picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023
In March, I started attending a Kung Fu school. I had previously been taking Qi Gong classes there but I finally cleared some obligations away and was ready to begin my Kungfu practice. For the last several months I’ve been learning specific techniques at the white belt level that will help me advance to the yellow belt, and today my Sifu determined that I learned them enough to qualify for my first yellow stripe. I appreciate earning that yellow stripe, because I put a lot of effort and exercise into learning the techniques. I can still improve on them, but I have learned the basics.
However the most important lesson I have learned from this process of learning these techniques is patience. I needed to put the time and effort into learning the techniques and I needed to let go of any expectation on when I might advance and instead simply focus on learning the techniques and letting those techniques teach me…not just the movements or the qi, though I learned about those things, but also the virtue that comes in focusing on the practice for the sake of doing it without expecting anything.
I’ve applied this same discipline to my magical work, because as I’ve learned various techniques over the years, what I have always come away with is an appreciation that truly learning those techniques has involved repetition, focus, and dedication. And while I have experimented with various techniques and systems, that experimentation has always occurred after I had already invested substantial time in learning the given system or technique as it is. If you want to learn any practice, in any discipline, you must cultivate patience. And actually that applies to other areas of life as well. But for this article I want to speak to how you cultivate patience for your magical practice.
