The Colour Of The Wind

6

F A N G

I like doing meditation before practising. Green tea is a must for me. The space has to be quiet and empty. And you should know that I learned Tae Kwon Do - a Korean martial art. It can literally translates to "the art of striking with hands and feet". Chinese Kung Fu focuses more on meditation and the spirituality and how they combine with fighting skills. Trust me, Chinese, Korean and Japanese are very different when it comes to martial arts, though they do have a very connected history, but time changes and they evolves into, well, their own special techniques. Many people mix them up, thinking that they all basically equals to Bruce Lee but hey, let's not be those uneducated people. I had learned a bit of everything when I was little. Even Chinese Kung Fu has so many branches, and Japanese ones were very fluid and swift. I ended up sticking to Tae Kwon Do, because I do prefer using my legs instead of hands. Imagine eating popcorn while fighting some bad guys with your legs, that sounds wonderful.

When I was 5 or 6, I hated meditation. I did not understand how to be "calm" or "feel the air" or "go empty". I just wanted to kick and punch someone, that was what I thought I signed up for. Turned out the training required not just physical ability, but the mindset and spirt as well. Kung Fu highly emphasizes on that, and it was painful for my little brain at that time. However, as I aged, it became my favorite thing to do when anxiety took a hold of me. It somehow brought me serenity and calmness and I still hadn't figure out why. I sort of made a habit to meditate every time before practising now, even though it was Korean Tae Kwon Do I was doing.

Closed my eyes. Breathed in, breathed out. Opened my eyes. Beforehand, I had set up plenty of cardboards and designed them weapons. I imagined dozens of enemies in front of me and my job was to kick them to death to conquer an earth-threatening kingdom (you can never take the boyish part away from a guy).

Then I would kick and strike, usually towards their weapons becasue they were nothing without them. My feet barely touched the ground with my continuous sets of actions. A dozen down, then two. The cardboards were broken into two parts, clear crashes spilt from everywhere. I kept going. My mind sharp and my eyes focused on their weakest spot based on their gestures. I would dodge invisible bullets and avoid invisible swords. At last, I reached the giant emperor (a huge trunk of tree that I almost gave my life for when I brought it indoors). I planted my feet steadily on the ground, my fists lifted in mid-air.

Then I yelled and did a jump side kick, then switched to double kicks and swung one last crescent kick. The emperor (the tree, sadly) fell and I crashed it into pieces. I looked around: what a mess. My feet ached a little bit that was okay. I did some more stretches before starting to clean up the space. My coach generously lent this room to me every Friday so I better kept it nice and neat every time. He was a very strict teacher, but also a caring father figure to me. I could not be more grateful to have such a wonderful leader in my life.

I had to do better than those kicks. It took me half of an hour to return everything to where they were supposed to be. Then I checked the time, drank another cup of burning hot green tea, stretched more, and meditated again. It had been 2 hours, and it was then half past seven in the morning. Great way to begin the day.

Finally, I let loose of my black belt and dobok, folding them up neatly just to get messy again when thrown into a washing machine. Sometimes I wondered about folding my blankets as well. Why fold them when I had to unfold in order to use them? Maybe just to look nice, but that was so inconvenient. I still folded them though, just out of habits.

Changing back into my t-shirt and jeans (they are not ripped up or with holes like emos do, okay? I don't get that fashion), I grabbed my tote bag and left. Today was going well, I caught the train last-minute and didn't have to wait for another 5 minutes. 5 minutes is a lot, everyone knows.