
Until I began training under Master Fung my skill was based on coordinated strength. A basic example is a karate style punch. I learned to coordinate the punch from the upper body with the step in the lower body to get a magnified effect. It works and punching becomes more powerful over time and eventually becomes quite effective.
From the very first moment I observed him leading his class I could tell he was doing something different. He moved like an amoeba, literally flowing through the space as he moved, strength shimmering just under the surface. Back and forth across the floor he would repeat the same gesture over and over yet each seemed unique in a way I could not put my finger on.