The Rhythm I Miss

Saturday. An outdoor practice in the morning and then the rest of the day unfolding without much structure, which I'm finding I have a complicated relationship with.

I'm trying not to overthink the trip, trying to just accept the rest for what it is and not load it with expectation or guilt or the sense that I should be somewhere else doing something more useful. That effort is mostly working. But underneath the ease of it, there's a low hum I keep noticing — a kind of missing that I didn't fully anticipate.

Wudang has become a rhythm. Not just in the body, not just in the physical patterns of practice, but in the whole shape of the day. The hours are organised around training. The meals, the rest, the effort — everything in its right place relative to everything else. Here, without that, the day spreads out a little wider than I know what to do with, and I find myself noticing the absence more than I expected to.

A friend called from Bali. He teaches, too, and has been at it longer than I have, and he offered some thoughts with entirely good intentions. His view was that I need an authority figure to attach to — someone established whose credibility I can borrow while building my own. Build on existing foundations before attempting anything original.

I listened properly, and I understood the logic, and then I quietly disagreed.

What I'm trying to build isn't a franchise of someone else's approach. It has to come from the actual practice, the actual questions, the actual life, which is messy and unresolved and doesn't always look like what people expect from a Kung Fu teacher. Authenticity isn't a strategy. It's the only thing I actually trust.

The doors keep presenting themselves in all kinds of unexpected forms. I've learned, slowly, that the right response is to approach them, open them, and walk through without needing to know what's on the other side before I step. That's the practice