Define Intent

 A while ago when I was asking a question after class Sifu Hayes said something about intent that I've never really realize before and it absolutely blew my mind and I've been meaning to blog about it for quite some time now. (Thankfully I took notes after the conversation to somewhat preserve the ideas while I got around to actually writing a proper blog about it) 

He was explaining that having intent and having in mind a specific application is a way to give your brain more information so that your body understands better what it is supposed to do. He had me do a technique and then he moved his hand to push against to test my skeleton as if I was doing a real strike on a real person and immediately my skeleton shifted slightly in a way to support an actual strike. This made me realize that I never really knew what intent was, I always thought it was purely mental: trying to know exactly what you're aiming to achieve and then practicing it until your body can get as close to that desired result as possible. I thought intent was a roadmap of where you were trying to go. But now I'm seeing it as more of a context. If we understand the physics behind vectors and rotations and transfer of power, then we should be able to do those things as long as our body has the specific information of what we're asking it to do and that's what intent is, it's the specification of an action. In a less "application" based context this idea still works, if the intent is to be big and dramatic and flamboyant then that's also an indicator of how the body needs to move.

So while I was practicing my forms that night I tried to apply this idea, to run through the form and do the whole thing as if it was one big application, with the intent that every strike was a board break and every block was against Mike Tyson.  What a difference it made! My intensity, my speed, my rotation all went up ... for about the first 3 moves and then muscle memory took over, I fell into my old thought patterns and I ended up doing my forms the way I'm used to doing them, until I noticed and tried to reset my intent again, and again as I lost and found the focus. 

And just like with the concept of "intent" again I finally understood something that I thought I had already understood for years! We always say Chinese forms are so hard because it is impossible for someone to stay focused for that long. And I used to think this meant paying attention to of all the small details and complexities within our forms, and making sure I was doing them correctly. Wait correctly?! Where does that concept exist in kung fu?! Just because I'm doing something as closely mimicked as possible to what someone else is doing I could still be doing it wrong, because Kung fu is about doing something effectively, not correctly. And that's the part I was missing!! 

Doing my forms like this I can feel which sections feel strong, and which are less effective, I can appreciate how hard it is to stay in the moment and reset each move so that you are taking on a new opponent with each strike, I can now better understand when instructors are talking about "visualize" an opponent! I used to think this meant "try to construct an entire fight choreography going on around your form" instead of "try to visualize what it would be like to actually strike or block somebody using what you're doing. 

I don't even remember what my initial question was that I asked that day, but I am so glad I asked it because it gave my so many insights and ways to explore my forms in the future!