By Steve DeMasco[US]

Changing Your Perspective on Power

By Steve DeMasco[US]

Steve DeMasco is the ambassador and disciple to the Shaolin Temple in China,and a 10th degree black belt in Shaolin Kempo.

Early in my martial arts training,I figured if I could become really good at kung fu,I would be powerful,and this pursuit couldn’t possibly hurt anyone but me,physically,because I was doing it for me.

Chinese philosophy says that you train for mind and body,but I was training to punch faster than anybody else,since I thought speed would give me the most power.But the more I worked at it,the less kung fu I was able to learn.It was very frustrating.I would go to Grand Master Fu,one of my early teachers,and ask him questions.“Sei fu,”I’d say,“my right leg is too stiff,and it won’t stretch far enough.How can I get more flexible?”

He would look at me flatly and say nothing.When I pressed him,he would sometimes glare at me,then mutter in broken English,“Just work harder.”Surely,I thought to myself this can’t be the elusive“secret”of the Eastern martial arts. Fully fueled by my ego,I soon quit Fu’s lessons,thinking I would never get the power I sought that way.

Master Yon Lee,my next teacher, had a similar approach to helping me learn the discipline.When I told him that it seemed like the more I stretched,the tighter I got.His response was“Just stretch more.”Master Lee also had conditions:He wouldn’t teach me the Shaolin forms unless I was willing to learn Chinese medicine and cooking.

I would take three lessons in oneday:first martial arts for an hour, then a medicine class where I learned to mix up all sorts of foul Chinese herbs into poultices,and finally an hour of cooking.Practicing the breath control so integral to a form like“Tiger,”where concentrating on balance and springing from one point to another like the big cat are key,then slaving over a hot stove,was not my idea of fun. My days spent in the kwoon were confusing,sweaty,exhausting,and worst of all,smelly.

“I don’t want to do medicine or cook,”I told him.“I spent years cooking for my mother,sisters,and stepfather because Mom couldn’t even make toast.”I felt I’d done enough of that.Sei Fu Lee eyed me, handing over a mortar and pestle. He didn’t seem mad.Nor was his resolve to have me prepare food and herbal remedies deterred in the least.“Grind,”he said gruffly,indicating I had no choice in the matter. I rolled my eyes and obeyed,adding herbs to the medicinal mixture he wanted me to concoct.

There I was,dragging myself twice a week into Boston’s Chinatown from Brockton for a martial arts lesson,and this guy was asking me to be a mad scientist,of all things.I didn’t want to believe that all these seemingly peripheral activities were part of the spirit and correct and pure practice of martial arts.

We didn’t like each other,Master Lee and I.But he put up with me out of respect for a mutual friend, who’d introduced us.I stayed because I began to learn a great deal from him,and he ended up using the medicine I was resisting to heal me.Master Lee gave me what no orthopedic surgeon had been able to.

The Chinese herbal compresses we made,which I mixed and Lee applied,were as hot as hell,and sometimes hotter.But they worked. I would leave a session far less creaky than I had entered:my knees were healing,just like my soul.It began to occur to me that herbs were indeed part of the Chinese“secret”I was so desperate to figure out,and that maybe I was fighting for the wrong kind of power.

My desperation was just like a lot of people’s:I wanted to be the strongest,fastest,and best fighter going,just as many of us want to make more money,have nicer things,be the top salesperson in our office,or win recognition for being great at a skill.But the reality was, my impatience made me weaker, and the small glimpses I got of how much stronger I was mentally and physically when I followed the master’s program instead of my own taught me to differentiate between what real power is and what it isn’t.

A few years in,I could now cook a mean Peking duck and heal people.I learned how to examine myself and decide in any situation if I really needed more power,and if I did,how having it would serve myself and others in a more positive and productive way.

After many years of getting kicked around by life and being angry about it,I’ve learned that real power is the power to truly know what you want,for yourself and your life,so that you don’t make rash decisions based on anger,but powerful ones based on thought and observation.

Nothing’s harder,because it means letting go of old thought patterns where you think power is jumping into a fight or making a million more than the next guy.But it’s not.

(Text and photos courtesy of Grandmaster Steve DeMasco)