The Power of Focusing

Today I was practicing Fu Hok at home and decided to add in the element of focusing my energy in the movements. In order to do this I asked my imagination to conjure up a worthy opponent to face me in battle. Being a cooperative imagination, it did just that. So here I was, face to face with a martial arts master from the past ready to tear my head off and drink my blood! He attacked with a one two combination which I successfully countered with the Tiger Crane bow. As he stepped back to consider his next attack I gathered my strength in three deep breaths. I then blocked a series of punches and started focusing my power with three palm thrusts. As he attacked again, this time with a straight punch, I deflected his blow with a snake strike, blocking first and hooking his hand to my waist them letting his arm guide my fingers to his eyes. He managed to grab my hand but I broke his grip with side to side shakes followed with a dead hand to the back of his wrist. Amazingly, he regained a grip on my hand and forced me to pull my hand back to my chest and roll my wrist before forcibly returning it to the chambered position. His grip finally broken, he tried the same series of attacks which I defeated with the same techniques using my left hand. I could now see a grudging measure of respect in his eyes.
His next attack was an attempt to get in close. I stepped into a low horse stance and delivered a blasting double uppercut just under his rib cage as he stepped in close to grapple. Unbeknownst to me but knownst to him, his friend had snuck up behind me. Betrayed by my own imagination, I saw him from the corner of my eye and elbowed him in the sternum and had to immediately press my first opponent to the ground as he lunged for my waist. Again, I focused my energy with three palm thrusts and countered a punch with a double snake strike. With anger in his eyes and a battle cry on his lips he lunged at me. I felt his attack falter as his arms were deflected from the rotating motion of my arms and upper body. I saw pain in his eyes when my double palm strike landed in the hollow below each shoulder. He tried to lunge again only to be deflected to his right and was shocked to the core as my palms again connected, this time on his collar bones.
As his hammer fist came down I blocked high and then barely managed to deflect his front kick with a low chopping forearm. After stopping another hammer fist with a high blocking forearm I knocked down a low punch and struck for the eyes again with a snake strike. Taking the initiative, I hooked both of his hands out of the way, grabbed his wrist in my left hand as I stepped forward and simultaneously pulled him towards me and shifted to bow stance while I delivered a devastating tiger claw strike to the side of his face. Not learning his lesson he struck again with his right hand. Using the same technique I delivered another stunning blow using my left hand to the side of his face. This time I used a half butterfly to pull him off balance then blocked high to lift his arm and took his breath away with a powerful tigerclaw strike just below the sternum. My arms windmilled in circular blocks as he threw four quick punches. As his friend was getting his wind back and setting himself for another attack I jumped high into the air and stunned him by smashing my backfists downward onto his already damaged collar bones. My opponent screamed in pain and went to his knees, temporarily out of action.
Taking advantage of the second attackers amazement that his master was down I stepped across, hooked his lead foot out of place and launched a side kick at his groin. He partially deflected my kick and threw one of his own. My rolling bridge knocked his leg out of position and my hand flew up to block the follow-up punch. As he punched at me again I used a snake strike to block and retaliate. He managed to block and grab my hand in an iron grip. Rotating to a horse stance I peeled and pulled my hand free and immediately rotated back to bow and felt his rib crack as I drove my palm into his side.
By this time my blood was really flowing. My heart rate was up and I could feel power in my movements. As I rotated back to my horse stance to defend myself against the kung fu master my right arm came down to block his attack. I could feel the strength in my arm as it flew up to block high. My balance was excellent as I chopped his kick away from my body. I could feel the power generated by rotating my upper body and shoulder as I deflected a blow to my side. Now it was my turn. I focused all my energy, all my thought into my right arm. It was going to strike the masters jaw but it was not going to stop there. It would continue until it reached the end of my technique and this one blow was going to end the fight. I released my arm and it literally flew to the target. Nothing could stop it, not even my pajama bottoms which had inadvertently hooked on my little finger. I did not feel any resistance nor did I realize I had torn the entire leg out of them until my hand returned to my side! Not only had I defeated the kung fu master and his student but I had destroyed my own pajamas. Regardless, I was the victor!
The moral to the story, which is true by the way, is that focusing on the techniques and using not only your physical strength but the strength of your spirit can turn these awkward movements into very powerful techniques. It still amazes me how "right" the movements can feel when performed properly and with power. I think my current battle is with the master of self-consciousness. I still worry that others are watching and cheat myself of valuable time to perfect the forms and move forward with my training. This is something I could use much encouragement with. I have long realized that learning kung fu is much less about defeating a physical opponent and mostly about mastering the greatest opponent of all... Myself.