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Practising Chinese Calligraphy is a dear hobby of mine. I can say that it is a passion for me. My ultimate purpose of practising Chinese Calligraphy is not to become a champion nor a great artist, my intention is kind of … 無所為而為 (doing not for a special material purpose) …I remember when I was in Beijing in early 2012 for a special course with two renowned calligraphy masters, I was asked by a taxi driver what was my purpose of stay in Beijing. When I told him that it was for a Chinese calligraphy training he was pretty shocked and asked why I was learning this old fashioned Chinese calligraphy. At that time I could not spell out specifically all the reasons why I like doing calligraphy and I just replied with these 5 Chinese words 無所為而為 (“doing for no specific material purpose”, as according to Lao Tze when doing something with a specific motivation there is a risk of “overdoing”, which may become too self centred. Without any eventual desired result, just responding to a natural flow, the act is more noble). That sounded a bit philosophical to the taxi driver… Thereafter I did organise my thinking and have come up with more convincing reasons in practising Chinese calligraphy:
  • for the serenity in preparing the ink and smell of the delicate fragrance of the ink
  • for the beauty and the deep sense of the Chinese characters
  • for the joy in dancing with the brush and ink
  • for the challenge in playing around with emptiness and fullness
  • for the journey in walking with the ancient scholars and poets appreciating their moral philosophy and romantic poems and sharing their emotions
  • for the temporary escape from the material world
  • for the pleasure to create and to share emotions
  • for the desire to learn our limits and overcome them
I think I can go on and on… It is my pleasure to share my passion and especially the philosophical beauty behind. I would like to take the challenge to use this ancient art as a means for management and coaching to facilitate deeper reflection and behavioural changes. The icing on the cake was when I came across professional paper on research work over the past 30 years on Chinese calligraphy therapy from universities in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. Indeed, it is now scientifically proved that practising Chinese calligraphy can be an alternative approach to improve health. (Cognitive-Neural effects of brush writing of Chinese characters : cortical excitation of Theta Rhythm – Min Xu, Henry SR Kao, Manlin Zhang, Stewart PW Lam, Wei Wang). This discovery has strengthened my motivation to continue to fine tune a protocol using Chinese calligraphy in a coaching/management situation and more importantly , I have the desire to develop this elegant practice as a healthy mind/heart/body gymnastic so that more people can have access to this alternative health boosting practice.