Shake the Foundation: Know the Difference Between Activity and Result
Functional Kung Fu: For Success in Combat and Life
More than a decade ago I was in what we call Kung Fu Lala land. I had finally found a Grand Master to directly train under. I was overdue for a new teacher to push training to new heights and I finally found him. I was particularly driven to put in 300km of travel once a week to study because this man was a master from Hong Kong. I had learned and understood that masters coming out of Hong Kong from the 50s and 60s were kind of a different breed. They typically weren’t teaching modern wushu. They weren’t interested in teaching anything fancy, anything flamboyant, or anything for competition. This was true of Grand Master Philipman Chow. His motto was pretty much: simple; useful....Meaning, if it wasn’t simple, “no use”.
His approach to applying Praying Mantis in self defence was to the point which ultimately made it effective. One principal that he often repeated was “shake the foundation”. This one is my favourite because it applies to much of life. It was also one of the hardest lessons to learn for me, physically, and philosophically.
Shaking the foundation was all about striking hard. If you are going to hit, don’t hit and hope that your attacker will get discouraged by the hit and give up. Don’t hope he will acknowledge the point, bow out and leave you alone. Shake the foundation is important in praying mantis kung fu because if you break the persons balance, they will not be able to hit you back with any rooting. Likewise, if you hit them without a root of your own it will likely do nothing, other than maybe hurt their feelings. In live combat, you have to count on probably getting hit.
When shaking the foundation your aim is to keep the opponent from having a root, so when and if they do hit you, it won’t have enough power to knock you out or knock you down. When adrenaline is surging through your body, the only hits that count are the ones that knock you unconscious, or knock you of balance. I remember being taught application after form training one day. I was so happy with myself that I took my time, learned the move correctly, I practiced on my own so many times until it looked exactly (or so I thought) like the way Sifu did it. While other students were chit chatting I was outside of the small club in the bitter cold repeating it again and again. Coming in side to apply the technique I had my partner throw a punch and my goal was to knock it down with my forearm, driving it down to toward the ground, opening up the opponent’s chin for a quick counter punch. My partner for that day however, being about 15 years my senior, had notorious arms of steal after many years of conditioning, so when he punched, my downward chop did nothing, barely moved him, so his punch got in with no problem. “No,”, Sifu said “you still have not shaken the foundation” this phrase will be permanently burned into my brain, so I will never forget it. Perhaps because of how embarrassed I was for utterly failing at it, especially after training it for so long and that it “looked” perfect. Aside from what it “looked” like, the technique did nothing, and was there for useless. “You still have not shaken the foundation” Sifu repeated and walked over to take my spot.
He motioned for my training partner to throw the punch at him. The 78 (+/-) year old 5’6” man from Hong Kong, weighing in at about 145lbs replied to the punch with a quick downward chop with his forearm, which dropped my partner’s steal arm down, directly toward the ground with ease. It looked so easy for him, even though I was sure I did the same motion. The only difference was it looked like Sifu was putting in even less effort than I was, despite the fact that his result was much greater. “Here” Sifu said to me, motioning me to throw a punch at him the same way so I could feel the effect of the block, since only that way would I understand. I threw the punch at him, to which he replied with the same downward chop as expected. What was not expected was the searing pain that shot through my entire arm as it went limp toward the floor, instantly rendered useless until I could rub the feeling back into it.
That was the day I truly understood what shake the foundation meant on a philosophical level. It didn’t matter if it looked correct, it only mattered what it did. I would later use the principal to prove successful in my business and life. Shake the foundation taught me the difference between activity and result. The activity; the technique I practiced, was what I put a lot of time and practice into, I was proud of it, but when it came time to put it to use, it was meaningless, because the result was meaningless. Sifu didn’t care what I made the technique look like, he cared when it worked; he cared about the result. Gladly, on that day I wasn’t stupid enough to say “but I did the technique just the way you showed me, and it didn’t work.”. I had made that mistake before, just like many of us do in other areas of life.
Too often in life we try to justify excuses and validate them because of our activity, but we don’t take accountability for the result. In combat, if you lose, it doesn’t matter if you hit the opponent or not, what matters is whether or not the desired result was achieved or not. Being successful in any area of life requires accountability. Telling your boss or your customer, “well I did what was asked of me, it’s not my fault it didn’t work” might buy you sympathy, but it won’t buy you result. If we want to be successful in any endeavour, we need to stop getting hung up on what activity we’re doing and focus, honestly, on what results we’re getting.
As an entrepreneur and business owner, at the end of the day, no one really cares if you did your best, although those around you might have some sympathy for you when you lay out all your activity. To look at your results honestly takes courage and courage is pushing forward toward your desired result even if everyone would understand if you gave up. For most people that is a pretty hard pill to swallow, but those who manage to accept it will likely have a bright future in leadership at the top of their chosen industry. Those who don’t will have stories about all their activity, but little result.
Shake the Foundation my friends.