In combat, there are moments as there are in life, when we are at offered the opportunity to achieve what it is, we desire the most, what stands in our way is hesitation…

I recently had the pleasure of listening to somebody I admire greatly, the inventor of “free running” Sebastian Foucan. A philosopher and an athlete with the spirit of Bruce Lee running through his veins, I really resonated with what he spoke about. The essence of free running is commitment to the moment, following the course of your process with relentless forward motion.

There is a certain Zen motif to this kind of flowing action, something I am very much an advocate of, not just in combat but in life in general. When we flow like water, we eventually become a river rushing to the sea, the place where all streams connect, the source of ultimate power!

Although we may try to grasp the feeling of flow, we must approach with trepidation the use of our minds as they are made up of concepts, discrete objectives which easily allude to the illusion of independent orchestration…

Although a river may be made of many particles, it is the relationship of all of these perfect parts that forges the flow of unbroken continuity.

The mind ordinarily does not exhibit such clarity in its process, often it becomes tangled up in the meandering undercurrents of our critical thinking. Unresolved conflict and insecurity parade the streets of the mind and it is these obstacles that ultimately surface as decisions we have to face in our lives, they are the birth place of indecision.

If we are to seek perfection in our practice then we must not become prisoners of patience but instead must seek to be ever present in every moment. This is only possible by sweeping aside the internal dialogue that needs to placate our every move. By doing this we no longer think the thought, we become the thought, a single continuous flowing action…

This is something we experience when we dream, a matrix of pure experience where we free run through our desires, uninhibited by the intrusion of asking whether or what, why or when. In the words of Master Yoda, “Do or do not, there is no try”

Dreaming teaches us that every moment can be a perfect evolution of the last, a synchronous harmony that beats with the heart of nature but this beat has no predictable rhythm or rhyme, it is not foretold nor can it be predicted as some concept of mind for it is chaos.

Trying to approach this conceptually is like asking to know infinity from a distance, it is simply impossible; instead one must learn to become the moment. When we deeply awaken, we learn to be aware within the flow of the dreaming mind and it is here we come to know the place where thought becomes action, where we become the event.

In time we learn to direct the action from our inner selves, the place of knowing, the very essence of our nature, this is how great power can be achieved and wondrous accomplishments can be realized. Our greatest creativity flows from this source and when we come from this source with our intentions, we become one with the Universe.

Let your spirit become the tide of your experience, let go and flow, then you will realize all that you are capable of….