Year of birth: 1963
Profession: IT specialist KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Place of residence: Noordwijk
A future in Spain
Our dream is to enjoy life together in Spain after my retirement. This idea occupied Claudia's mind even before she came into my life. We have already made quite concrete plans and will leave in three years' time for the area around Denia, a town in the province of Alicante. I hope we can find a house with a nice garden and a swimming pool. I think it would be great to start a new phase of life together in our new house, cooking outside, enjoying the barbecue in the garden, and feeling the Spanish warmth around us.
We want to build a more minimalist life, where we no longer have to do anything, but can do all sorts of things. In which I can keep making music and continue training in Wing Chun. I have already found a Wing Chun school near where we want to live, where I hope to train with locals. I don't plan to deal only with Dutch people; rather, I want to get to know the Spanish, which is why I chose this school.
Dreaming at great heights
What I have resolved to do is to really go for what I want, such as continue training in Wing Chun and move to Spain. In the past, however, I have often let myself hold back from pursuing what I really wanted. For example, I once aspired to become a pilot, a profession that seemed wonderful to me.
When I think back to the past, I do sometimes envy the people who had a clear dream and went all out to realise it. I myself, unfortunately, had much less of that drive. There was always some reason why something I wanted seemed impossible to me: I thought, for example, that I wouldn't be able to do it anyway, or that there simply wasn't enough money for it. At one point, I realised that this way of thinking had often held me back from achieving my dreams. On this, I decided to change course and give the ambition to become a pilot, for example, a chance after all. So I ended up in sports aviation, got my pilot's licence for small aircraft and made several trips over the Netherlands. I have always loved being able to do this and they are wonderful memories to look back on now.
Meanwhile, my opportunities to fly have diminished and we are focusing on our new dream, our future in Spain. Until then, I will be working in ICT at KLM for another three years, working on the core infrastructure, revamping and keeping systems operational.
Before, I trained a lot of Karate, but I have always found Tai Chi very interesting too and practised it a lot. But I sometimes find Karate too hard, and in Tai Chi I was looking for something more than just softness. This caused me to continue looking for other possibilities in Martial Arts. That's how Wing Chun came my way, which I started to immerse myself in more. It gives me the right balance in being able to train hard yet stay soft, an effective way of training with little fuss. What I find very cool about Wing Chun is that it is not so much techniques, but principles. You train your body in such a way that you end up reacting automatically, reflexively rather than thinking about what to do.
After reading several books on Wing Chun, I started looking for a school near where I live. I live in Noordwijk and tried Wing Chun schools in the area, as far away as Leiden, Hoofddorp and The Hague. Through Google, I found WuDae in The Hague where I also decided to sign up for a trial lesson. I tried several schools but at WuDae I immediately felt at home; it's like joining a big family. You get a lot of personal attention and you can keep developing continuously. To be honest, I am exhausted after training every time, but my head is empty and I feel free.
Bringing physical and mental together
The beauty of Wing Chun is that you can learn the basics pretty quickly, but there is so much more to explore. Wing Chun goes so much deeper than you initially think. I am already looking forward to learning more and more about it with the books I read and the training sessions at WuDae, to bring the mental and physical closer and closer together.
I find that the fluid way of training makes my self-confidence grow and I feel increasingly free and safe. It also helps me tackle things faster. By nature, I often avoid conflicts and difficult situations, but now there is more room to deal with them in a good way anyway.
If others are looking for a new sport or considering Wing Chun training, I would say: do it. Anything you think you can't do, you can learn. And then, at WuDae, you also end up in a very pleasant environment, where you can develop yourself at your own pace.
