in the moment can spell the difference between victory
and defeat.
When you’re calm, cool and collected, you don’t care
about the result. Furthermore, you perceive time passing
more slowly because you’re not depleting your energy
reserves by feeding your fears. The energy you preserve
then can be redirected into the fight. Your ability to per-
ceive can be cultivated through the practice of stillness.
Stillness is a state of mind and body in which there
is no thought, only a heightened state of awareness —
which is when time appears to slow. Athletes and musi-
cians refer to this phenomenon as being in the flow state.
I like to call it being in the high-performance zone.
When you enter this state, three powers become avail-
able. The first is connectivity. This refers to your ability
to connect with yourself, your opponent and the environ-
ment. When you’re still, you’re self-aware. You can feel
what’s going on within your mind, body and emotions.
You also can connect with your opponent and observe
his motions and emotions. You’re vigilant and aware of
your environment, which is the only way you can adapt
to the ever-changing chaos of the fight.
The second power is adaptability. The master key to
success in combat is your ability to be comfortable in
uncomfortable situations. Lee told us of the virtues of
being like water so we can adapt to our opponent and
our environment. “To change with change is the change-
less state,” he wrote.
The third power is creativity, which refers to your
ability to identify problems and find solutions while
under duress. A strategist sees a fight as a problem
that must be solved. To do that, you must creatively
apply your tactics, tools and strategies to achieve the
desired result.
Back to stillness: It manifests in three ways. The first
is stillness in stillness. This is your ability to quiet your
thoughts and make your mind focus on a singular pointyou’ve faced. You must ask
questions like, What are
my strengths and weak-
nesses? When did I win?
When did I lose? What
were the internal and
external circumstances
that precipitated that
result? How did I deal with
opportunities and threats?
The answers will play
a vital role in acquiring
a comprehensive under-
standing of how you
act and react in various
situations. As Miyamoto
Musashi reminded us, “All
knowledge is ultimately
self-knowledge.”
Next, you need to dive
deep into “knowing the
enemy.” The enemy is both
internal and external. For
most of us, the greatest
enemy is the enemy within,
the voice that tells us what we can and cannot do. We have
to intercept this negative voice in our head, choke it out
and replace it with a positive one. As my tai chi instructor
likes to say, “What you think about, comes about.”
You also have to understand your external enemy, aka
your opponent. By baiting your opponent and giving him
false information, you can assess his skills and responses.
Only when you know who you truly are can you honestly
express yourself in the martial arts. Only when you truly
know your enemies can you attack their weaknesses,
avoid their strengths and take advantage of their habits.
Before delving into tools, tactics and strategies, you must
cultivate attention and awareness because they’re the
keys to understanding yourself and your enemy. The best
way to cultivate attention and awareness is through the
practice of stillness.
Perception: Stillness
Often, martial artists spend too much time fine-tuning
their techniques and not enough time developing the
ability to pull off those techniques. As Lee reminded us,
the individual is far more important than any style or
system. In reality, there is no superior style. There are
just superior practitioners who have superior attributes
like speed, strength, stamina, sensitivity, timing, footwork
and distancing. The most undertrained yet most power-
ful attribute of all is perception.
Your performance in combat is directly related to
your perception, and your perception is directly related
to the amount of energy you have stored. If you’re rush-
ing, tense, anxious or gassed, your ability to perceive
that which is in front of you suffers. If you’re afraid of
being hit, of losing or of finding out what others think,
you create tension, and tension robs you of energy —
which, in turn, robs you of the moment. Your ability to
let go of your fears, let go of the results and be wholly
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