The Two-Second Paradox: Why I Seek True Freedom Through Martial Arts
“Why are you here?” my first master asked me when I was just 20 years old, standing in his traditional dojo in Vienna. I’d already been training for seven years at that point, since I was 13, moving through different schools like a hungry ghost—Hap Ki Do, Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, Kyokushinkai Karate, Muay Thai. But this question was different. This wasn’t about colored belts or techniques anymore. My answer surprised even me: “I want to attain true freedom.”
He nodded slowly, as if he’d been waiting for someone to give that answer. “Most people say they want to learn to fight,” he said. “They don’t realize that real fights last only seconds. But freedom… that’s a lifelong journey.”
Now, at 38, as Master Ziji running my own Wudang academy in Vienna, carrying the lineage of the 16th generation of Wudang San Feng Pai, I finally understand the depth of his words. After 25 years of training—including my years in Wudang Mountain under Master Yuan Xiu Gang and Master Chen Shiyu—I’ve witnessed countless students walk through my doors seeking combat skills, only to discover they’re really seeking liberation from invisible chains they didn’t even know they wore.
The Moment Everything Changed
I’ll never forget that night in Vienna when I was 24. I’d been training for over a decade, dedicating 4-6 hours every day to perfecting my craft. Two men, both clearly trained, squared off outside a nightclub. The crowd expected an epic battle—like something from the movies. What we got instead was four seconds of explosive reality. A feint, a slip, one devastating strike, and it was over. One man unconscious on the pavement, the other disappearing into the night with trembling hands.
I stood there, frozen. By then, I’d already trained with ex-Vietcong fighters in Vietnam, learning Pencak Silat from war veterans who knew what real combat meant. I’d studied weapon forms—sword, fan, staff—for years. Yet watching that four-second destruction, I realized something profound: we spend decades preparing for moments that end before your heart beats five times.
That’s the paradox that has driven my entire journey: If real combat is over in seconds, why do we dedicate our lives to training? What are we really preparing for?
What initially motivated you to start martial arts training?
- Self-defense and protection
- Physical fitness and health
- Mental/spiritual development
- True freedom and liberation
- Cultural interest
- Saw it in movies/media
Discovering True Freedom in Wudang
When I reached my 17th birthday, I understood that fighting against someone would only improve you as much as you need against your opponent. So I saved money for my path of self-cultivation in the Wudang Mountains. What I found there transformed everything I thought I knew about martial arts and freedom.
The Wudang approach to freedom isn’t what most Westerners expect. It’s not about being able to do whatever you want. It’s about liberation from the tyranny of your own reactive patterns. In Taoism, we call this wu wei—effortless action, moving through life like water, adapting without losing your essential nature.
My master Yuan Xiu Gang once told me, “Michael, you can defeat any opponent in seconds. But can you defeat your own anger? Can you overcome your fear? Can you free yourself from the need to prove anything to anyone?” These questions changed everything. As the only foreigner in the traditional class and graduating with exceptional results, I learned that the real training wasn’t about accumulating techniques—it was about dismantling the prison of my own mind.
The Real Prisons We Live In
After 25 years of training and now teaching others as a lineage holder, I’ve realized we’re all prisoners. Not behind physical bars, but trapped within:
The Prison of Reactivity: That instant when someone disrespects you and your body floods with adrenaline. Your fists clench, your jaw tightens. You’re no longer choosing your response—you’re a puppet dancing to ancient evolutionary strings. True freedom is the space between stimulus and response, the ability to choose rather than react.
The Chains of Ego: I spent years collecting martial arts like trophies—seven days a week, seven different styles. But ego is the heaviest chain. It’s what makes you need to win every sparring match, to prove you’re tough, to show off your skills. Freedom comes when you can lose without losing yourself.
The Bondage of Comfort: Every morning at 5 AM, when my body whispers about warm beds and rest, I face this opponent. Comfort seeks to keep us small, safe, unchanging. But growth—and freedom—lives in discomfort chosen consciously.
The Tyranny of Fear: Not just physical fear, but the fear of not being enough, of being exposed as weak, of failing. This fear drives so many to martial arts, yet it’s the very thing our training must liberate us from.
How long do you think most real fights last?
- Under 5 seconds
- 5-30 seconds
- 30 seconds to 2 minutes
- Over 2 minutes
The Alchemy of Internal Transformation
In Wudang, we practice what’s called neigong—internal alchemy. It’s not about turning lead into gold, but about transforming our base reactions into conscious responses. Every form, every meditation, every push hands session is a laboratory for this transformation.
When I studied with military veterans in Vietnam, they taught me that in war, hesitation means death. But in life, the ability to pause, to choose, to respond rather than react—that’s true power. The internal martial arts teach us to cultivate this pause, this space of freedom between what happens to us and what we do about it.
Think about it: In those four seconds of real combat, there’s no time for philosophy. No time for forms. There’s only what you’ve become through years of training. And what we’re becoming isn’t fighters—we’re people who have faced our shadows so many times that we no longer flinch at darkness.
Why We Really Train
The truth I’ve discovered through decades of practice is this: We don’t train for the fight. We train for the 99.99% of life that isn’t combat. We train to become people who can:
- Stay centered when chaos erupts around us
- Choose compassion when anger would be easier
- Find stillness in motion and motion in stillness
- Transform obstacles into opportunities
- Live with intention rather than impulse
My journey from that 13-year-old boy desperate to learn every martial art to becoming a lineage holder of Wudang San Feng Pai has taught me that true mastery isn’t about perfecting techniques. It’s about using those techniques as tools for liberation.
Every day in my academy in Vienna, I see students discover this truth. They come seeking the power to defeat others and find instead the power to master themselves. They seek external strength and discover internal freedom.
The Daily Revolution
True freedom isn’t won in a single battle—it’s claimed moment by moment, choice by choice. Every time I choose to train instead of sleep in, every time I respond with calm instead of anger, every time I help a student discover their own strength instead of showing off mine—these are the real victories.
The paradox remains: We train for decades for fights that last seconds. But those seconds of potential combat are just the excuse our ego needs to begin the real work. The work of becoming free.
In the Wudang tradition, we say that the highest level of martial arts is to win without fighting. But the highest level of human development is to be free without fleeing—free while fully engaged with life, free while facing our fears, free while serving others.
What has been the most valuable benefit of your martial arts training?
- Physical fitness and health
- Mental clarity and focus
- Emotional regulation
- Spiritual growth/true freedom
- Self-confidence
- Community and friendships
- Self-defense skills
- Life philosophy and wisdom
The Path Continues
After 25 years, I still train 4-6 hours daily. Not because I’m preparing for a fight—I’ve been in precious few real confrontations, and yes, they were over in seconds. I train because each day offers new chances for liberation. Each form is a moving meditation on freedom. Each teaching moment with my students is an opportunity to pass on not just techniques, but the keys to their own cages.
The young man who told his teacher “I want to attain true freedom” didn’t know what he was asking for. He thought freedom meant being unbeatable. Now I know it means being unshakeable—not because nothing can touch you, but because you’ve made peace with everything that does.
True freedom isn’t the absence of constraints. It’s the ability to dance with them, to find space within structure, to discover that the very disciplines that seem to bind us are actually the tools of our liberation. This is why we train. This is why, after a quarter-century, I still rise before dawn to practice.
Because in the end, the two-second paradox reveals a profound truth: We don’t train for those two seconds of combat. We train so that in those two seconds—and in every moment of our lives—we can act from freedom rather than fear, from choice rather than compulsion, from our true nature rather than our conditioned patterns.
That’s the real victory. That’s true freedom. And that’s worth a lifetime of training.
What does your practice mean to you? Have you discovered your own path to freedom through the martial arts or another discipline? Share your journey in the comments below.