Transcription of Inner Power: Kung Fu's Legacy
Hello. This is Master Mike Steenrod at Water Mountain. The kung fu story is essentially a story of resistance. If you think about Kung fu movies, you have somebody resisting incredible odds: Sometimes overcoming injustice, corrupt officials, corrupt police. Sometimes overcoming dark forces that could be bandits, drug dealers, human traffickers, whatever it happens to be. But you have an individual that's pressed up against tremendous odds and works to overcome them. Depending on where you watch a movie, sometimes that work is successful, and sometimes that work is unsuccessful. But we have to ask ourselves, that core resistance that makes up kung fu, where does it come from? Well, that comes from something that we call, "inner power." Is inner power the same thing as chi? No, it's not. I've written thousands of pages, without exaggeration, on chi, and taught elements of qi gong now for decades. And inner power is not chi. However, chi is one component of inner power. Inner power comes about from the internal refinement of the individual through the training process. So we take something that is mushy and subject to external influence very easily. So if somebody pressures you to do something, or if you're like most people, if somebody pressures you to do something, you fold under that pressure very easily. If the odds get too adverse, you fold under those things. Now, everybody has a limit, and that's realistic. But the reality is that kung fu hones the power to resist those things. It takes the mushy self and turns it into a well cut, well formed diamond capable of resisting adverse influences. So typically in the movies, the person undergoes arduous training. And that arduous training is, of course, to hone the body, but more importantly, it's to build that internal existence, to give them the ability to stand up to adverse things. Because when faced with adversity, a person either lies down and takes it, or stands up and resists it. And you can be buffeted quite hard by those external influences. You can even forget the direction that you're headed. And that can come from, I guess, a fiendish warlord, or it can come from elements of light. But your inner power helps you to overcome those particular things. Well worth your time and effort to achieve. And remember to spend a few moments thinking about who you are as an individual, what you can do in the future, and that that future is well within your ability to achieve. Thank you very much.
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