Deirdra and I did some yoga last night. We’ve been planning to make it a regular thing for quite a while now, but kept putting it off. I really don’t know why. It’s fun, it’s challenging (for me, anyway), and it doesn’t even take that much time. I know it will help with flexibility and breathing properly, both of which will carry over into kung fu, but I’m trying not to think of it as something to do as a supplement to my other training. I think that I’ll get more out of it if I practice yoga for itself.

During Master Al-Waalee Muhammad’s Pa Kua seminar last weekend, he talked about the trend toward studying internal arts like tai chi and pa kua solely for the health benefits. Yes, there are health benefits to pretty much every martial art but by leaving out the original intent, you’re missing something. You’ve gelded the horse, so to speak. You’ve taken a centuries-old war art that was created as not just for healthful exercise but also a complete fighting system, a moving meditation, a conduit to the ethereal, and an intricate study of the mechanics and composition of the human form, and you’ve reduced this complex and powerful intermeshing to a level on par with Jazzercise. You lose something when you do that, and when you have people not just teaching but passing on these watered down and ineffectual exercises, the art suffers.

That is what I want to avoid. I don’t have any illusions about pursuing yoga as a lifelong practice, but I don’t want to approach it as something just to improve my flexibility or just to help with my breath control. It’s a lot more than just stretching and breathing.