Be not Defeated by the Rain

The Physique of Bruce Lee

2012-02-01T10:19:00.013+08:00

As a follow on from my previous post on kettlebells I found this article by John Little on Bruce Lee's physique on the web recently, describing how he trained for function, not size. Although I don't go to the gym anymore, I use to be a gym rat when I was in my late teens and early 20s, before the yoga and martial arts. It talks about how his physique and philosophy influenced such body building luminaries such as Bodybuilding luminaries, including Lou Ferrigno, Lee Haney, Dorian Yates, Rachel Mclish, Lenda Murray, Flex Wheeler and Shawn Ray.

Some choice exerpts:

There has seldom been seen - this side of a jungle cat -- the incredible sinewy and ripped-to-the-bone quality of muscle displayed by Bruce Lee. He was ripped in places that bodybuilders are just now (28 years later) learning they can train. Every muscle group on his body stood out in bold relief from its neighbor -- not simply for show (unlike many bodybuilders) but for function. Lee was, to quote his first student in the United States, Seattle's Jesse Glover, "above all else, concerned with function." Lee's body was not only a thing of immense grace and beauty to watch in action, but it was supremely functional. Leaping eight feet in the air to kick out a light bulb (as evidenced in Lee's office-wrecking scene in the MGM movie Marlow), landing a punch from five feet away in five-hundredths of a second and catching grains of rice -- that he'd thrown into the air -- with chopsticks were things Lee had trained his body (and reflexes) to accomplish. In fact, during his famous "Lost Interview" Lee referred to his approach to training as "the art of expressing the human body." Indeed, perhaps never before has there been such an incredible confluence of physical attributes brought together in the form of one human being -- lightening fast reflexes, supreme flexibility, awesome power, feline grace and muscularity combined in one total -- and very lethal -- package.

According to those who met him, from Hollywood producers to his fellow martial artists, Lee's muscles carried considerable impact. Taky Kimura, one of Lee's closest friends (in fact, the best man at Lee's wedding in 1964) recalls that Lee was never loath to remove his shirt and display the results of his labors in the gym -- often just to see the reactions of those around him. "He had the most incredible set of lats I'd ever seen," recalled Kimura, "and his big joke was to pretend that his thumb was an air hose, which he'd then put in his mouth and pretend to inflate his lats with. He looked like a damn cobra when he did that!"

Lee's physique holds up under scrutiny and has survived the passage of time simply because it possessed what many consider to have been the perfect blend of razor-sharp cuts, awesome muscularity, great shape and an almost onion skin definition. The muscles that bulged and rippled across the Lee physique were thick, dense, well-chiseled from their neighbor and, above all, functional.

Dan Inosanto, another of Lee's close friends and himself an instructor in Lee's art, adds that Lee was only interested in strength that could readily be converted to power. "I remember once Bruce and I were walking along the beach in Santa Monica, out by where the 'Dungeon' (an old-time bodybuilding gym) used to be," recalls Inosanto, "when all of a sudden this big, huge bodybuilder came walking out of the Dungeon and I said to Bruce, 'Man, look at the arms on that guy!' I'll never forget Bruce's reaction, he said 'Yeah, he's big -- but is he powerful? Can he use that extra muscle efficiently?"

Lee's feats of strength are the stuff of legend; from performing push-ups - on one hand! - or thumbs only pushups, to supporting a 125-pound barbell at arms length in front of him (with elbows locked) for several seconds, or sending individuals (who outweighed him by as much as 100 pounds in some instances) flying through the air and landing some 15 feet away as a result of a punch that Lee delivered from only one-inch away, the power that Bruce Lee could generate -- at a mere bodyweight of 135 pounds -- is absolutely frightening. Not to mention some of his other nifty little habits like thrusting his fingers through full cans of Coca-Cola and sending 300 pound heavy bags slapping against the ceiling with a simple side kick.

According to Glover, however, Lee wasn't particularly pleased with the added mass; "I noticed that he was bigger after he was weight training. There was a time after he went to California that he went up to 165 pounds. But I think it slowed him down because that was real heavy for Bruce. He looked buff like a bodybuilder. And then, later on I saw him and this was all gone. I mean, one thing that Bruce was [about] was function -- and if stuff got in the way, then it had to go. Bruce wanted his weight training to complement what he did in the martial arts. A lot of what Bruce was doing was about being able to maintain arm positions that nobody could violate in a fight. Like, if you take most people who are into bodybuilding or weight training, most of them are interested in simply building up their muscles to a bigger size, particularly the major muscle groups -- not much attention is paid to the connective tissues, like ligament and tendon strength. Well, Bruce's thing was 'let's build up the connectors and we won't worry so much about the size of the muscle.' Again, Bruce was about function."

Bruce Lee's "Lethal Physique" Bodybuilding Program
(performed on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays)

Exercise	Sets	Repetitions
Clean & Press	2	8
Squats	2	12
Pullovers	2	8
Bench Presses	2	6
Good Mornings	2	8
Barbell Curls	2	8

Warm Marble, The lethal Physique of Bruce Lee

Kettlebells and Back Pain

2012-01-30T15:20:00.008+08:00

There was another interesting article in the New York times regarding Kettlebells and back pain. This has been recommended to me before but I found that suburi and pole-shaking, if trained properly, also work on some of the same principles and unfortunately I do not have the time or funds to invest in getting a personal kettlebells trainer at the moment, and there aren't a lot of places that teach it in Hong Kong (I only know of one) [Actually lots of people emailed me about this and now I know of a few good places!]. Hopefully this will change later this year!

Although many people with backaches and other pains shy away from weight lifting for fear of hurting themselves, studies show that strength training can reduce pain and prevent re-injury. While most research has used traditional weight training exercises, researchers in Denmark set out to study whether a kettlebell workout offered therapeutic benefits to back pain sufferers.

The weights, named for their resemblance to a tea kettle with a looped handle, began showing up in American gyms about 15 years ago and have gained a popular following among exercise buffs looking for a quick full-body workout. Unlike traditional weight training, which typically focuses on lifting exercises, a kettlebell workout requires both swinging and lifting of the weights, which for beginners can be awkward and difficult to control.

In a study published last year, the Danish researchers recruited 40 pharmaceutical workers, mostly middle-aged women with back, shoulder and neck pain, who were randomly assigned to either a regular kettlebell workout or a control group that was simply encouraged to exercise. The first group trained with kettlebells in 20-minute sessions two to three times a week for eight weeks, according to the report, published in The Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health.

At the end of the study, the kettlebell exercisers reported less pain as well as improved strength in the trunk and core muscles, compared with the control group. Over all, working out with kettlebells reduced lower back pain by 57 percent and cut neck and shoulder pain by 46 percent.

The study noted that workers who spend much of the day sitting are particularly vulnerable to back, shoulder and neck pain because they develop tightness and weak spots along the posterior muscle chain, which includes the muscles running from the lower back down to the glutes, hamstrings and calves. Kettlebell workouts strengthen the posterior muscle chain, and the increased blood flow to the back and leg muscles also may lessen pain by reducing the buildup of lactic acid.

Kettlebell training is also surprisingly aerobic. A study by the American Council on Exercise found that a 20-minute kettlebell workout burns about 21 calories a minute, the equivalent of running at a six-minute-mile pace.

Another interesting reference point for me was that Dave Chesser, who used to write the now defunct internal martial arts blog - Formosa Neijia is a big convert to kettlebells and it is now the centrepiece of his physical training programme at his gym Formosa Fitness in Taipei

Turning to Kettlebells to ease back pain.

拳學掬滴 - 韓竟禹

2012-01-27T12:26:00.022+08:00

This was a newly published book that I read over the Chinese New Year holidays and it was authored by 韓竟禹 Han Jing Yu, the son of the Yiquan Master Han Xing Qiao 韓星橋 who was a famous disciple of Wang Xiang Zhai. The Han brothers were very influential in the Hong Kong Yiquan community in the 80s and 90s and thus I was interested to see the teaching method advocated in this book, whose subtitle is loosely translated as a "Compilation of Essays on the Yiquan Second Teaching Method".

This book is meant to be an introduction to the Second Teaching Method, which Han Jing Yu claims is a distillation of his many years of teaching students in Zhuhai as a response to his frustration with the traditional way of teaching Yiquan which was through the standard progression from zhan zhuang, shi li and fa li. He states in the preface that he was quite affected by the many criticisms of his father as being "too conservative" (indeed many of Master Han's teaching sessions just consisted of standing in one pose for an hour with minimal corrections, and this was the entire syllabus for the first year) and the inability of many of the students to maintain the zhan zhuang requirements when moving and to fight effectively.

Hence his emphasis on the Second Teaching Method, which he sets in opposition to the first teaching method which he states is based on the traditional method of teaching via concepts and imitation of external forms as given by the teacher. Instead he places the emphasis firmly on the idea of 覺 or "feeling" or what I would term "embodied experience". While it is necessary to use concepts as a teaching tool in the beginning, it is of the utmost importance in order to experience what the concepts entail in an embodied sense. For instance, he starts by teaching the concepts of song 鬆 and jin 緊 by first asking the student to completely collapse forward without using any muscle to experience the state of song as a physical experience, and then to experience its opposite which is tight muscular contraction, and then slowly he will ask the student to move in between the two states until he begins to understand contradiction, and the need to move beyond dualistic thinking. There are multiple references to one of Master Wang's sobriquet - old man contradiction 矛盾老人 as the essence of the Yiquan method. From then he starts to introduce zhan zhuang and then his own creation - the Yiquan 8 movement form - the 意拳八式 (which seems to include movements from Tai chi, bagua and other internal arts).

The book is about 200 pages and it contains a number of interesting concepts as well as a chapter on his training syllabus by one of his students which was very valuable. However I found the book to be frustrating in a number of ways, not least of which was the style it was written. The first few chapters of the book are long speculations on philosophy, borrowing many Buddhist theories on how words and concepts are necessarily limited and do cannot match up to the reality, and how once you start conceptualizing you only convey a single perspective on the issue. Master Han also likes to liberally sprinkle his writings with references to philosophers and their texts without fully explaining their theories as a nod to his own erudition (such as Ernst Cassel, Kant, Gadamer, Heidegger, Husserl). Also his writing style is a product of a communist education in the 1960s(?), which consciously tried to mimic the writing of Marx, Lenin and Soviet intellectuals and thus is in a sparse pseudo-scientific style, purged of any classical allusion (except when quoting from Master Wang directly) and full of strange sentence constructions that are probably modeled on the Russian or German. Also as a collection of stand alone essays written at different times, there was quite a bit of overlap and restatement. It was definitely hard going.

In terms of the training, there are also a large number of stances shown in the book, including that of the one on the cover which I could not understand, as they do not seem to be in accordance with basic requirements of internal martial arts (legs or arms fully extended, stance too high, completely open to attack) and probably need his own personal explanation and instruction. I have met a number of people who had said good things about Master Han and he is also in close correspondence with my Sifu but in terms of a review of his book I would only give the book two stars out of five...

Exercise and Youth III

2012-01-26T10:17:00.006+08:00

Reading the economist over the weekend, there was a short piece on the mechanism whereby exercise promotes health and longevity, from a paper just published in Nature by Beth Levine of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre.

Dr Levine and her team were testing a theory that exercise works its magic, at least in part, by promoting autophagy. This process, whose name is derived from the Greek for “self-eating”, is a mechanism by which surplus, worn-out or malformed proteins and other cellular components are broken up for scrap and recycled.

Autophagy is an ancient mechanism, shared by all eukaryotic organisms (those which, unlike bacteria, keep their DNA in a membrane-bound nucleus within their cells). It probably arose as an adaptation to scarcity of nutrients. Critters that can recycle parts of themselves for fuel are better able to cope with lean times than those that cannot. But over the past couple of decades, autophagy has also been shown to be involved in things as diverse as fighting bacterial infections and slowing the onset of neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases.

Most intriguingly of all, it seems that it can slow the process of ageing. Biologists have known for decades that feeding animals near-starvation diets can boost their lifespans dramatically. Dr Levine was a member of the team which showed that an increased level of autophagy, brought on by the stress of living in a constant state of near-starvation, was the mechanism responsible for this life extension. Vigorous exercise seems to be an extension of this research.

The theory is that what are being disposed of in particular are worn-out mitochondria. These structures are a cell’s power-packs. They are where glucose and oxygen react together to release energy. Such reactions, though, often create damaging oxygen-rich molecules called free radicals, which are thought to be one of the driving forces of ageing. Getting rid of wonky mitochondria would reduce free-radical production and might thus slow down ageing.

Worth all the sweat

Happy Chinese New Year!

2012-01-22T20:11:00.001+08:00

Sacral Lumbar Support

2012-01-19T11:40:00.006+08:00

One of my major breakthroughs in my martial arts practice of the last few weeks has been the use of a sacral lumbar support (something like a girdle) as can be seen from the picture above. Due to my injury in the last year, there are still some dynamic movements which I was reluctant to try for fear of "popping my back". But Master Zhang, the bonesetter provided me with this support in our last therapy and it has been very helpful in supporting my back in fajin movements. He said that he has tried many brands but this (Oppo) was the most comfortable one allowing easy expansion and contraction for breathing and with flexible plastic ribs at the back which provide support without restricting movement too much.

Master Zhang, who also practices Xingyiquan also stated that the girdle functions in much the same way as a sash did in the old days, providing support for what is an anatomically unstable part of the body (a legacy of the evolution from four legs to two) and promoting proper alignment. Also the elastic nature of the girdle makes it easy to breathe into the dantian and the slight resistance is good feedback as to whether one is doing the breathing properly. I suspect the slight resistance also makes breathing exercises a little more difficult and ultimately more effective (similar to adding weights when exercising). My Sifu confirmed the role of the sash in traditional marital arts and it was widely used both north and south and in both external and internal styles.

After having practiced a few times, I do feel that it is my Fajin has definitely improved as a result, and although I am still working within my limits, just wearing the support throughout the day I feel that is also functions as a brace, allowing my vertebrae to "set" into position so they don't go out of alignment so easily - similar to wearing a brace when one dislocates a joint. It may be something I may continue to use in the future even when my back is fully healed, or just transition to using a sash.

Wen 文 and Wu 武 Revisited

2012-01-18T09:47:00.008+08:00

This is more of a speculative post, unpacking several ideas I encountered in the book "The Culture of War in China" that I reviewed earlier this week.

The first Manchu Emperor, Hung Taiji stated, "What I fear is this: That the Children and Grandchildren of later generations will abandon the Old [Manchu] Way, neglecting shooting and riding, and enter into the Chinese Way". On the surface the Manchu way is associated with masculinity while the Chinese way is associated with femininity and softness. However there is more to this notion than meets the eye. The notion of what constitutes masculinity is an interesting one, as the Western perceptions of masculinity differ quite markedly from Eastern conceptions and even in the West the traditional definition of masculinity has been under attack. I intend to explore this in greater depth in upcoming posts this year.

However, in traditional Chinese theory wu, i.e. martiality, the military principle corresponded to the dark, female, potentially violent side, while wen, civilization corresponded to the bright, masculine side. There are parallels here with the modern psychology of the unconscious where desires and emotions, if repressed are liable to express themselves in violent ways. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

The literary scholar Kam Louie also noted, in traditional Chinese culture wen-wu is a continuum along which masculinity can be correlated with class [and this] was never questioned in traditional times. Those with more wen belonged to a higher class, but having minimum wu is better than none at all. And to be a really powerful man, it is essential to have both wen and wu. In gender terms, those without wen or wu, the women, have no political power [until the twentieth century].

And thus there was the expectation that Wende and Wugong would mutually produce and reproduce each other in a dialectical relationship.

It was my birthday recently and on my wish list were some of the cufflinks from Patinova, and I would have liked to mix and match so that I had one Wen cufflink and one Wu cufflink. Ah well, maybe next year.

Aikido and Daitoryu Techniques

2012-01-17T15:35:00.008+08:00

There has been a lot of discussion on the Aikiweb website on O-Sensei and his relationship to Daito-Ryu Aikijitsu, which has been deliberately played down by the Aikikai from the time of the second Doshu onwards. Rather than repeating the threads here, I would rather focus on a very valuable, but often overlooked column by John Driscoll, meticulously comparing Daito-ryu and Aikido techniques - showing an almost one-to-one correspondence between the two, with the exception of aikido koshinage (which, in another column, John almost surely establishes, is the single and only technique that Ueshiba derived from his earlier brief studies in Yagyu Shingan-ryu). This was highlighted by Ellis Amdur in the thread "Morihei's Changing Picture".

Correlation of Aikido and Daito-ryu Waza

There is also evidence in Saotome's jo, particularly the piece sometimes referred to within his organization as the "pre-set," for a line of derivation from Yagyu Shingan-ryu for some of the aikijo attributed to Ueshiba. The oral history associated with this set has always claimed its origins in bojutsu.

This photo was shot about 1922 inside Morihei's home situated near the Omoto precincts in Ayabe. Morihei is seated in seiza inside the "Ueshiba Juku," his home dojo that marked the beginning of his career as a martial arts teacher. The characters read Daito Ryu Aiki-jutsu which is evidence that Ueshiba was licensed and openly teaching Daito-Ryu at the time, before his transition to Aikido.

Culture of War in China

2012-01-16T10:05:00.011+08:00

So I was away last week in Malaysia and picked up this book in a bookstore there and what a gem it was! That is one of the things I miss about browsing, that you sometimes find books that you had no inkling about despite being a frequent surfer on Amazon.

This importance of this book lies in the fact that it is a revisionist history of the Qing Period (and is part of a movement called the New Qing History which is taking place mainly in US Universities) and ties directly into some of the themes I have touched upon in previous posts. The book seeks to overturn the past consensus of the Qing Empire as a time of military weakness and the perception that the Manchus, like previous alien invaders before them, were absorbed by Chinese Culture and ultimately rendered indistinguishable from them.

Like another good book, China Marches West by Peter Perdue, this book highlights the Qing conquest of Mongolia, annexation of Xinjiang and Tibet, thus expanding China beyond the borders of any previous dynasty and setting the boundaries of what is now Modern China. Indeed the Manchus saw themselves as the heirs of Chiinghis Khan and like the Mongol Empire, China constituted an important part but was only one part of a whole that consisted of many peoples and most important monuments and edicts were issued in Manchu, Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian [or Uighur] reflecting this diversity. The new Qing History tries to bring new scholarly insights into this Inner Asian factor.

They were also keen to retain a self identity that was distinct from Chinese culture, which consisted of a robust martial element, frugality and military preparedness and for a time wu 武 displaced wen 文 from its position as being representative of the higher classes. Manchu women were strongly discouraged from binding their feet (as they were expected to ride and hunt along with the men) and there were constant exhortations to Manchus not to soften by adopting Chinese ways. There was no longer any distinction between candidates for the military and civil examinations leading to official appointment and indeed some form of contribution to the war effort was essential for success be it in soldiering, logisitics, strategy historiography or otherwise. Government was run like a military operation by men whose chief claim to fame was success in war and most Grand Council members also held military appointments or commanded armies during their tenure. The superimposition of a new hereditary elite, the banners, onto Chinese society created a parallel to the Chinese whose elevated social status had previously rested on superior education and literary accomplishments and not martial valor.

To bring together the disparate Empire there was also a great deal of myth and culture making, and the Emperor tried to claim the authority of multiple heritages, where for instance the Emperor Qianlong was depicted in a variety of guises - including scholar, warrior, huntsman, ruler, ritualist, connoisseur, filial son, ancestor or as a bodhisattva at the center of a Tibetan style thangka. There was also an effort to bind the peoples together through the myth of universal dominion or the glories of military conquest. Indeed there were strong parallels to myth making and ritual of the British Empire and the author noted that many of the underpinnings for a modern state were already in place.

Although the book is relatively short 111 pages of text, the rest being footnotes and rather prohibitively priced, there is a lot of information here which builds on the themes of this blog, such as the interplay between Wen and Wu, and the role of Buddhism in the Qing State and militarism and rituals. Would recommend readers to try and borrow this from the public library rather than buy it but if you are interested please support my reading habit and click on the link below.

The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty (International Library of War Studies)

Pictures of My Sifu, CS Tang

2012-01-13T23:29:00.001+08:00

Some pictures of my Sifu taken by Kenneth Lim Photography here in Hong Kong. (A present from me to him for his birthday). Can you identify the movements and associate them with the appropriate art?

尚書 - Shang Shu

2012-01-10T10:20:00.011+08:00

A book that is the oldest Confucian Classic, 尚書 also known as the Classic of History 書經 has been declared fake in parts by a Tsinghua University professor. By comparing the present edition of the Shang Shu with ancient documents written on bamboo strips - known as the Tsinghua strips 清華簡 - Professor Liu Guozhong, a specialist in ancient documents and their protection, found that part of the present edition contains passages that could not possibly have been edited by Confucius.

All Shang Shu passages - of which the present edition has 58 - are said to have been edited by Confucius (551-479BC) based on 100 government documents from earlier times and is considered to be the first amongst the Five Classics.

Liu found that at least two passages from the present Shang Shu based on an edition dating back 1,700 years, to be entirely different from passage with the same titles written on the Tsinghua strips from about 2,000 years ago.

The present edition had served as a textbook on politics for Chinese Emperors for more than a thousand years.

A carbon dating test in 2008 proved that the Tsinghua strips, which the university said had been smuggled out of the mainland, were more than 2,000 years old and could be from the Middle of the Warring States period - before the first Qin dynasty emperor unified the country and burned all historical records and Confucian classics in 221BC. They are considered to be China's earliest extant books.

Liu said that the Tsinghua strips should be from the genuine edition of Shang Shu. Chinese historians have questioned the authenticity of the present edition of Shang Shu for hundreds of years.

Following the First Emperor's order to burn all books , the Shang Shu was lost and found several times until someone claimed to own a copy of it during the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD316 - 420) and that is where the present edition comes from.

The Tsinghua strips were given to the University in July 2008 in a laquered box with patters that were from the Chu Kingdom 楚國 and contain 2388 strips, including broken pieces. It includes many lost manuscripts including a copy of 《保訓》 which describes what Zhou Wen Wang 周文王 tells his son, Zhou Wu Wang 周武王 on this deathbed, and includes tales of the Emperors Yao and Shun 堯舜 as well as legends of his ancestors of the Shang Dynasty which have never been seen before. There are also copies of 周武王's musical poems 樂詩. These and other findings have literary as well as historical significance especially since the Musical Classic 樂經 has been lost.

Piguazhang - 劈掛掌

2012-01-09T10:08:00.010+08:00

This is very good DVD that I would strongly recommend and is a demonstration of the jibengong of Piguazhang. My knowledge of Baji and Pigua is mainly with the lineage of Master Liu Yun Qiao 劉雲樵 in Taiwan also taught a piguazhang set as part of his Baji. There is a famous saying that: 劈掛，俗稱劈掛拳或劈掛掌，拳諺頁：八極參劈掛，神鬼都害怕；劈掛參八極，英雄歎莫及 - When Baji is combined with Pigua, both Gods and Devils are afraid, when Pigua is combined with Baji even the heroes sigh that they cannot compete. However in this lineage, the Pigua and Baji are kept as separate teachings.

In the interests of full disclosure, Jonathan Bluestein contacted me in December regarding a new DVD by his grandteacher Master Zhou Jing Xuan 周靖軒 on Piguazhang and asked me to review it. Although I have some contact with Bajiquan (I have also learned part of the liu zhou tou 六肘頭 set as part of my jibengong training, to train my blocks) Pigua is relatively new to me and so I was quite happy to do so, as even though I am a Southerner I am a big fan of most of the northern styles.

Master Zhou gave a demonstration of the following basic palms as well as a clear demonstration of applications. Although these are basic techniques, they are very important in building waist power and thus can be applicable to many styles. The the emphasis on applications is a nice change from many DVDs which just emphasize Taolu. He also has a nice flowing style which is quite different from the harder 剛 Baji style in Taiwan.

Dan Pi Zhang (单劈掌)
Gun Pi (滚劈)
Wu Long Pan Da (五龍盘打)
Yi Er San Guai Zi (一二三拐子)
Zhao Feng Shou (招风手)

Even for individuals that do not practice Baji or Pigua there is also a lot to be had from this DVD. For instance, there were a lot of similarities in Master Zhou's shenfa to those of the Gao baguazhang practitioners in Tianjin (doing large movements with full extension, power coming from the waist) and the application of Dan Pi Zhang is similar to the ban 搬 (the first Tian Gan) of Gao Baguazhang (while stressing they are independent systems). I definitely learned a lot in terms of seeing how the ban 搬 could be applied in a variety of different ways and in sequence.

For Wushu practitioners, the Wu Long Pan Da is a very common movement in taolu and is usually written as 烏龍盘打 (black dragon instead of five dragons) and is usually performed without an explanation of how it is to be used. Master Zhou does a very clear demonstration of its applications.

Finally there is also a demonstration of the 猿猴 bu or monkey step, which was also characteristic of the style.

Master Zhou jingxuan was born in one of China's most famous martial arts areas, Hong Qiao district in Tianjin. At the time, the district's Xi gu park was a gathering place for many famous martial artists in Tianjin. At the age of 9 the young boy got interested in Martial Arts and started practicing at Xi gu park.

As many other martial artists he began his practice in basic martial arts like Tan-tui and Shaolin Luo-han Quan and in time moved to more complex arts like Pi gua Zhang, Chuo Jiao and Yang Qing Fanzi. After many years of practice and mastering these arts, Internal arts caught his intrest and he started learning Xingyi Quan, Tai Ji Quan, Baji Quan and Jin Gang Ba Shi.

I also did some additional search on the Chinese websites and was intrigued to find that he studied under Shen Jia Rui 申家瑞 who in studied under the teacher Tian Jin Zhong 田金鐘 in the Wu Xiu Feng lineage of Baji 吳秀峰系八極, which has produced very many strong Baji practitioners.

From the DVD it is very clear that Master Zhou has very strong skills and is an experienced teacher and I am looking forward to seeing more material from him in the future, or maybe to even meet him if I were ever to make it to Tianjin.

More information on how to purchase the DVD and for study under Master Zhou can be found here at the Shang Wu Zhai website.

More Kyudo Pictures - 戸田恵梨香 Erika Toda

2012-01-06T10:32:00.009+08:00

Here are some pictures of Erika Toda, a famous Japanese actress, in kyudo uniform. Whether or not she is actually ranked or has any skill at all is another point altogether. I especially liked the first picture. The texture of the glove breaks up the monotony of the white.

Taking Stock of 2011, Resolutions for 2012

2012-01-02T20:45:00.009+08:00

So it is the beginning of another year, and again time to take stock of where I am with the various practices and lay some groundwork for where I want to be in the coming year. For the regular readers of my blog you will probably realize that the key theme this year has been dealing with the back injury I experienced in February. In many ways, it has been a wake up call to focus on some of the issues that I have been neglecting. A friend recently sent me a article on the symptoms of spiritual awakening and one of the symptoms was the following:

Events that completely alter your life: death, divorce, change in job status, loss of home, illness, and/or other catastrophes -- sometimes several at once! Forces that cause you to slow down, simplify, change, re-examine who you are and what your life means to you. Forces that you cannot ignore. Forces that cause you release your attachments. Forces that awaken your sense of love and compassion for all.

So in many ways I have been focusing more on healing and a spiritual practice and that road has led me to meet some amazing people that I may no have had the chance to meet had I not been injured.

Mabel from One Pilates Studio who taught me so much about the anatomy and movement

Amy and her Cranial Sacral Therapy who has taught me about energetic and intuitive healing and the importance of the spine

Zhang Sifu and his traditional bonesetting, which differs quite markedly from the accupuncture taught in the TCM schools

Moira and her work on removing emotional blockages and self affirmation

Martyn and Heather on their breakthrough nutritional plan

Wayne and the Blu-e healing crew who helped me understand and put me on the first steps towards practicing energetic healing

So I have cut down from 13-14 hours of training a week, to about 8 hours and this mainly consists of Zhanzhuang / Yiquan practice and simple forms and some pole shaking. However by focusing less on the forms, and more on jibengong and helping Sifu write and edit his books, I feel that I have a much better understanding of the internal dynamics now than I used to and I have to thank Mike Sigman, his seminar and the information on the Qijin forum for that also. I very much hope I have a chance to see him again this year. I am hoping to make a few more trips to Japan also and see some of my friends there such as Imamura Sensei, Tominaga Sensei and of course, catch another glimpse of Endo Sensei.

This year I will continue to work on my blog and also wanted to thank the great many friends that I have managed to meet on this forum over the years, most importantly Rick and Paul, Walt for some of his reading recommendations, Allison and recently Jonathan and Etai. As I always I am open to suggestions for improvement or an increased focus on certain topics.

Chen Xiao Wang - Five Levels of Skill

2011-12-30T09:13:00.000+08:00

The Five Levels of Skill
by Chen Xiao Wang translated by Tan Lee-Peng, Ph.D.

Learning taijiquan is in principle similar to educating oneself; progressing from primary to university level, where one gradually gathers more and more knowledge. Without the foundation from primary and secondary education, one will not be able to follow the courses at university level. To learn taijiquan one has to begin from the elementary and gradually progress to the advanced stage, level by level in a systematic manner. If one goes against this principle thinking he could take a quick way out, he will not succeed. The whole progress of learning taijiquan, from the beginning to achieving success consists of five stages or five levels of martial/combat skill (kung fu). There are objective standards for each level of kung fu. The highest is achieved in the fifth level.

The standard and martial skill requirements for each level of kung fu will be described in the following sections. It is hoped that with these, the many taijiquan enthusiasts all over the world will be able to 'assess' on their own their current level of attainment. They will then know what they need to learn next and advance further step-by-step.

1. The First Level of Kung Fu

In practising taijiquan, the requirements on the different parts of the body are: keeping a straight body; keeping the head and neck erect with mindfulness at the tip of the head as if one is lightly lifted by a string from above; relaxing the shoulders and sinking the elbows; relaxing the chest and waist letting them sink down; relaxing the crotch and bending the knees. When these requirements are met, one's inner energy will naturally sink down to the dan tian. Beginners may not be able to master all these important points instantly. However, in their practice they must try to be accurate in terms of direction, angle, position, and the movements of hands and legs for each posture. At this stage, one need not place too much emphasis on the requirements for different parts of the body, appropriate simplications are acceptable. For example, for the head and upper body, it is required that the head and neck be kept erect, chest and waist be relaxed downward, but in the first level of kung fu, it will be sufficient just to ensure that one's head and body are kept naturally upright and not leaning forward or backward, to the left or right. This is just like learning calligraphy, at the beginning, one need only to make sure that the strokes are correct. Therefore, when practising taijiquan at the beginning, the body and movements may appear to be stiff; or 'externally solid but internally empty'. One may find oneself doing things like: hard hitting, ramming, sudden uplifting and or sudden collapsing of body or trunk. There may be also be broken or over-exerted force or jin. All these faults are common to beginners. If one is persistent enough and practices seriously everyday, one can normally master the forms within half a year. The inner energy, qi, can gradually be induced to move within the trunk and limbs with refinements in one's movements. One may then achieve the stage of being able to use external movements to channel internal energy'. The first level kung fu thus begins with mastering the postures to gradually being able to detect and understand jin or force.

The martial skill attainable with the first level of kung fu is very limited. This is because at this stage, one's actions are not well coordinated and systematic. The postures may not be correct. Thus the force or jin produced may be stiff, broken, lax or on the other hand too strong. In practicing the routine, one's form may appear hollow or angular. As such one can only feel the internal energy but is not able to channel the energy to every part of the body in one go. Consequently, one is not able to harness the force or jin right from the heels, channel it up the legs, and discharge it through command at the waist. On the contrary , the beginners can only produce broken force that 'surge' from one section to another section of the body. Therefore the first level kung fu is insufficient for martial application purposes. If one were to test one's skill on someone who does not know martial arts, to a certain extent they can remain flexible. They may not have mastered the application but by knowing how to mislead his opponent the student may occasionally be able to throw off his opponent. Even then, he may be unable to maintain his own balance. Such a situation is thus termed "the 10% yin and 90% yang; top heavy staff". What then exactly is yin and yang? In the context of practising taijiquan, emptiness is Yin, solidity is yang; gentleness or softness is yin, forcefulness or hardness is yang. Yin and yang is the unity of the opposites; either one cannot be left out; yet both can be mutually interchanged and transformed. If we assign a maximum of 100% to measure them, when one in his practice can attain an equal balance of yin and yang, he is said to have achieved 50% yin and 50% yang. This is the highest standard or an indication of success in practicing taijiquan. In the first level of skill in kung fu, it is normal for one to end up with '10% yin and 90% yang'. That is, one's quan or boxing is more hard than soft and there is imbalance in yin and yang. The learner is not able to complement hard with soft and to command the applications with ease. As such, while still at the first level, learners should not be too eager to pursue the application aspect in each posture.

2. The Second Level of Kung Fu

The level starting from the last stage of the first level when one can feel the movement of internal energy or qi to the early stage of the third level of kung fu is termed as the second level of kung fu. The second level of kung fu involves further reducing shortcomings such as: stiff force/jin produced while practising taijiquan; over- and under-exertion of force as well as movements which are not well coordinated. This is to ensure that the internal energy/qi will move systematically in the body in accordance with the requirements of each movement. Eventually, this should result in smooth flowing of qi in the body and good coordination of internal qi with external movements.

After acquiring the first level of kung fu, one should be able to practise with ease according to the preliminary requirements of the movements. The student is able to feel the movement of internal energy. However, the student may not be able to control the flow of qi in the body. There are two reasons for this: firstly, the student has not mastered accurately the specific requirements on each part of the body and their coordination. As an example, if the chest is relaxed downward too much, the waist and back may not be straight, or if the waist is too relaxed then the chest and rear may protrude. As such, one must further strictly ensure that the requirements on each part of the body should be resolved so that they move in unison. This will enable the whole body to close or unite in a coordinated manner (which means coordinated internal and external closing/union. Internal closing implies coordinated union of heart and mind, of internal energy and force, tendons and bones. External closing/union of movements implies coordinated closing of hands with legs, elbows with knees, shoulders with hips). Simultaneously, there should be an equal and opposite closing movement of another part of the body and vice versa. Opening and closing movements come together and complement each other. Secondly, while practising one may find it hard to control different parts of the body all at once. This means one part of the body may move faster than the rest and result in over-exertion of force; or a certain part may move too slowly or without enough force, thus resulting in a under-exertion of force. These two phenomena both contradict the principle of taijiquan. Every movement in Chen style taijiquan is required not to deviate from the principle of the 'spiralling silk force' or chan-si jin. According to the Theory of Taijiquan, 'the chan-si-jin originates from the kidneys and at all times is found in every part of the body'. In the process of learning taijiquan, the spiralling-silk method of movement (ie. the twining and spiralling method of movement) and the spiralling-silk force (ie. the inner force produced from the spiralling-silk method of movement), can be strictly mastered through relaxing shoulders and elbows, chest and waist as well as crotch and knees and using the waist as a pivot to move every part of the body. Starting with rotating the hands anti-clockwise, the hands should lead the elbows which in turn leads the shoulders which then guide the waist (the part of the waist corresponding to that side of the should that is being moved. In actual fact the waist is still the pivot). On the other hand, if the hands rotate in a clockwise direction, the waist should move the shoulders, the shoulders move the elbows, the elbows in turn move the hands. For the upper half of the body, the wrists and arms should appear to be gyrating; whereas for the lower portion of the body the ankle and the thigh should appear to be rotating; as for the trunk, the waist and the back should appear to be turning. Combining the movements of the three parts of the body we should visualise a curve rotating in space. This curve originates from the legs, with the centre at the waist and ends at the fingers. In practising the quan, (or the form), if one feels awkward with a particular movement, one can adjust one's waist and thigh according to the sequence of flow of the chan-si-jin to achieve coordination. In this way, any error can be corrected. Therefore, while paying attention to the requirement on each part of the body to achieve total co-ordination of the whole body, the mastering of the rhythm of movement of the spiralling-silk method and spiralling silk force is a way of resolving conflicts and self-correction for any mistake in practising taijiquan after attaining the second level of kung fu.

In the first level of kung fu, one begins with learning the forms, and when one is familiar with the forms, the student can feel the movement of internal energy in the body. The student may well be very excited and thus never feel tired or bored. However, in entering the second level of kung fu, the student may feel there is nothing new to learn and at the same time misunderstand certain important points. The student may not have mastered these main points accurately and thus find that their movements are awkward. Or, on the other hand, the student may find that he or she can practise the quan smoothly and express force with much vigour but cannot apply them while doing push-hands. Because of this, one may soon feel bored, lose confidence and may give up altogether. The only way to reach the stage where one can: produce the right amount of force, not too hard and not too soft; can change actions at will; and can turn smoothly with ease, is to be persistent and strictly adhere to principles. One has to train hard in the form so that the body movements are well co-ordinated, and with 'one single movement can activate movements in every part of the body, thus establishing a complete system of movements. There is a common saying, 'if the principle is not clearly understood, consult a teacher; if the way is not clearly visible, seek the help of friends'. When the principles as well as the methods are clearly understood, with constant practice, success will prevail eventually. The Taijiquan Classics state that, 'everybody can possess the ultimate, if only one works hard.' And 'if only one persists, ultimately one should achieve sudden break through'. Generally, most people can attain the second level of kung fu in about four years. When one reaches the state of being able to experience a smooth flow of qi in the body, one would suddenly understand it (the command of qi) all. When this happens, one would be full of confidence and enthusiasm as one goes on practising. One may even have the strong urge to go on and on and wouldn't feel like stopping!

At the beginning of the second level kung fu the martial art skill attained is about the same as in the first level kung fu. It is not sufficient for actual application. At the end of the second level kung fu one is nearing attaining the third level kung fu, as such the martial skill acquired may be applicable to a certain extent.

The next section introduces the martial skill that should be attainable half-way through the second level kung fu (so are the third, fourth and fifth levels of kung fu in the subsequent sections. They are discussed with reference to the skill attainable in the half-way stage in each level.) Push-hands and practising taijiquan are inseparable. Whatever shortcomings one has in his quan form will show up as weaknesses during push-hands and thus giving the opponent an opportunity to take advantage of them. Because of this, in practising taijiquan every part of one's body must be well coordinated with the rest, there shouldn't be any unnecessary movement. Push-hands requires warding-off, grabbing, squeezing and pressing to be carried out so precisely, so that the upper and lower bodies move in co-ordination and it is thus difficult for opponents to attack[. As the saying goes: 'No matter how great is the force on me, I should mobilise four ounces of strength to deflect one thousand pounds of force'. The second level of kung fu aims at achieving smooth flowing of qi in the body by correcting the postures so as to reach the stage when qi should penetrate the whole body passing through every joint as if it (qi) is sequentially linked. However, the process of adjusting the postures involves making unnecessary or unco-ordinated movements. Therefore, at this stage, one is unable to apply the martial skill at will during push-hands. The opponent will concentrate on looking for these weaknesses or he or she may win by surprising one into committing all the errors like over-exerting, collapsing, throwing-off and confronting of force. During push-hands, the opponent's advance will not allow one to have time to adjust one's movements. The opponent will make use of one's weak point to attack so that one will lose balance or will be forced to step back to ward off the advancing force. Nevertheless, if the opponent advances with less force and in a slower manner, there may be time or opportunity to make adjustments and one may be able to ward off the attack in a more satisfactory manner. Drawing from the above discussion, for the second level kung fu, whether one is attacking or blocking-off an attack, much effort is needed. Very often, it will be an advantage to make the first move, the one who moves last will be at an disadvantage. At this level, one is unable to 'forget' oneself but 'play along with' the opponent (ie. not to attack but to yield to the opponent's movement); unable to grasp an opportunity to respond to change. One may be able to move and ward off an attack but may easily commit errors like throwing-off or collapsing and over-exerting or confronting [the?] force. Because of these, during push-hands, one cannot move according to the sequence of warding-off, grabbing, pressing and pushing down. A person with this level of skill is described as '20% yin, 80% yang: an undisciplined new hand.'

3. The Third Level Kung Fu

'If you wish to do well in your quan (or form), you must practice to make your circle smaller.' The steps in practising Chen-style taijiquan involve progressing from mastering big circle to medium circle and from medium circle to small circle. The word 'circle' here does not mean the path/trail resulting from movements of the limbs but rather the smooth flowing of the internal energy of qi. In this respect, the third level kung fu is a stage in which one shall begin with big circle and end with medium circle (in the circulation of qi).

The Tiajiquan Classic mentioned that 'yi and qi are more superior than the forms' meaning that while practising taijiquan one should place emphasis on using yi (consciousness). In the first level of kung fu, one's mind and concentration are mainly on learning and mastering of the external forms of taijiquan. While in the second level of kung fu, one should concentrate on detecting conflicts/unco-ordination of limbs and body and of internal and external movements. One should adjust body and forms to ensure a smooth flow of the internal energy. When progressing into the third level kung fu, one should already have the internal energy flowing smoothly: what is required is yi and not brute force. The movements should be light but not 'floating', heavy but not clumsy. This implies that the movements should appear to be soft but the internal force is actually strong/sturdy, or there is strong force implied in the soft movements, and the whole body should be well-coordinated and there should not be any irregular movements. However, one should not just pay attention to the movement of qi in the body and neglect the external actions. Otherwise, one would appear to be in a daze and as a result, the flow of internal qi may not only be obstructed but may be dispersed. Therefore, as stated in the Taijiquan Classics, 'attention should be on the spirit and not just qi, with too much emphasis on qi there will be stagnation (of qi)'.

One may have mastered the external forms between the first and second level kung fu, but he may not have attained co-ordination of the external with internal movements. Sometimes, due to stiffness or stagnation of the actions, full breathing-in is not possible. On the other hand, without proper co-ordination of the internal and external movements, it is not possible to empty one's breath completely. Thus, when practising quan one should breath[e] naturally. After entering into the third level kung fu, there is better co-ordination of internal and external movements. As such generally the actions can be synchronized with breathing quite precisely. However, it is necessary to consciously synchronize breathing with movements for some finer, more complicated and swifter actions. This is to further ensure co-ordination of breathing and actions so that it gradually comes on naturally.

The third level of kung fu basically involves mastering the internal and external requirements of Chen-style taijiquan and rhythm of exercise as well as the ability to correct oneself. One should also be able to command the actions with more ease and should also ha[ve] more internal energy (qi). At this level, it is necessary to further understand the combat skill implicit in each quan form and its application. For this, one has to practise push-hands, check on the forms, the quality and quantity of the internal force and expression of the force as well as dissolving of force. If one's quan form can withstand confrontational push-hands then one must have mastered the important points of the form. He would gain more confidence if he continues to work hard. He may then step up his exercise routine and add in some complementary practice like practising with the long staff, sword or broad sword; spear and pole as well as practising fa jin i.e. expression of explosive force on its own. With two years continuous practise in this manner, generally one should be able to attain the fourth level of kung fu.

With the third level of kung fu, although there is smooth flow of internal qi and the actions are better coordinated, but the internal qi is weaker and the coordination between muscle movements and the functioning of the internal organs is not sufficiently established. While practising alone without external disturbances, one may be able to achieve internal and external coordination. During confrontational push-hand[s] and combat, if the advancing force is softer and slower, one may be able to go along with the attacker and change one's actions accordingly; grab any opportunity to lead the opponent into a disadvantageous situation[; or] avoid the opponent's firm move but attack when there is any weakness, manoeuvring with ease. However, once encountering a stronger opponent, the student may feel that his peng jin, i.e. blocking force, is insufficient, and there is a feeling that one's form is being pressed and about to collapse (this may destroy the unfailing position which is supposed to be never-leaning and never-declining but with all round support), and cannot manoeuvre at will. The student may not achieve what the Taijiquan Classics describe as 'striking with the hands without them being seen, once they are visible, it is impossible to manipulate'. Even in leading-in and expelling-out the opponent, one [may] feel stiff and much effort is required. As such the skill at this stage is described as '30% yin, 70% yang, still on the hard side.'

4. The Fourth Level Kung Fu

Progressing from the stage with medium circle to that with small circle is required of the fourth level kung fu. This is the stage nearing success and thus is of high level of kung fu. One should have mastered the effective method of training, be able to grasp the important points in the movements; be able to understand the martial/combat skill implicit in each movement; to have smooth flow of the internal energy or qi; and the co-ordination of actions with breathing. However, during practice, each step and each movement of hands should be carried out with a confronting opponent in mind, that is to say, one has to assume that he is surrounded by enemies. For each posture and each form, each part of the body must move in a linked and continuous manner so that the whole body moves in unison. 'Movements of the upper and lower body are related and there should be a continuous flow of qi with the control being at the waist.' So that when practising quan, one should carry it out 'as if there is an opponent although no-one is around'. When actually confronted, one should be brave but cautious, behaving 'as if there is no-one around though there is someone there.'

The training content (like quan and weapons) is similar to that in third level of kung fu. With perseverance, generally the fifth level kung fu can be reached in three years. In terms of martial skill the fourth level differs much from the third level kung fu. The third level kung fu aims at dissolving the opponent's force and to get[ting] rid of conflicts in one's own actions. This is to enable oneself to play the active role and forcing the opponent to be passive. The fourth level kung fu enables one to dissolve as well as express force. This is because at that level, one would have sufficient internal jin, flexible change in yi and qi and a consolidated system of the body movements. As such, during push-hands, the opponent's attack does not pose a big threat. On contact with the opponent, one can immediately change one's action and thus disolve the on-coming force with ease, exhibiting the special characteristics of going along with the movements of the opponent but yet changing one's own actions all the time to counteract the opponent's action, exerting the right force, adjusting internally, predicting the opponent's intention, subduing one's own actions, expressing precise force and hitting the target accurately. Therefore, a person attaining this level of kung fu is described as '40% yin, 60% yang; akin to a good practitioner.'

5. The Fifth Level Kung Fu

The fifth level kung fu is the stage in which one moves from commanding small circle to commanding invisible circle, from mastering the form to executing the form invisibly. According to the Taijiquan Classics, 'with the continuous smooth flowing of qi, with the cosmic qi moving one's natural internal qi, moving from a fixed form to invisibility, one realises how wonderful nature is.' At the fifth level, the actions should be flexible and smooth, and there should be sufficient internal jin. However, it is still necessary to strive for the best. There is the need to work hard day by day until the body is very flexible and adaptable to multi-faceted changes. There should be changes internally alternating between the substantial and insubstantial but these should be invisible externally. Only until then that the fifth level kung fu is achieved.

As regarding the martial skill, at this level the gang (hard) should complement the rou (soft), it (the form) should be relaxed, dynamic, springy and lively. Every move and every motionless instant is in accordance with taiji principle, as are the movements of the whole body. This means that every part of the body should be very sensitive and quick to react when the need arises. So much so that every part of the body can act as a fist to attack whenever is in contact with the opponent's body. There should also be constant interchange between expressing and conserving of force and the stance should be firm as though supported from all sides.

Therefore the description for this level of kung fu is that it is the 'only one that plays with 50% yin and 50% yang, without any bias towards yin or yang, and the person who can do this is termed a good master. A good master makes every move according to the taiji principles which demands that every move be invisible.'

After completing the fifth level kung fu a strong relationship has been established between the co-ordination of the mind, contraction and relaxation of the muscles, movements of the muscles and functioning of the internal organs. Even when encountering a sudden attack such co-ordination will not be hampered as one should be flexible to change. Even then, one should continue to pursue further so as to achieve greater heights.

Development in science is beyond boundary, so is practising taijiquan: one could never exhaust all its beauty and benefits in one's life time.

Oregon Rose Bowl Armor

2011-12-29T15:44:00.002+08:00

I just saw some pictures of the University of Oregon's new uniforms from Nike on the web today, and I experienced that visceral thrill that many of us boys probably experienced playing with knights, reading books about the Knights of the Round Table and then playing role playing games on the computer as I became older. There must be something archetypal about the need for armor to be decorative as well as functional as well as the yearning in most boys to wear uniform. However unlike Freud I do not think that its all driven by the need to impress the opposite sex, there is probably a strong dose of signalling of status and domination involved in it also, but I digress.

For the medieval armors it has been those of Germany and Italy that were the most famous and ornate. But of course the Japanese have more than their fair share of innovation and sheer craziness. (And if you want to buy a functional wearable set you can buy one here). It has always been a bit of a mystery to me, and I have never been able to find a satisfactory explanation as to why the Chinese have never been able to develop a beautiful set of armor, despite their ability to make war as well as anyone else. Perhaps it has been due to the fact that the role of the warrior has never been truly respected within Chinese society and there has never been a true military government in China, along the lines of Japan. The armor of the Manchus and the Qing Dynasty was often made of dingjia plates, a form of brigandine. It consisted of rectangular plates of metal, riveted between layers of material. This has been sometimes used as showcase for Chinese armor but I never liked it, likening it more to a tent.

From Martial Art to Nursing Homes

2011-12-28T10:06:00.012+08:00

I am very happy to introduce a piece by my first guest blogger - Allison Brooks - She currently lives in Florida, but just graduated from University of Mississippi, with a degree in biomedical anthropology. She uses her degree to study the effects of biomedicalization on Bolivian cultures in hope to finish her ethnography. If you are interested in finding out more on this fascinating topic, you can contact her at

naturallie23@gmail.com

How Tai Chi is reversing depression in the elderly

Tai Chi is an ancient martial art that is focused on manipulating one’s chi through a series of controlled movements and breathing routines. The Chi, or energy of the body is the foundation for many Chinese traditional healing arts and is need to be in balance to support a healthy lifestyle and mood. Today the concept of a balanced chi and this non-invasive therapy are being used by nursing home residents to alleviate symptoms of depression.

Depression is the last thing a person thinks about when picturing retirement. No more 8-5 shifts and beach scenes are the first to come to mind, but now suicide and depression rates a sky-rocketing. About 50 percent of nursing home residents are seriously depressed and the suicide rate in men that are 85 or older is six times that national average. That is why Tai Chi is being offered as a complementary therapy to standard treatments.

Researchers at UCLA have literally found a way to “combat” depression. The results of extensive, recent studies have proved that Tai Chi helps reduce depression of the elderly, while strengthening their bodies. A four-month long study observed two control groups to compare the difference in standard and integrative treatment. At first, the group only used the standard depression pill to treat symptoms. After four weeks, the group was divided into two; one sticking to the pill and the other combining the standard regimen with Tai Chi. For three months the second group attended Tai Chi classes for two hours a week.

Once the study was completed, the depression levels were recorded using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and then compared to each other. It was seen that Tai Chi participants improved their depression scores, quality of life, energy, and memory and balance. To be exact 94 percent of them had a score of less than 10 (which is the highest amount) and 65 percent achieving remission.

Though this news is a great win for depression patients, it is not the first time Tai Chi has been used to assist in healing. Many doctors have seen the benefits of Tai Chi and have recommended its use for cancer patients, especially ones with an unfavorable cancer diagnosis, like a non-hodgkin’s lymphoma or mesothelioma prognosis. And now with this new information, the advantages of this martial art are once again validated.

Winter Solstice 2011 - 冬至

2011-12-21T15:11:00.010+08:00

It is hard to believe that another year has passed for this blog, and it is now my favorite time of the year. The above is a picture of the Winter Solstice Tree upon which the Christmas tree traditions were based.

In earlier dynasties, the new year used to be celebrated in China at the time of the winter solstice and it was the time when the longest night of the year had past and after which the days began to become longer. In the Yijing, the winter solstice is represented by the 復卦 which has one yang line at the bottom and five yin lines on the top, which represents the time of the deepest yin energy having passed and the stirring of the life energy within the depths of winter.

Traditionally this is a very powerful time for deep meditative practice as the Taoists believe one can achieve a deep stillness during this period and harness the nascent yang energy to nourish the yang energy within oneself and a strong practice during this period can lay the foundations for good health during the year. It is a good time to commit to hundred day ascetic practice which is what I am hoping to do this year. I have been taught macroscopic meditation by my Sifu but I have not been able to able to persist beyond 6 weeks. It is not a good time for too much sexual activity as this is believed to damage the emerging yang energy within your body.

In previous years I have touched upon Chinese customs for the Winter Solstice but there are corresponding customs in Japan and Korea as well. The one I like most is the Yuzu hot bath. The whole fruits are floated in the hot water of the bath (sometimes enclosed in a cloth bag), releasing their aroma. The fruit may also be cut in half, allowing the citrus juice to mingle with the bathwater. The 'yuzuyu,' or yuzu bath, is said to guard against colds, improve circulation, warm the body, and relax the mind. It is also helpful for cold based diseases in a TCM sense, the nervous system and back pain. Studies in Japan have shown that after the a Yuzu bath, the amount of noradrenaline / norepinephrine is increased by four times, and this chemical is involved in the dilation of blood vessels. The citric acid and vitamin C of the yuzu is also good for the skin.

The Iceman

2011-12-20T11:29:00.009+08:00

Another post here on superhuman feats using the mind. For most people, hypothermia begins shortly after exposure to freezing temperatures without adequate clothing, and it can quickly lead to death once the body's core temperature falls below 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees C)

Wim Hof has remained in a tank of ice for almost two hours in Hong Kong (although I did not have a chance to see it) and was able to overcome the normal human reaction to immersion in freezing slush: gasping for air, shivering uncontrollably, and getting back out again as soon as possible. Dr. Anders Cohen, chief of neurosurgery at Brooklyn Hospital Center, who had never heard of Hof, said he wasn't surprised at Hof's ability to influence his body temperature, given the growing body of evidence that Tibetan monks who practice "Tummo" meditation have similar abilities.

Hof says he can endure cold so well because he has learned to activate parts of his mind beyond the reach of most people's conscious control, and crank up what he calls his "inner thermostat."describes what he does as a kind of internal conversation, in which his mind and body send each other signals. During the Hong Kong stunt, he said he mentally directed warmth toward a specific part of his lower back when he sensed it was feeling too cold and starting to hurt.

"I never had a teacher, and I never had lessons, other than hard Nature itself," he says in an interview at his apartment in Amsterdam.

"If you do it wrong, it hurts and you take some knocks, and if you do it right, then you really learn."

Read the article here

You can also purchase his book here on how to become the iceman.

There have also been some studies stating that whole-body cryotherapy in extreme temperatures repairs athletes' damaged muscles much faster than radiation or rest.

Cold Can Help Runners Recover From Exercise

Body Hair and Ting Jin

2011-12-19T15:30:00.012+08:00

There was an interesting article in the Economist last week, which talked about body hair. Body has been thought to be an evolutionary relic, much like the appendix or tonsils, but the puzzling thing is that human beings are not really hairless at all. Per centimeter, human beings have as many hair follicles as the other great apes. The difference is not in the number, but in the fineness of the hair that grows from those follicles. These fine human hairs do not seem to be performing any of the functions of their counterparts in more hirsute species (insulation and, through colouration, either signalling or camouflage).

Isabelle Dean and Michael Siva-Jothy of Sheffield University, in a paper in Biology Letters have concluded that humans have fine body hair to serve as an alarm system. Ms Dean and Dr Siva-Jothy were testing the idea that fine body hairs (known, technically, as vellus and terminal hairs) are there to alert their owner to creepy crawlies such as bed bugs, which might be intent on biting them, and that the hair may also get in the way of such arthropods’ activities, giving the owner more time to react before he is bitten. They found this to indeed be the case, where student volunteers took significantly longer to detect bugs placed on shaved patches of skin than on those with hair. Unshaven men were also better at detection than unshaven women due to the thickness of the hair, but are bed bugs have evolved to target areas with relatively less hair so they get bitten about the same amount.

When I read this article I immediately thought of the phrase by Wang Xiang Zhai that in Yiquan the hairs should stand up like halberds 毛髪如戟, in order to be able to detect the opponent's movement (usually applied to push hands). Given the various almost superhuman feats that we seem to be able to train the mind to do, it does not surprise me that with sufficient training, the ability to "hear" through our hair follicles may be a skill that can be cultivated to a high degree. Cats use their whiskers to balance and detect movement and it is through the vibration of very fine hairs in our ears that we really do hear sounds.

In Chinese medicine it is the lungs that nourish the hair on the head and on the body and also governs the Qi, especially the wei Qi (protective Qi) that surrounds the body. It is usually the considered the wei Qi that is involved in sensing danger and preventing illnesses from entering the body.

The Not So Naked Ape

As an aside, the picture above was from a site showing how to edit out body hair from photos using photoshop. It is an interesting cultural phenomenon, the obsession with hairlessness, which is beyond the scope of this blog.

意拳匯宗

2011-12-19T09:40:00.003+08:00

The first edition of this book, an anthology of Yiquan writings put together by the Hong Kong Yiquan Association, has been in print for over 16 years. This new edition has priceless new pictures of Wang Xiang Zhai as well as a facimilie copy of the original copy of "The Proper Path of Yiquan". For "The Central Pillar of the Boxing Method", the version used has been changed to Master Wang Yu Fang's personal copy of her father's hand written notes. For "The Key Points of Yiquan" the book has used Master He Jing Ping own notes from "Notes from Master Wang's Daily Teachings". For "The New Edition of the Study of Boxing", we have used Yang Shao Gen's own personal copy.

New additions include in the first section, Wang Xiang Zhai's "A treatise on the interplay between hard and soft in Boxing" as well as the "The important points from Yiquan breaking hands" and "A Manual of Dachengquan" which are both attributed to Master Wang. In the second section, "When Discussing Shi Li" has been added to Han Si Huang's, "Lan Shan Collection", thus making it complete. 　

《意拳匯綜》出版瞬逾十六載，此次重版，正名為《意拳匯宗》。書中加插了若干前輩的珍貴照片。〈意拳正軌〉附影原書版本。〈拳道中樞〉改用王玉芳女士原藏薌齋先生手稿。《意拳要點》採用何鏡平先生筆錄的〈薌師日語隨筆〉。〈拳學新編〉選用楊紹庚先生藏本。

新增文章上卷有薌齋先生著〈拳之剛柔相濟論〉。並附錄(傳)王薌齋著〈意拳斷手述要〉、〈大成拳譜〉。下卷韓嗣煌先生著的《闌珊集》增加了〈論試力〉一文，使其更為完整。

本書再三校勘，凡是對拳理有障礙的文字，都仔細推敲力求完善。是學習、研究意拳(大成拳)者的必備良書。
香港意拳學會同人謹以本書重版，向王薌齋先生誕生一百二十五週年致敬。

My Sifu is one of the co-editors of the book and it is being reissued in time for for Wang Xiang Zhai's 125 birthday and is a must for all students of Yiquan (Dachengquan).

Cosmos Books

Dirty Ankles

2011-12-16T11:35:00.010+08:00

I occasionally come across some interesting pictures on the web and paste them here to share with my readers, usually related to dance or movement or martial arts. I came across this when searching for a picture of an ankle for my last post. This one is called Dirty Ankles by Ben Heys, an Australian Photographer who runs a site called Ben Heys Photography and a more explicit site of nudes called Art of Imagery. Warning - this site contains some material that may offend.

But I particularly like the composition of the picture and is somewhat related to the content of this site - boxing, hard training, Asian martial arts. To get the full effect, you can click on it for a larger version.

The model Tessa, is not Chinese or Japanese, but Vietnamese who grew up in Australia. Anyhow some pictures just draw you in and this one was one I especially thought was worth sharing.

Balance Exercises

2011-12-15T09:42:00.009+08:00

Recently, I have been doing some balance exercises on the foam roller for my ankles, as a weak left ankle has led to muscles in my left hip gripping, and slightly twisting the pelvis. This has led to one leg being slightly longer than the other, which has put pressure on my lower back, ultimately contributing to my back weakness and imbalance. That is probably why my back finally gave out earlier this year. Now this injury can be traced back to a snowboarding injury where I severely sprained my ankle one year and it blew up like a balloon because I was stupid enough to go sit in the hot spring immediately afterwards in Hokkaido. It does remind me of the children's nursery rhyme, for want of a nail...

But it also illustrates one point that I have learned through this healing process, that your body is a biography of all the trauma that you have experienced in your life and possesses a wonderful mechanism of adaptation and regeneration of the tissues. Problems tend to happen when this capacity for self healing is exceeded by the sum of all the physical, emotional and nervous tensions that we have accumulated, then pain begins to appear. Each individual is unique and carries different injuries/emotions that they have experienced through life. As a result of our internal/external environment and experiences, we will have adopted a posture that reflects the health of our body, mind and spirit.

Posture is a great indicator of what is happening in our body. Our posture reflects old injuries, movement habits and even emotions and attitudes (sprained ankle, the way we carry a heavy bag, feeling depressed) – as we accumulate injuries and habits of movement, our posture becomes increasingly modified. And in order to heal, we may need to address these old injuries and bring them up the surface. Thus throughout this healing process I have sometimes felt much worse than before, or experience what seems to be a regression, as we remove the compensating factors, old issues bubble rise to the surface to be addressed.

Basically I stand on the foam roller as shown above with the curved side on the bottom with feet hip width apart and try to balance, trying not to fall too far forwards or backwards. By forcing the ankles to work I can feel my hip muscles / abductors releasing, and the pelvis straightening.

From a martial arts perspective this is great training for balance. In the beginning I could only balance for a few seconds but I want to work up to 15 mins. For those of you old enough to remember, there were great scenes in the original Karate kid where Ralph Macchio is training on a boat in the lake. Also this exercise is a great way for locating your dantian, which is the body's center of gravity, and is a good method to train it by using to initiate the movement to rock your pelvis backwards and forwards while maintaining your balance. I can feel my dantian generating internal heat as I do this. As you become more advanced, you can rotate your hips in a clockwise and anticlockwise motion. It is also great training for zhan zhuang as you learn to sink your weight into your feet and maintain your balance on an unstable surface.

My daughter is an avid figure skater, and sometimes I get on the ice with her and when I get off the ice my feet always feel if they are heavy and glued to the ground, which I what I believe that this training can also provide. Should also help to burn fat if the recent fad for exercising on vibrating plates is to be believed.

Music and Calligraphy

2011-12-13T12:06:00.005+08:00

Given the recent total lunar eclipse on Saturday, I though that this would be a good time to introduce 李斌權 - a relatively well known calligrapher in China whose speciality is the combination of writing calligraphy to Chinese music. He became well known internationally after performing in the Vienna Palace in July of this year. Here is a sample of his performance to the music of 水調歌頭　by the Sung Dynasty Poet　蘇軾 Su Shi (明月幾時有). This poem was also famously sang by Teresa Teng and Wang Fei set to a pop ballad rather than the version here.

On Lineage

2011-12-11T13:28:00.016+08:00

While in Pilates yesterday, my therapist Mabel noted that I seemed to place an inordinate amount of emphasis on lineage, as she reads my blog. This is probably because this approach seems almost diametrically opposed to her approach to Pilates, where she uses her Pilates as a base, but is continuously attending different bodywork workshops in order to enhance her understanding and is quite willing to try different methods from different therapies, discarding some parts and adding new methods to her arsenal to bring healing.

The art of healing and the martial arts do have much in common, in that in the final analysis they are an accumulation of methods to resolve a basic problem - the restoration of the patient to health in the case of medicine or the resolution of a conflict situation in the case of martial arts. In the modern world with the primacy of science, we tend to forget that these problems can be resolved in a variety of ways. For instance, there is a tendacy to see the latest technologically advanced treatment or weapon as the "best solution".

However if we view both these arts as "arts" or as a kind of craft, then the situation is not so simple. There are potentially multiple solutions, with varying degrees of beauty and elegance. It may be easiest to shoot the attacker dead, or to amputate a diseased limb but the outcome would be suboptimal. (This attitude is also found in science also, where a mathematical theorem is prized for its elegance or as is coding in software).

If we approach martial arts from this angle, then a school or lineage can be conceived as a body of knowledge that allows you to resolve these problems in a functional and elegant way. But it is more than a tool box, it is a system that allows you to utilize and combine techniques in ways with more efficacy than the individual methods themselves, allowing you to extrapolate to new situations and events based upon fundamental principles of the school. That is why we study a certain school and approach, be it pilates vs feldenkrais or tai chi vs Shaolin. Gao Yisheng described his system as a Chinese medicine cabinet where you mix the herbs to give the right prescription.

Given that these techniques need to be gained through practice and internalized, by necessity, a system cannot be codified and written down in its entirety. Some methods can only be shown and perhaps certain tips can only be transmitted orally, at the right instant. The mark of a good teacher is knowing how to make a small adjustment or saying the right thing at the right time. In Zen teaching the right comment may even cause satori or enlightenment! As there are no boards or external bodies policing quality from many of these schools, lineage is a stand in for quality. Even though a practitioner may have practiced for 20 years, a great deal of time may have been spent going down the wrong path, whereas a few weeks intensive practice with a gifted teacher may lead to rapid improvements in power and efficacy without having to reinvent the wheel.

The learning process takes a very long period of time, and if we believe that a traditional system is ultimately more elegant and effective than a basic system like Sanda or MMA, then a teacher who has understood the higher level teachings is important to impart and pass on those higher level teachings, which may have been an accumulation of many generations of experience.

From my own perspective, certain of these schools are cultural repositories of an earlier age, and may preserve certain ways of training or moving the body which are in danger of being lost before science can ascertain the true benefits. We seem to have no problem spending vast sums of money to preserve opera or Noh but no one seems to want to spend great sums to preserve traditional martial arts. Thus it is important to follow a lineage teacher so the teachings and movements are preserved as close to the original form as possible. That is why I am so concerned to learn the whole system of Baguazhang from my teacher as there does not seem to be any other students from this generation who are willing to put in the work to do this.I do not worry so much for Aikido as there seem to be enough students around the world trying to preserve the tradition and a small minority who are actively trying to rediscover the basis of Osensei's Aikido.

Having said this it is also important to highlight the Japanese concepts of Shu 守 Ha 破 and Ri 離. In order to ensure that these schools remain living traditions they also need to continue to evolve. But one has to have a strong enough foundation into the school before one can be in a position to be creative and adopt new techniques and create new methods in the school, while maintaining the core principles and essence of the school. And perhaps this the position that Mabel has reached, with enough of a basis in her art that she can see what is useful or not in other schools.

The Real Lululemon

2011-12-08T14:32:00.011+08:00

For those of you who practice yoga, you would have probably come across the brand Lululemon, which makes high end yoga, sports and outdoor wear and which has become somewhat of a fashion sensation. Full disclosure, I also like to use their yoga pants for men (I have bought 5 pairs over the years) which fit well, yet wick away moisture, and had been following their stock with a passing interest as the stock had done pretty well last year. I had come across Lululemon in the news recently, with its latest campaign, putting "Who is John Galt?" on its shopping bags. For those who do not know, John Galt is the main protagonist from Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged, which has also recently been made into a movie. This raised several eyebrows as followers of Rand’s free market philosophy, which promotes the idea of individuals living for their self-interest and dismisses altruism, sometimes use the question to signal their allegiance. This seemed to be quite at odds with the stated philosophy of the company and that of yoga in general.

Lululemon combines Ayn Rand and Yoga

However, there was another article in the Huffington post recently detailing some of what goes on behind the scenes in the company and the details were quite eyeopening. It talks about

Its highly competitive and cultish corporate culture
Its exploitative advertising and marketing policies
Its reliance on child labor and sweat shops in China
Its fake Vita sea seaweed bags which contained no seaweed
Secret messages in its bags which extolled getting high and multiple orgasms
Its type-A personality yoga ambassadors

Rather than summarizing it is probably better to read the article here. On the other hand there are certain people who have really enjoyed their time working at Lululemon and found highly fulfilling to work there, so the truth may be somewhere in between.

BTW They even have a pair of what they call Kung fu pants...

Dragon Stretches its Claws - 青龍探爪

2011-12-07T16:36:00.000+08:00

The Second Edition of my Sifu CS Tang's Book "Dragon Stretches its Claws" is now on sale. The book has been out of print for some time and due to overwhelming requests, we have put out a new edition with grammar and typos corrected by yours truly. You can buy the book at my Sifu's website and it provides the only detailed introduction to Liu Jing Ru 劉敬儒's Baguazhang system in English.

You can contact my Sifu directly to purchase the book and please check out his e-store.

CS Tang

道高一尺，魔高一丈

2011-12-07T10:31:00.000+08:00

This week's classical Chinese phrase from my grandfather is [as virtue rises one foot,vice rises ten;the good is strong,but the evil is ten times stronger]. Originally this is a phrase from Buddhism as regards the practice adhering to the Vinaya rules. As one's practice deepens, new challenges arise to test you and the practice becomes harder as we start working upon our deepest attachments.

The phrase originally came from the famous novel "The Journey to the West" by Ming Novelist Wu Chen En :
明·吳承恩《西遊記》第五十回：“道高一尺魔高丈，性亂情昏錯認家。可恨法身無坐位，當時行動念頭差。”

In modern day this has come also to refer to the greater the success, the more challenges arise, and this could be in business or in risk management or security, where we have to be extra vigilant to keep ahead of the latest viruses or hackers. From a psychological perspective, this also requires that we deal with the dark sides of our psyche or the "shadow". For if these issues are not addressed and repressed they have a way of coming out and unconsciously in our behavior (witness the behavior or some of the Catholic Priests in the recent scandals engulfing the Church or Martin Luther King's womanizing or Gandhi's sleeping naked with young girls). For each impulse creates an equal an opposite reaction.

When I first started studying meditation, the instructor stated that one of the strengths of meditation is that it allows us to manage and channel the kundalini / Qi / sexual energy that arises through the various practices be it Qigong, martial arts or yoga or even intensive exercise without driving us to act on those impulses. Although Eastern monks faced many of the same temptations of the Catholic priests they were able to deal with these energies more sucessfully, other than through psychological repression and cold showers. The Greek Orthodox church has retained of these meditative practices, hence the Greek church has not faced scandals on such a scale.

Besides meditation, it is also important to deal with these negative energies symbolically and emotionally. For example, when we watch an action movie with a lot of violence, this is a way of symbolically releasing and dealing with the energies and propensities within us. A better way to do this is through ritual and both the Tibetan tradition and some of the traditional Catholic rites contain quite violent images such as death and skulls in order for us to sublimate these forces in a healthy way.

In some ways there is no final enlightenment when we are in this body, and the forces of Mara continued to assault the Gotama Buddha throughout his life, but he was able to make peace with these forces.

"Though a hundred thousand rogues just like you might come here, I stir not a hair, I feel no terror; even alone, Mara, I don't fear you. I am freed from all bondage, therefore I don't fear you, friend."

[Sculpture by UK Artist Rook Floro]

Ōmori Sōgen - 大森曹玄

2011-12-05T10:59:00.000+08:00

As a student of Buddhism and the martial arts, one of the key contradictions arises for me, when we consider the close connection between Buddhism and the arts of war. Since its founding, Buddhism has been a profoundly moral religion with no more important precept than the abstention from taking life. In the Mahayana tradition, the Brahamajala sutra teaches that those who take the path of a Boddhisatva should not participate in war. This sutra forbids detention of anyone, or storing of weapons of any kind, or taking part in armed rebellion. Followers should not be the spectators of battles, nor should they kill or make another kill, procure the means of killing, procure the means of killing, praise killing, approve of those who help in killing or help though magical chants. Indded the Buddha informed the soldier that if he were to die on the battlefield he would be reborn in hell or as animal for his transgressions.

Yet the relationship between Buddhism and the samurai class has been a long one, and this acceptance of the practice of violence, has been justified by D.T. Suzuki by claiming that Zen, as the essence of Buddhism, "transcends morality". Beyond the role of Buddhism in the fighting arts, the role of Buddhism as a supporter of militarism in Japan is perhaps not as well known as it should be and in this post I wanted to highlight the life of Omori Sogen, who in many ways embodies the ideal of a man of letters, religion and martial arts that I strive to become, yet was deeply involved in the war effort.

Ōmori Sōgen (大森曹玄, 1904—1994) was a Japanese Rinzai Rōshi, a successor in the Tenryū-ji line of Rinzai Zen, a teacher of Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryū swordsmanship, and a calligrapher in the Taishi school of Yamaoka Tesshū. He became well known for his unique approach to Zen practice integrating insights from his martial and fine arts training with traditional Zen methods; this approach has been described as a unity of Zen, Ken ("sword", referring to martial arts or physical culture), and Sho ("brush", referring to calligraphy or fine arts). Sogen has been lauded as "the greatest Zen master of modern times' and was stated by D.T. Suzuki to embody the Zen ideal of the unity of Zen and the Sword.

The author of more than 20 books in the Japanese language, Ōmori founded Seitaiji monastery in Japan and Daihonzan Chozen-ji in Honolulu, Hawaii, the first Rinzai headquarters temple established outside of Japan according to Rinzai canon law. He also served as president of Hanazono University, the Rinzai university in Kyoto, Japan.

Conversely, Ōmori was also well known for his political activism and influence in government circles prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. He is the only Zen master to have been honored with a fifteen line entry in the Dictionary of the Right Wing, and took an active part in the 1920s in the right wing's agenda to eliminate parliamentary democracy by assassination and to promote Japan's Imperialist aims abroad. He was directly involved in what was termed the Shinpetai Jiken which was a plot to assassinate the whole cabinet, the heads of both political parties as well as numerous politicians and financial magnates and restore Imperial Rule. He was publishing tracts supporting the right wing movement which were based upon and bolstered by Buddhist principles. In 1945, upon the shock of Japan losing he became a priest in the Rinzai sect in a long line of Samurai who had taken the robes later in life. After the war despite his many apologists he persisted in taking part and heading many right wing organizations.

That a man could embody the light and dark so absolutely is food for thought for us who follow the road of martial arts or religion. For he believed that "If one trains in Zen one must do something absolutely and completely" But if we strive for something so absolutely there is a corresponding increase in the darkness within our soul, that if not addressed can take up a power of its own.

I learned a lot about Omori Sogen in the following book that I would recommend - Zen War Stories for those who want to find out more about that period in Japanese History.

Support My Reading Habit, Buy it at Amazon

Aikido Doyukai Annual Dinner 2011

2011-12-04T21:47:00.001+08:00

Gao Style Baguazhang and Yin Style

2011-12-02T16:49:00.000+08:00

One of the areas of Gao Style Baguazhang that had been open to speculation had been been the origin of the Hou Tien or post-heaven sets. According to the entry from Wikipedia below:

Around 1912 Gao Yi Sheng claimed he met Sung Yi-Ren, a Taoist from Guang Hua Mountain who gave him the Hou Tien sets. It is likely that this is a fabrication because the Chinese attribute many of their martial arts to famous yet obscure sources. Even his direct students expressed doubts about this story. There are many Baguazhang systems with application based short forms similar to Gao’s Hou Tien Sets. It is not difficult to imagine that Gao had learned some of them from Cheng or Zhuo. Another student of Zhuo Yuxiang wrote a book that had thirty-one of Gao’s sixty-four Hou Tien palms in it. Han Muxia, grand-student of Cheng Ting Hua and friend of Zhuo Yuxiang’s had forty - eight straight line Baguazhang sets almost identical to Gao’s. Based on the above facts, it is possible that Gao may have standardized forty-eight of the Hou Tiens from his experience with Zhou, Cheng and Li Cunyi then rounded out the total number to sixty-four in accordance with well known Daoist cosmology.

However my Sifu has a personal theory that Gao Yisheng learned them from Yin Fu or one of Yin Fu's disciples. His theory is based upon the above book, published in 1983 by the famous martial artist Pei Xi Rong 裴錫榮 (1913-1993)which shows 64 two man drills which are very similar to the applications of the Hou Tien sets. In some ways this is a better comparison than external forms which could be superficially similar but used differently. if this is the case then the Gao style can be seen as one of the most comprehensive of the extant Baguazhang styles, absorbing from both the Cheng and Yin systems. Why did he not attribute it directly and make up the story about a Taoist priest? There may have been many reasons for this as his teacher was seen to be Cheng Ting Hua it would not perhaps be acceptable to be studying under Yin Fu or perhaps his teacher was of a lower generation, who was not meant to disclose the techniques. This is all speculation, but the difficult of determining lineage can be compounded by the reluctance of that generation to state who they studied under as can be seen in Pei's own case.

In Pei Xi Rong's case I did some searches on the internet on his background and the sites list his teachers as Fu Jian Qiu 傅劍秋, xinyi liuhe quan 心意六合拳 under Bao Ding 寶鼎（字顯廷）, and also was enrolled in the famous Nanjing Central Guoshu Academy, where he studied 龍形八卦掌 dragon style baguazhang under Huang Bo Nian 黄柏年 and later studied 八卦太極拳 Bagua Taijiquan and 八卦陰陽盤手 Bagua Yin Yang Pan shou from Wu Jun Shan吳俊山. I could not find any reference to the Yin Style. However in the preface of the book he states directly that the 64 drills come directly from Dong Hai Chuan and was transmitted to Yin Fu and onto his son 尹玉璋 before being taught to Pei. The preface is included below and state that these were considered to be the "ultimate techniques" and not carelessly transmitted.

Confession of a Buddhist Atheist

2011-12-02T11:00:00.000+08:00

I have, in a short period of time, become quite a fan of Stephen Bachelor and I have picked up series of his books, having read this one and "Verses from the Center". I previously blogged about his book "Buddhism without Beliefs". His writing is lyrical and clear, and really his earnestness and commitment to Buddhism shine through each page.

This book is described as a "collage" and it contains several themes running through the book. This first part of which is an autobiography of how a young boy of 18 traveled to India and became a Buddhist monk. It chronicles how he became a monk under the Gelug tradition of the Dalai Lama. He had a succession of teachers, in addition to Geshe Rabten, with whom Batchelor studied in India and later in Switzerland, those teachers included S.N. Goenta, from whom he learned the technique of mindfulness meditation (the fundamental practice of the Theravadin school of Buddhism), and Kusan Sunim, the Korean Zen master.

Unfortunately, these teachers turned out to be attached to the rituals and texts of their particular tradition with an intensity that did not allow him to understand or accept the validity of the Dharma as Batchelor was increasingly coming to experience it and what he saw as Buddhism's need to adapt itself to modern life, as it had so successfully done with so many local cultures before.

Besides his autobiography which ends with his return to the laity and marriage to Martine, the former Monk Songil, Batchelor goes back to the Pail Cannon and tries to set out his understanding of the Dharma in greater depth than he had in his previous book. Along the way he introduces us to many other writers who had influenced him, including the continental philosophers such as Heidegger and Husserl, as well as radical theologians such as Paul Tillich and others working for reform within the Christian tradition.

But the most important part of the book, for me, was his chronological reconstruction of the life of Buddha. Whereas most stories of the Buddha end at his enlightenment and skip straight to his death, Stephen Batchelor goes back to the Pali Cannon to tease out all the references to Buddha and other key personages to paint a more complex and nuanced picture of the time, where the Buddha had to struggle to spread his teaching and survive amongst an uncertain and dangerous political environment.

Although I do not agree with all the viewpoints in the book, especially his casual dismissal of spirits and karma (this is based on some of my own personal experiences), and sometimes he can come across as too arrogant and sure of his own views on matters such as consciousness which the cognitive scientists are showing to be much more complex than we had previously imagined. This has been a very important book for me in that it shows a way to practice Buddhism without throwing oneself into a tradition and providing further reading of a community of authors and writers who are struggling with religion and modernity. But most importantly of all he has managed to bring across Gotama Buddha the human being, not as some Godlike figure that we cannot hope to emulate but as someone struggling to do their best in an imperfect world.

If you are thinking of buying the book on Amazon please consider clicking on the link below

Buy it on Amazon!

健舞 - Yiquan Jian Wu

2011-11-30T10:26:00.000+08:00

[Part of a continuing series of Yiquan posts while I am helping edit my Sifu's upcoming book on Yiquan - tentative title "The Complete Book of Yiquan"]

Jian Wu or Health Dance is a freestyle combination of Yiquan techniques used to co-ordinate different kinds of Shi Li and Fa Li and is considered to be one of the Yiquan advanced practices and can be traced back to the war dances of ancient China.

During the years of the Northern Expedition (1926-28), in the early years of the Republic, Master Wang Xiang Zhai went to Huainan to study Jian Wu from Huang Mu Qiao 黃慕樵 who had recreated the Jian Wu after being inspired by pictures in the Dunhuang Caves and terracotta figurines. He practiced hard and put his whole heart into the practice and incorporated it into his own teachings. However there were not many who managed to learn from Master Wang.

In 1962, when Master Wang was 76, and he performed the Reining the Horse to Listen to the Wind sequence at the Hebei Province Qigong Convention, and at the moment he issued power, the boards of the convention hall shook, and the audience was awestruck at his skills.

Master Wang has a poem called the Form of Dance 舞相:

　身動揮浪舞，意力水面行；遊龍白鶴戲，迂回似蛇驚。
　肌肉含勁力，神存骨起棱；風雲吐華月，豪氣貫長虹。 .

This also sets out the the prerequisite for Jian Wu, one needs to have undergone training in Zhan Zhuang to train the Qi, and have reached a level that one can move in the four directions as one wishes, otherwise it is difficult to achieve the form of Jian Wu, and one would only be shaking the four limbs.

The Rolling Waves, Swimming Dragon, Playing Crane, and Startling Snake are the four forms of Jian Wu and are meant to be expressed vividly.

The Rolling Waves: When one is dancing, the movements and form are akin to waves rising from a calm sea, with the foam curling into snow. The movement of water contains a hidden rising momentum and rolling / shaking, and it is the foam that breaks first. Then receding it fades, suddenly rising and suddenly falling, piling on top of each other and rolling back, fierce emerald waves, combine into a gigantic wave, startling and breaking upon the shore, always flowing and never ceasing, flying into the clouds and cresting into the sky. The undertow is merciless, with sometimes spraying foam, and occasionally falling backwards, the pullback is quick and powerful. Infinite and unending, this is the form and nature of the Rolling Waves.

Swimming Dragon: A spirit in the deep, sometimes emerging, sometimes submerged, wanting to hide and wanting to show itself, raising its head it shakes its tail, twisting its waist it looks behind, the head and tail are in synch. It has presence and shape, flying into the heavens and diving into the deepest pool, extending and retracting supporting and curling, the movement originates from the spine, with the vertebrae flexible and the hips moving, skillfully moving to the back and the sides. The dragon has a hundred expressions, Jian Wu has a thousand postures, when studying one has to express the form fully, when dancing one has to have the right spirit when one has learned it by heart, there is no need for thinking.

Playing Crane : Stretching the neck the Crane cries, like crying to the nine heavens, it congeals into standing on one foot, stretching its wings it intends to fly, the crane moves looking for food, looking back it calls to its mate, calling her to dance together, ultimately its form is like a fairy, lively and animated, sparkling as it moves backwards and forwards.

Startling Snake: The Snake is most skilled at the spine, curling as it wishes, extending out and retracting as it likes, turning back on itself with many curves, happy and carefree it glides. As the wind blows, the grass moves, suddenly striking it startles you, raising its head it spits out its words, blowing air it makes a sound, the head and tail are in synch, merciless when it bites to the back, inhaling and exhaling and rising and falling, it is adept moving between tightness and softness. Beware of angering the snake, of it pouring out its surprise.

(Li Jian Yu demonstrating Jian Wu)

The practice of Jian Wu is not of the greatest difficulty, but there is a method to the practice. The most important part of Jian Wu is the demeanor, there needs to be a strong sense of rhythm. Using Zhan Zhuang, Tuo Yao, Dun Yao as the core, with the emptiness and fullness of the body movement, rising and falling, inhaling and exhaling, matched with a spiraling and shaking energy; one rotates the shoulders, twists the head, bends the waist, turns the spine, loosens the kua, pushes out the knees, pulls up the soles of the feet, with chicken legs, the footfalls of a cat, the movement of a snake, everything is expressed at the same time. Then adding Rolling Waves, Swimming Dragon, Playing Crane, Startling Snake and other movements to the body, the understanding of the godlike melody, when one can perform it to the most exquisite level, it is like the movement of a god. Forgetting oneself, with every movement, the heart and intention are united. These are the refined postures you see on the walls of the Dunhuang Caves, the heroic dance of Jian Wu.

Kyudo Pictures

2011-11-29T11:16:00.001+08:00

蜚（飛）鳥盡，良弓藏﹔狡兔死，走狗烹

2011-11-28T10:11:00.000+08:00

This idiomatic expression came up when I was chatting with my 99 year old grandfather on Sunday, its literal meaning is, "When all the Flying Birds are shot down, the good bow will be set aside, when all the hares are killed the dogs will be stewed for Food." and is usually abbreviated to 鳥盡弓藏﹔兔死狗烹. This story is interesting in that it also relates to my earlier post on the sword of Gou Jian

The background to the story is refers to Wen Zhong (文種) was one of the major advisors in the state in the state of Yue in the Spring and Autumn Period.

In 494 BC., state Yue was defeated by the state of Wu. Because Wen Zhong bribed the prime minister of Wu , the life of Gou Jian (the king of Yue) was spared, but he had to go to Wu as hostage and served in captivity for three years.

During Gou Jian's captivity in Wu, Wen Zhong governed Yue and rebuilt the armies and strength of the nation. After Gou Jian's release, Wen Zhong helped him to carry on further reforms. Finally Yue was strong enough to defeat the state of Wu. After the victory Fan Li 范蠡 and Wen Zhong were appointed as the supreme general and the prime minister respectively. Fan Li refused the honor and retired to the state of Qi. After the victory Gou Jian became suspicious and jealous of Wen Zhong and thus forced him to kill himself by sending him a sword with the message, "You had taught me 10 strategies to overcome the state of Wu but I was only able to use three of them, please take the remaining seven strategies to the former king." Wen Zhong understood the message immediately and killed himself.

The idiom of The Good Bow Will Be Set Aside, When All Flying Bird Are Shot Down is from the letter that Fan Li, a friend of Wen Zhong's, wrote to him in order to urge him to leave Gou Jian, in which Fan Li said: "when all the flying birds have been shot down, the good bow will be set aside; when all the hares have been killed, the hounds will be stewed for food."

Now this idiom is often used to refer to the case in which someone is kicked out after his services are no longer needed. This was also the first usage of the term 走狗 or running dogs, such as "the running dogs of capitalism" etc. as a term to slander someone as a lackey or someone who does someone else's bidding.

知音

2011-11-25T14:56:00.000+08:00

My friend Dennis recently moved from Kunming to Wuhan for his work, and I missed out a chance to visit and stay with him in Yunnan, which is one if the most beautiful provinces in China. I had not thought much of Wuhan except as a gritty industrial city in the center of China but I found out that Sifu had visited twice and that Wuhan was famous for the Yellow Crane Tower as well as the Lute Platform 古琴台 in Hanyang 漢陽區 which is the setting for the famous story of 知音.

Bo Ya (伯牙) was a qin player from the Spring and Autumn Period or the Warring States period. He was known by his first name of "Boya", although his surname may have been Yu (俞), thus his complete name is sometimes given as Yu Boya (俞伯牙). The Lute Platform in Hanyang, Wuhan, China was where musician Yu Boya is said to have played. He is associated with the guqin pieces Gao Shan 《高山》 ("high mountains") and Liu Shui 《流水》 ("flowing water").

Bo Ya was very famous for playing the qin. One year he was sent by the king to tour the state of Chu. On the 15th day of the eight month he had taken a boat to Hanyang port. Encountering rough seas he took shelter at a small hill. That night the rains and waves began to die down and the moon came out and the scenery was especially captivating. Looking at the moon, he was inspired to begin to play. He took out his portable qin and was very focused on playing. Playing one tune after another he was completely engrossed in the music. Suddenly he caught sight of someone standing on the shore standing still without moving. He was startled and pressing too hard broke a string. He started to guess why the person was there when the man shouted out, "Master, please do not be suspicious, I am a woodcutter on my way home and I heard the exquisite sound of your qin and I could not help myself but to stop and listen". Boya looked closely and saw that there was a pile of faggots by his side and he was indeed a woodcutter. He thought to himself, "How could a woodcutter understand my music" and so he asked him, "As you understand music, what tune did I play?"

The woodcutter replied,"you were playing the piece where Confucius was sighing in admiration at his disciple Yan Hui 颜回 but alas the string broke when you played the fourth phrase". The woodcutter was exactly right, and Bo Ya overjoyed asked him to join him on the boat to chat. Looking at the mother of pearl qin 瑶琴 - the woodcutter remarked that this instrument was rumored to have been build by 伏羲 Fu Xi (an ancient sage king) and then started to relate its history. Bo Ya was secretly very impressed by the woodcutter. He then played a few pieces and asked the woodcutter to analyze the meaning. When Bo Ya's will was towards high mountains in his playing, the woodcutter would say, 'How towering like Mount Tai!' When Bo Ya's will was towards flowing water in his playing, woodcutter would say, 'How vast are the rivers and oceans!'When he heard this Bo Ya was overjoyed and used his playing to express his feelings. In the past no one had understood but this woodcutter understood him. Thus he found out the name of the woodcutter was Zhong Zi Qi and drank with him. As they became increasingly engrossed in their conversation they rued the fact that it was late and became sworn brothers. With tears they parted.

As promised Bo Ya returned to the same place the following mid Autumn and waited and waited but Zhong Zi Qi did not come as promised, so he began playing to attract his attention. But no one came. The next day, he asked an old fellow and the old man told him that unfortunately Zhong Zi Qi had contracted a disease and died. His last wishes were that his grave be dug on the river side so that he could hear the pieces of his friend Bo Ya on the 15th day of the 8th month. Hearing the words he was deeply sorrowful and went to the headstone and sadly began playing the piece Gao Shan. When he finished he broke the strings and smashed his beloved Qin on the rocks. He sadly said, "my 知音is no longer on this earth, so who should I play this Qin for?"

Bo Ya's story exemplifies the Chinese ideal of friendship and later people built the 古琴台 to commemorate their friendship at the place they met. The term Zhiyin (知音，literally "to know one's music") has come to describe a bosom friend who knows you intimately.

When Sifu visited the Lute Pavilion he was lucky enough to be meet the curator / manager who also played the Qin to a very high level and he was quite shocked that how he played was very similar to Taiji, with an opening movement and a closing movement and how he held his arms and moved was also very similar to the positions in Zhan Zhuang. The foundations of the movements were based on Qi and his expression and concentration was very similar to martial arts. In the Chinese arts can all be traced to a single source and share the same underlying philosophies.

Martial Arts and Bonesetting

2011-11-24T11:17:00.000+08:00

My back is on its way to recovery, but like all things it has its ups and downs. I was recommended a very good bone-setter 跌打 (Master Zhang of the Ching Hu Tang) recently and he has helped me fix some of the the spinal misalignment that other physiotherapists dare not touch, using his family methods that had been passed down through the generations. At times its quite frightening as he would climb up and stamp on my back with his feet as he said that some of the thorasic vertebrae had set hard due to the way my muscles had set due to poor posture in front of the computer. I suspect it may also be from many years of poor ukemi.

Anyhow his son was back from medical school in Australia this week, and because his son was here, he was keen to use me to demonstrate certain principles with regards to realignment and I got a chance to listen to a free lecture. This Master Zhang also practices Xingyiquan and he stressed the importance of knowing kung fu for his practice. He stressed the importance of having a strong martial arts practice as you would cultivate an understanding of how Qi flowed in the body. In addition to being to feel how your own Qi flowed, the hands also become more sensitive so that you would be more accurate in taking the pulse 把脈 and feeling where the blockages and mis-alignments were. Many of these misalignments may not show up in an X-ray or MRI.

Secondly, if you learned martial arts you would be able to be much more proficient at manipulating forces. So for many of the realignments the force used was not a strong muscular pressure but more like a pulse (similar to the one inch punch), and he stressed that if one were to stamp or use local muscular force it would injure the patient. He also demonstrated a slapping of the back, which was similar to a massage, and the feeling was of all my insides vibrating. He stressed that this again required the ability to direct the vibrational force into the body, and lifting my shirt, my back was a normal color without any red palm marks, explaining that if he had been doing it with normal force his own palms would have hurt.

This was a very impressive illustration to me of the relationships between martial arts and Chinese medicine, of which bonesetting is an important part. However bonesetting is not a miraculous cure, for many people there is a deep muscular imbalance from many years of abusing the body and bad posture and even though you are realigned - it takes time to reset the body and it may take a number of sessions as the body may revert to type over time. Also many of these postural problems have to deal with the way we hold and process emotions, which the bonesetter does not address, as this is more of a physical practice. So I pair up the bonesetting with pilates to correct the muscular imbalances and do some meditative practices as well as some cranial sacral therapy for the soft tissue work.

One important thing I look for when considering some of these alternative therapies is whether the therapist has warm hands, if the therapist's hands are cold it shows that they do not have good circulation and probably do not have a good personal qigong practice. Otherwise you are just "doing it by the book", and Master Zhang said that you could just get a computer to do that and you would not need all the years of hands on experience and training.

Three Treasures of Southern Yiquan - 南派意拳

2011-11-21T10:16:00.000+08:00

In Hong Kong, the first person to come to teach Yiquan publically was Liang Zi Peng, and his system is more concise and easier than many systems nowadays. It is generally referred to as "Southern Yiquan". The system as taught by Liang, both in form and gong fa, is different from that taught by Han Xing Men and the Yao Cheng Guang and Yao Cheng Rong: and the difference between Master Han and the Yao Brothers' Yiquan is also very vast. Each of these masters who came to teach in Hong Kong has their own system. Thus it can be seen that the same school of boxing founded by Wang Xiang Zhai, has developed in Hong Kong into three distinct branches based on the same fundamentals. It is worthwhile for the practitioner to study, explore and seek each branch's own distinct flavor.

The Southern Yiquan taught by Liang Zi Peng has its own unique style and appearance, and has a deep and beautiful philosophy, with a core teaching that is easy to grasp, this is all due to the fact that Liang faithfully adhered to Master Wang's teachings and developed and popularized them.

Southern Yiquan is simple and complete, and is elegant and outstanding, because it retains the original face of Yiquan, its philosophy meshes with that of Master Wang, and complement each other exactly, even though its attack philosophy is very deep, and its gong fa is a cut above, when we see its unique Zhan Zhuang, Dun Yao and Tuo Yao, these are described as the "three treasures" of Southern Yiquan.

The changing Jin of Zhan Zhuang is the basis of Southern Yiquan, the form is simple and complete and can be divided into three variations - the posture for cultivating health, attacking posture, and power posture. The practitioner begins to generate internal heat and experience spontaneous movement, strengthening the body and the spirit, increasing endurance and patience, alertness increases, and once's vital energy is arises, the mind is quick and body movements refined, and the quality of the Qi begins to change, a contradictory strength arises in the body, and each part becomes unified into a whole, the four limbs and the skeleton become as one, naturally generated a startling hunyuan power, attacking and defending in a single thought and able to react to any change. This is the first step in the basic kung fu of Southern Yiquan.

Once the practitioner has achieved a basic power, the folding and extension and retraction, forward and backward, open and close and inhaling and exhaling, have a specialized training method. Using the methods of dun yao and tuo yao, one can bring out the practitioner's full potential and power.

Dun yao is also known as the Dragon Squat, it trains the arching and springing power of the sacral verterbrae and hips and aims at training each joint to be relaxed and extended at the same time, and therein lies the contradiction. First one sinks from the top of the head to the coccyx, then one extends from the coccyx to the top of the head, in the middle one folds into the hips and springs out from the spine. One relaxes and sinks from the head to the soles of the feet, and pushes out from the soles of the feet to the top of the head. With each rise and fall, contraction and release, it becomes easy to cultivate a startling, explosive energy.

Tuo Yao trains the opening and closing of the body and the inhaling and exhaling and develops the shaking energy. Using the spine as the axis, turn the shoulders as the shaft. When training this is separated into the single tuo, double tuo, fixed step tuo, moving step tuo, advancing and retreating and left and right. Using this one can generate the contraction and extension, opening and closing, spiraling and shaking, and the change from being empty to firm, as well as learning the special way of using your body and the stepping. One can hope to attain the beautiful power of Jian Wu / health dance, floating like a spirit, with an eerie elegance that the gods and spirits cannot fathom. All this can be attained by Dun Yao and Tuo Yao. Hence the importance that Southern Yiquan places on the three treasures.

When speaking about fajin and "sinking the roots into the earth" these are practices that Southern Yiquan places great emphasis on. Even though they are two practices, they are intimately inter-related. In order to realize how jin is expressed, one has to understand that it relies on the how firm the lower basin is, whether it is water jin or fire energy, long jin or one-inch jin, bounce jin or explosive energy, they all have the same repulsive energy. Whether it is one hundred pounds or five hundred pounds, if the lower basin is not firm the power will not be strong, straight and clean. Without a straight jin, penetrating power, with a shaking and misaligned body, how are we to issue clean force to shatter stones and scare the heavens?

When sinking the roots into the earth, the Qi should be like the nine pearls threaded together, the body should be cotton with a core of steel, every joint is "song" or relaxed and each joint is extended, and each joint linked together. The Qi should flow through each joint, lifting the head, bringing the shoulders forward, rounding the back, loosening the kua, and lifting the kneecaps, supported in the thighs and sinking into the soles of the feet, the enemy's jin should be listened to through the hands and felt and reacted to by the body and controlled by the spirit. Thus the body responds to force, and the body responds to the enemy. You have to realize that the dantian is the center, and the source of Qi and power, those who know how to use it well spiral and explode, and extend in all directions, like the extension of a heavenly spirit and the solidity of the muddy ox in the earth. This is sinking of the roots into the earth - standing on earth with a hundred catties.

The most representative master of Southern Yiquan in Hong Kong at present is Master Sun Zhi. Master Sun is addicted to the martial arts, and has spent his life studying Yiquan. His abilities are extraordinary, with many accomplishments. He practices the hardest, and his power is simple and strong, his fire power has an explosiveness renowned through the martial world. He has fought many duels, he attacks and enters without covering himself, and is undefeated. In his late years, his power is deep, and his arts are his passion and hobby. [He has since passed away]

Michael Stone - Yoga and Buddhism

2011-11-19T23:10:00.000+08:00

Exercise and Youth II

2011-11-18T16:30:00.000+08:00

Studies have found that as people age, they not only lose muscle, but the tissue that remains can become infiltrated with fat, degrading its quality and reducing its strength.

A study published last month in the journal The Physician and Sportsmedicine recorded that researchers at the University of Pittsburgh recruited 40 competitive runners, cyclists and swimmers. They ranged in age from 40 to 81, with five men and five women representing each of four age groups: 40 to 49, 50 to 59, 60 to 69, and 70-plus. There was little evidence of deterioration in the older athletes’ musculature, however. The athletes in their 70s and 80s had almost as much thigh muscle mass as the athletes in their 40s, with minor if any fat infiltration.

The Canadian Centre for Activity and Aging examined muscle tissue from older competitive runners, checking for the density of their motor units, a measure of muscle health. A motor unit is, essentially, the control mechanism of a functioning muscle, composed of a neuron and the particular muscle fibers that that neuron activates. The more motor units in a muscle, the stronger it generally is. In multiple earlier studies, people over 50 have been found to possess far fewer muscle motor units than young adults. But that wasn’t true for the sexagenarian runners, whose leg muscles teemed with almost as many motor units as a separate group of active 25-year-olds.

Thus it seems to show that with regular exercise, we can still live long healthy lives.

Aging Well through Exercise

滕王閣序

2011-11-17T09:54:00.000+08:00

One of the benefits of having a 99 year old grandfather is that you never know what pearls fall from his mouth, and it is often a case of pearls before swine. We make an effort to see him every Sunday evening and there are good days and bad days. The other day he was castigating me on how poor my knowledge of classical Chinese was and telling us stories of all the poems that he had to memorize when he was young. One of the ones that he happened to mention was the 滕王閣序.

The Pavilion of Prince Teng, also called Tengwang Pavilion (Teng Wang Ge in Chinese), is located in Nanchang city, Jiang Xi province. Together with Yellow Crane Tower and Yue Yang Tower, it is regarded as one of the three most famous and historic towers in southern China. I had previously posted on the Yellow Crane tower so this makes a nice pairing.

The Pavilion was first built in 653 during the Tang Dynasty (618—907), by Li Yuanying. He was the younger brother of Emperor Taizong and was enfieffed as Prince Teng in 639. The pavilion was named after him. However, during the following centuries, it has been destroyed and rebuilt many times and the present one was rebuilt between 1983 and 1989 on the original site. In ancient China, the Pavilion of Prince Teng served as a place for the noblemen and the artists to have banquets. Even some emperors in Chinese history had also had banquets in the pavilion.

The full name of the poem is 秋日登洪府滕王閣鑒別序; (Preface to a farewell feast atop the Prince of Teng's Pavilion in Autumn) is a famous piece of literature by Wang Bo of the Tang Dynasty. Wang Bo is one of the Four Literary Eminences in Early Tang 初唐四杰.

It is classified as Pianwen 駢文 which depends greatly on rhythm, somewhat like classical Chinese poetry, but does not have a restriction of how many characters should be in one sentence, and how many sentences in one paragraph.

Wáng Bó was on his way to Jiaozhi County, in present-day northern Vietnam, visiting his father, and encountered a grand banquet held there. It is acknowledged that he actually finished the work at the banquet. The original story was that 閻公 had hosted a banquet and had asked Wang Bo as a guest to pen a preface, fully expecting him to demure, so that he could allow his son in law to show off his talents. When Wang Bo went ahead and wrote, the Duke was so angry he retired to his room and asked the poem to be brought to him. When he began, he thought that it was nothing special but he became increasingly impressed as he read on and eventually was so moved that he rushed out to welcome his guest. In a fit of pique, the son in law then claimed that piece had been written before and astonished the guests by reciting it from memory. Wang was quick to respond and asked if he knew the poem that followed the preface and composed the following famous lines on the spot.

「滕王高閣臨江渚，佩玉鳴鸞罷歌舞。畫棟朝飛南浦雲，朱簾暮卷西山雨。閒雲潭影日悠悠，物換星移幾度秋。閣中帝子今何在，檻外長江空自流。」

In the poem the author expressed his sadness at being unable to make use of his talent. Wang described a special scene of the famous pavilion, the weather and the mountains in an emotional way which made the poem stick into the minds of many Chinese. In fact, he was drowned in the South China Sea not long after he finished this classic, before he reached Vietnam to see his father.

Influence of Yiquan on Bruce Lee

2011-11-16T11:30:00.000+08:00

Yip Man is commonly recognized as Bruce Lee's teacher, but in his biography there were ten teachers from whom he learned martial arts, one of which was Liang Zi Peng - 梁子鵬, who was very well known as an internal arts teacher in Hong Kong during the 60s (but is almost forgotten now). He was also my Sifu's first Yiquan teacher.

Liang Zipeng was the teacher of Lee Hoi-cheun 李海泉 (father of Bruce Lee), to whom he was said to have instructed Liuhebafa. When Bruce Lee had been practicing Wing Chun for a while, his father suggested that Bruce should meet his teacher Liang. Lee became very interested in what Liang was teaching and wanted to learn from him. However, when Liang demanded that Lee give up other martial arts and leave behind all what he learned so far, Lee declined. However Bruce was a regular attendee at the student gatherings held at his house and his philosophy of JKD was heavily influenced by many Yiquan principles as shown below.

The following is taken from my Sifu's book on Yiquan:

No Forms - Any Techniques can be used
Yiquan is a core system whose only objective is to attack the opponent and finish the fight at once. It starts by training abilities and conditioning the body. When you are physically prepared and mentally prepared, you start training to fight immediately. There is no sequence of forms or wasted time on flower window dressing or movement. Any techniques of any style or school can be employed and used in the fighting, as long as they embody the principles of Yiquan.

Find out your strength, make use of your most powerful part, and create your own style
No Matter what you have practiced before you can combine and use them in fighting. Yiquan will digest and combine all you have learned in your body and system to become a unique system. If you have done Taiji, Baguazhang or Xingyiquan, you could bring them together, but you must avoid their conflicts. These ideas come from Liu He Ba Fa which is a style that combines all the techniques of the internal arts.

Martial Arts Conduct
Never be a low class street fighter, try to read more theoretical books, books on Chinese culture, raise your standard, be polite, be humble and exercise forgiveness. Improve your level and become a master.

Seek Self Improvement, Develop your skills for interest, not to hurt people
Learning martial arts is to improve one's own conduct. Try to feel the movement of the flow of Qi, the twisting of muscle, stretching of the limbs. Stand to explore one's spirit and strengthen your body, do not think of fighting for the whole day.

Softness, Flexibility will create explosive power
Only when your muscles can relax and be soft, then can you explode in a very short moment with fast speed and strong strength. If your muscle is hard, these will impede your movement and speed.

Explosive Power that throws a person far away
Bruce's previous experience in the martial arts was with striking arts. He never conceived that with soft power, his teacher could throw a person easily to the wall. This could only be achieved when he keeps a non-collapsed structure, with a strong frame and relaxed muscle, which can explosively burst with speed or power. These scenarios are always seen in Bruce's movies, when he kicks or punches his opponents and they are always thrown away and their bodies hit the wall.

Unity Power - Keep a strong skeleton
Bruce's previous experience was to use hand movements to strike. However, Yiquan's emphasis is on whole body power. With a strong skeleton like a tank, and opponent that attempts to block the attack will be thrown away entirely. The damage is horrible.

Intercept before your Opponent's attack
Yiquan's combat theory is to hold a static stance, watching you with the eyes and being quiet in movement. Once you move, he covers you , controls you and intercepts you before your power can be extended and burst out. These theories are similar to most of Bruce's theories in his system of Jeet Kune Do. Also these fighting strategies are always shown in Bruce's movies.

Extend out your hands
Extend your hands to shut out and block opponent's attack. Do not shrink and let your skeleton collapse. You must fully extend your hands.

Continuous Sound
Mr. Liang liked to sound out with his sudden explosive strength. This is common in northern martial arts and was widely used by early Yiquan practitioners. Liang showed different sounds when he moved his body up and down, forwards and backwards quickly. When he pushed or punched others, he issued a sound so that his opponent was shocked and thrown away. In most of Bruce Lee's movies we can see he employed this technique.

Every move must be real and effective with full power and speed - no flowery actions
Yiquan techniques are simple; every move is real, useful and effective. They are developed from numerous fights. Fighters must be trained to keep balance while moving, maintaining the frame while rushing in or retreating, keeping full speed, maintaining enough explosive strength, flexibility and co-ordination and a keen mind to win. Only when the fighter can use all the mental and physical factors thoroughly can they win.

Suburito - 素振り刀

2011-11-15T10:57:00.000+08:00

Although I studied some Yagyu Shin Kage Ryu at the Philadephia Ren Sei Kan under Paul Manougue Sensei ten years ago, I really do not consider myself to be a swordsman. My experience has been more on the aiki-ken side (which most kenjitsu people may criticize as wishful thinking, rather than real swordsmanship). In recent years I have really put more focus into my Baguazhang, with an emphasis on the sword and the broadsword. However, I have never been in favor of using the floppy wushu weapons as they train bad habits - for instance people become very enamored of the "snap" when they fajin, however this is actually a dissapation of energy. A clean thrust would flow all the way though to the tip of the blade without any sound. Indeed one of the higher level attainments would be to thrust into a pool of water and leave no ripples.

That aside I have been training with fixed blades and as in my earlier posts have been slowly upgrading my weapons. As the blades have become heavier, I found that I needed some additional exercises to strengthen the forearms and grip and actually the Japanese suburi exercises are perfect for this. I started off with a normal bokuto, doing about 200x each side but that became too light so I have recently invested in a subirito, finally settling on buying one from Tozando. There has been a lot of literature as to which woods are best and some of the specialist places like Kingfisher Woodworks offer bokken in other woods but I just decided to stick with a standard red oak one, about 3.5 shaku (45") weighing about 870 grams. (Tozando also has free international shipping!). I will slowly work with this one and can upgrade over time. The heaviest one they carry is about 2.5 kg, I guess similar to the extreme version shown in the picture above used by the practitioner of jikishin kage ryu. Even after only a week or so of 100x per side, my broadsword has noticeably feels lighter. Besides strengthening the forearms using a subirito is great exercise for training to use the dantian to initiate movement and this was one of the benefits that I gained from meeting with Mike Sigman last summer.

The Suburito was meant to have originated when Musashi forgot his sword and carved a wooden sword from an oar. Tozando has even produced a Miyamoto Musashi oar shaped bokken in red oak and an extra long suburi bokken in white oak along the dimensions of Sasaki Kojiro's longsword. Thus you can even role play their encounter at Ganryu island.

Sennichi Kaihogyo- 千日回峰行

2011-11-14T17:08:00.000+08:00

One of the topics that came up recently when attending lectures was on the mystical experience and its relationship to ascetic training. The practice that stood out for me especially was that of the Sennichi Kaihogyo, especially as the Tendai Sect were very famous for being warrior monks and their base was Enryaku Ji on Mount Hiei.

In present times, they still preserve an arduous ascetic practice of walking, reciting the mantra of Fudo Myo, along a prescribed 30 kilometer pilgrimage route around the peaks of the mountain offering sacrifices at 255 religious sites along the way. This practice can be undertaken in 100 days or over 1000 days spread over a seven year period. many monks undertake the 100 day practice but only a few undertake the 1000 day practice and only 46 monks have completed it since 1885.Monks dress in a white vestment—the same garment as at a funeral with the “cord of death” around the waist and a sheathed knife inside. Why the cord and the knife? Tradition dictates that if they do not complete the prescribed cycle of marathons, the monk must commit suicide by hanging or self-disembowelment.

During the first three years, each year consisting of one hundred days of walking, the course extends over 7.5 ri 里 (1 ri = approx. 30 kilometers) and includes some 260 worship stops. During the next two years (4th & 5th years), two hundred days each, the same route is followed. During the sixth year, the course is extended to 15 ri over one hundred days. During the seventh year, it is extended further still to 21 ri over one hundred days, as the practitioner circumambulates both Mt. Hiei and Kyoto (Kyoto Oomawari 京都大廻り), followed by a final segment of one hundred days along the 7.5 ri route around the mountain."

During the fifth year of the challenge, the running is punctuated by what many consider the most daunting phase of the process- doiri. The trainee Monk must go for 9 days (192 hours) without food, water, or rest of any kind. He sits in the Temple and prays constantly. Two monks accompany him, one on either side, to ensure he does not fall asleep. At 2am every night he must get up to fetch sacrificial water from the well, around 200m away, as an offering for Fudō Myōō. For several weeks before doiri, the monk will reduce his food intake so his body can cope with the fast. The first day is no problem, but there is some nausea on the second and third days. By the fourth and fifth days the hunger pangs have disappeared, but the monk has become so dehydrated that there is no saliva in his mouth and he will begin to taste blood.

The purpose of doiri is to bring the monk face-to-face with death. During this fast, the monks develop extraordinary powers of sense. They talk of being able to hear the ashes of incense sticks fall to the ground and, perhaps unsurprisingly, of the ability to smell food being prepared miles away.

Physiologists, who have examined the monks after conclusion of the rite, find many of the symptoms of a 'dead person'. Monks talk of experiencing a feeling of transparency where everything good, bad and neutral leaves their body and existence in itself is revealed in crystal clarity. Relatives of those who undergo this rite of passage talk of the difference that the seven days makes to those who undergo it. One remarked, 'I always dismissed Buddhism as superstitious nonsense until I saw my brother step out of Myo-o-do after doiri. He was really a living Buddha.'

The kaihogyo is often called a ’walking meditation’ (hokou zen 歩行禅) and interpreted as a form of the constant-walking samadhi (jougyou zanmai 常行三昧), one of the four types of meditation (shishu zanmai 四種三昧) practiced in Tendai. In spirit, it is traced back to the Never Disparaging (Joufugyou 常不輕) Bodhisattva of the Lotus Sutra, who went about paying obeisance to monks and laymen alike as future buddhas. In the kaihogyo, reverence is extended to all of nature, including every tree and blade of grass, for they too are endowed with Buddha nature. While those who complete this practice are believed to be living buddhas, the kaihogyo is in fact a bodhisattva practice, wherein the Gyouja (the practitioner 行者) stop short of attaining buddhahood in this life so as to continue to help all sentient beings."

27,000 Miles to Buddhahood

Water and the Kidneys

2011-11-11T10:41:00.001+08:00

Apologies for not posting much as I have been away and caught up in training (for work not martial arts) and haven't had the time to post. However one article was quite interesting in the New York Times. And as part of my on and off again series of posts on TCM and modern medicine, there was was a short writeup on the relationship between water and the kidneys. If the kidneys are well hydrated there is "a significantly lower risk" of kidney disease in the future.

For those of you who know, TCM states that the kidneys are associated with the element of water as well as the urinary-reproductive system. People who do not drink enough water can easily develop bladder and kidney disorders due to the heavy concentration of urine that is passed.Drinking the recommended 6-8 glasses of water a day will keep the bladder active and bacteria-free. Also, avoiding coffee, tea, carbonated beverages and alcohol can help, as they irritate the bladder and cause a slight amount of bleeding to occur. When bleeding occurs, bacteria may enter the blood vessels. Water contains no calories, fat, or cholesterol and is nature’s appetite suppressant, and it helps the body to metabolize fat.

Current research shows that low water intake yields an increase in fat deposits. Conversely, a higher water intake reduces the amount of fatty deposits. Without enough water, the kidneys cannot function properly. As a result, some of their workload is pushed off onto the liver, in turn preventing the liver from operating at peak levels. This again is predicted by TCM as the liver is governed by wood and kidney as water gives rise to and supports wood.

But like all things we should not overdo the drinking of water. Your kidneys must work overtime to filter excess water out of your circulatory system. The filtration system that exists in your kidneys is composed in part by a series of specialized capillary beds called glomeruli. Your glomeruli can get damaged by unnecessary wear and tear over time, and drowning your system with large amounts of water is one of many potential causes of said damage.

Really? The Claim: Drink Eight Glasses of Water a Day to Protect the Kidneys

Ueshiba's Eight Forces - 八力

2011-10-27T13:52:00.000+08:00

There was an interesting post on Aikiweb where Chris Li from Sangenkai translated what Ueshiba terms as the Eight Forces from his Takemusu Aiki.

「一霊四魂三元八力や呼吸、合気の理解なくして合気道を稽古しても合気道の本当の力は出てこないだろう。」
"I think that if you cannot understand Ichirei Shikon Sangen Hachiriki, breath (kokyu) and Aiki, then even if you practice Aikido the true power of Aikido will not come forth."

Chris stated that Ueshiba described the "Hachiriki" as physical forces: active force, quiet force, pulling force, loosening force, splitting force, combining force, melting force, congealing force translated from the following Kanji.

動、静、引、弛、凝、解、分、合

I tried to tie them to the corresponding terms in Tai Chi or Chinese martial arts and although Tai Chi has 掤、履、擠、按、採、列、肘、靠 peng, lu, ji, an, etc. they are more technically related and are applications. In my view is that these do not describe forces as such, but more fundamental training concepts.

動、静 - movement and stillness - in Chinese arts movement training refers to the actual techniques and stillness training usually refers to meditation or zhan zhuang (pole standing).

引 - leading - this is a common concept in Taichi - as in leading into emptiness rather than pulling. Chris suggested drawing as to draw in as an alternative explanation.

弛 - this character is not commonly used in Chinese martial arts but perhaps this is the Japanese way of expressing the concept of "Song" 鬆 or relaxation?

凝 - translate as congealing - perhaps the corrollary here is 沉 or "sinking" or having a linked or alternatively a unified body.

解 - what was translated as melting - I disagreed with the translation as this is more unravelling as unravelling a knot- perhaps this is sensitivity to escape from joint locks or in wresting - although there is a fair amount of speculation here.

The final two are interesting in that last two 分 & 合 are similar to the opening and closing of Taichi 開 and 合.

Putting the 8 energies in sequence there is a nice harmony to them in that in the way they are presented as the first is the basis for the second pair and the third is the basis for the fourth pair

Stillness and Movement - movement trains techniques and applications (speed, angle etc.) stillness trains the whole body integration (mind, body, fascia)

Leading and Loosening - I would pair up the leading as the energy of taking your opponent off balance, and loosening as the ability to remove tension from your body to slip out of locks and reverse techniques

Relaxation and Congealing - ability to have a relaxed body without extraneous tension and congealing is the ability to link up the body into one unit to fajin or issue force

Opening and Closing - storing and releasing the energy (related to usage of the back bow) - I know the character is for separating but I think the concept is the same as opening.

Although there is a fair amount of speculation on my part - it does seem that they are talking about many of the same things.

Tominaga Mineo Sensei - 冨永峰男

2011-10-26T16:06:00.000+08:00

Tominaga Mineo Sensei, 6th Dan made a special visit to Hong Kong last week to teach at our dojo. Tominaga Sensei is also a student of Endo Sensei and teaches the same soft flowing style. His home dojo is Nishiyamatokai with 6 branch dojos in Nara Prefecture, Japan. He will be hosting Endo Sensei for a seminar in April 2012 and we have been invited to attend.

Aikido Nishiyamatokai

Wu De - 武德 (Part 2 of 3)

2011-10-26T10:23:00.000+08:00

This article is a follow on from my earlier post last week and deals with the concept of Wu De or martial ethics and can be broadly seen as a correlate to the concept of Budo in Japanese martial arts. In the 5000 or so years of Chinese culture, the emphasis on ethics has been paramount in all fields and the same is true for the martial artist, and having a well developed sense of 武德 was paramount within the marital arts community or 武林.

The etymology of the word 「武」 originated in the two characters 「止」 "to stop" and 「戈」"a halberd". Its original meaning was 「以武禁暴，整亂，止息干戈，非以為殘而與縱之也」《漢書·武五子贊》） which contained the intention of using the martial arts to defend against violence, to still the weapons and enforce the peace, resolve conflict and to achieve peace.

The word 「德」 was originally written with the character for straight on top 「直」 and the character for heart 「心」 on the bottom. According to the 《說文解字》「德，外得與人，內得與心也」；「德，正見也。」contains the meaning of having the right view, thoughts and being fair, and doing things for the benefit of the general good, and removing selfish thoughts.

The two words together were seen almost two thousand years ago, and was first seen in the records of the Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods 《國語》，already stated 「有武德以羞正卿」that those with Wude should be selected for high office.

The earliest definition of Wude can be seen in the Zhuo Zhuan 《左傳·宣公十二年》 with the record stating 「夫武，禁暴、戢兵、保大、定功、安民、和眾、豐財者也」 learn the military arts, refrain from violence, discipline the soldiers, protect those above you, do good deeds, govern well, bring peace to the people and accumulate wealth. This is the origin of the saying 「武有七德」

As the centuries developed the concept of Wude was promoted heavily by those who practiced the ways of war, and was elaborated further - for example in the Boxing Classic 《拳經》, a warrior should have the following virtues: 「德、識、膽、力、功、藝、傳」 morality, intelligence, courage, strength, endurance, technique and [ ]. This meant an understanding of the situation, great technique without arrogance and the ability to restrain an enemy without causing him harm. The martial arts were for self defence, to protect the weak and ensure that justice was served, to serve the people and protect the country and not used for selfish reasons.

In the past many martial artists believed that Wu de also consisted of valuing the martial 「尚武」 and esteeming ethics 「崇德」 the first was to study the martial arts to strengthen the body and ethics to cultivate the spirit fairness and sense of responsibility. Wu De also contained the virtues of 仁、義、禮、智、信、勇。 (Humanity, Justice, Etiquette, Intelligence, Trust, Courage).

Besides the virtues Wude was also seen to encompass behaviour - which included 四德：心德、眼德、口德、手德 the ethics of the heart, eyes, mouth and hands. One was meant to have an upright character and be honest 「正心、誠意」， and practice a see no evil, do no evil, hear no evil 「非禮勿視、非禮勿動、非禮勿聽」.

With time the concept moved on from being a purely Confucian concept to be influenced by the other religions incorporating Daoist concepts such as 「為而不爭」 to avoid conflict、「柔則勝剛」 and using the soft to overcome the hard. The Buddhist Concepts of enduring humiliation to polish the spirit 「忍辱精進」 and the primacy of human life 「救人一命勝造七級浮屠」 were also influential.

Indeed 武德 was the name given to the reign of the Tang Emperor Gaozu (618-626). In ancient times, only the most auspicious and beautiful of concepts were applied to the reign names and can be seen how the ancients esteemed the concept.

Over time many martial arts schools have adopted their own variations of the virtues in their own schools and many schools had their own regulations inscribed on a plaque and disciples were made to swear to uphold these rules. If the disciple violated these it was seen a serious offense and usually just cause for kicking the individual out of the school.

Menpantigan

2011-10-24T10:33:00.000+08:00

Just went to Bali, Indonesia for a brief vacation. Besides relaxing I had an opportunity to see the local Balinese martial art - Mepantigan, which I had never heard of before. Usually when one talks about martial arts in Indonesia, we usually associate it with Pencak Silat. But here was a martial art that was associated with wrestling and throwing (obviously as an Aikidoka I was interested to see how this differed) and usually done in the rice field, thus we booked one Saturday to see the show.

Here is a brief description of Menpantigan as described on the website. "Basically, mepantigan means to throw or to knock something down. The traditional martial art concentrates on locking and throwing the enemy. It combines some self-defenses, such as taekwondo, silat, capoeira, kickboxing, and judo, and includes various elements of Balinese culture, such as Balinese music, dance, and costumes. Those are the factors that make this martial art one of the most attractive and interesting Bali tourism attractions.

Mepantigan is a combination of art and sport that founded and developed by Putu Witsen Widjaya. According to him, the martial art can make its practitioners gain physical fitness, release stress, and learn valuable lessons of comradeship and sportsmanship, because mepantigan emphasizes emotion and spiritual intelligence. He also believes that Mepantigan can develop characteristic and avoid violence while cultivating compassion. The uniqueness of mepantigan is its location or arena, which take place in wet and muddy fields. Often, muddy rice fields and beaches are also being used to hold the fight.

Before the Mepantigan begins, a priest will first lead the participants to pray to Dewi Sri, the Goddess of Prosperity. In an open space, it is then played while supervised by some referees. One game is played in two rounds and one round is held for three minutes. Punching, Kicking, biting, or hitting vital parts of the opponent’s body is forbidden. Two topless fighters then come onto the muddy field. Before the fight, they must first perform the preliminary demonstration of the martial art. After the pre-demo there will be an instruction from the referee and they will begin to try to tackle down each other. Both of the fighters and their supporters should wear Balinese traditional uniform. To show respect and supportive manner, fighters should hug and bow to each other before and after the show. The winner and the loser are decided based on the score of the fighters which is determined by juries. Based on the rule, martial art demonstration earns one point, successfully locking the opponent earns two points, effectively throwing the opponent earns three points, and aggressiveness and politeness earns four points. Mepantigan can be performed by all ages. Every fighter is accompanied by a coach and paramedics that will always be around the arena.

During and after the fight, some artists will perform Balinese dance and music. The dance will deliver the drama about Kebo Iwa, a legendary giant warrior in Bali. Th drama usually represents the story of Kebo Iwa in 14th Century who had trained some soldiers in the art of Mepantigan techniques and who was famous for his willingness to die for the Indonesia archipelago."

The performance began at sunset as described with a ritual to the Goddess of prosperity with a dance and musical performance before a series of stylized bouts. The overall effect was quite eerie as the dancers had painted their bodies and were wearing masks, and there were bonfires that were lit to enhance the atmosphere. (Probably not a great performance for young kids as my daughter was terrified and had to be taken outside). As described the circling of the opponents had elements of Caopoeira but the hand positions were in the style of traditional Balinese dance and when the opponents clashed the there were a series of clearly identifiable judo throws. There were also two young women who came and performed the throws (although this was more for show as it was obvious some of the throws were faked) and we were also invited to come and dance in the muddy field followed by a big dinner.

Mepantigan Bali

Uruwashii - 斌 - Part 1 of 3

2011-10-19T11:38:00.000+08:00

Just writing a follow up to my previous article in response to certain comments made by some of my readers on my previous post. I have made references throughout my blog to some of the martial ideals espoused by Chinese and Japanese civilization and how I have tried to teach some of these ideals to my children and how I have hoped to embody some of these ideals in my own life. I hope to clarify in these posts what I see as some of the similarities and important differences between the Chinese and Japanese ideals.

As mentioned in my previous post, the influence of Confucius should not be underestimated on Eastern Civilization. The teachings of Confucius were introduced into Japan, along with Buddhism in the Sixth Century and Prince Shotoku enshrined the ethos of both traditions into his Seventeen Article Constitution. It has taken root and has been intimately entwined in Japanese Culture ever since. (Some even say that the Japanese and the Koreans are even more Confucian than the Chinese nowadays!) Although Confucianism is mainly seen as a form of ethics and political philosophy, he also emphasized mastery of the Six Excellences - mathematics, archery, ritual, calligraphy, poetry and horse-riding in order to cultivate a well rounded person.

During the spring and autumn period when he was active, China was split into several warring states and violence and brutality was commonplace. Confucius advocated a humanistic philosophy because he truly believed that an individual who had developed himself fully with a moral center and inner strength, was more able to act more effectively and prevail over someone who just espoused brute strength, which was the prevailing modus operandi of the time. Thus from the beginning a sage was expected to be adept at more than meditation and literary matters, and he can be advocating a form of mind-body integration. These warriors like, Takeda Shingen approached learning from a pragmatic rather than academic view point - "Learning is not only reading books but something we intergrate with our own way of life".

When times were peaceful however, the role of the warrior was actively debased and subordinated to the civilian bureaucracy. Ritual, instead of a means of refining one's sensibility and training one's emotions, becomes empty and ossified. Literary pursuits produced effete individuals who are incapable of acting and fall into corruption. This happened both in Japan and in China, and there are many parallels in the treatment of the warrior as someone seen as rough and uncouth and relegated to the provinces in Heian (8th Century) Japan and the Tang and Sung dynasties.

However the cycle begins again when the government declines into insularity and corruption and the warriors take power as in the struggles between the the Taira and the Minamoto clans and during the Sengoku period in Japan or after the fall of each Chinese dynasty. To break the cycle the ideal promoted is that of a cultivated warrior. This is clearly depicted throughout the epic Heike monogatari and is best embodied in the concept of uruwashii, meaning a situation of balance and harmony between the external pattern and beauty 文 and interior essense or substance 武. Men who possess this quality are as accomplished in the arts as well as martial acts. During the Qing Dynasty, the Manchus were well aware that a loss of their original martial spirit would lead to decadence and decline and actively promoted the maintenance of their hunting traditions and skill in archery and riding in addition to learning the best of Chinese civilization.

Kuroda Nagamasa wrote, "The Art of War and the Art of Peace are like two wheels of a cart, which if lacking one, cannot stand"

[An interesting side note is that in Chinese 斌 is usually rendered as 彬 which means refined, but is more to do with external manners and appearance rather than a combination of the martial 武 and the cultural 文. It is often used as a girl's name.]

Chinese Bushido - 中國之武士道

2011-10-14T15:29:00.000+08:00

Recently the 100th anniversary of the revolution that brought down the Qing Dynasty was celebrated in both Taiwan and China. When reading many of the Chinese writers of the early 20th Century one realizes that despite the vast improvements in living standards many of the problems at the turn of the century still exist - the weakness in moral character, the greed, the corruption and the callousness of man towards his fellow man. I do not care how many weapons China has or how fast the economy is growing. A civilized nation is judged by the quality of its people. Thus I wanted to introduce a book written by Liang Qi Chao in 1904 - Chinese Bushido.

The book was written when he was being investigated by the Qing court for formenting revolution and he had fled to Japan. Looking around him, he felt China was looked down and discriminated against. "Chinese history is a non-martial history and the Chinese people are a non martial people". He felt deeply humiliated and ashamed of such comments. Thus he chose 70 individuals from the Spring and Autumn Periods and the Warring States as am embodiment of the Chinese Bushido spirit, having been inspired by his time in Japan. They came from all walks of society and were knights errant, assassins, generals and prime ministers and princes, as well as local officials, soldiers, even butchers farmers and fisherman.

Like my previous post on the Chinese Knight Errant, these individuals placed importance on friendship, their reputation, their word and did not place much importance on life and death, or fame and riches. They did what they could to establish justice for the common man and loved their country and people more than life and were willing to sacrifice their life for their country. As gentlemen they could rather be killed than be ridiculed - better to be a piece of shattered jade than an intact piece of ceramic.

Interestingly for the times, Liang placed Confucius in the first position. When analysing his diplomacy and his refusal to be cowed by superior strength and his placing the interest of the state of Lu at the forefront, he regarded him as one of the bravest men. His advocacy of martial strength is at odds with many characterizations of Confucianism at the time as advocating a weak and powerless mentality. Instead Liang squarely places the blame for the disappearance of such people at the feet of the Qin Emperor who unified China and bureaucratized it. His argument that the disappearance of such people has led to China's enduring weakness. This book created a great stir at the time partially because of the compelling arguments about marrying the martial with the literary cultivation and Liang's beautiful literary style. Mao himself was deeply influenced by the book and put forward many of the same arguments in his book - a study of physical education - in 1917.

Regardless, Chinese Bushido is not advocating that people should take up the military profession, become a roaming Knight errant, or an assassin or that people indulge in senseless violence, or to place loyalty above all things, or to easily give up your life. It is rather a state of mind, a strength of character, an ability to persevere and not to give in, or compromise your principles. Liang's position is that in order to change the country one has to first change the value system of its people. His advocacy of martial virtue went hand in hand with the establishment of the National Guoshu academy and this text was also studied in many primary and middle schools.

He also felt that with the influx of foreign culture, traditional Chinese culture was in danger of disappearing. (When we look at the New China we can see how right he was). He hoped that the text could be used to as a means to stimulate the cultural sensibilities of the country's young people so the text was deliberately written using classical Chinese with his commentary at the end of each chapter. The book is defiant yet tinged with melancholy lamenting the state of a nation and the spirit of a people that has passed away.

Modern Chinese Ink Painting

2011-10-14T09:45:00.000+08:00

There was an article in Time Magazine recently on Chinese Ink Painting, which I found interesting on several counts (1) because of my own Chinese calligraphy practice; (2) my interest in Western Modern art and (3) the fact that I was admiring a Wucius Wong painting that my friend Elizabeth bought for rather a lot of money.

In recent years I have also spent some time studying Chinese Art as an adjunct to calligraphy but most of the recent ink paintings that you see by so called masters or on auction in some of the catalogues from the bigger auction houses, I just cannot appreciate. They seemed rushed and blotchy compared to the meticulous lines of the masters of the Song and Ming dynasties. My Sifu explained to me that people nowadays are not willing to put in the hours of practice or work to produce a piece. Instead they rush off a piece of work in a matter of minutes and just mindlessly reproduce the same old tropes - bamboo, mountains shrouded in mist, etc.

Thus it was interesting to see in the piece a reference to traditional training methods. In adolescence, Chinese ink painter Zheng Chongbin was asked by his teacher to buy an ink stick, a stone against which to grind it, a set of brushes and sheets of rice paper. But during lessons for the better part of two years, he was not allowed to use them. Instead, he was commanded to pore over Tang-dynasty masterworks and absorb their every visual nuance. His eye and concentration exhaustively trained, Zheng was finally allowed to pick up his brush — but only to copy those same ancient pieces with scrupulous precision.

Though he came to the archaic tradition of Chinese ink painting by painfully slow and patient degrees, Shanghai-born Zheng quickly left the old teachings behind. And what is interesting is that there are a number of painters trained in the traditional style but "shedding constraints and producing works of unprecedented movement and energy". Thus this new breed of artists take their cues from Jackson Pollock or from performance art. It is quite breathtaking in its audacity and mirrors the breakneck growth of China in recent years.

You can read the full article here:

Brush with Modernity

Gao Style Baguazhang Manual - 程派高式八卦掌譜（2010重修版）

2011-10-12T10:44:00.000+08:00

One of the contents of the big bag of books I brought back for Sifu was the new 2010 reissue of the Gao Style Baguazhang Manual by the students of Liu Fengcai 劉鳳彩 in Tianjin. I had the old edition but this edition was re-edited and new material was added, replacing the original hand drawings of the moves with photos and also added an expanded section on weapons. In addition there was a beautiful facsimile reproduction of the original hand written boxing manual. There was also a new preface by the owner of Lion Books and how the reprint of this edition came about.

I talked a little bit to Sifu about what he understood to be the provenance of the manual and this was the copy that was handed down from Gao Yisheng to Liu Fengcai. There were actually many hand copied editions and Sifu himself has 2. (The owner of Lion Books has 7(!) apparently). I asked him if there were any differences between the various hand copied editions from the students and he said that some were more or less complete and some of the song arrangements were different but this published version was a fuller version. Originally the manual was published in 6 books it has been combined into one for this edition. Of the four original books, the last two dealing with neigong were in a different hand, so there is a suspicion that there were later interpolations and not directly authored by Gao Yisheng.

Five Sounds Qigong

2011-10-11T13:22:00.000+08:00

I happened across a little store in front of the National Taiwan Normal University that sold Buddhist and new Age music and in the store entrance they had a display for Master Shen Wu's musical Qigong. I had not heard of Master Shen Wu before, so before buying the NT$7000 5 CD box set, I asked them to put on the introductory CD. The CD introduced the 5 healing sounds of traditional Chinese medicine, which correspond to the major five internal organs. After listening to the CD for a few minutes I experienced a slight tingling in the tips of my fingers (people who practice Tai Chi and Qigong will know what I am talking about) without having to do any special breathing or movement. I was intrigued so I bought the introductory CD and tried it out at home in Hong Kong.

According to the website, the music used in his remarkable therapy is also composed according to the Five Notes Theory seen in the Chinese medicine classics, such as I-Ching and The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine and carries Master Shen Wu's energy. The five notes correspond to the five major organ systems in Oriental Medicine. There are also twelve principle tunes that loosen and smooth the twelve meridians (pathways for the flow of energy in the human body). It is the combination of Master Wu's energy carried by the sound waves and the healing notes of the sound waves that create a powerful and unique therapeutic effect.

I had read about the five notes in my previous studies of Taoist texts and also in the context of Qigong for health (although the qigong that my Sifu teaches has six tones) and was also familiar with the fact that studies have shown that our organs vibrate at certain frequencies (see my previous post). Thus was comfortable with the theory behind this. The write up on the website is also quite interesting. The fact that the music or voice could be imbued with the power of the practitioner was also something that I had heard of before when I attended a few sessions of Yan Xin Qigong when I was in the states doing my MBA.

The first session I had at home listening and humming the tones was rather uneventful, and was like a relaxed chanting session. Although I did feel there was some Qi movement I couldn't be sure how much was because of the placebo effect. I will continue to post if there are further effects in the future. I also don't know if this is because my sound system is not as good as the one in the store.

Music Qigong by Master Shen Wu

Master Shen Wu has been appointed as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Willow leaf broadsword - 手工柳葉刀

2011-10-06T11:16:00.000+08:00

On this trip to Taiwan, I had been provided with the website for a supplier of martial arts weapons - the Mascot Collection Company 宏均國際有限公司, some of which were sourced from Longquan but the majority was produced in Taiwan and some other locations in China. The website was pretty easy to navigate and they included a map of their primary location. Jumping in a cab, it was not difficult to find but in a seedier area of town, sandwiched between two auto repair shops. On one side was their office and on the other side was a nice showroom with lots of glass cases. After standing in the rain for a few minutes an older lady came out and took me to the showroom to look at the stuff - there were lots and lots of weapons with about half the shop taken up by Japanese swords. I had a cursory look at the Japanese stuff but they were all made in China and I could tell at a glance that the quality of the lacquer was pretty poor although it looked good. The Japanese blades were pretty average. At those prices I would save up for something from Japan.

The collection, like Hanwei, and many of the big suppliers in the US included Western weapons, Japanese and Chinese weapons as well a big section on hunting knives. Although they did have the usual extreme weapons for the cosplay enthusiasts the majority of weapons were designed to more traditional specifications. However, unlike Hanwei some of the stuff was pretty gaudy and the showroom being small could not display everything. I wasn't so interested in the swords as I had just bought one earlier in the year. They only had 5-6 broadswords on display and the deer horn knives which I had seen on the website were sold out. Trying out the broadswords the better stuff was more expensive but the focus was more on the design and quality of the hilt and the steel rather than the balance. One of the ones I tried was so top heavy that I couldn't keep the tip up. Another of the swords kept getting stuck in the scabbard and it took two of us to pull it apart.

Thus they had to bring out multiple copies before I found something that I liked and could live with. All in all I wasn't overtly impressed as the attendant didn't seem to that knowledgeable (I guess most of the people who buy are collectors who just hang the swords on their walls and the majority of the business is mail order). I also met the owner, a nice guy but he also seemed to be quite surprised when I said I wanted one for my own use. (He thought I was going to use it to kill wild pigs in the New Territories).

After deciding on the one I wanted they did a good job of wrapping it up and I just checked it in with my luggage. The blade is not but can be sharpened. I didn't feel that the service was fantastic but they probably sensed I wasn't going to be a big spender but it wasn't unfriendly either. If anyone is in Taiwan and wants to check out the store its probably better to copy down the codes for things you are interested in before going as they can bring it out of the storeroom.

Mascot Collection

Taiwan Trip

2011-10-06T10:48:00.000+08:00

I just got back from a really packed short trip to Taiwan - three days was not really enough to do everything I needed to do and see friends. But I did manage to do the following which I will post about over the next few days. Even though the pace was quite intense I somehow felt spiritually refreshed. As always it was like going home.

(1) Went to Lion Books Taiwan and bought a bunch of martial arts books for Sifu
(2) Bought a new broadsword from Mascot
(3) Picked up a CD with the 5 healing sounds
(4) Visit a bunch of slow food restaurants
(5) Visit the Chinese Doctor and the fortuneteller

Unfortunately this time there were no visits to any of the marital arts masters. I want to dial back on learning new things and focus more on basics. Time does feel short.

Fierce Medicine - Ana Forrest

2011-09-30T11:44:00.000+08:00

This is one of the books that I am reading (amongst all the others). Although I have put yoga as a physical practice to one side at the moment, there is a lot of information in this book that I found quite useful for own development. For those who don't know who she is Ana Forrest is one of the cadre of celebrity teachers in the US and has her own yoga style - Forrest Yoga. This book is part-biography, detailing Ana Forrest's history of substance and sexual abuse and how she learned to become a wounded healer and Shaman, and part training manual detailing how different yoga poses can be used to heal different kinds of injury and trauma.

The book has raised eyebrows in the yoga community due to her direct, slightly abrasive style and pointed comments about some of the gurus in the yoga world (such as Iyengar) and it strong emphasis on the Native American healing traditions. Indeed the title fierce Medicine is from this tradition. In the Native American world, the word means following the Medicine ways or following the Sacred ways. The Medicine Way teaches walking in beauty, which means living in alliance and respect for the natural world including the different peoples of the world, the animals, the life forces of the plants and the planet and cosmos itself. Part of the Medicine Way is vision questing and a deep introspection into finding out who you are, what do you need to do in the world and what is your purpose. These teachings call for a fierce quality of attention and also a willingness to fight for one's own freedom. She makes much of being a Truth Speaker, even when it hurts, and being able to commune with the Sacred Ones. She also makes much of the serendipitous moments (what she calls medicine moments) that led her along this path and much of her hard won wisdom. I found some of her exercises and meditations for confronting past pain and clearing out residual emotions useful and clear, but they are definitely not easy making you confront some painful truths about yourself and breaking conditioned reactions. (One powerful one is the death meditation).

Yogis who are too wedded to the concept of Ahimsa - not doing harm to sentient beings will be alarmed by some of her pronouncements. Her mother goddess is Kali - the goddess of destruction and Ana is not hesitant to advocate the death and destruction of the old so the new can be born. Indeed one of the key points that she makes that as a healer it is important to recognize that not everyone can be "saved" and sometimes the job of the healer is to prepare the patient for a death with integrity. This book resonated with me as there is a strong sense that life is difficult and that if we focus too much on the light and neglect dealing with the "shadow" then that part will find ways to affect us in the future.

Ito Kayo - 伊藤佳代

2011-09-27T10:04:00.001+08:00

It seems that I am on one my topic rolls at the moment. On the topic of Buddhism, I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce one my favorite singers on my blog - Ito Kayo. (She also is related to two of my favorite places - Taiwan and Japan.

Ito Kayo was born in Shinagawa prefecture in Japan, and majored in Chinese. She was originally trained in the vocal music and literary theater and came to Taiwan to further her studies and became a "Japanese Folk Music Singer".

The Taiwanese company 原動力文化 signed her and helped her put out quite a number of Buddhist records including The Tibetan Green Tara Mantra 《綠度母心咒》, The Tibetan Manjusri Mantra《西藏文殊咒》, The Mantra of the Cundi Boddhisattva 《準提佛母心咒》, The Heart Sutra 《心經》, The Mantra of Kurukili 《咕噜咕列佛母心咒》, the Mantra of the Medicine Budda 《藥師佛心咒》, the Diamond Sutra 《金剛心》 and many more. Her music has won awards for cinematic soundtrack at the Emmy Awards in the US. The music is usually composed by the well known New Age Composer and sells well in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. A great deal of her music can be heard on Youtube.

She will be performing in November in Hong Kong as part of the World Cultures Festival : Enchanting Arts of Asia. The Celestial Songs Concert will take place from 11-13 November and I am looking forward to it.

Celestial Songs

Buddhism wihout Karma and Rebirth?

2011-09-26T12:00:00.000+08:00

I have been studying for my Master in Buddhist Studies at Hong Kong University for over three years now, and I am hoping to finally graduate in 2012. The benefits of taking so long with the course is that I can really chew and digest a single course each semester instead of rushing to try and meet all my essay deadlines. Currently I am taking a course in "Emptiness and the Prajnaparamita sutras" and while it is conceptually quite difficult I find that it is much more thought provoking than some of the previous historical courses. As it is in English and in the evening, the students are usually older, very well educated and quite Western in outlook (even though they are 90% Chinese). They are somewhat less patient with the "religious" aspects of Buddhism and want to get at what they believe to be the core of the teaching. There have also been a number of talks trying to tie the latest findings between meditation and the science of the brain which can be seen as efforts in the forefront of making Buddhism palatable to the modern world.

Although not strictly dictated by my course, I have been doing some reading on the side that has a bearing on this more "modern" westernized form of Buddhism. The first is a slightly older book (1997) by Stephen Batchelor - "Buddhism without Beliefs - A Contemporary guide to awakening" and a book that has just come out in the previous few months - "The Boddhisattva's Brain : Buddhism Naturalized" by Owen Flanagan, a professor of philosophy at Duke University. The first book advocates a Buddhism that gets rid of dogma and belief (in various creeds, rituals, dieties, etc.) and a return to first principles with a focus on practice. It is relatively famous for its jettisoning of the principles of karma and rebirth and its focus on an existential brand of Buddhism in the here and now.

In the second book Professor Flanagan takes up themes he first touched upon in his first book - "The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World" by imagining a Buddhism without the 'hocus pocus' : "if there is or could be such a thing". He also removes the theory of karma and rebirth. What remains, Flanagan says, "would be an interesting and defensible philosophical theory with a metaphysics, a theory about what there is and how it is, an epistemology, a theory about how we come to know and what we can know, and an ethics, a theory about virtue and vice and how best to live."

He raises some tough questions, especially for Western Buddhists who seem to be fixated on the meditative aspect as a means to achieve happiness. (Which could be one logical outcomes of stripping Buddhism back to the basics.) What is the evidence for the claim that there is a connection between Buddhism and happiness? What empirical claims being made by Buddhists have actually been confirmed in the lab? Why do so few Buddhists meditate, traditionally? He wants to return the focus back to wisdom and goodness which he sees as the key to the Buddha's teaching.

Now there is a lot of material here and I am still formulating my views on it. But if you have the interest to explore these topics further I would also suggest reading the following reviews:

Bourgeois Buddhists: Do Americans Miss the Point of Buddhism?

Buddhism Without Beliefs?

Mysterious Powers of Xingyi Quan

2011-09-26T09:43:00.001+08:00

My Sifu's recent book on Xingyi Quan has been translated into English and the English version published by Alex Kozma. I did a posting on it previously, but here is the cover and the recommended retail price is around £22.5 (not including postage and packing). The book can be bought here. This version should have more pictures than the Spanish version as the Spanish editor removed quite a great deal of material because of space constraints.

Seal Engraving - 篆刻

2011-09-23T14:26:00.001+08:00

In addition to teaching martial arts my Sifu is also famous for seal engraving, Here is a sample of some of his work. The above is the 鳥蟲印 (Bird and Worm Seal) and the one below is the 飛鳥篆 (Flying Bird Characters) for which he is famous. A short bio I translated for his upcoming exhibition.

CS Tang is a famous Hong Kong based Calligrapher, Seal Engraver and Martial Artist. CS' courtesy name is Mian Chai. He studied under many renowned teachers under many styles - Zhao Zhi Xian 趙之謙, Huang Tu Ling 黃士陵, Wu Chang Suo 吳昌碩 and others. His products show a steadiness of hand and beauty of form, with echoes of the ancient masters. The setting is fresh and new, with the carving of the form of the seal and the intention of the seal, he has the heart of a master craftman; in his early years he was adept at carving in exquisite detail, later he was responsible for many innovations in the hard Guangdong Style 硬朗之粵派, and was especially famous for the the Bird Worm Seal in Hong Kong. For calligraphy he was famous for the flying bird script and Clerical script of the Han Dynasty 漢隸. For the flying bird characters he was inspired by the Yi Shan Stele 嶧山刻石 and his clerical script he takes after the Ritual Vessal Stele 禮器碑, for the regular script Sima Jing 司馬景 and his wife. His paintings are mainly landscapes .

Higan - 彼岸

2011-09-22T09:48:00.000+08:00

It is the fast approaching the time of the autumnal equinox. Higan, or Higan-e, is a week of Buddhist services observed in Japan during both the spring and autumn equinoxes when day and night are equal at length. Both equinoxes have been national holidays since the Meiji period (1868-1912). Before World War II, they were known as koreisai 古例祭, or festivals of the Imperial ancestors. The origin of the holiday dates from Emperor Shomu in the 8th century. After the war, when the national holidays were renamed, they became simply spring and autumn equinoxes.People who normally worked in the fields had more leisure time to evaluate their own practices, and to make a renewed effort to follow Buddhism. Today, special services are usually observed in Japanese Buddhist temples, and Japanese temples abroad, based on the particular Buddhist tradition or sect

Higan is a one-week period surrounding the spring and autumn equinoxes. It means the “other shore” and refers to the spirits of the dead reaching Nirvana after crossing the river of existence. It celebrates the spiritual move from the world of suffering to the world of enlightenment and is a time to remember the dead by visiting, cleaning and decorating their graves and reciting sutras. Buddhist prayers, rice balls and sushi are offered. This is a time for the Japanese to worship their imperial ancestors and to welcome spring.

The etymology of higan means "the other or that shore of Sanzu River 三途の川", which is a common euphemism used in Buddhist literature to refer to Enlightenment. One crosses from this shore of ignorance and suffering to the other shore of Enlightenment and peace. In the Alagaddupama Sutta of the Pali Canon the Buddha uses a simile of a person constructing a raft to cross one shore to the other, symbolizing realization or Enlightenment. In the Heart Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism is the mantra:

gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
Gone, gone, gone beyond, everyone gone beyond [to the Other Shore], Enlightenment Hail

O-higan is a time to focus on the 6 Perfections, or Pāramitā:

1. Dana – generosity

2. Sila – virtue

3. Ksanti – patience

4. Virya – effort

5. Dhyana – meditation (also ‘zen’)

6. Prajna – wisdom

Why Boxing Is Worth Fighting For

2011-09-21T15:26:00.001+08:00

There was an impassioned plea in the Wall Street Journal for the case of boxing as a youth sport.

In late August, the American Academy of Pediatrics fell just short of recommending that boxing be banned for children and teenagers: "Amateur boxers are at serious risk of face and brain injuries, including concussion. Children's brains are more vulnerable to concussion, and recovery takes longer than for adults."

Claire LeBlanc, co-author of the paper, said that "while most sports have some risk of injury, boxing is especially dangerous because these athletes are rewarded for dedicated and deliberate hits to their opponent's head." She advised young athletes to opt instead for non-contact sports like swimming, tennis and volleyball.

It's not clear that boxing is really so much more dangerous than other popular sports. As the AAP itself admitted, there are many other sports in which youngsters are more likely to get injured. A 2006 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found an injury rate among amateur boxers, ages 15 to 37 years, of 1 per 1,000 hours of participation. This is lower than the reported injury rates for high-school athletes (from a 2007 study cited by the AAP) of 4.4 per 1,000 hours of participation in football, 2.5 in wrestling and 2.4 in soccer. The authors of the AAP paper do emphasize, however, that "intentional face and head injuries" are more frequent in boxing.

In a world where you can be prosecuted for defending yourself against a burglar in your own house, there are fewer and fewer avenues for disadvantaged youth to build discipline and self-respect. We should balance the risks and rewards before making such blanket statements.

To read the rest of the article - look here

Single Palm Change

2011-09-21T11:50:00.000+08:00

Having past mid Autumn, the weather is getting colder as we start to approach the beginnings of Winter. As with every year there is always a focus on going back to basics and what could be more basic in Baguazhang than the Single Palm Change posture? As part of deepening my understanding of the posture I have focused on trying to understand the Bagua song composed by Gao Yisheng. A rough translation is as follows:

Bagua Song:
In the method of Baguazhang the hands must flow continiously,
The Li Trigram is empty while the Kun Trigram is full - this is the true transmission.
Qian, Kun, Gen, Zhen press down the centreline,
The hands and the feet xuan, dui are complete up and down.

The body and application of Five Elements, Eight Hexagrams (Bagua) are wonderful,
The chicken feet, dragon body are coiled to the inside.
The shoulders of a bear, arms of a monkey, head of a tiger or panther,
Three basins are relaxed and the art and usage are natural.

Just talking about the five animals for the moment, the chicken feet refer to a lightness in the front foot which can be raised at will, with the majority of the weight resting on the back foot. The dragon's body is the coiling at the waist, the bear's shoulders are the wrapping around of the shoulders and relaxing the chest, the tiger's head involves a strong intention with the eyes and tucking in the chin and the monkey's arms are pretty much self explanatory.

Above is a picture of me in the Single Palm Change after my posture was corrected by Sifu. The reason for the contorted expression is that the stance is a fraction (probably half a centimeter) lower than I am used to and after a minute or so I am already in serious pain. I don't know when I will ever get the bear's shoulders and dragon's body, but I do have chicken's feet... :). A point that Sifu wanted me to work on was on sinking my elbow, and he said that in the old days they would balance a Chinese tea cup full of water in the crook of the elbow as they walked the circle. Again this is not something that I feel I am capable of doing at the moment.

Two Year Anniversary

2011-09-20T10:43:00.000+08:00

Well it has been about two years since I started writing this blog, and it has evolved in a number of directions reflecting a diversity of interests. I have always found the ideal of the Chinese literati striving for excellence in martial arts, culture, spiritual cultivation and healing very appealing, but appreciate that sometimes the blog loses its coherence. I am also getting more hits everyday, and know I really should blog more consistenly. In the interest of trying to improve, I was hoping to garner some reader feedback as to what people will like to see or which posts they have particularly enjoyed in the past. Here in broad terms are the major topics I have touched on.

(1) Baguazhang - mainly Gao Style
(2) Other Internal Arts - mainly Taichi and Yiquan
(3) Other martial arts - training methods and history
(4) Cinema - martial arts movies and cultural movies
(5) Health - Traditional Chinese Medicine in the modern day
(6) Health - Alternative Healing
(7) Yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonic
(8) Aikido
(9) Other Japanese Martial Arts - mainly Koryu, Kenjitsu and Kendo
(10) Poetry - Japanese and Chinese
(11) Chinese and Japanese Calligraphy
(12) Modern sport training methods and application to martial arts

Please let me know and also many thanks for all the people who have contacted me personally through gmail. My apologies that I don't check it as often as I should.

九成宮醴泉銘

2011-09-15T14:00:00.000+08:00

I have posted before that my daughter has been taking calligraphy lessons with Sifu, as part of my attempt to instill some traditional Chinese values. I am a firm believer that parents should lead by example and for many of these activities, where there is an absence of peer pressure, the only way the child will do it is if the parents or other adults do it. That is why I haven't asked her to learn traditional Chinese instruments.

As part of my own practice in Calligraphy Sifu has made be start practicing the 九成宮醴泉銘 (literally the Carving of the Sweet Wine Spring of the Palace of the Nine Excellences) which was written by the Tang Dynasty poet and Calligrapher 歐陽詢 Ouyang Xun for the Emperor 李世民. The text has been preserved as a carving on a stele and is commonly referred to as the "foremost carving under heaven" 天下第一銘. The story behind the carving is as follows:

In the Spring of the 6th year of the Emperor Taizong 貞觀6年, the Emperor was touring the 九成宮 (which was akin to a Summer Palace away from the main palace) to avoid the heat. As there was a drought and little rain, and the number of men and horses had increased due to the Emperor's presence, providing drinking water for the palace was proving to be difficult. On the 16th day of the 4th month, the Emperor and Empress were walking in the palace and walked all the way to the far west of the palace. "Bending over to look at the ground, they noticed that there were traces of moisture, and because of this they began to dig with their walking stick. As they did this a spring bubbled forth. Thus they constructed a stone opening and led directed it using a channel. The water was as clear as a mirror and as sweet as sweet wine." ，“俯察厥土，微覺有潤，因而以杖導之，有泉隨而涌出，乃承以石檻，引為一渠。其清若鏡，味甘如醴……”，Thus was a stele erected to commemorate this.

This text is universally acknowledged as one of the finest examples of Kaishu 楷書 or regular script. The vertical strokes are upright and strong, the hook at the end of a stroke 鉤 is not casual and the rise 提, pressdown 捺 and throwaway 撇 are sharp like blades.

Many writers have compared calligraphy to the martial arts in terms of the internal power of the movement and I had always puzzled over this statement as there was always an absence of description. After having done calligraphy for a little while now, I can see some of the similarities to the internal arts, such as how one keeps the hand raised relaxed and moves the forearm, and fixes the position of the elbow. This is similar to how one holds the arm in zhan zhuang and how the forearm may move in chi sao or push hands. (Indeed the longer one practices zhan zhuang the more beneficial it is to having a steady hand to hold the brush, if one is not resting the forearm on the table). There is a conscious effort to remove any unnecessary tension and all movement is meant to be initiated from the centre or dantian. From the dantian there is a connection and intention all the way to the tip of the brush, as in weapons work.

My daughter and I practicing calligraphy at Narita Airport.

ChineseLongsword.com

2011-09-15T09:49:00.000+08:00

I wanted to spend a little promoting this website. ChineseLongsword.com is a research and translation project of ancient Chinese sword manuals led by the Historical Combat Association (Singapore). Their goal is to preserve the ancient wisdom contained in these manuals for future generations. Their founder Jack Chen has also been in correspondence with my Sifu. Their efforts should be deeply commended and appreciated by the martial arts community. I hope that I can meet with them next time I am in Singapore.

The first manual they worked on was 單刀法選 "Dan Dao Fa Xuan", a Chinese swordsmanship manual, written and drawn by 程宗猷 (Cheng Zong You) during the Ming Dynasty, when the Japanese pirates fought with the Ming soldiers. He was taught by 劉雲峰 (Liu Yun Feng), who learned Japanese swordsmanship (Kenjutsu) directly from the Japanese.

This has since expanded to include writers such as 俞大猷 (Yu Da-You) a famous Ming-Dynasty General who defend China against the Japanese pirate invasions. Legend has it that General Yu visited Shaolin Temple, and improved on the monks' Staff techniques with his own teachings. He later wrote and compiled 正氣堂集 (Zheng Qi Tang Ji), "Compilation of Vital Energy". In his book, is a section called 劍經 (Jian Jing), "Sword Treatise" Other authors cover the spear, shaolin staff, shield and wolf brush and many others.

These texts are often written in sparse classical Chinese, without detailed descriptions of the techniques contained therein and the team has done their best to expand on them and also provide notes to esepecially poetic or unclear parts. The site also includes videos showing their attempts to interpret what the texts mean and re-enact the weapons sets. The team led by Jack Chen has also spent time tracking down the most complete version of these manuals to Korea and has written about the Korean commentaries. The translations are available as downloadable PDFs from the websites.

Art of Surviving the Duel

2011-09-06T16:38:00.000+08:00

Although not strictly within the limits of the topics I blog on, I found that this was an interesting article on the Martinez Academy of Arms in New York. The academy is one of a few remaining places in the world where a nearly extinct tradition of European swordsmanship is studied and passed down from master to student, said its founder, Ramón Martínez, 57. His academy teaches styles and traditions for more than 20 weapons including the rapier, the dagger, the wooden cane and the military saber.

Mr. Martínez says the traditional styles he teaches are a martial art rooted in dueling tradition. Unlike modern, Olympic-style fencing, which emphasizes athleticism and dramatic lunges, his academy’s fencing focuses on an economy of movement, with a less-catlike stance, he said. Its style is more cagey and defensive, like the style one might adopt in a real duel with real swords and real lives at stake.

Teaching the art of surviving the deal

Evolution of Yang Taichi

2011-09-05T10:00:00.001+08:00

I had recently written a post about the history of Tai Chi Neigong on this blog and had promised that I would post a lineage chart as it was potentially quite confusing for those who are unfamiliar with such things. One of the criticisms of my earlier post was that the neigong movements detailed in Tian Jiao Lin's book were quite different from those eventually taught by Cheng Tin Hong. However if one were to look closely at how Taichi itself evolved, there are quite significant changes from generation to generation and it is not surprising that the neigong continued to evolve as one could build all sorts of movements upon the basic principles to train different parts of the body in a targeted manner.

If we start at the beginning, unfortunately Yang Lu Chan's "Mian Quan" is now lost to posterity and there is no way of knowing what his body movements were like. However we do know that in Yang Ban Hou's line 擒拿 qinna or grappling techniques continued to be emphasized even down to the present day Wu style, which has evolved into much smaller movements and is itself divided into the Northern and Southern (Hong Kong) variations. However in Yang Jian Hou's line qinna became de-emphasized and instead the emphasis was placed on fajin and the movements became softer and more rounded with the generations. (Although Yang Xiao Hou still emphasized practicality and a strong fighting style.) Indeed if you look at my Sifu's performance of the Yang Jian Hou's 老架 Lao Jia on Youtube the emphasis on a strong frame is apparent throughout.

Tian Jiao Lin is also an interesting character in that he tried to study under Yang Jian Hou but because YJH felt that he was too old to teach he asked TJL to study under his son Yang Cheng Pu. However he did also receive instruction from YJH, so there has been a revival of interest in him in the mainland recently as he is seen to be one of the few who studied under both father and son.

For those who are critical of present day Yang Taichi as being too soft, Yang Cheng Pu and Yang Shou Zhong also taught a 長拳 Chang Quan set where the emphasis is on fajin (similar to the er lu in Chen Taiji). However this set was only taught to closed door students. Although YSZ only had three formal disciples, they were not necessarily his best students as it was not fashionable to baishi in the 60s and 70s in Hong Kong, and the revival of this tradition only came about in the 80s and 90s as the mainland began to open up again. There were many students who studied with YSZ a long time, without undergoing the ceremony. In fact Sifu mentioned that one would know who was an indoor student of YSZ by how three movements were performed. These were 攬雀尾, 白蛇吐信 and the closing posture 收式.

Recently on a trip to Wuhan he saw an old man performing Taichi in the park and he did the movements in the same way he was taught by YSZ, including the closing posture. However he did not have a chance to talk with the man, which was a shame.

Obviously the list above is not exhaustive but wanted to post some interesting anecdotes that my Sifu and I talked about during my lessons.

BLU-e™ Seminar in Hong Kong 13-14 August

2011-08-31T10:41:00.000+08:00

In my quest to heal my back this year, partially as a result of my disappointment with modern sports medicine, I have been experimenting with energetic healing. Normally I am quite pragmatic as I don't deal too much with mediumship, auras, crystals, flower essenses and other New Age healing modalities. However, many of my friends in the yoga circles lean in that direction and to some extent I can't help but be influenced by them. But at a base level, I strongly believe in energetic work which I have experienced in the qigong and neigong from martial arts and pranayama in yoga as well as traditional chinese medicine.

I have also many friends who practice Reiki (including some of my Kung fu brothers) but have never been inclined to try it myself as it seemed a little strange to channel energy from out there rather than build up one's own Qi using Qigong. But for some reason I was quite drawn to this BLU-e™ healing when saw it being advertised and had tried it a couple of times with good results. (No miraculous cures but at least the energy seemed to flow better in my back with less blockages).

Thus I signed up for the Level I training this month, not knowing what to expect, but hoping that I could at least learn some healing methods for both me and my family members. Now BLU-e™ is a new healing modality and had originated in 2006 and its founder Wayne Wia Ling Tan is a Malaysian Chinese from Penang who grew up in Canada. He is 49 years old but looks much younger than that. Like Reiki and Shekem this healing is channeled from an external source but unlike many other healing modalities which are channeled out of the heart chakra, this one is channeled from the sacral chakra, and this was demonstrated using pendulums. Also unlike Reiki or Qigong, once one has been attuned one does not need to practice every day in order to retain or enhance the power.

There were eight of us in this first training to be held in Asia, and each of the participants had very interesting backgrounds but almost all had some experience with energetics. When playing with the energy my body began to get hot and the feeling was quite similar to that of Qigong, which Wayne confirmed as the energy flowed through the sacral chakra. As many of the people attending the seminar had studied Reiki before, we also got to feel the difference between a reiki touch and this kind of healing. Reiki had a laying of hands and I could feel the warmth emanating from the hands but BLU-e™ felt like gentle waves of energy buffeting the body as there was no touch involved.

After the seminar I felt full of energy and the first couple of days I had some difficulty sleeping as though I was full of caffeine. Also when practicing zhan zhuang or just doing martial arts routines I felt I could achieve a strong energetic state faster than I had previously be able to do. It also helped with my meditation practices also as I found that I could still my mind faster than before and during meditation my body would throw off a lot of heat. We will be doing monthly refresher meetings and will be good to see how this continues to develop.

BLU-e™

武道狂之詩 - Blood and Steel

2011-08-30T16:05:00.000+08:00

This is a new comic, english title called Blood and Steel that has been on sale this year in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong martial arts novelist 喬靖夫 - set in a reimagined past during the Ming Dynasty. It had previously be released in novel form. The Wudang Sect is controlled by a new and terrible master and he sends his disciples out to wipe out all the other famous sects in China to prove that Wudang is undefeated under heaven. Many major styles make an appearance including Shaolin, Emei, Baguazhang, Xinyi, and even a Japanese female Kenshi from Satsuma of the Kage-ryu. A number of survivors from sects that have been wiped out band together to take revenge and stop them.

Their website is worth looking at as well, as there is an interesting section called Hall of Mastery, which talks about concepts like breathing, Jing, Qi and Shen, external and internal arts and much more, which should be of great interest to the martial artists who read my blog. Nice guilty pleasure if you can read Chinese and vastly different to those who are used to reading Japanese manga.

Complete Book of Chakra Healing

2011-08-30T11:19:00.000+08:00

This is a post following on from my post on the book - the Subtle Body by Cyndi Dale. When I saw this book in the bookstore, I spent some time reading it and finally decided to buy it, despite it being quite expensive buying it at full retail. I had been looking for a good book on the chakras for a while, especially during my yoga days but either the books were too light, such as the Anatomy of Spirit by Caroline Myss or too esoteric, like Harish Johari's book on Chakras. This brick of a book definitely exceeded my expectations.

Cyndi Dale's system of Chakras extends beyond the usual seven physical chakras to twelve chakras as well as 32 minor chakras. Although some of the details do seem to stray into the esoteric, for the most part the language is clear and concise with descriptions of associated diseases and imbalances and prescriptions of how to overcome blocks through diet and exercise with good case histories. The other interesting thing that the book does is to tie the minor chakras with Chinese meridian points to provide an integrated system, which I had not seen other books do before. Most of the time the meridians are equated with nadis and left at that. There is also a wealth of information tying her findings to some of the latest scientific research (sort of what I like to do on my blog from time to time).

I found that by reading the book I was able to make correlations between imbalances in the third chakra and my current injuries (back injuries and liver weakness) and situation (dissatisfaction at work), and some of the real life stories resonated strongly with me. There were also diagnoses of certain diseases such as AIDS, autism, chronic fatigue syndrome and how they relate to imbalances in the body. For the sceptics there is some work that can be done with pendulums, to demonstrate the existence of the chakras. This was one of the things that was quite powerful for me, as I was really surprised how the pendulum would move by itself when concentrating on one of the chakras.

Beyond the system of the chakras, Dale also deals with auras, rays and spirit guides, which is valuable information for those inclined in that direction, but these sections can be glossed over if your interest is mainly in the chakras, like mine.

I very much liked Dale's approach as she emphasizes the physical as well as the spiritual, and always stressed the importance of being grounded, which she says is one of the biggest mistakes of many of the new healing modalities being taught. This accorded well with my personal experience, for when I was training yoga every day and adhering to a strict vegetarian diet with meditation, I always found that I felt "spacey" and like I was floating. It was not until I had a strong martial arts practice to balance this that I felt more grounded and effective in the world, and not trying to escape it.

I would definitely recommend this as a follow on from the Subtle body for those who have an interest in energy work, healing and yoga.

Examing Bone's Role in Fertility

2011-08-24T13:54:00.001+08:00

Here is the latest in a sporadic series of articles from the New York Times health section that I find of interest. Again this has some bearing to traditional Chinese medicine, as the article shows that the bones help to regulate blood sugar, as well as have an unexpected role in reproduction. Now this is more evidence for how the different systems in the body do not operate in silos but are all inter-related. In Chinese medicine the kidneys are of water and rule the bones and the hair and are also responsible for the nourishing yang qi (life energy) and hence are also responsible for reproduction.

Examining the mystery of skeleton, sugar and sex

CAS Hanwei Dadao and the 大刀隊

2011-08-19T14:40:00.000+08:00

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I had bought a sword from Hanwei in the US and recently Sifu also pointed out the Chinese website to me, but I still don't know whether I can ship it to Hong Kong or not. However it does mean that I could potentially ask friends across the border to order things for me and then I pick it up when I go and visit them. So it saves me from having to wait until my next trip to the United States and it is cheaper too.

One of the items that Hanwei offers is the Daodao, which was used by Chinese forces against the Japanese during the war of resistance. In 1933, after the Marco Polo bridge incident the Japanese controlled most of the North East and were advancing South. At they advanced through Hebei, the Chinese army rushed troops to meet them at a pass just outside of the Great wall - 喜峰口. It fell upon the 29th army to bear the brunt of the fighting as both sides took control of strategic highground around the pass. Morale was low and by the 9th March the Japanese controlled the pass with the 29th suffering heavy losses. The commanders of the 37th and 38th divisions conferred and decided that the Japanese had technological superiority and thus it was not prudent to attack them head on. Instead they would attack their rear using their special weapons - the Dadao.

The 29th army was originally the North Eastern Army, but because the warlord 冯玉祥 expanded the army very quickly, there were not enough guns and ammunition to go round so all the troops were issued with Dadao. The Dadao was a variation of the traditional curved chinese broadsword and was especially suited for slicing. Feng had recruited a number of martial arts masters to put together a marital arts routine for the Dadao and forced the recruits to train hard. Although the Dadao began as a temporary measure, it eventually became a distinguishing feature of the North Eastern Army.

The 29th handpicked 500 troops who were skilled with the Dadao, armed only with the weapon and hand grenades, they went forth while the other troops provided covering fire. During the night the troops separated into columns and attacked the sleeping Japanese cavalry and artillery force and under the cover of darkness killed over a 100 enemy troops and captured several pieces of artillery and shells. The Japanese airplanes were not able to function at night. Although the Japanese counterattacked, the Chinese held their own and destroyed several armored vehicles and important supplies. It was a complete victory.

The Japanese had previously been overconfident and taken off their uniform and arms when sleeping, but now some of them took to sleeping with their helmets. 喜峰口 was considered by the Japanese to be a humiliation to the Emperor. In 1937 a patriotic song 《大刀進行曲》 - was composed to commemorate the event and to rouse the country to do battle with the Japanese.

Actually there was no particular standard size for the Dadao as can be seen above. The leather handle wrap is representative of the many different wrapping materials originally used by the poorly-equipped army - many of the handles were simply wrapped with strips of clothing fabric, knotted in place. A leather scabbard is included for safety, though the originals had none. The sword is ruggedly built to handle heavy-duty cutting.

Hadaka-Jime

2011-08-18T10:18:00.001+08:00

I was browsing on Amazon and this book came up in my recommendation page. The book is a self defense course for soldiers put together by Moshe Feldenkrais during World war II. It is based around one judo technique - the hadaka Jime or rear choke hold and is applicable to a variety of situations. It was reissued in 2009 with a new introduction by Moti Nativ. I have been very interested in the Feldenkrais method but never had an opportunity to study it.

For those of you who know, Feldenkrais is the founder of the Feldenkrais method. The Feldenkrais method aims to improve movement repertoire, aiming to expand and refine the use of the self through awareness, in order to reduce pain or limitations in movement, and promote general well-being. It is also used by many martial artists, especially in Aikido. Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais was a remarkable man; teacher, soldier, researcher, judoka, visionary, martial artist, physicist, and pioneer. He was a founder of the European Judo Union, and respected by Gunji Koizumi, Mikinosuke Kawaishi, and Jigoro Kano.

Feldenkrais emphasized concepts of the learning process throughout the book. He encouraged the reader to maintain a relaxed attitude, to start with slow and precise movements as he explained the timing, and to master the movements by repetition. The result would be a spontaneous movement which was correct and precise. Then the practitioner could apply the technique to variety of situations. He claimed that a fighter must first acquire the ability and then put it to practical use.

This book also provides a level of insight for those experienced in the Feldenkrais Method into the early thought processes of the founder and reveals a pioneer who is equal parts warrior and educator, and offers a snapshot of a method in the midst of its making. If you follow the trajectory of training outlined in this book, you ll find the very same strategies and techniques that become the basis of Dr. Feldenkrais yet-to-be-announced method. By teaching only one martial arts technique, Feldenkrais creates a lesson-like experiment, rich in the interplay of theme and variation.

Dr. Feldenkrais authored four more books on martial arts, Ju-Jitsu and Self Defense (1931), ABC du Judo (1938), Judo: The Art of Defense and Attack (1941), and Higher Judo (1952). After meeting Jigoro Kano, he was active in promoting Judo in France and in founding the European Judo Union.

Moti Nativ started formal martial arts training in 1966 on the wrestling team of the Horace Mann High School in Gary, Indiana where he lived for two years with his uncle. Today, Moti is Shihan in the Bujinkan school for Budotaijutsu/Ninjutsu, he holds black belt in Judo, is a Certified Krav Maga instructor by the Israeli army and is head of International Bujinkan Shiki Dojo, teaching martial arts in Israel, Europe and the United States. In 1994, Moti became a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. Moti specializes in teaching the Feldenkrais Method to martial artists in a program called Warrior's Awareness. Thus began his research into the early years of Moshe Feldenkrais and the influence of martial arts on the development of the Feldenkrais Method. From his research, he has developed a workshop called the Fighting Roots of the Feldenkrais Method, which he teaches world-wide.

混元三教九流图

2011-08-12T11:05:00.000+08:00

On the box of my sword that I ordered from Hanwei, there was a strange figure that Hanwei was using as the logo for their Shaolin line. When I asked Sifu about what it meant he told me that it was a figure that was carved on a stele in the Shaolin temple, dating from the Ming dynasty by 朱載堉 1536-1611, a ninth generation descendent of the first Ming Emperor and notable literati and mystic. It was called the 混元三教九流图 or the Hunyuan Picture of the three religions and nine teachings and represented the depth of Shaolin teachings, encompassing all of Chinese culture. Ostensibly it shows the three teachers Lao Zi, Confucius and the Buddha in one embrace.

The circle shape has a special meaning in Chinese culture and can be taken to symbolize fullness, harmony, perfection, purity and in Chinese metaphysics it represents the origin of the universe or the source of life which is divided into the tai ji and into the myriad things.

The combination of the three religions had already began in the Northern and Southern dynasties and started to gain popularity in the Song dynasty, but it was not until the Ming dynasty that it began to become widespread amongst the literati.

The term Hunyuan comes from Taoism and represents the beginning of the universe, chaotic and without form with the term first used in the Tang dynasty by the Crystal Stream Daoist 青溪道士.

The picture is comprised of three circles, the first circle represents the universe, the middle circle with the three men represents the three religions and the third small circle represents the 9 teachings. (seen better on the stele than the figure above). The imagery is clear that the universe is that from which all things arise and return and the three religions and the nine teachings are all from that origin. Compared to the universe they are but a grain of sand in a vast sea. 滄海一粟

The three men can be seen clearly with a fat Buddha in the center and Lao Zi on the left and Confucius on the right. It is interesting to see that Buddhism is placed in the center and is seen to be in some ways superior to the other two religions (it is the Shaolin temple after all). Although pictures of the three holy men together are quite common dating from the Tang dynasty but they always painted as individual figures and never combined into one body like this, taking advantage of an optical illusion.

In the center is a picture of a nine leafed flower representing the 9 streams of teaching which are Confucians 儒家, Daoists 道家, Yin-Yang 陰陽|阴阳, Legalists 法家, Logicians 名家, Mohists 墨家, Political Strategists 縱橫|纵横, Ecletics 雜家|杂家, Agriculturists 農傢|农家 representing the schools of the early Qin. This in time became another term for the hundred schools, everflowing from the source and the nine leafed flower was emblematic of what never withered.

On the top of the stele is writing stating the benefits of the three religions.

Tomoe - 巴

2011-08-03T14:46:00.000+08:00

A tomoe or tomoye (archaic) (巴) is a Japanese abstract shape (a swirl) that resembles a comma or the usual form of magatama. It is a common design element in Japanese family emblems (家紋 kamon) and corporate logos, particularly in triplicate whorls known as mitsu tomoe. Our dojo - Aikido Doyukai Hong Kong uses the tomoe as its emblem as does my friend Chris Li's dojo the Sangenkai in Hawaii. When looking on his website he had an interesting write up on the Tomoe and it relationship to Aikido. Here is the language reproduced in its entirety:

The "tomoe" symbol originates from a representation of a snake or a whirlpool, and represents spiral movement.

In Shingon Buddhism the design represents the cycle of life - Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba was educated in a Shingon Buddhist temple.

In Shinto the design is the crest of Hachiman, the Shinto god of war, which led to its popularity among warrior families in Japan.

The three joined tomoe in the mitsudomoe are often seen to represent the "sangen" or the "three origins" of the universe - Heaven, Earth and Man. Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba said that Aikido could also be called the "Way of Accord between Heaven, Earth and Man".

The "sangen", or three origins, of Aikido are "Masakatsu" ("true victory"), "Agatsu" ("victory over oneself"), and "Katsuhayahi" ("victory with the speed of light", doing things so perfectly that time is no longer a factor).

The "sangen" are represented visually by the triangle ("Man"), the circle ("Heaven"), and the square ("Earth").

The triangle represents "iku-musubi", the power of birth and creation, the gaseous dimension. It symbolizes initiative, the animal realm, and Masakatsu. Technically, the triangle represents entering and flowing movements ("Ryutai").
The cicle represents "taru-musubi", the enriching power, the liquid dimension. It symbolizes unification, the vegetable realm, and Agatsu. Technically, the circle represents blending and soft movements ("Jutai").
The square represents "tamatsume-musubi", the power that fixes the soul in the physical body, the solid dimension. It symbolizes form, the mineral realm, and Katsuhayahi. Technically, the square represents control and firm or "hard" movements ("Gotai").

"The triangle represents the generation of energy and initiative; it is the most stable physical posture. The circle symbolises unification, serenity and perfection; it is the source of unlimited techniques. The square stands for form and solidity, the basis of applied control."

"When the triangle, the circle and the square become one, it moves in spherical rotation together with the flow of ki, and the Aikido of sumi kiri ("total clarity of mind and body") appears."

- Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido

Taiiji Relaxing Exercises 太極鬆身功

2011-08-02T21:36:00.000+08:00

CAS Hanwei Shaolin Jian

2011-07-29T15:33:00.001+08:00

As CAS Hanwei cannot ship directly to Hong Kong I shipped the sword to my hotel in Honolulu and brought it back with me after my vacation. I had been looking for a good sword for a long time (and not one of the floppy wushu blades). Here in Hong Kong, martial artists usually order swords directly from Longquan 龍泉, which is one of the few places in China that is allowed to manufacture live blades.

Lonquan is famous locally for its swords and porcelain, both of which are often regarded as the finest in China. The swords made in Longquan are famous among martial artists in China. Modern sword production is now led by a workshop named "Shenguanglong" whose sword-making history can be traced back to the twentieth year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty. Equally, Longquan porcelain (Longquanyao) is highly prized among collectors. Longquanyao had 1800 years' history before unfortunately disappearing during the Qing Dynasty.

However, after observing the blades that some of my Kung Fu brothers bought I was quite disappointed on a number of fronts. Although the blades were high quality, with quite pretty wave patterns on the blade (made using the 百煉花紋鋼 method), the pattern was usually made for the pattern's sake and not integrated with the blade in the same way a Japanese sword is made. In addition, the quality of the fittings and scabbard left a lot to be desired - usually the quality of the wood was poor and the designs were quite kitsch - the sort of orientalism that one finds in Chinese restaurants overseas or the exaggerated designs from Chinese Comics like the movie the Stormriders 風雲雄霸天下 or marital arts computer games. I also noticed that my Sifu's blade also became loose over time.

I tried looking at some Taiwanese sword makers but the good ones made swords with beautiful blades but the scabbards and fittings were exceedingly plain. So I decided to take a chance on the CAS Hanwei blades. They looked very nice on the website and had generally received pretty good reviews.

After buying the sword and taking it home, I was generally pleased with the outcome, the scabbard and fittings were all made to a very high level and quality and the design was restrained and pleasing. However the sword was on the heavy side (the weight seemed to be heavier than that stated on the site, although I did not weigh it exactly), and the balance seemed to higher in the blade than I would have liked. All in it was possible to use it as a martial arts sword for taolu but one needed a strong wrist. I would have preferred to have tried the blade before I bought it as the balance is different for each individual blade but all in all am reasonably pleased with my purchase. I am looking forward to using it to study Bagua Jian (even though it has Shaolin written on the crosspiece/ tang). Probably 7.5/10

Mike Sigman Seminar - Honolulu 23/24 July

2011-07-28T09:48:00.000+08:00

I just got back from Honolulu last night and besides the benefits of a nice vacation, I also managed to attend Mike Sigman's seminar held at the Shobukan in Honolulu. The Shobukan is the oldest Judo dojo in Hawaii and there were many trophies and photos from the 1920s, including a piece of calligraphy by Jigoro Kano above the Kamiza.

I have been a member of Mike's Qijin forum for over a year now and in that respect, I consider myself a "student" of Mike's and have learned a lot from his Qijin model and his concepts like "ground path" and "suit" have helped clarify and demystify a lot of the jargon in internal martial arts. I am also very very grateful to all the all people who actively post on his site. Despite all this, I still had a sense of unease that what I was learning here in Hong Kong might not have have been exactly what was discussed on the forum, as a part of the forum is also spent deconstructing what many internal masters were doing, and where they may be using muscle jin rather than the dantian. Thus this seemed to be a good opportunity to go and train while selling it to my wife as a vacation.

The two day seminar was short and sweet and most of the people there had more of an aikido background, (although there were some Hakko ryu and I Liq Chuan guys also) so I think some of the concepts were quite new to them. It seems that the Japanese arts are more established in Hawaii and it is difficult to find reputable Chinese masters there. The training on ground path, breathing and suit was similar to what was discussed on the forum, but it was good to get a chance listen to it in a systematic manner and to feel what Mike was doing and ask questions. I was also criticized for having some bad habits which made it difficult for me to sink, which are some of the criticisms that my Sifu has (which was good to see they were on the same page!). I would definitely recommend the seminar as it is extremely clear and one covers a lot of ground very quickly.

So what did I personally get out of the seminar, beyond meeting some new friends and meeting Mike in person?

(1) Well the most important thing was that I got to feel Mike, and his dantian was the most developed I have seen, it really felt like a hard grapefruit when he was moving the opponent. I got put my hands on his front and his back when he was moving someone else.

(2) Also it clarified to me how one "floats" the opponent using just the dantian, in push hands previously I always felt that one needed to use the hands to transmit the force from the dantian and channel the intention, but the exercises we did disproved that.

(3) It also clarified leading into emptiness - how to use intention to lead the opponent into one of his weak spots, either in front or behind.

(4) In fact the whole seminar underscored for me the importance of intention overall and how powerful it can be, and working with James (one of the participants from Texas) during the seminar, I was able to experience how by just adjusting my intention I could affect the front leg or the back leg. George Ledyard had shown this on one of his recent DVD's on Aiki but I was not able to understand what he was saying until it was actually shown.

(5) There was also the emphasis on connection, which had been stressed repeatedly here in my own Aikido practice, as it is something that Endo Sensei is always emphasizing in his seminars. Without a strong connection, it is impossible to use the dantian.

(6) Although my back is still not strong enough to Fajin properly (I wish I had attended the seminar in January before I threw out my back), it was very interesting how Mike incorporated the foot stomp into his fajin, this was not how I was taught and it would be very interesting to see how this can be integrated into my personal training here back home.

So the seminar gave me a lot of food for thought as to how to incorporate all this into my personal training. There was obviously a lot more and different people may have picked up on different things that they found important. Many thanks to Chris and Greg for organizing the seminar and being such good hosts. I hope to train hard and go to another seminar again in a few years time...

Pilates and Gyrotonic 4

2011-07-07T10:15:00.000+08:00

Not having posted on this topic for a while, my back has been slowly getting better, but the body needs time to heal and back injuries can take up to 2 years to heal fully. I would say about I am about 80% but every day definitely has its up and down and the last stretch seems to be the hardest, as there are days with very bad reversals. Thus I continue to attend the pilates and Gyrotonic classes quite diligently. Here are some interesting points from my last class, more in note form to myself, but it may also be interesting to some of the other readers of my blog.

Some of the interesting areas that I have been working included just learning to let go - I am reluctant to do the movements with full abandonment as I am sub-consciously protecting my back (and my self). Unlike yoga, certain movements in gyrotonic are meant to be done repetitively with a certain amount of speed and rhythm. Energy should be sent out to the extremities, what through what is called the "fifth line". This helps integrate all the various muscles of the body in movement. The circular movements of gyrotonic are especially good as this, as compared to pilates. Good pilates is meant to be done with an integrated body but a bad pilates instructor may sometimes just work different parts of your body in isolation.

To help with letting go, the instructor has asked me to go home and spin around in circles until I get dizzy and fall down. This is meant to help stimulate and align energy along the central core. She mentioned that I may also have some issues with sending out energy, as I may be afraid that it won't come back. However the point of these circular exercises is to set up a feedback loop where the energy goes out and returns, and in doing so there is an increase, rather than decrease in energy. Energetically the breathing in quite helpful and a recent phenomenon is that my dantian feels warm to the touch after the session.

I am also coming to the realization that when the body has a strong energetic flow the back restores alignment by itself without any physical realignment by the bonesetter or chiropractor.

Another interesting point is the realization how much we use our feet on the ground as support for all our daily movements, and this can sometimes be a crutch. To counteract this, we do some exercises where the legs are suspended by the machine. By moving the legs we start to work on your strengthening our center, initiating movement there and and making the spine the main area of support for the rest of the body. There are definite benefits to the martial arts in terms of body awareness and these exercises would be especially helpful to those who do a lot of grappling such as BJJ.