The Wild and The Quiet

If you have known me for a while, you know that I am a pacifist. I abhor getting into arguments and am not fond of fights. You would know me as a yogi, a meditator, a Qi Gong practitioner, a stylish hippie, and as someone who authentically believes in empathy, peace, and love as truly noble values in the world. I get along with a lot of people, am fairly quiet, and try to leave a small footprint of impact.

If you have connected with me recently, you would also know that I have been practising a martial art known as the most violent fighting sport, and that I am on my way to training and hopefully fighting, in Thailand, in the next year.

So, why the walking contradiction?

The way I see it, there isn’t one.

I believe that martial arts like Muay Thai and meditative practices like Qi Gong are two sides of the same coin. Like light and dark, yin and yang, without one, the other is out of balance.

Muay Thai is brutal, penetrative, sharp, abrasive, and very violent. Qi Gong is gentle, soft, yielding, calming, and receptive. From my experience In life, there are some situations that call for the expression of our Muay Thai, and there are some situations where the expression of our Qi Gong is what’s more needed. In a rapidly transforming world, the sensitivity to know which course of action is appropriate in a given moment and the agility to move seamlessly between these expressions without becoming fixated is a paramount skill.

I love being in my Muay Thai gym, when I am training, when I am watching others fight, and the few times when I have sparred. There is no choice but to be supremely conscious when you are face to face with someone. It is very intimate, and a few moments of distraction can be the difference between being able to fight another round or getting knocked out. It is an intricately simple thing.

Also, when I am in the, I don’t notice a hierarchy. No money, no status separates me from my competitor. The only thing that determines who wins and who loses is who is more in the moment, more present, more skilled in those few minutes. The only signs of someone’s superiority are the marks on his or her face and body from prior fights, and they are clear display, unlike some parts of our modern society where we say one thing, do something else, and show something even more different.

In Muay Thay, there is also a camaraderie between my opponent and I. The bond that I feel with my opponent is unlike any other friendship, because it is based on brutal honesty. When I clinch and exchange my limbs with my opponent, either of us will feel the exact moment when we break. We can feel each other breathe, think, and move. As I wrote, it is intimate. I know that I will get nothing but utmost honest from my opponent, and I know he or she will get the same. It is a connection that seems harder and harder to find, where at least eight hours a day, we pretend to be someone we are not, and if we are lucky, we may get a few minutes at the beginning and at the end of the day to really sink into the person that we actually are.

And then, there is Qi Gong. It feels like a solitary practice, just me and the cosmos. Feeling my body, my mind, drifting, finding stillness, drifting, changing from moment to moment. There is a demand to be consciously present here as well, but the consequence is a little less bloody, a little less physically humiliating. Meditation is intricately simple, and yet complex. It is so nourishing, in so many ways. And at the same time, it can be frustrating. How can something so simple be the differentiator between me at my best and me at my not so best? And how easily do we lose touch with my body, my mind, my breath?

In Qi Gong, in yoga, in breathwork, the camaraderie I build is with my truest self, trying to work out the kinks in my physical and spiritual shell. And through that, I may find comfort and bliss in who I am, under the conditioning, the trauma, the shame.

Through Qi Gong, the possibility exists of unearthing who we are underneath it all, and then possibly practising as showing up as that, constantly, continuously. Where Muay Thai’s nature does not give you an option but to be present, Qi Gong’s nurture allows you to notice your edge, find it, and then, if you choose to, push it.

While both of these practices can used in fighting, the energies learned from these practices can be applied to so much more; they can allow us to express ourselves in the way that serves the situation the most, whichever way these situations arise in our obligations, aspirations, relationships, and challenges.

Maybe this is about leaving your job and starting a business. Or, maybe this is about having an argument with your kid. Or about being present enough to make love to your partner. Maybe this is you growing spiritually or having that conversation with your ex or dealing with the death of a loved one. In essence, maybe it is life.

In life, sometimes, a situation presents itself and the way through is with the abrasion, brutal sharpness, and violent honesty, the qualities of Muay Thai. And sometimes, a given life situation will demand the gentle slowness, the flowy presence, and yielding calm of Qi Gong. Sometimes, the same situation will offer us a choice between the two, and depending on the time and place, one will be more effective than the other. There is no greater playground to experiment with these energies than my Muay Thai gym and the backyard of my farm, where I practice Qi Gong.

In life, relationships, the polarities define each other, and to know ourselves, we must be willing to expand continuously in both directions. The skillful expression the moment demands will change moment by moment, and if we are ready for it, we can master the subtleties of life in this way.

A man who cannot express the Wild and the Quiet with equal proficiency has failed himself and those who depend on him.

A man who is able to embody the Wild and the Quiet, on the other hand, is the true master of it all.