Creating a Warrior of the Soul

Creativity is the key word for Black III. All the tools, skills, strategies of the Pai Lum marital arts are now honed internally and externally. Now it is time to experiment, to merge movements and ideas that may have not been thought of before. It is time to make the system “yours.”

After all, once you started training in Pai Lum — we were giving you the art — what you learned belongs to you. So all along the path of the lower levels one is often asking questions like “what if someone attacks like this instead?” or “what if we try this stance with that technique?” or “what if they do it with the other hand?” In other words you have been thinking creatively all along. But as a black sash you now have a good idea of the system and have many formulas to keep your creativity within the bounds of a solid martial arts frame.

We look at the genius design of our world and universe and we see beauty. We see a Creator. In the same way someone creating something (a new dish, a new martial art move, new music, etc.) is in essence living as they are designed in the fullest manner. Grandmaster Pai said, “The creative mind responds rather than reacts…it is independent (and) perfectly spontaneous…the creative mind is a ‘living’ one.”

Sometimes when you create and experiment, things “blow up.” That’s ok — you still learn from that what not to do. Sometimes creating will result in something wonderfully new that you can share with others and the world.

But whether as a teacher coming up with new games, drills, and skills to hone the students arts or as a Black level practitioner fusing fist sets, basics, weapons, forms and formulas into new cool movements that work for you and making Pai Lum truly yours, you are “creating.” And if we are made in the image of our “Creator,” then experimenting and making new things is a spiritual act of the soul. And ultimately we are trying to create warriors of the soul.

– Sigung Steve Jungmann
Pai Xeung Lum