INTENT versus INTENTION.

Intent is innate, it is wisdom, it is MIND BOXING.

Intention is acquired, it is technology, it is FIST LOGIC.

Thursday evening I was talking with Costas and George, two of my senior students about plateaus, wrong turns and misunderstandings.

As with all hiccups in understanding Wing Chun they stem from the difficulty in translating pictures, pictograms, Chinese script, into words, built from letters as used in the English language.

We only have 26 letters to choose from to describe everything that exists.

There are always going to be problems, especially when we use certain different words interchangeably.

INTENT  – INTENTION we can even get a bit deeper into the weeds with INTEND.

My Sifu, a Hong Kong-born Chinese Gentleman with a  Mother Tongue of Cantonese, who spoke first-rate English, would say that the best that can be done when translating from Chinese to English is to guess and try to get as close as possible. 

The trouble begins when the desired guess sounds very similar to something with a different meaning.

This then becomes an issue with phonetics, in fact exploiting this difference is a popular comedic device, using a word that means something completely different in the place of the expected word.

“Did you hear about the bald guy that had Rabbits tattooed all over his head because from a distance they looked like Hares”

This is a very common literary device in English.

Hair – Hare.

Where – Wear.

Pear – Pair.

Red – Read, {past tense of Read}.

Boot – Boot, {car versus left in this case}.

This is compounded even more when the students first language is not English.

How can we describe INTENT in a way that is clear and easy.

Intent is stored power, potential.

Intention is directing where to put that potential to use.

Look at it this way, if we have 3 or 4 devices that use the same battery while the battery is on the shelf its potential is the same, it can play music, shine a light, drive a toy car.

As soon as we put that battery in the device its potential becomes the devices potential.

Intent is multi-functional capable of moving in any direction for any purpose, it is the energy to do work, it is capable of any work.

Intention is directing this energy, using the energy to perform specific work.

Intent is innate, it is wisdom, it is MIND BOXING.

Intention is acquired, it is technology, it is FIST LOGIC.

Now that we have cleared this up somewhat are we any closer to knowing how to use it?

After all, action is potential realised.