AFTER WAKING

I wake up very refreshed at 9 o'clock. Six hours of deep sleep are enough for me. I let out the dogs, who are already standing sentry at the door and greet me enthusiastically then roll around on the carpet stretching.

BRAIN FOOD

A brief visit to the bathroom and back to bed. I take up one the books lying on my bedside table. It is in English. Lack of practice means that my spoken English is no longer as good as it perhaps once was, but I read English as well as if it were German. Years ago my day would start hectically, the alarm clock galvanised me into "life", the physical demands of the world carried me along with them without any opportunity to take stock, to find myself or be mindful of who I am. Hypnotised and completely under the sway of the day's events I was at the mercy of everything that happened. I was no longer a "human being", but a kind of responsive humanoid machine. I identified myself with every mental state in which I found myself at the time.
Whenever I read the morning paper to be "better-informed" I immediately became negative, as the newspapers only report negative things and magazines and television sell what is negative or makes us negative. If I read my SMS messages on an empty stomach I lost my appetite, and if I went to the fax machine or Internet before breakfast I usually ended up missing my own morning exercises in order to respond to events and enquiries at once. But haste and a negative mood are often poor advisers; it is important to look at things with the right basic attitude and be in a positive mood, then your actions will also be right.

Accordingly the first thing I now take in every morning is not food for the body but food for the brain, the first thing I wash is not my body, instead I practice mental, psychological hygiene:
I absorb higher, "inner" ideas and think about them during the course of the day. To this end I read in bed for approx. 30 minutes to an hour. Suitable reading might be the Gospels from the New Testament, the Bagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ging, discourses or lectures by Confucius, Buddhists ... ... The direction of thought is not the important aspect, the decisive factor being that this is "psychological" food, stimuli and impressions that reach us from "above" and "inside", and have nothing to do with our physical life and its compulsions. I want these higher impressions to isolate me from the hypnotic, enslaving power of the "worldly" events outside, which bring me down and seek to turn me into a robot. These "higher" influences and ideas are to bring about a state of mind that allows me to remain cautious all day long, be mindful of myself and refrain from unconsciously offending and doing violence to others. I can only help others if I am in the right mental state and strong myself. My day therefore begins with what appears to be an act of selfishness, namely taking care of myself first. So many weak people want to help other weak people, but how can they do this? One has to start with oneself.
Accordingly I ignore the peeping of the Nokia Communicator as it announces my 47th SMS message of the day, that is why my telephone is switched to "mute" and that is why I am reading about the "Law of the Pendulum", according to which all violence a person does to another will return to him.
You reap what you sow, what else? History is full of such examples. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. If not in this life, perhaps in another… We cannot exclude the possibility. "Do as you would be done by" is therefore a good way to free yourself from this law to which the mechanical (= unconscious) person is subject. Whatever I do will also be done to me, though the account may not necessarily be squared "fairly" in just one life.
The hangman will be hanged and the hanged man will become a hangman. Active becomes passive, passive becomes active. The situation reverses.
By way of an exercise and psychological hygiene it is also possible to consciously rethink in this way, by putting oneself in the position of the other person, seeing the other side and taking another person's point of view. In this way we can take both views into account without excluding either and bring both opposites into the centre, where they cease to be opposites. A useful exercise ...
After reading I am inspired by these thoughts and pursue them further, making a few notes of my own in the margin (in pencil, out of respect for the author) or in a notebook or diary.

NORMAL FOOD

Mentally refreshed I now get up and "breakfast" on apples, oranges, mangos, pears, papayas, bananas and lots of colourful "wonder pills" which I wash down with wheatgerm oil, tea and freshly-squeezed orange juice.

PERSONAL TRAINING

Without any urgency I then go to the mirror, reach for the WT double knives and practice the entire, long double-knives form in the grateful awareness that my Si-Fu taught me it to this degree of precision.
I have practiced the long, complicated double-knives form of Yip Man for 23 years, and for the last 18 of these the form (and all its applications) several times with my Si-Fu, and each year and after every lesson I understand it better. The movements in the form become more and more a part of me, changing my body and the way I move, flowing into my weaponless movements and modifying these by giving them a different quality which one perceives but cannot describe. (Of course the same particularly applies to the long pole form as well, which I consider to be at least equally valuable. Whereas GGM Leung Ting has only shown the double-knives form to me and perhaps three Chinese students (once!), he began to teach the long pole form to 4th technicians in the USA in 2002, which was a signal for me to start doing the same in Europe, and it seems that by 2005 at the latest this privilege will also be extended to 3rd technicians.)
Having trained with the official, lightweight knives which Si-Fu told me he developed according to a design by the late Grandmaster Yip Man, I take up particularly large, heavy "broadswords" and repeat the movements, then practice them again with an antique bayonet whose metal sheath I use as a second knife.
Owing to the different sizes, weights and shapes I gain ever more insights into the function of the movements.
Then I go to my overhead bar and perform 14 satisfying chin-ups with a parallel grip (good for Si-Fu's "monkey-grip" Jut-Sao!) and two barbell weights each of 5 kg hung on my body. So much for the back and biceps, though I don't need the latter for WT, but rather for my general wellbeing. My leg position means that I am exercising my stomach muscles at the same time.
This is followed by dips on the parallel bars – one set of 30 repeats is enough, this time with an additional weight of 15 kg. This exercise pleasantly charges my triceps (which we need in WT, though not so often in this direction) and chest muscles with blood. If I were to do more training for myself I would develop a guilty conscience, for it is now 12 o'clock, my EWTO duties are calling and I must attend to the day's business, but first I enjoy a very long shower.
After my shower I take a self-admiring yet critical look in the mirror with half-closed eyes: "Not bad, after all you're not as young as you were."

OFFICE WORK

Now down to work and read the SMS messages first. Almost all of them are positive this time: an advertising idea from Lothar, which seems super at first glance but is then hotly discussed among the experts and finally rejected as unsuitable. WT is making inroads with government departments in Bulgaria. An old church is to be purchased in England and converted into possibly the world's most attractive WT school (at least inside). Australia needs technicians certificates in English and Chinese. South Africa is training bodyguards in WT. Unbelievable technology: SMS messages from Africa and Australia! An instructor has apparently misused his authority as a Sifu to exploit an unsuspecting student. I want to hear both sides! An instructor in another Wing Chun association wants his school to be affiliated to the EWTO as well? Sorry, not possible. A Si-Fu asks me whether it would be possible to award an honorary 1st TG to a fatally ill student. Gladly! I write out the certificate and hope that it will reach him in time. What subject do I plan to teach during the TR4 seminar at Easter? Apparently "The history of WT" is in demand, as we have not done this for a while. Ok, and as a second subject "Strategies in self-defence".

Now I summon up the courage to access the Internet to read and answer emails. An instructor informs me that a more than 20 year-old (!) letter denigrating the EWTO has been posted in the Internet by an unknown person, and that a former EWTO member and competitor has tried to play the wise man by hypocritically interceding with conciliatory statements before being exposed as the originator of the whole thing himself. I take note but am not surprised, I do not become angry and I do not resent it. That is how people are. Who can say that he would not be capable of the same in a moment of weakness? Anybody who looks at himself like a photo camera is aware of the true, sad nature of man.
"Nonetheless no manifestation of particular baseness or stupidity which we encounter in life must give rise to vexation or anger, but instead educate us because we see it as a new contribution to the human characteristic and take due note of it. Accordingly we must view it much like a mineralogist who discovers a very characteristic specimen of a mineral." In his "Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life" Schopenhauer continues: "There are exceptions, yes inestimably great ones, and the differences between individualities are enormous, but by and large, as has long been said, the world is troubled. The savages devour each other and the meek cheat each other, and we call this the way of the world ..." At 3 pm I am still sitting at my laptop, reading and answering emails, SMS messages and faxes.
At intervals the best of all wives brings me hot, bitter Espresso to keep me motivated.

CHANGE OF SCENE

Off to a photographic studio in a favourite car (Jaguar E-Type, Series 1) to redo missing illustrations for my new book with the working title "Faster than Fear". On the way back I stop off to ask a bookshop proprietor when he might be able to arrange a reading and book-signing session for Karl Koch.
Then off to a local café with 53 TG essays, where I read ingenious and not so interesting work, add my comments and cannot help wondering why some people see fit to enclose each individual page of their TG essay in a separate plastic cover, so that I first have to take the trouble to extract them one by one before being able to write my comments in the margin. There are a few stray essays from November 2002 amongst them, however I do not give these the real date of March 03, but rather December 02 or January 03 so that their preparation time for the next technician grade is not extended on my account.

A working meal with a female journalist from the "Kieler Nachrichten" newspaper. Yes, she sees a possibility to feature Karl Koch's book in the local pages, as Karl was after all a man of consequence in Kiel. I also offer to take advertising space.

BACK HOME

At home my Italian secretary is waiting for me. Twice a week I spend two hours dictating an instant German translation of GGM Leung Ting's book "Chum-Kiu Form" into her laptop, a laborious and difficult task as the English text is rather unclear in parts and requires many a call to Hong Kong for clarification.

When she has left at 11.30 pm I put on Sifu Leung Ting's tape showing his seminar on the "Standard version of the 1st Section Chi-Sao" and make a practical comparison between the sequence of movements and the written descriptions, during which Si-Mo literally lends a hand by stretching out her arms.
Meanwhile a number of articles for the English edition of "WingTsun World online" arrive for proofreading, as well as 16 new pages for the international martial arts magazine.

OFF TO BED

I go to bed at 3.10 am and spend half an hour studying literature of an educational and if possible heavygoing nature so that I am quickly tired. Having read that "All religions share the same aim, namely to transform human existence by centring on God. Their different view of the ultimate reality does not mean that one is right and all the others wrong. On the contrary, all religions have an equal share in divine truth and lead to the same mountain top by different paths. They must therefore not lay claim to be an absolute path to salvation, but rather admit that there are many religions and prophets", my eyes begin to close, I lay the book aside, switch the light off and fall asleep at once.

Yours, Si-Fu/Si-Gung

GM Keith R. Kernspecht, 10th degree Grandmaster WingTsun (Europe) Founder, Head and Chief instructor of EWTO