This website is dedicated to the Students of Seifu A.S. Umar Sharif, MA. It is also dedicated to the promotion and propagation of the Traditional Afro-Asian Martial and Healing Arts. Our goal is to inform, educate, inspire, encourage, and motivate others to improve their lives by applying The Wisdom of the Ancients.
As your teacher and host, Seifu Sharif [aka: Xia` Xue' Gong] [aka: Tobi Alakoso] is dedicated to helping each of you to remember and nurture the Spirit of Wu-Te and the powers dormant within you.
Namaste’ Students and Fellow Martial Arts Enthusiasts!
“Go Slow to Grow!” I’ve given this advice to my qigong, kung fu, and tai chi students for years. It goes along with the idea that “Practice doesn’t make perfect! Perfect practice makes perfect!” How we get to that stage of perfect practice is by ‘going slow in order to grow!’ These principles apply not only to martial arts and athletic activities but also to anything in which we are striving to achieve some level of mastery. So what’s so important about going slow? Imagine that you had to travel say 10-15 miles to go to school or work. And lets say you started out riding your bicycle at 8-12 miles per hour for a couple of years. Think of all of the things you would see and become familiar with in each of those hours.
Now imagine other people traveling that same road in cars. You know that those people traveling in their cars at 50-60 miles per hour are not seeing all of what you are seeing. And even if they are familiar with the road they will still miss a lot of what they use to see when they were riding their bicycles. It seems that speed causes the physical reality to collapse. But that’s a topic for another lesson! Imagine the people who are just passing through the town on their way someplace else also at 50-60 mph. Without any prior knowledge of the journey, they will miss even more of the DETAILS of that 10-15 miles stretch of road, some of the sights, the sounds, the smells, the energetic feel of the place. So what’s so important about going slow?“Slow is the place where the details first appear!”
When we practice various subtle energy qigong systems new students often wonder and sometimes ask how something so slow and nearly effortless can make them sweat. In addition to qigong increasing the energy flow in the body, moving slow allows gravity to work on the body in ways that are not as apparent when we are moving at a normal or fast pace. Don’t underestimate the amount of effort it takes to initially begin moving slow (and slower, and slower) until it becomes effortless.
TCCI.7 states:
In all of this, you must emphasize the use of the mind in controlling your movements, rather than the mere use of the external muscles. You should also follow the T’ai Chi principle of opposites: when you move upward, the mind must be aware of down; when moving forward, the mind also thinks of moving back; when shifting to the left side, the mind should simultaneously notice the right side – so that if the mind is going up, it is also going down.
Traveling at 60 mph will not get you to the significance and application of this principle. Yi (the mind) must lead Li (the muscles) and infuse the integrated parts and movements with Qi. In the matrix of our Ara Ojubo (Body Temple) there is one agency that is the animator, mobilizer, and integrator of the Temple resources. That agency is the Breath!
TCC1.9 states:
Besides clearly separating the positive and negative from one another, you should also clearly locate the substantial and insubstantial. When the entire body is integrated with all parts connected together, it becomes a vast connection of positive and negative energy units. Each positive and negative unit of energy should be connected to every other unit and permit no interruption among them.
These positive and negative energy units and our sense of the substantial and the insubstantial ride on the current of the breath. When we move slowly we are better able to feel and direct these layers of presence. When we breathe slowly the Ara Ojubo (body temple) is inclined to move slowly when Yi (the mind) leads it into that pacing. Our fundamental technique for training ourselves to breathe slowly is the Ho Me So breathing method.
TCCI.10 states:
In Long Forms your body should move like the rhythmic flow of water on a river or like the rolling waves of the ocean.
As you move through your form, be in awareness of what’s happening inside. Feel the flow of the ‘Pushback Wave’ of energy as you press into the earth to move in one direction or another, to strike from one direction or another. And use the Ho Me So breathing method to facilitate that rhythmic flow. The Ho Me So breathing method (1) helps to regulate the pattern of movement of the breath as we inhale and exhale, and (2) it allows us to further regulate the pace of the breath and the duration of each of the six elements of the breath (the three elements of the inhale, and the three elements of the exhale).
When you go through your form the Longevity Way, using the Ho Me So breath, you will come across places in the form where, because of the length of the movement, and in order to keep your movements in sync with your breathing, you will either have to adjust the speed of your movement or adjust the pace of your breath. In other words, the ‘rhythmic flow of water on a river or the rolling waves of the ocean’ may be reflected in and animated by changes in your breathing while still moving in an uninterrupted manner. Ho Me So breathing is a form of controlled breathing but the ultimate goal is not control but integration, for that pattern of breathing and pacing to become natural and automatic, so that the breath is always facilitating the interaction of the Yi, Li, and Qi.
Be sure to view this month's video on the Ho Me So Breathing Method. There a part one and two.
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It is not simply practice that makes perfect. It is perfect practice and consistent practice that makes perfect.
