Train — Fight — Rest

Life Lessons from IP Man

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Kai saal pehele ki ye baat hai…

There’s something about this line. It’s a great beginning to a story. Reflective.

Though it seems like it, my introduction to IP Man did not happen a long long time ago, in a land far far away! It happened some years ago while I was chatting with a good friend of mine. As we bounced around from topic to topic, she, suddenly, just like that, said:

“Papaji, have you watched IP Man?”

And, I did. I watched the first movie and then the second one. After that, the third one played by itself and the fourth one was inevitable!

The one thing that most surprised me was that

it was a Kung Fu movie without much fighting!

For most of the movie the legendary Master would hang out with family, drink tea and practice his skills. He hardly ever got into a fight! So much so that when he did fight, I was pulled right into that fight with him! It was like I was just as much invested in that fight as he was.

Surprising!

Some years later, in Feb/Mar 2020, we went into COVID lockdown. The world that was busy-busy-busy was suddenly slowed down!

“You need to rest”, said Nature.
“I can’t”, said the World.
“Here’s a Virus”, said Nature.

This theme of resting kept coming up again and again. I was In Conversation with an avid Yoga practitioner and he said the same thing:

“Rest is the Most Important step in Yoga”

As I continued to look into this some more, I learned of this fascinating 10/20/70 rule:

10% of your time do Intense Activity
20% of your time do Skills Training
70% of your time, Rest

That was what made IP Man such an exceptional Kung Fu Master! He would not fight if it does not matter! For most of his time he would rest. For some time he would train. Only exceptionally, he would fight.

Then I chanced upon this article from fivethirtyeight.com that summarized the actual play action time in NFL and MLB.

For those who do not follow the National Football League (American Football) or Major League Baseball, these are intense sports. In NFL, as soon as the ball is snapped, it is a ultra fast paced series of events that unfold rapidly. It looks cool on TV but on the ground it is almost like war. In MLB, the duel between the pitcher and the batter takes place at ultra fast pace. Literally within a blink of an eye. The ball is like a whizzing bullet that sometime wobbles, sometimes curves in and sometimes just goes straight on through! War.

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When we estimate the ratio of Game Action to the total duration of a game:

NFL — 8.6%
MBL — 9.99%

There we have it: Intense activity for around 10% of the time!

Applying the 10/20/70 rule to one day (24h):

Rest — 16.8 hours
Train (skills enhancement) — 4.8 hours
Fight (intense activity) — 2.4 hours

This is not too far from what a normal work day looks like:

Office Hours: 8 hours per day (40 hour week)
Of these 8 hours, only 2.4 hours would be intense work. ← Is this your experience?
Of the remaining 16 hours, 8 hours we sleep. ← Do you?
We actively rest for the remaining 8 hours that we are awake. ← This is critical.

Let’s make it practical: Say there is an intense work day. 8 hours of intense work. There are days like this.

To compensate, the 10/20/70 rule would guide us to get back to moderate activity for an extended period of time, or, to deepen our usual rest. We, most likely, are not doing this! We typically assign pride to such intense work days. And we’re paying the price. Unknowingly.

Are we giving Rest the priority that it deserves?

We owe it to ourselves; To our Family; To our Friends; To our colleagues; but mostly to ourselves!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, world renowned humanitarian and spiritual leader, says:

Intense Activity and Intense Rest go together. They are not opposite. They are complementary.

Be like IP Man. Give Rest a priority.