Hei Gung and Road Trips

When I first started training martial arts my teacher was a 5 hour drive away. Once a month, I'd go across the mountains from one side of the state to the other. Later on in my training I'd find myself there almost every weekend. It was a lot of driving. So much so, I had a friend joke that maybe I should become a truck driver.

I used to wish that I was closer to my teacher, that it would be so much easier if I had quicker access. But as the years have gone on, I've come to see the drives just as much a part of the practice.

On one hand, it's the same drive. But over the years you start seeing so many differences. Driving in the day vs the night. Feeling rushed vs feeling relaxed. By your self or with friends and family. Some of these differences can make or break a trip. Heavy snow over the pass. Dense Fog. Pouring rain the entire 5 hours.

When I first started, I wanted to make the trip because I felt I needed what was on the other side. I was going with the hopes of getting something that would serve me in my time away. These days, I do it in large part because I find that the geography itself changes me in ways that's hard to explain. But in one city there is hustle and bustle, on the other is country. One has frequent overcast, the other can be cold, but sunny. And how does it change a person, that's hard to say, but each time I go from one place to the next, I remember something. Something I can't believe I forgot. A thing that feels like "real life" and not the kind you leave on vacation.

This to me, is what hei gung feels like. On one level, it's the same drive. Sometimes it feels like a long drive. Sometimes it feels like you wish you could just get to the good part whatever that means.

But then sometimes and then sometimes more often than not. You just enjoy the thing. The returning. The remembering. The changing.

And then you're ready. Doing the thing. Or not. And that's ok too.