Sonny Mannon on Performance Training, Injury Prevention and Finding Balance
Michael Hughes
Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes, Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners, Paden, and myself and our top coaches. This podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online and in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional, or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results.
CJ
What’s happening, everybody, welcome back to the Gymnazo podcast. I’m your host, CJ Kobliska, the director of programming here at Gymnazo. And I’ve got an awesome guest with me here today. I feel like I’ve known him for years and I just went through a Taiji fundament fundamentals of movement workshop with him and a few of our Gymnazo athletes and I’m really excited to kind of dive into essentially his movement history, his training history, where he’s been in his life and how he sees his journey and how he helps others along their journey as well. He’s a native of Visalia, California. Sonny has been a practitioner of Chinese martial arts and qi gong for over 20 years. training and competition has taken him around the world, including over eight years living and training full time in Beijing, China. Sonny trains and teaches the internal martial arts system of Tai Chi Schwinn. I’m gonna butcher some of these words, so please fix me if I’m wrong here. Xingyi Quan, and Bagua as well as Praying Mantis Kung Fu Chinese wrestling, which is also known as Shweta, Zhao, and Qi Gong. This diverse practice has helped him to better understand the fundamental principles of movement behind these arts. It’s his belief that to truly move to your greatest potential, your practice must take you inward, as well as outward, fluent in Chinese, English and human son, his passion is presenting the art in an accessible, joyful and practical way as possible. So He currently teaches at a yoga and martial arts school he found with his wife over at Sequoia Kung Fu and Yoga located in Visalia, he has also he also teaches workshops regularly across the States and worldwide. So it was a pleasure to be a part of that workshop. And just to participate, because I’ve only read and moved. I’ve never actually learned from somebody who’s been doing this for years. So to kick this off, Sonny, welcome, welcome, man. I’m super, super stoked to have you. And we’re gonna dive in deep. And I want to start with just how would you define your current movements, lifestyle practice, and maybe go into a little bit of history of how it’s evolved?
Sonny
Yeah, sure. I just also want to preface that my English is pretty decent. My Chinese is okay. And human is definitely a work in progress. As I’m trying to learn that language for sure. Let’s see right now, I would describe my movement practice. And actually, this is something I’ve been telling my students this summer is slow. And often that’s my movement practice right now, I’m trying to move really slow and move really often because I think it’s a tendency everybody’s tendency is to, is to go faster, go harder, go stronger, right. And so sometimes you got to you got to look at your tendencies and change direction, right? So you know, my, if everything’s telling me oh, it’s summer, it’s hot, open up, I want to get out there and do stuff. It’s like, okay, well, let me take it slow. But let me just do it often, right, and see where things go. This is not always been the case. For my movement, practice, this is definitely a new, a new take on it. My before that it was very, go, go go. You know, if you do 20, I’m going to do 40 If you train for hours, I’m gonna train six hours. And I still do do that. But I just go the opposite direction. Now. I just tried to make it. You know, can I relax? Harder?
CJ
What’s uh, how do you decide where to go? Like you’ve said, I’m gonna change direction. So I’m still you still go to those hard bouts of training here and there? Yeah. Or do you completely see yourself more towards the relaxed side? Or that that calmer side and more subtle state in your trading?
Sonny
Well, you know, you you always got to look at both sides of your training, right? We were talking about this earlier in the seminar. Like it’s almost like the yin and yang of your training. If you’re going to train hard, you got to train soft. You can train things that have combinations of these right? You can train things that like you know, yoga that are times where you’re relaxing, but also engaging, you can train. So it’s kind of pretty even you can do something that’s a little harder, like just lifting weights, but then you might have to balance it out with something soft So you really have to look at your judgment and training your preferences and training, because the preferences, and that’s where you start, everybody starts from their preferences. And that’s where you should start, you know, like, if you start from where you don’t want to be, I mean, that’s no fun. You know what I mean? Like that’s, and some people do that too, because that’s the whole no pain, no gain, but that doesn’t necessarily last very long, either, you know. So, you know, look, where you start, look what feels good, look what you enjoy doing. But don’t forget to look the opposite direction and look at what are the things you’re not doing, right? What are the aspects of your movement, the aspects of your training, that, you know, you’re ignoring, because some of the things that you ignore the most, or that you that you maybe push against the most, maybe that’s exactly where you need to be, right? If it’s, if you’re somebody who works out hard all the time, and just lifts weights, and you think, you know, meditation is not for me, or I could never do that, or, you know, guess what, you probably gotta meditate, that’s probably unbalanced, right? That’s gonna, that’s gonna be really beneficial for you. Because if you kind of have neutral feelings on meditation, well, you probably will get a neutral result from meditation. If you have strong feelings about it, either positive or negative, well, you’re probably going to get a strong result from it. And the judgment of whether it’s good or bad or right or wrong is really arbitrary. Because, you know, we use those judgments all the time about things that don’t have that sort of attribute to them, like, you know, a movement, good and bad, does not give you really any information. You know, it’s just a movement, not like not an ethics class, you know, what I mean? Like, you want to look at how are you moving? How are you using these elements? How are you? And so, when you do that, it allows you to look at different parts of your practice, you know, it allows you when you start to remove the judgment, or at least question your judgment, that will oftentimes point you in the right direction, you know, and the reverse is true. If all you do is meditate and soft practices and, you know, go for long walks on the beach every day, which is awesome. Well, you know, what, you should probably go do a little something a little harder every once in a while as well, you know, maybe going a harder hike or lifting weights or something, you know, balance it out, always trying to find that harmony. In your practice in your in your movement.
CJ
Do you find this is something I found personally, I started out in that route of going hard, getting accurate, getting the reps, sawbuck progressive overload and going faster. And I made great gains and also experienced discomforts and having to take time off because of injuries. And then I found meditation and yoga and another, other softening practices that focus more inward. So it was more of a working in versus working out. And initially going into that working in mode was super uncomfortable. Like I didn’t realize how uncomfortable I was, because I denied it. So often, I was going to that soft practicing going like, Okay, that’s enough like, but it wasn’t actually date wasn’t actually enough. You know, never, there’s never really enough of it. There’s always enough, it’s just kind of where your perspective is in it. And so when I started the softening practices, like I just put this much time in it. And then I realized I was stopping myself from going deeper in that realm. Because I got uncomfortable with doing almost nothing. I felt like I wasn’t making progress, like I was, when I was making active progress going heavier. I was making gains, you know, on trail runs getting a little bit faster every time. And I was like this is it. This is where the progress is. How would you describe somebody going that softening practice? And is there a way to get better at it? Like, how do you define that? Is it because you can do it longer? Is it because you realize the difference between your softening and your hardening? How would you describe a progression similar to that young side? Or kind of that harder that push? If I’m saying that right, versus how do you how do you measure success and your gains in that soft side?
Sonny
That’s, that’s a really good point. So you know, you can use this idea of yin and yang. And like, you know, yin and yang, are really just very functional terms they get, they get used, like, you know, and they give out they’ve been given all these mysterious things, you know, like, are these different attributes en is passive, young is active, and Yin is feminine and Young is masculine. And you can use those attributes as a tool as well. But first, we just want to kind of look at it as duality opposite sides, right? So we have hard and fast, are hard and soft, Fast and Slow In and out. active, passive, right? Engage release. So when we look at it in that term, then we understand that we want to practice those different aspects as in as many different ways possible, but you’re right, you need a sort of path, right? Because so first thing is you need to define where you start, right? You need something right? This is kind of in the seminar, we talked about this sort of one way these elements can line up Wuji you, Pong, Yin Yang, tai chi, right, which is the sort of sequence and these elements can be put in many, many different sequences. Wuji nothing punk, something yin yang, two things, tai chi, all things are going beyond the need to even define things as another way to say it. So how do you use this? Well, first thing you have to decide is where are you right? Now? You need to go from nothing to something. Okay? You know, are you if you’re looking at in terms of movement? Is my movement hard or soft? Okay? Is my movement slow? Or fast? Does it feel coordinated or uncoordinated? And start to define some elements, okay? The sensation, the awareness that you’re having? Does it feel tight? Does it feel loose, wherever, but you got to start somewhere. Then once you’ve defined that element, as soon as you define that element, as soon as you define the Yin or the yang of it, then the opposite automatically occurs. So if you define that, oh, you know, this, my muscles feel tight when I do this. Well, so what do you need to work on? Now? Loosening? Okay, oh, I feel a little soft in this area when I practice this movement. So what do you need to work on? Engaging, okay, and oh, my, my posture is all off work on your posture, right? It becomes almost so logical that you like you said, you don’t necessarily feel smarter for knowing it. You know what I mean? Like some things you learn, you learn like science stuff, going deeper, this is another aspect of going deeper, right? In the body, we go deeper, sometimes the mind, we gotta go a little shallow, right? If you go deeper into science, things get super complicated. But instead, why don’t you go a little shallow into it and just be like, you know, if you’re hard, you gotta go soft. seems so simple. So what happens is, is like sometimes knowing a simple concept, fully knowing it inside and out, mentally, and physically, that is the hardest work. And it’s all of those complex systems, complex directions, are actually in service of teaching you a very simple concept. And so we’re getting back to that very simple concept. That’s the path, right? And so you start off hard. So you work on softening, probably what happens? You probably go too far, or you don’t go far enough, right? One of those, it’s got to be one or the other. It’s got to be one another, you’re not gonna go just right, that’s for sure. No, no, nobody gets the Goldilocks right off the bat, you know what I mean, you got to try a few bowls of porridge first, right? And so, you know, you’re gonna go too soft. And so then you’re gonna bounce back, and you’re gonna go into something a little harder for a while, and then you’re probably gonna go too hard again, and then you’re gonna go into soft, and eventually, it’s like, you know, it’s like sending a ball down a path that’s getting, you know, that starts off maybe a little hectic and cramped, but then gets wider, and then more narrow, and then smoother, until it’s just flowing along nice and easy, right. And so this is kind of the idea that, you know, you’re going to bounce in first you’re gonna define where you’re at, you’re gonna go explore the opposite, you’re going to that’s going to change the more you learn about its opposite, that’s going to inform you about where you started. So you go back to where you started and do that again. And then maybe something changes and you do something that’s a combination of the two, you know, and so you start to see how they harmonize. And then eventually, it gets really confusing. And you know what, man, I’m, you’re like, I’m doing all these weird stuff. And it’s really doesn’t feel weird to you at all. Because it’s, it’s just balanced. Right? You do kettlebells, but also meditate or you know, you go, you know, I don’t know, like Dr. Motocross and do yoga, you know, we see those things. And we think, man, that’s, that’s kind of a weird paradox. But it makes perfect sense. To me.
CJ
It seems like a constant process of refining and softening the edges, but also like sharpening some points and its lines and spirals as diagonals angles. It’s all of the above. It’s it’s a perfect circle. But I think you said it really well. Is that, where, you know, if you’re looking at a circle, where does the circle start? And where does it end? For you your process of discovering kind of your balance and going too hard or too soft, or finding that were in your life or when in your life? Did you start to realize that you need to shift gears and it was very tangible to you. I mean, was it? Was it an injury? Was it some kind of sensation? You felt visionary experience? What was? What was that thing that kind of helped you like, oh, I have something to understand what’s going on here?
Sonny
Well, what time is it right now? Like the show? I’m shifting gears at all times. I just the last time I shifted was a second ago. No, I’m just kidding. Well, you know, like, there’s gonna be, the way I look at it is like, you know, as life goes on, there’s a natural ebb and flow, you know, what I mean? Like, regardless of what you do, you’re gonna experience highs you’re gonna experience lows, losses, successes, failures, you know, these are going to happen, some are going to be large, and some are gonna be small, some are going to be large for you that but appear small to others, and vice versa. And so, you know, like, when these happen whenever something happens, and like you have either a big high or a big low, you know, this is this is an opportunity to for change, right? Because you can, this is when you can kind of step into the process a little bit and push it in the direction you want, you know, and sometimes we’re not aware of it and so we’re just kind of caught in the motion instead of steering it a little bit. You know, if we fight against it too much than that. and chaos can happen, you know what I mean? But if you, you know, we say, Don’t insist, and don’t resist, you know what I mean. So you kind of just nudge it in the right direction. And so when you have a really big high, you can nudge in an indirect certain direction, you have a really big low, you can imagine direction. And so, you know, for me, it was about injuries, you know, it’s been a lot of injuries, for me. Subtle injuries, injuries that like, didn’t seem like injuries, you know, injuries that seemed like well, this is just the way my body is now because I’m getting older, because I’m getting a little tighter things are not as you know, things are not as easy as they used to be, right, there’s a story that everybody tells themselves, and we accept it to be true. And because we accepted to be true, it shapes the way we perceive things. And it makes it easier for us to accept things right and ignore things. And so but, you know, eventually my body kept trying to tell me it kept getting injured easier and easier, I had these chronic issues that were stemmed some from acute injuries, almost all of these dealing with my spine and the joints of my hips, and, to a lesser extent, shoulders and neck. And as you know, time goes on, you keep training and keep doing stuff. And those those issues just get exacerbated, because you know, you’re feeding your strengths. But you’re also always feeding your weaknesses, you don’t realize that but you are. And eventually, if you just keep doing the same thing, if you don’t check your judgments and preferences, you’re going to be feeding those weaknesses a lot more than you’re feeding your strengths for less than less with putting having to put more and more effort and just to feed it just a little bit, right. And so that’s kind of what was happening to me. But some of these issues were so deep in my body, you know, because no injury happens out of nowhere, it feels like it but there’s always something that came before you know, so I had some alignment issues from when I was a kid, you know, just and some things that I was predisposed to have muscles bunched up. In my basically, I had a predisposition for the muscles around my pelvis, to bunch up to stabilize the pelvis rather than flow through. So rather than sort of flowed down the middle of my body, I had a predisposition to kind of have bands of tension wrapping around my belly button, head of the iliac crest, and then right below the pelvic bone to sort of stabilize that structure. And so because of that, and I mean, this is when I was a kid, we used to talk about the man and pooch, just, you know, when you like, when you have when you’re like belly button sticks out a little further, you know, and I’m like, Oh, this little poops, you know, but really, that was a muscle that was tightened up, stabilizing my lower body. And then I had a little bit of around in my back, but the round in my back because it was because the vertebrae was out of alignment, because the vertebrae in my neck was a lot of alignment. But a little bit of around the back actually is very good for you athletically, you know, like in the beginning, because you have to be around you have to bring your back into it. So like that dysfunction, actually, in the beginning was a positive for me and made me really athletic. The bunched up motion in my hips also made me very fast, because there’s all this pent up tension in my hips. And so they worked really well, for a long time, I could jump really high, when I played basketball, I could run really fast. But once eventually you feed your weaknesses more, right. So the muscles that should have been working, were not and they just got weaker and weaker. Then I start practicing tai chi, I start getting into these arts because I was drawn to them. Because I grew up as a physical person, I grew up as a very physical person, and that the world can be experienced physically, and you can learn and grow with an individual physically, this has been in western sports, you know. And I was lucky that my father, who was an athlete, wasn’t one of those people who he was an athlete and a coach. But his focus was always on skill development, personal development, not on winning. Right. And that was what was good, because I realized very early on that what I liked about I liked competition, but what I really liked was just that process of working out, you know, and for me, it was basketball. But I also knew that, you know, those Western sports, it’s like some, you know, young adult dystopian novel, where you’re just getting cold from the herd as time goes on. You’re like, how old are you? 11 sorry, you’re not good enough.
CJ
Shit, man. wakening?
Sonny
Sorry, the rest of you, you’re not, this is not going to be you, you know what I mean? You had your chance of 11. But this is not going to be fun. So go find something else, buddy. You know, and so, so, you know, like, at every level, you’re just getting cold. And so I thought, and then my peak is going to be when I’m like, 2425 like, that’s going to be the best and it’s going to be a slow descent. And so, you know, you know, and be one of those guys trying to play basketball at the park with like, you know, three knee braces, even though I only got two knees, you know, kind of thing and, and, and so, I didn’t want that. I just knew that wasn’t the way you know. And so I was into Chinese martial arts I, I was I hadn’t practiced it yet. But I was I wanted to the philosophy actually, it was the philosophy and something about the movement that really pulled me in it wasn’t the martial side. I never really cared about being like the biggest baddest dude in the block. And I’m definitely not you know what I mean? Um, but I do train that aspect of it just because it informs everything, you know. But so when I got into it, it just brought me in, I was like, this is something different. This is something new, this is something like, I’m not good at it. You know, like, like I was, you know, I was at the pinnacle. Right? And I’m not good at it, you know, like, I was at pinnacle of what I thought was my athleticism. And then I realized, no, you’re not, you actually kind of stuck a little bit, you can’t even hold this stance, you can’t stand in one spot for a long time without getting antsy. You know, like, you kick and things hurt. Like you need to
CJ
reevaluate that’s gonna kick you out of Tai Chi, right? This isn’t for you, buddy. Yeah, right, sorry, you know,
Sonny
like, you know, like, and so like I was I was, I started down this path. And so by starting down this path, already, that was the point where I put these dysfunctions in my body. And what I was trying to do with my body on a crash on a collision course, and who knows when it was going to happen, but it was going to happen, I was drawn to the softening practices, which is what I needed to soften the body so that I can open it up and fix these issues that I had. But my preferences in my judgment, I still wanted to go hard. I wanted to experience things physically. So I still went hard. That’s why I would do Tai Chi. And I would also go do praying mantis, which is a harder style, or I would go do like Bagua, which is kind of a soft sister style of Tai Chi, but can also be hard, and then go to Chinese wrestling, where you can slam people on the ground. And so I’m just feeding both sides of this as much like over and over again. And they’re just heading towards one another without me knowing it. And so that’s what happened, my back goes out, like just like the same story that everybody has, you know, and you’re like, why did this go out? I feel really strong wake up one morning. And, you know, like, you know, it’s like it started in in my late 30s, I used to joke, it’s like, you know, you know, you’re in your late 30s, early 40s, when you can go and like, work out for three hours, and then pull a muscle putting your shoes on, you know, and that’s got it, and we just accept it. But really, and I decided to and so it just kept happening. But I kept then I said, You know what, I got to fix this, I gotta focus on it. So I just keep doing my practice. I keep doing my, my Chi Gong keep doing tai chi, I keep doing everything else. I start getting into like, more, you know, integrating one aspect of the arts to the other I before that, I trained everything pretty compartmentalized, you know, like really trying to distill the essence of each one. And then I’m now now I’m kind of like a mad scientist, like, you know, pouring them all together trying to figure out well, how does this soft meditation helped me in my Chinese wrestling where I throw people on the ground?
CJ
Imagine you sit in dark lights on you and beakers with words on them. There’s nothing in the beaker. But you’re big pouring them out. Yeah,
Sonny
yeah. And now I know, I’m totally going to do that in my mind to thinking about this, right? They have a little mad scientist laboratory in my Zynga and, and so, you know, like, as this is heading more and more towards each other, you know, like, it starts happening more often I my back goes out. And then it was about like, eight months ago, my back went out. I was in a car accident, actually, you know, and like, I just got rear ended from behind. It didn’t feel that bad when it happened. You know, it’s a little tight in my head. You know, no big deal walking off. I even joked you know, like, I’ve been thrown worse than this and practice. And I had, it wasn’t even a lie, you know, but it was like the literally the straw that broke the camel’s back, you know, like, I went into the, but a week later, I woke up, couldn’t walk, my whole right side had seized up. I was like, being pulled from my shoulder to my hip, my whole right side was just being compressed in. And I couldn’t, like, you know, I can barely walk, I had to, like, pull myself out of bed, a hole, everything was seized up, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t crawl, I could breathe and lay there. And you know, and so it was quite painful. And it happened, it happened before, but never to this extent, and never with this sort of delay, you know. And so I tried to wait it out, you know, I would spend, you know, like I’d spent the whole like three or four days in the floor. I tried to like, you know, I’d have to sit there and like massage and do breathing exercises just to build like for like an hour or just build a get up for five minutes and walk and then it would pull me back down. And finally I sucked it up and when it got muscle relaxers and I was like, give me some drugs,
CJ
your pain. The one thing you want to do is get out of that pain. Yeah. Easy. No, as fast as possible. Yeah.
Sonny
And so, you know, like, I went there and I got the muscle relaxers. It gave me some space. I got a I got a an x ray. And they’re like, oh, you know, all your discs are fine. Okay, all right. And then I went into one chiropractor and like, Oh, you got to look a little off but didn’t look too bad.
CJ
And I’m like, thanks. I’m in tremendous pain. Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t
Sonny
feel not bad. This feels really bad. You know? So I finally just told myself, there’s something wrong and figure it out. And so I just started I shifted my entire practice. I started doing almost all breath. I started off, you know, I couldn’t do anything. So I was like, I would just do self massage, meditation, breath work, and then until I could get up and then I would walk and do mindful walking, and then things started Moving and started and then I started incorporating some gentle stretching from yoga. You know, I always tell my students no stone left unturned, you know, if it’s useful use it don’t be locked into one methodology, right? And so then things started opening up and things started changing, you know, and then I had to shift to being like a, like a martial arts person. I’m just like, I don’t need anybody, I can do it. Anybody can do it. Like, you need me to move that fridge. I’ll do it by myself. No big deal. You could you do you rest. I’ll do it, you know. And so the finally I was like, Okay, well, there’s another judgment. You know, there’s another preference. Let me let me see, I’m gonna do acupuncture. And I just chose that randomly. Because I’d actually never been that much into acupuncture. Even though I did all these arts has never been very effective. To me, it was something that I just wasn’t into. And so I thought, well, I need to change. Question my judgments, you know, so what’s maybe the least likely thing I’ll do acupuncture, so I’m gonna try it. And huge impact, right, like, things opened up. And that gave me an A different awareness of what was going on in my body. Like, I didn’t have this awareness, I thought I had a deep awareness. But I didn’t, you know, I had a deep understanding of understanding of motion. I had a deep understanding of the forces passing through my body and how to create forces passing through my body. But the lines of my body were completely criss crossed, because you have to experience those lines. It’s people can tell you where they’re at, and then be like, oh, yeah, I get it, you know, oh, yeah, I’m standing up straight. But until you experience that you’re not you won’t accept that you are, you know what I mean? Like, there’s, you know, like, there’s your, there’s always going to be something going on, you know, like, there’s always something going on in the body that you have to like face and deal with. And so then I went and saw another chiropractor, and the chiropractor was like, you’re messed up. And I’m like I am. And I’m like, You, right? And like, you know, a year before, if you told me, you’re messed up, I’d be like, No, I’m not I do kung fu. You know, like, I didn’t come from Tai Chi, I’m not messed up. I’m not supposed to be too messed up. I’m supposed to be the one who’s not messed up, people come to me to get unmasked. And I’m like, but at that point, I was kind of, like, still wobbling around, I was still off, I, you know, I still like, didn’t have like, everything was still hurting. And I’m like, You’re right, I am messed up, I can’t deny it. He cracked me and all these different places, all of a sudden, I felt a little glimpse of what it was supposed to feel like, and everything just clicked. And I was like, Alright, there’s the deep work, you know, I gotta go in, and everything’s in alignment. Now. I gotta figure it out. And so it’s just been a constant process of like, going in breathwork deeping it sometimes like six, eight hours a day, you know, and it’s been incredibly transformational. It’s like deepened my understanding of my art of the arts that I practice, like quite a lot, because I had to go the opposite direction. And I had to start to integrate things and see the connections.
CJ
Something. Yeah, that’s man, that story. I could listen to you for hours, man. Seriously, I hope, I hope that all of our listeners, like took that to heart because that’s a that’s a full storyline there. Some of you have on your website for your software, Kung Fu, said something, I think it was results for anyone, there’s results for anyone willing to put in the work and time and somebody shared is that you had an opening, there was a release, there’s some space, there was a glimpse of something, have room to move, have a space to improve. And first it came from maybe just breathing, slowing down softening then it was acupuncture and open up a new sensation, then meeting a chiropractor that then realigns you in a way that now oh, this, this is something I can find that will last but I think where a lot of people run into hiccups is they feel better leaving an acupuncture session or a chiropractic session and going I’m better. And a lot of times you can feel better for quite a long time afterwards. Beyond those sessions, depending on how acute acute or chronic your dysfunction may be, but the fact that you came out of there going, I glimpsed this sense of center or sense of balance or sense of unity and coherence internally, as well as externally, I can move with more freedom, I’m assuming that’s kind of what it what it opened up, is that had now how do I maintain this, there’s that secondary, now the work really begins because now I’ve sensed where I could be as my identity I identified as one way to be, and it’s that go get after it, I’m gonna do the hard stuff, because that’s what I know. And that’s the identity that I built, especially at a young age to you go through the whole western sports realm of elementary school, through high school, through middle school, high school, and then maybe even into college. And that is what you know, and I run into so many people who come into our facility who have that background, and now they’re in their 40s and 50s. And they’re going yeah, I’ve been doing the same kind of workouts that I’ve been doing in high school. It’s like, okay, that’s, it’s good. You’re doing something that’s better than Oh, I don’t know if it’s better than doing nothing. Now after talking to you. It’s pretty damn good. But you never you never know, I had never changed or branched the opposite way. Right? And to make that like internal decision, like, oh, yeah, acupuncture is not something I would do, I’m gonna go do it. That’s not just an easy like transition. That’s something you got to recognize within yourself. So what in that process of now saying And maybe there’s just something naturally to you as you do martial arts saying, like, instilling some of these values and understandings of there’s a spectrum and not one better than the other, right? It’s not black and black or white, it’s black and white, and everything in between. What? What do you think it is, especially if somebody is struggling with making that choice of doing something that’s outside of their comfort zone, or even more, so it’s not even a comfort zone thing. It’s just, I don’t want to be judged. Moreso myself judging myself for doing something different? What do you think it is that you were able to come to terms with? Or have a conversation internally with yourself saying, No, you’re gonna do this? Like, what was that process? Like, when you decided to go to acupuncture? And then it worked? Like, did you feel like, Oh, my God, I’ve been wrong all along?
Sonny
Yeah, totally. It’s like, you have to have a really good sense of humor about yourself, like, you know, like, I often say that I take these practices really seriously, but I do not take myself seriously at all. And that’s the balance, right? You can’t take them both seriously, because there’s not balanced, right? And you can’t take them both on seriously, because that’s not balanced, either. Right? So, you know, you have to be able to, like, look at that situation, and go, Well, why didn’t I figure this out earlier, and just kind of go, alright, you know, good job, you know, kind of be like, you know, it kind of just felt like not really self effacing except it, let it pass through you find humor or joy in the experience, right? That’s kind of what it means that self effacing humor, that gallows humor kind of thing, you know, what it is like, you’re not resisting the experience, you let it pass through you. You accept it, find joy in it, right? The, you know, it’s not easy. Even though it sounds easy, right? You can you can say it in simple words, but it’s not a simple process until it is a simple process, right? Until it is a simple process. And so, how do you do that? Well, this, you know, I touched on it a little bit in the seminar, the fact that these principles are universal principles, that’s the whole idea, right? They’re true on the physical realm, they’re true in the mental, emotional spiritual, the physical realm allows us to have a very unique sense of knowing, because we can know it physically and mentally at the same time, right. And that’s when everything sort of comes into harmony, if you know, if somebody says, you know, a physical concept of like, you know, if you relax and really sink into the ground, and you’re going to feel more stable, you can know that in the mind. And then somebody says, then you figure out how to relax and somebody pushes on your shoulder and you feel stable. Now, you know, what in the body and you connect those two together, and it’s, it’s about as real as it gets,
CJ
it also is instantaneous, like, it’s, you feel it now, you know, it’s the saying, We will often we’re
Sonny
going to when you have when you have a and this is going to get trippy, but that’s okay. Like when you this is the way I look at it, when you have that connection between mind and body, it happens almost outside of space and time. So you have this feeling of remembering, not of learning, it’s almost like it hits you. So at such a deep level and locks in, you forget what it was like, before you knew that. Or when you think about before you knew it, it’s as if you’re viewing somebody that’s not you are viewing me, right. And this is like, and we all have these experiences, you know, before, you know, we can start really shallow even though to me, this is also really deep, you know, before I got my dog, and then after I got my dog, you know what I mean? Like, that’s a fundamental change, you know, before you meet your partner, after you meet your partner, before you lose a loved one, after you leave us a loved one, you feel these so deeply, that makes a really big fundamental change, right? So, you know, learning these concepts at that level helps you to sort of find your center and I guess this is kind of getting where I wanted to get with it, you know, once you find your center, you’re not, you’re not pooled with the other motions of the body, right? The motions of stress, the motions of emotion, the motions of your thought, if you don’t have your center and you just pulled with everything then when you are when you’re angry, you you identify as an angry person, not a person feeling angry, right? When you’re feel stupid about something that you don’t know about because we’re all stupid on some stuff, right? Then you feel like you’re a stupid person, not a person who just doesn’t know this one thing you know. And so when that happens, your you move your center moves anywhere that you’re, you’re these other motions of the body go right. So through these centering practices standing practice, like we do in our seminars, moving practice where it’s about softening and letting go and finding that empty space. Because empty space really is just a softness, you can’t feel emptiness when you what you feel is nothing you feel a softness and a release and so when the salt when you’re soft and release where there’s nothing that’s your center because that’s where all things can pass through without it being taken along with it. You can choose when you want to go with it when you don’t just like when we did the drill today where you kind of push on people’s shoulders and you learn either how to ignore it or to go with it completely right. So now when you’re having these experiences have that come from your preferences judgments of like you know, I don’t want to do that. Acupuncture. And so if I decide to go do it, that means I’m going to have to, I’m gonna have to change my mind. I might have to reevaluate my choices, I might have to admit I’m wrong, I might have to, I might be different, you know what I mean? And so that’s hard. But it’s what’s allows you to separate yourself from those things and find your center, you might go do acupuncture and be like, Yeah, I was, right. It that’s kind of, I don’t really like it when I mean, but at least you know, you know, and you might actually periods and you might actually have to revisit it again at a later time. You know what I mean? Like, because the, it has to be repetitive, repetitive, you said earlier refinement of the process. It’s always refining the process. There’s infinite number of processes, but it’s really just one process. And you just gotta keep doing, you know, and then, and I guess a lot of the work is just figuring out what that process is.
CJ
Yes, especially, I mean, we deal with it. In the fitness industry, there’s a lot of different protocols and methods and movement styles, they like this is the one way to do the thing that you want to do. And totally, it may work for a lot of people, but not for everybody. Because everybody has their own process and their own way and their own way to get where they were today. Right. They have different backgrounds, different judgments, different, different biases. And it could be just in how they see life, how they move through life, or how they even view their body and other people in comparison to them. Totally. Something so profound, I think, is that you said that mind body connection, that mind and physical connection, like you feel it, you’re thinking about it. And it’s that process of remembering, and how I mean, when I’ve experienced this, I compare it to like, okay, there’s point A and point B in time, like, there’s now and there’s now right, okay, so what did that space from what I said now to now there was time that passed, right? And by softening in by heartening, depending on where you are in that, in that timeframe, How hard are you? How soft, do you, if you can come back to that center space, it’s almost as if that time goes on forever. And it’s like, we’re always in the process of finding that center. Because if we were there, we wouldn’t be here. Right? We’re having this conversation. Because we are all outside of that center space, we get to discover and explore and pretend and play in this space. But it’s it’s this constant shifting of equilibrium. And I think just that process of recognizing, wow, I felt it. I experienced it. I have thoughts about it. It does feel so familiar. Like this is a familiar space. Yeah, that I feel like I haven’t visited in a long time. It’s almost like for me, it’s almost like I felt like lifetimes before I felt that you know, and then it hits. Wow, I feel like I’ve experienced this hundreds of years ago. But then having that thought it’s like, where did that thought come from? Yeah. And you’re this constant deliberation of like, the void, you know,
Sonny
am I crazy? Am I crazy?
CJ
I must be crazy. Probably, if I’m having this thought I couldn’t be crazy, probably
Sonny
a little bit. You know, it’s, you’re, you’re right, you’re talking about it, you can’t be in that moment all the time, because then you wouldn’t be able to do anything else. You know, I was joking around with my massage therapist who’s awesome. I was like, saying, I was like, Yeah, you know, like, you know, if you should like to do a sound bowl, which is amazing. You know, I’m like, okay, you know, I don’t know, if I’m going to dissemble today because, like, it was so powerful last time. And if I, like, you know, astrally project that in my body this afternoon, it’s gonna be really inconvenient. I gotta go to the grocery store. I gotta feed the dog, you know, I got a class to teach tonight. Like, you know, I’m gonna save the, you know, the, the multi dimensional, you know, astral projection for when I have time.
CJ
Go into that too. Because I think that’s such a, like, we talked about it like it just like, Yeah, whatever. But I think it’s a, it’s a fun concept to dive into. Because we do have this life. And we do have a timeline. And we’re not going to necessarily live forever in this body. It’s a temporary thing, depending on what you believe. But we know that death is inevitable it to some extent of just we leave this body. When you’re in that setting of like, I’m going to restore myself. And I realized that this thing has so much power. And I would love to just dive into this, but I don’t have time to go that deep. Because I’m worried, you know, is that a worry of what’s going to happen after is it I have places to be in this space and time for sure. What’s, what’s that experience like in that conversation? Like for you for the most different for all of us?
Sonny
For me? It’s like yeah, it’s a constant is a constant, like, you know, inner monologue. Well, not not a constant, but I’ll do ask myself, it’s like, you know, is this necessary? You know, do I need to do all this? Like, you know, because you can you get into a certain cycle, it’s like, we I use the analogy of like, the junk drawer or the junk room in your house. You know, what I mean? The brain is the brain is a is a is a confidence machine. Somebody said that, you know, I can’t know who it is, but somebody said it, the brains job is to give you answers. The brain will give you answers and, and be confident about them. It’s not necessarily right answers. It doesn’t care about right or wrong. Excuse me, it just wants to give you answers and it’ll give you answers with as little information as possible. Right, you give it it’ll catch one Little sensation in the body and go bad or go wrong, you know. And so because of that, you know, you have to be really mindful of what the brain is what the brain is telling you, you know, you have to be able to sort of like, step back, and be like, Well, okay, you know, maybe I don’t necessarily speak the language of the body very well, you know, this is something I kind of will say, you know, like, the body speaks the language of the mind. If you think about water, cold water rushing over your head, you’ll feel a sense of coolness, or you feel that feel feel in the body, you’ll feel something, your brain, your body will take that symbol, how you attach to it, and give you a feeling experience in the mind in the body, the brain, and I’m just gonna say, Brian, I’m really speaking of like, the, your higher cognitive functioning, right? Not your lower, you know, like the lizard brain, right, which is still fully integrated into the body, right? Not maybe fully integrated, but fairly integrated. But the, the higher brain does not speak the language of the body. That’s the process, right? You know, like, when I was joking about, like, you know, human language, that’s what I’m talking about, figuring out the language of the body, and how the mind and the body can communicate to one another when, and, you know, that can be like the sensations, you know. And so like, in Chinese, we always say, Listen, you know, listen to the body. And that’s a very purposeful word, because we’re trying to listen to the language of the body, and learn it. And that’s going to be different for each person, you know. And this kind of gets around to, like, you know, one of the things that you can look at, that I often think about in my practice, and all these things are cycles and patterns, right? And I use these patterns to help inform my choices, like, you know, when you’re talking about how do I choose when to do this? Or how do I use these patterns? And because they’re a tool, right? So I think to myself, like what’s, you know, these different aspects of yin and yang, right? Not the attributes that we associate with them, but different opposites. And so, you know, what is, let’s say, is there a primal aspect of this something that is the great motivator for what we’re doing? You know, what is? What is the great motivator? Is it right and wrong? Is that, you know, good and bad? If that was it? Why do people make so many bad choices? Knowing that they’re bad choices, right? You’re gonna chalk it up to, you know, this is the kind of stuff you’ll just chalk up to, like, oh, well, you know, just because because they didn’t know any better. Because, you know, like, they were taught different, you know, whatever, we saw this thing, but we’re actually already kind of giving ourselves a clue at what I, for me, sort of define as the great motivator. And it’s simply the known and the unknown, right? To me, like, why do people make bad choices? Because they know those patterns? Right? And why does sometimes good people get stuck in the past? Because the past is known? Right? Why does sometimes people get stuck in the future? Because the future is unknown. And maybe they don’t like the narrative that they have in the present. And so they the known is troublesome, and so they get stuck with the unknown, you know? And so, it’s not that you have to know everything. It’s that it’s like, way I look at it is like, I’m trying to figure out, what am I supposed to know? And what am I never gonna know, you know, or what do I at least have to wait a long time until I’m gonna find out? And so it’s like, okay, well, this is what I want to know. Well, now, I want to know, all of that, you know? And here’s the unknown. Well, okay, I don’t know it. But maybe I’ll postulate about what it is. Because that’s entertaining and fun for me, you know what I mean? Yeah. And so understanding those different concepts, right, is like, you know, it helps you focus in on your practice, you know, I think, Okay, well, maybe there’s some unknown movements within my body, you know, as I get deeper and more, so I’m gonna try to know them and try to find them. Okay, well, I can’t do this one movement. All right. Just never gonna do it, you know, but then maybe we have to revisit that later on. Right? Because you had said something earlier about, you know, wrong, this sort of like finite journey. I’m not sure if that’s how you put it. But that’s kind of how I look at it in my mind. And the tough thing is one of the one another, this prime motivator, right, is understanding that we are a finite part of an infinite process. And that is both beautiful, and frustrating, because we want to be on the infinite, right? We want to be on the infinite. But we also want things to happen to us, but we have to be on the linear for things to happen. You know, you can’t just, you know, like in for things to change. We can’t just be on the infinite but but we look around us and we see the world and there’s so much in the world that seems infinite. That’s ongoing. Right. And when that’s and when and, and so we think and we part of us know that we are not, at least not in not that we are fully recognized none any way that’s meaningful, you know, at least to me, that’s what I you know what I mean, like at this point to me at this moment, now, maybe at the end of that finite journey, you know, As it clicks over, and I don’t know, I get to spend the rest another round Chucky Cheese my whole life. I don’t know. Who knows, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but you will maybe you’ll find out then Right? And, and but for now for me at this moment there is I can’t, you know, I don’t have any other experience to draw from from this except this one that I’m living right now this this linear position and that’s going to give me plenty to deal with
CJ
gives me so much to process like I can’t wait to go back and listen to this, so much gold here. And I get probably many of us get caught up in that process of trying to figure stuff out and fix everything and like, we got to make it perfect. And in that process, I feel like we realize that there is no perfection, it’s already all perfect. Like there’s no perfection, perfection, we’re gonna find it’s gonna be progress towards something that maybe more understood. But can you ever fully understand somebody and I constantly fight with this? Like, okay, I feel like I think I got it. I said, No, I got it. And now I’m reflecting back anytime I say I know I have it, there’s something I’m missing. Because the more you know, the less or the more you realize you don’t know anything? Yeah, compared to the big vast vat of knowledge. And you said something about like a world is finite path, this infinite being or this infinite realm of time and space, whatever it may be, let’s say it’s outside of that, I want to dive into a couple of things that you had mentioned in the seminar that are kind of some of those universal connection points. So universal principles, right. But even more so understanding that, you know, when we when we go into this process of learning and growth and trying to figure stuff out, it’s like having that awareness that the brain is going to keep trying to figure it out to feed the mind that’s almost behind the brain saying I want to know this stuff. But it’s, I think you said it best when you said we’re remembering what we already know. And it’s not what we already know. So we all already know, it’s just the process of remembering it is so much more enjoyable than knowing it right? So you you remember these things, and you go, Oh, yeah. And it’s almost like the feeling of being in the right place at the right time. And the more often we get to hit those connection points of being in the right place at the right time, the more we discover about the world, about ourselves, about each other about how we are with each other. And I think it fosters this, again, the space, that’s like the space didn’t exist. But because we recognized and remembered and our understanding, not understood, we don’t understand, but we’re in the process of understanding, that’s the thing, what life is, is that now we get to connect to this, this source or this power, or this energy, this, this flow of we are part of our environment, we are not our external to our environment, that environment is not external to us, we are one in the same. I’m gonna use those terms. And I hope you give me the real terms, or the way you set them. But you said force, motion, awareness, connection, and essence. Yeah, and those words are things that have popped up in a lot of things that I’ve read, and just the carries so much weight, I feel a gravitational pull towards those words. Because I’ve experienced things internally and moved in ways and explored certain ways. I’m like, oh, yeah, like, that’s when I was going to this more of a place of awareness. And then oh, my gosh, I felt like an essence of something here. That was nothing. There’s nothing really there. But it’s a lot of mind could do when diving into those and how they kind of applied to like universal concepts and how we can see
Sonny
right, the world. So So you know, these concepts. One thing I’d like to I like to preface with these is that, you know, these concepts came about organically, we we tend to because we’re looking at this as a system, we’re looking at something from almost in a in a from the opposite perspective, right? We’re looking at from the outside. So these these practices, these physical practices, whether it’s Tai Chi, Yoga, these ones that are considered old, right? These have evolved over time, somebody didn’t just come in with the theory one day and be like, You know what, I bet we can do this thing and call it yoga, where we’re just gonna bend people in a bunch of different ways. It’s gonna be good for him, you get what you guys think let’s do a trial, you know? Now people do it, totally do it. That’s how these like all these different little things pop up all these different movement things. But these traditional ones they’ve been around for generations, evolved through like, a deeper connection and need, right? The need for these things was different when they first came around, right? Different but also the same, right? People lived more physical lives. So they had to feel their body a little bit more physically. So they had to keep the body in the mind more harmonious, and they use their bodies differently. Right. Our bodies are designed to navigate the world in a specific way, not the world we live in today. This is the world that we created, that stuff that we’ve developed, right, our body evolution goes quick, but not that quick, right? So our bodies are still designed to navigate a different world and our minds are designed to navigate a different world, right? This is the world that we’ve made and we’ve adapted quite well. It’s actually pretty fun. I like this world. It’s the only one we got, you know, and it’s got coffee shops in it. So I’m happy Okay. And so the by, because of this, you know, like these practices have a deep level of truth, right? And so when you do them, there is going to be an innate knowledge that comes out from the body, right and but these principles are going to come up. Now these principles that come up through observation, and the Chinese for these are Li, T, E, Shin, and Jing, okay, these represents something they rep some represents something beyond just a word, beyond just one simple thing. They represent an idea, they represent a state of being they represent something very elemental. When we translate them in specific ways we focus in and we bring a whole lot of context with it, that might mean something different, right? And so these, these have standard English translations to them. Right, Li strength, chi energy, E, which I might have skipped earlier, not mentioning it, intention. Shin spirit, and Jing essence, these give us a certain connotation, right? They sound kind of lofty spirit, essence and energy. And it’s like, well, now what do I do with it? I don’t know what it sounds cool, right? I’ve always been a very practical person. Like when I viewed these arts, when I first learned them, they had, you know, all these great ideas, I was almost like, looked at the art was kind of, like, prove it, you know, and, of course, the art just bounced right back at me. It was like, No, you prove it, you know. And so the way I look at it is like, these are things that need to be that I want to experience and I want to prove, and so when just because she has energy, and you tell me it’s energy, that doesn’t mean anything to me, until it’s just a word. And I can make if I can connect to it mentally, and create these beautiful images in my mind, like lightning shooting out of my fingertips, like if some video game, but that that’s fun, too. But you know, that’s on the internal.
CJ
That’s actually what I did. Yeah, and light rays,
Sonny
which is, which is an awesome practice as well. But if you really want to get them to flow out, you got to do the other stuff. So So you know, like, as I as I’ve practiced, I’ve kind of learned, I’ve experienced all these things, nothing I teach is theoretical, everything that I teach is something that I experienced physically, and that I know, deep down, so it doesn’t, so it doesn’t really matter to me, if somebody agrees with me, in our, in our somebody translates these differently, or looks at them differently. It was like whatever it’s, it’s just is you know, and so these elements can be combined in many different ways. They can be combined in positive ways, negative ways to build things to destroy things, to maintain things, right, all these different things. So li strength, but it’s not strength, its force. Force has less judgment on it. force can be a small force, a great force, it’s just force, it’s not connected to a thing. We think strength. The first thing we think about as a person with muscles. That’s not necessarily one only strength, right? Lee doesn’t just represent that really is force. It’s a plow share. The plow, the blade of a plow, so the character looks like, you know, forced to push a plow, right? Chi energy, and all of a sudden that is it like energy as a result of what motion, okay. Think of something that is not motion. Awake. Like, everything is in motion. He’s
CJ
sitting still, This cup is sitting still. But yeah,
Sonny
go deep enough. deep enough get down to like I’m, you know, getting to that, like quantum physics type of way. Everything is motion, right? Except when you look at it and stops, right? It’s a particle, okay? Everything is motion. She isn’t everything. She is motion, just in different states, okay. All of a sudden, it becomes useful to me, right? So it’s not the it’s not the leaf on the water. It’s not the water. It’s the ripples of the water, but it’s also the leaf and it’s also the water. Right? You see, when the different elements I’m not sure I see you. Because because the elements of water are made up of motion, right? This all comes together. And so then II intention, but intention already has judgment, you’re intending to do something, we don’t want to do anything. First, we want to do nothing. So what is it? awareness? Awareness, right? Just being simply aware, you know, without judgment, and then of course, as soon as you have awareness almost instantaneously, you have sensation. And now sensation, same thing, no judgment, right? The sensation is just is you haven’t decided if it’s good, if it’s bad, or another attribute to put on top of it. So there you have Li, force chi motion, II awareness after that Shin spirit. Okay, spirit is a great one. And it can be used in lots of different ways. But I like it with connection. It’s connecting things. So I, the more my awareness can travel into a part of the body and connect with it, my spirit gets more right and that what happens when you create that connection? You create space, right? You create room for your spirit and that connection to Rome, and B, what did almost all these traditional arts talked about prana chi, it’s the breath, right? It’s the breath is the most fundamental motion of the body, bringing it in and out, you move the body that creates that works with your spirit. Right? And then Jang is a really confusing one. And I’m still trying to figure it out. And there’ll be people who read a lot of books, who will, who can say like, What, no, it’s this and this, and this. And this book says, it’s this and I go on, I know, I know what the books say. But I want to know what it means to me. And I want to feel it. So Jing is like, it’s, it’s what you have, it’s your essence, it’s what you start with, right? And it’s what you add to it. And it’s what you lose from it, right. So through this process of using force, and motion and awareness and building connection, you’re going to create, you can create something, it’s gonna be a creative process. And so you create more of this essence, your essence changes, maybe it becomes stronger, maybe it’s becomes different, maybe, who you are changes your life changing experiences, right? Obviously, of course, all these elements, these elements are neither good nor bad, these elements can also be put together in a destructive way, the force that you do, the motion that you create, the awareness that you have, can be working together, to take away stuff from you to kind of destroy, right, and so we you can refer to it as the creative cycle of the destructive cycle, which comes from the five element theories. And so, you know, you could be destroying your essence, right? And so that you can use these concepts, and they work in lots of different ways you can think, and it’s almost like you can, it’s like, it becomes a mental exercise of saying, you know, let me look at these three things in this order. How do they affect one another? Well, now let me change the order, how do they affect one another. Now, let me add a third, a fourth thing in there and see what happens, let me pull two things away and see what happens. So it gives almost infinite ways of, of working on your on yourself course, you have to figure those ways out, you know, and you have to, that’s why having a system that is so mature, as Tai Chi, or as Chinese martial arts is very helpful, because we were you were talking earlier about people who go to like acupuncture and stuff and feel good for a little while and then come back, because, you know, we’re trying arts, certain certain practices, acupuncture, massage, they take one aspect of this experience and specialize it. And so what are they, they’re actually taking it out there digging that path out by specializing that experience. So you can travel that path back in, okay. But you need a central practice, each person has to be their own best, you know, healer kind of thing, you know what I mean? So unless you have a central practice that all because all those practices, you go get a massage, and they and that’s the specialization that they have that helps you dig a path back down to your source. But if you get to that source and have nothing to do, right, you don’t have a core practice, that is your fundamental practice that you’re doing daily, that helps you check in with the body that builds that teaches you that language that we were talking about that human language, if the body and the mind understanding the body, then you aren’t going to get those practices, or that that deep level of change, you’re just going to get temporary change. And you’re probably going to become really dependent on those people who are doing it you’re gonna be like,
CJ
you know, there’s nothing really wrong with that. And I think a lot of not if you’re in pain, you’d find some insane sciatic pain or if you’re like, a little stressed out, find somebody Yeah, to stress. Yep. But it’s, it’s a constant opportunity to reflect on your process and continue to refine that. And something you talked about earlier. You know, we hit our peak, you know, in our late 20s, right, and so then suddenly, you hit 30. It’s like downhill for parents like, Well, yes. If you look at it from the perspective of performance of fitness, but that’s not all there is there’s there’s an awareness, there’s this there’s this background, humaneness that we’re all a part of that isn’t English, it isn’t Chinese. It isn’t any other language. But being human. It’s being right. I think, I think the best way I could put it right now is being and it’s that act of now doing something after you did something and then doing nothing, and then doing something and reflecting on this, doing nothing doing something doing nothing doing something. And an example that I had shared earlier today was actually I pulled a muscle I felt like I earlier this week, I pulled them out. So I went a little bit heavier. I was like, I’m gonna grab the couple sandbags and throw them on my back. And I was like, I knew when I did that, for whatever reason I had this thought of like, Ah, I shouldn’t put that on me like this, but I did it anyway. So like, fuck it. So I threw it on there. And immediately sandbags laid on me a couple 130 pounds. A lot of weight came down on me just in an awkward way. And I was like, Oh, I feel like I just got jab your shoulder blade and like immediately I couldn’t breathe fully. I was like, I’m just gonna finish my workout. Anyways, I’m gonna push through this, but I didn’t do the full work. I didn’t I’m stretching a little bit afterwards, but I’m paying for it. You know a couple days later. Oh, yeah. But whether you said it telepathically send it through social media. I don’t know what happened but I was walking outside of my house. I It opened the door I walked outside the sun was shining, and Sun feels so good. And I went to lift my head up to look even to bring the sun in my face. It’s like, oh, my shoulder. I was like, we just fought that thing. What if I go back to where it hurt, but I don’t, I don’t have judgment now that I have a word for that is like, I just was like, Okay, I’m gonna go to where it hurts, but then I’m gonna breathe. And so I create a motion I stopped, I became aware of my sensation, I started breathing. And I was like, Oh, I’m feeling restriction. And I felt no judgment. Beyond that point, I just felt awareness of, hey, stay, I almost felt somebody saying, Stay here. Keep going. Anytime it’s really close by me, don’t turn away turn towards the light. I was like, don’t turn towards the light, you know, looking at the side is so metaphorical and Amelie, three minutes later, just breathing. I felt my neck clicking my shoulder clicking, I felt about 90% better, and it stuck has been about five days. I was like, you know, that doesn’t end there. I think that’s like, It’s that constant process of remembering that you have that healing power to move without moving, you’re just
Sonny
the body will heal itself. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, the body always heals itself, always in us, it doesn’t. And sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t, you know, let’s just be honest. Right? You know, but that it needs a lot of help sometimes, right, and needs a lot of help. And that’s why, you know, sometimes you need to go to other people, you nothing’s enough on your on its own, you know, you need to go to others. Because like you said, everything’s kind of like a, we’re all trying to dig deeper into something, you know, there’s always something beyond what we’re doing. And so, you know, like, you know, going to, like, you know, doing, having your central practice, that’s important. And then refining that practice over time, changing it over time as necessary. And then exploring all these other things without judgment, go try acupuncture, go get Reiki go get, you know, AR T massage, go do a float tank, you know, go do on a, you know, do all these things. Because, like, this is how you you sort of learn to allow different. And I get so lost in these like fundamental concepts. I’ll just start saying motion, motion motion, everyone’s My word is going to be like the Charlie Brown teacher, but this is going to be with the word motion, motion, motion, motion, motion motion, but
CJ
people will still absorb it, because you’re saying, well,
Sonny
everything is motion, right? You know, ways to allow different motion to pass through you. I mean, on a physical sense on an emotional sense that we always say, Oh, you must live without attachments. It’s like, Man, I got attachments on my spine, I got attention about my pelvis. Like if this were built with, I gotta, I gotta like, release the scar tissue down here was it just an adhesion, which is an attachment, you know, like, it’s just the same thing physically and mentally, you know. And so, learning how to let those things through, both physically, but also mentally through these different experiences, right, because we’ll have a lot of times when you get into these specialized practices, your mental blockages come in as well, because you’re going to be like, I’m a CrossFit guy, I’m not this guy, or I’m a yoga person, I don’t do weightlifting, you know what I mean? And like, you have to define yourself, you can’t just be all the time I do everything, you know, it’s like, no, you know, like, there’s you. If the, if the everything is motion, then the body is a pressure system, the pressure system needs to brace, and it needs to release. And so sometimes you have to define the lines of who you are, what you’re into what you like to do. But then you have to explore the other areas. So those lines stay clean, and lace, stay smooth. And so you can stay true to who you are. And I get pulled all these other directions, you know. And so like, that’s done through oftentimes exploring those other areas and those judgments in what you do. And for me, it’s in training. I always, like it’s so interesting, one of my most influential teachers, his name is Andy Dale. And I mean, he’s amazing. I hear his voice in my head all the time, I hear the principles. He said all the time. I had been living in Japan, and I was training Tai Chi there with this really interesting guy, who’s French and, and he was in Japan, learning the sword. And, and his teacher made him teach. And he was like, I’m gonna, you’re gonna be here for nine months. That’s how long I was in Japan. And you can I can teach you what Tai Chi is, but I can’t teach you the form or anything. So for for nine months, all I did was stand and walk. And so I had this idea that oh, I felt it big, profound change in my body. So I moved to Seattle. And I was going to learn I wanted to find a teacher because he’s like, Okay, now you know what it is and go find teacher. And so there’s this teacher there, Andy. And on paper, I was like, This guy’s too good to be true. He does like five different arts. Like super like, this seems super random, like the ones he does. He’s been doing it forever, too good to be true. Nobody can be good at all this kind of stuff. And so I went and I literally visited every single teacher in Seattle. And I’d saved him for last purposely because I was like, There’s no way I was like, Oh, he’s too good to be true. I’ll put him last and I saw him and like, within about five minutes of watching class and watching him move, I was like, no, he’s, this is the best, right? This is this is the guy this is the guy for me. And so right from that beginning, I realized that and there’s all these different ways to do it. You know, like you can do the hard stuff, the soft stuff, you don’t have to like, stay in one lane. You know, I’ve gone you know, so I do You know, meditation where like, I’m just standing there and breathing and like, you know, trying to go as deep as possible. But then I do, you know, sparring and Chinese wrestling where you’re trying to throw people on the ground. And then you know, you go play with swords for a while, because that’s fun. But then you go play with weights, and then you do more meditation, or you do breathing, you know, it’s like, you explore all of, you know, and and over time, your preferences will change, and what works for you will change and your process will refine, because that’s really it, right? You’re trying to refine your process will you need over time? And if so, you start with your judgments, you add in a system, and you see what happens over time, right? You feel you see how those two things come together. And then sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t, you know, but it’s always the process, right of knowing, and moving forward. So that’s kind of how I look at it. And so for my students, you know, I get students, I always say that people come in through a lot of different doors, you know, some people come in, they’re like, I want to do Tai Chi, and I’m like, Great, let’s do Tai Chi. And then after, like, six months, I’m like, should do some kung fu. Or some people come in, like, I’m gonna do kung fu and I’m like, Great, let’s do come up with like, six times that you should do some yoga, you know, like, I try to sneak it in. And like, yeah, you know, like, give them some, because this is gonna help, you know, and as long as you’re aware of the process, and trying to just go deeper into it,
CJ
yeah, all paths will lead back home. Yeah. Always back to the source. Sonny man, you are a true explorer. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you. And I’m sure we will have deeper conversations in the future. Yeah, I’m looking forward to the next time you come back here just to continue to dive deeper and awesome. And get after it. And I’m sure our community’s gonna be happy as well. So where can people find you on Instagram On Facebook? What’s What’s it? How do people best find
Sonny
you? I’m mostly I’m on Instagram. You can look up Sequoia Kung Fu and yoga on Instagram, or just look up Sonny man. And I go by there on another account as well. Facebook every once in a while. But yeah, mostly mostly on Instagrams, where you’ll get all the up to date news, and see where I’m teaching and when I’m going to be some place. And, and besides that, you know, we’re just done little Visalia teaching classes every day.
CJ
Right? Oh, man. Yeah, it looks like you guys got a website too. So quick, Kung Fu and yoga.com among others.
Sonny
So yeah, and we do we do a lot of like, online stuff, because we’re a pretty small school. So we wanted to provide a lot of opportunities for our students. So we like, you know, we do live stream classes every once in a while I have like online resources for students, you know, so they can, you know, like, technology can be great, you know, if it facilitates, you know, your progress and so we try to embrace that as much as we can and using it in a way that allows people to go deeper and and not, you know, not feeding compensation or dysfunction, you know, so, so yeah, they can check that out.
CJ
Right. Oh, man. Appreciate you. Appreciate your time. Thanks. See you soon.
Sonny
Yeah, that was this was great. A lot of fun. So be easy to get me back. Peace y’all.
Michael Hughes
Hey all. I hope you guys enjoyed today’s episode. And if you did, please share with your fitness obsessed friends and peers who are also navigating this world of fitness and trying to succeed the trends and misinformation. As you guys can see, this podcast is basically a masterclass for trainers wanting to level up in their coaching skills, and their fitness business model re launches in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach, and build a successful fitness business sell, share far and wide. And please, when you do do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your post with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready to go to the next level as a coach, or in your business, and to reach more people, please go check out gymnazoedu.com. We have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers wanting to become a masterful practitioner, and build a business that gives them the freedom and impact. So let us help you do just that. We have online training and one on one coaching to guide you through a full 90 Day certification. We even get you training our clients live because it’s always better to work out your kinks on someone else’s clients than yours. But we promise you this, your clients will be blown away by the transformation our program will help you make you’ll be masterful at a whole new level and part of an incredible community of coaches worldwide, taking their skills to the next level. So if you thought today’s episode had some fire to it, and inspired you to take action, wait until we see what we deliver on this program. So just go to gymnazoedu.com. And we’ll see you on the other side. Remember that turning your passion for fitness into transformation and sustainable business is critical to reaching the people and lives you were put on earth to help it matters and truly can make an impact in other people’s lives. So, hope you do that. Keep sharing a passion and we’ll talk to you soon.
Leave a Reply