Bao wrote:Largely though it isn't about "an opponent" so much as it is about working with the energy itself. The opponent is just a medium. Could also be a chair, a door, a dog, a refrigerator, a girlfriend, an auditorium.
IMHO, you are absolutely correct that it's better to get rid of the word "opponent". But personally, I am a bit allergic to the word "energy". I see it as working against/with a moving object. It has movement, a structure and balance. It is that core of balance and its center that is interesting to work with, or "adapt to". What the opponent does or try to do is unimportant. Connect to the center of that apparatus and staying connected to its center is what is important. Whatever energy is not.
That may be what you are focusing on and training and that is completely valid. It does not describe my practice