130. 📕 (Chapter II) Baguazhang art of war - Managing crisis situations (☰/☲)

I never wish this upon anybody, but to be truly good at managing crisis situations, a Baguazhang master starts off by seeing life as one big long crisis. Over time, this view gets less and less as the craft becomes third and fourth nature. To truly live the baguazhang dream is to get out of the martial arts dojo and start living the baguazhang way. No more theory. No more practice. Everything becomes an expression of the martial art. When it comes to war we say, "War? What war?" We see through the bullshit that has everybody so enthralled on the nightly News. While trying to not sound like a protesting activist, a hell of a lot of what we humans perceive as reality is manufactured to fit into what we think should be normal. And what's funny about it, is that the more we do it by controlling our environment, the more our world shrinks. And the more our world shrinks, the more those things left outside become what we call "crisis". At the highest levels, a Baguazhang practitioner becomes a ghost to other people. And they start living a life that is richer and more vibrant than other people's, even though nothing has changed. And so that being the case, you may ask, "What crisis?" And that's just it: There is no crisis – it's a designed situation created by you and others to get you to focus on things other than what's in your little box. But once outside the box, there's no going back in. The situation had changed. Because if there's one thing I have experienced countless times, is that as a Baguazhang master, most crisis tend to vanish as soon as I focus on how the crisis situation benefits me. And that starts by asking the question: "Dear God, universe (or whatever you believe in), as a Baguazhang master, how does this crisis situation serve me?" You'd be amazed, by saying out loud while pondering, how many things just disappear. And if you ask others about it, it's as if you're gone a bit crazy and they don't know what you're on about. Because we all know "secretly" that the hunted just became the hunter.