Weakness With a Twist

Dojorat linked to this article and video about girls fighting in school:

Two teenage girls went at it. Two adults allegedly watched and another minor videotaped the whole thing in Louisiana. The fight popped up on YouTube more than a week ago. Days later, in Lowell, Mass., local authorities discovered similar videos online and said local educators report about 80 percent of school fights are now girl against girl.

80% of fights at school are now girl against girl.  Wow.  When I was in school there were girl fights once or twice a year, they were very rare compared to fights between guys.  Fights at school were almost always what Sgt.  Rory Miller calls “Monkey Dance” fights.  That is, fights for status.  Fights at school are always broken up by adults, and are usually witnessed by other students.  From my own experience, Middle-school had small fights everyday, larger fights every couple of weeks.  High-school had one small fight every week, and larger fights every few months.  High-school was safer over all, but the fights, if they happened were more dangerous.  People also got ” jumped,” which was kind of like being mugged by a group, but it was usually people you knew.  I suspect that
“jumpings” went unreported most of the time.

Anyway, I’m willing to believe all that has changed.  Now 80% of high-school fights are between girls.  If you read the article above you’ll see some silly theory about the Internet is causing fights.  I think the reason young women are fighting more is that they are taking on more responsibility and authority.  Specifically they are taking on the types of authority that require spacial dominance, something only men and prostitutes used to do.

Young women in the US who are in high-school today have mothers who “benefited” from Title 9, which mandated that girls have equal access to athletics.  They are second generation athletes.  There is also a new phenomenon of female clowning which seems to be part of the same change.  The clown school in San Francisco has 50% female enrollment.

I’ve tried raising this issue with friends to see what they make of it, and 4 people so far have quipped some thing like, “I guess guys these days are just wimps.”

I’m not recommending this site, but if you want to get a quick sense of what’s happening check out Girl Fights Dump.

I think a lot more boys these days have serious martial arts training and I think it has made them safer, wiser, and more skilled at avoiding fights.  I think this is particularly true for those boys who are the most naturally aggressive and competitive.  Many of these boys have also learned that they can gain social status by using their own marital prowess to convince other boys not to fight.

So I have a simple solution to the problem of ‘80% of high-school fights are between girls.’ Teach martial arts in the schools!  If your school or school district is too narrow minded to appreciate the social and intellectual benefits of quality arts training, than of course get your daughters into private martial arts classes.  The sooner the better.

Anyway, let me know what you think of my, ‘women are taking on new positions of authority which require spacial dominance’ theory.  Or submit your own theory.  It’s a brand new wide open field.

This article about how to make a living playing music is a fun read.  Most of what he has to say is applicable to artists in general–including of course, Martial Artists.

Last year I went through a big drama trying to get Martial Arts Insurance that would travel with me from site to site.  I wasn’t able to find anything reasonably priced that would cover what I needed.

But Idea Fitness looks like it has what I needed, and will soon need again.

If any of my readers have experience with this company or know about anything better, let me know.

San Francisco “Golden Gate Kung Fu Championship”

July 2-4, 2010

Master Tat-Mau Wong and Nick Scrima bring you the “Golden Gate Kung Fu Championship” an official ICMAC 5 Star Rated event.

Over the weekend of July 2-4, 2010, a first rate Chinese martial arts championship will be staged in the beautiful city of San Francisco.

Over 350 divisions will ensure exciting competition in Traditional and Contemporary Wushu-Kung Fu, Taiji, Bagua, Xing Yi, weapons forms, Tui Shou (Push-Hands) and fighting.

We are excited to bring this tournament to what is considered the biggest home to Chinese martial arts outside of China. This is another great opportunity for West Coast competitors to build up their points standing for the Inside Kung-Fu Top Ten Rating and also to qualify for the ICMAC World Championship in the Bahamas in December.

We have secured Marriott Marquis in downtown San Francisco as the official tournament venue. Located in the heart of the city, the hotel is easy to get to from the airport by subway ($8.10 one way is the best transportation rate).

We look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones in what is sure to fast become a premier Chinese martial arts competition.

Coaches, “Fire-up your Team”, the 4th of July Weekend is going to bring some real fireworks to San Francisco!

For additional information please contact:

Nick Scrima at: Nick.Scrima@kungfuchampionship.com

Chinese speaking competitors may contact Master Tat-Mau Wong at:

tatwongsf@yahoo.com

Standing still practices are widespread in the Chinese martial arts world.  Most styles have some type of standing still practice, and most qigong is derived in some degree from these practices.  For the sake of explication I’m going to divide stillness practices into two halves– meditation and power-stretch.  Power-stretch is a group of methods dealing with the transitions from stillness into movement and will be the subject of a future post.

Meditation is only half of the big subject; “stillness practices.”  But meditation in the martial arts happens in both movement and stillness.  The most difficult thing for modern people to understand is that meditation training requires no instruction.  It is not something we do with our minds.  Meditation is not a clearing process or a form of mind-body repair.  The martial arts are loaded with many different types of trance which do such things, but meditation is simply not a mental process.

The most common type of meditation in the martial arts is the practice of a form.  In order to practice meditation using a martial arts form one simply does the form.  (This is true regardless of the style, shaolin, taijiquan, baguazhang, or something else.) Do the form without self-correction.  Do the form without any attempt to make improvements.  Do the form without thinking of applications.  Do the form without any agenda or focus, and you will be practicing the most basic and essential form of martial arts meditation.

Standing meditation is essentially the same.  Stand in a posture which makes it easy to be still and discard the idea that stillness has an agenda, a focus or a reason.  Some postures are easier than others, and for this reason having a teacher to correct your posture is very helpful.  But whether you have a teacher or not, basic standing is practiced daily for one hour.  After about 100 days the posture itself should start to reveal effortlessness.

The subject of trance in the martial arts can be divided into three basic categories, all of which are total sensery experiences.  However; for the purpose of explication, each of them can be distinguished by the ways in which they use visualization.

Before I describe them, let me make it clear that I believe one should first practice a form, devoid of planning, agenda, magic, power, or utility.  However, being a realist, I know that it is a rare student who comes to the martial arts without an agenda of fighting, prowess, heroism, health, vanity, or the desire to dominate.  The old masters got around this by insisting on total subordination to the teacher.  In my world I offer limited fulfillment of these “martial wonders” up front– from day one.  Through developing a personal relationship with my students I can slowly introduce the practice of emptiness and having a “zero” agenda.

In other words, the “zero” of martial arts meditation, and the one, two, and three of “power-healing trance” (see below), have no inherent order.  They can be taught in any order– in a disheveled go-with-the-flow way.  However, at some point that zero-emptiness meditation practice must be established or the student will not have a dantian for their practice.  The word dantian (literally cinnabar field) refers to a large empty space for doing ritual.  It is most often described as a location in the center of the body; but as metaphors go, we could also describe it as a container, a vacuum, or silence.

The three types of visualization:

1.  Deities.  These are aspects of truth and nature.  Some have biographies, or histories, and some do not.  They are known by a list of their attributes which are then visualized in front of the martial artist, then above one’s head and then descending into and merging with the visualizer.

2.  Environment.  One can visualize walking on a lake, in mud, through clouds or on a high mountain ridge.  There is really no limit here.  In baguazhang for example there are visualizations of walking through a tunnel of spiraling fire, or being surrounded by five mountain peaks.  One can also visualize abstractions like the eight trigrams of the yijing (I-Ching) transforming into each other.  Probably the most common thing to visualize is martial applications of fighting techniques.

3.  Visualizing spaces within the body.  For instance a huge palace can be visualized at the throat notch, or two deities sitting on your kidneys.  Spaces can be empty or full, vacuous or active, dark or light.  Spaces can be finite and solid, or infinite and formless.   Basic “dissolving” practices like ice to water, water to steam fall into this category.

The three categories can overlap each other.  A deity can be both inside and outside the body.  The boundary between inner and outer can dissolve.

Next week I’ll deal with the power-stretch half of stillness practices…ways of understanding transitions to movement.

Lately I’ve been looking at studio space to rent or buy so that I can teach children’s classes in the afternoon and adult classes in the evening.  The dream is to make my business better.  I’d like to have more opportunities for my students.  I’d also like to have a place I can call my own and do what I want with it.  I’m drawn to the idea that building or making a home is a basic human appetite that if left unfulfilled starts to creep up inside us like a giant wolf.

For years now, I’ve been getting cards and letters from students.  Thousands of thanks.  Most of the time students in the schools where I teach are telling me they want more lessons.  Schools budget a certain amount of money for classes and when it runs out that’s it until the next year.  It isn’t the way I want it to work but it has worked so far.

Here is one letter from a stack of about 60 I got the other day:

Dear Master Scott,

Thank you for taking the time to teach us kung fu.  I had fun with you.  The exercises were painful.  Thank you.–Sebastian

Obviously this 4th grader has been studying irony.  Here is another one.  This one is a card with a collage of a wolf, some trees and some bushes:

Master Scott,

In the trees, wolves lurk, glaring at their juicy lunch, and then they attack.  So be careful!  And your slim body will move as fast as lightening.  Thanks for sharing that power with my class.  I practice every night.  It is a lot of fun.–Alyssa

This next one has a cute cat drawing, lots of color and flip up tabs, with pictures and messages.  Here is one of the messages:

Thanks, Master Scott!  Before we started Kung Fu, I thought Kung Fu was some lame marshall arts for losers.  Kung Fu is really fun.  I wish you could stay.  Thanks times 1,000,000.–Jenny

And here are a few choice quotes from others:

…We will miss you a lot.  Now that you taught me Kung Fu I can flip my Dad.  Thanks again…

…I had a very good time going to your kung fu class.  You taught me how to break a wrist and a bunch of fingers.  You were the best teacher ever…

…My favorite part was when you brought the sword.  It was cool when you did the “5 Tiger Sword.”  I though you were going to slice my head off.  Thank you for being so committed and devoted…

Kung Fu Rocks!!!

So if you live around San Francisco and you want to help me look for a dojo I’m looking for at least 1600 square feet with high ceilings.  At the moment there are spaces renting at $1 a foot.  A mixed commercial/dwelling arrangement in the 2500-3500 square foot range would be great too, so would a neighboorhood on the West side of town with parking.  An existing space that is willing to rent out two or three evenings a week and three to five afternoons a week could work too.

“Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China”

a new book by David Johnson, Professor, History Department, UC Berkeley

DATE: Wednesday, January 27, 2010
TIME: 4:00 PM
PLACE: IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor, Berkeley, CA
FORMAT: IEAS Book Series: New Perspectives on Asia
SPONSORS: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies

“In the ritual world of a group of rural settlements in Shanxi province in pre-1949 North China, temple festivals, with their giant processions, elaborate rituals, and operas, were the most important influence on the symbolic universe of ordinary villagers and demonstrate their remarkable capacity for religious and artistic creation. UC Berkeley History Professor David Johnson’s new book describes the great festivals as their supreme collective achievements, carried out virtually without assistance from local officials or educated elites, clerical or lay.

Chinese culture was a performance culture, and ritual was the highest form of performance. Village ritual life everywhere in pre-revolutionary China was complex, conservative, and extraordinarily diverse. Festivals and their associated rituals and operas provided the emotional and intellectual materials out of which ordinary people constructed their ideas about the world of men and the realm of the gods. It is, David Johnson argues, impossible to form an adequate idea of traditional Chinese society without a thorough understanding of village ritual. Newly discovered liturgical manuscripts allow him to reconstruct North Chinese temple festivals in unprecedented detail and prove that they are sharply different from the Daoist- and Buddhist-based communal rituals of South China.

Introduced and moderated by Wen-hsin Yeh, Richard H. and Laurie C. Morrison Professor of History, and Director, Institute of East Asian Studies.”

–I’m going to go hear this talk tomorrow, I haven’t seen the book yet but it looks interesting. Join me if you’ve got the time and you’re in the area.

Back when I was in my early twenties and training all the time with George Xu he would go on theme jags for months at a time. At one point, everything we did had to have “Animal Flavor.”

I know what you’re thinking, and yes, this is when I decided that I was going to give up being a vegetarian. If all my movement had to have animal flavor, than so did my diet.  But I had three rationales, the first two were nutritional; 1) My joints were too flimsy for the type of training I was doing, George told me that something about eating meat thickens the joints, 2) I was prone to sinus infections, 3) I decided that the arguments for no meat were mostly local, and that most people in the world wanted more meat, not less–I wasn’t going to convince very many people to join me–since meat tastes so good.

But when George used the expression Animal Flavor he wasn’t talking about eating. He was talking about dynamic twisting and wrapping usually to one side or the other. During this period everything we did was twisted up to one side, ready to pounce, strike, or evade. We also watched videos of wild animals and of various martial arts masters to analyze their movements for Animal Flavor. Usually animal flavor was off center with one eye a little more open then the other.

Animal flavor is a great example of an aspect of martial arts which is equally useful for performance and fighting. Animal flavor makes movement much more interesting to watch, it’s bold, disheveled, and tonic! For fighting, Animal flavor brings out a kind of ‘do what needs to be done’ mentality, it makes you appear more dangerous, and more serious. From a power point of view, it allows you to pull your ‘bow’ back a little further.

Here are some videos of Liuhe Xinyi (the style I do), performed at a high level with animal flavor:

I’ve come to believe that before the 20th Century there was a lot more comic gongfu. Comedy suffered against the onslaught of Modernity. But it didn’t die.

I happened upon the Daoist Gate website because someone over there wanted to be my friend on Youtube.   Looking at their sight leaves me with a feeling of optimism.  The descriptions and explanations are simple clear and honest.  I really appreciate that.  The world of Wudang martial arts has a strange and probably pained relationship to the past.  I want to call this the “new daoism.”  It’s links to the past seem tenuous, often frayed, sometimes blocked, or even devastated.  Yet what they are producing today has promise. 

A 9 year old student asked me during class the other day if I did any strength training.  I did my teacher thing and screwed up one side of my face while bulging out my eye on the other, “No,” I replied,  “Do you do any strength training?”  This kid admitted that he didn’t but I could see by the way he looked at the ground that someone had been trying to breed a feeling of deficiency in this kid’s head.  Now we aren’t talking about just any old 9 year old, this kid can walk across the room on his hands and he can do a press handstand from a straddle position on the floor.  So I said, “OK, you stand in a low horse stance and I’ll put all my weight on your shoulders and you try to lift me up.”  I leaned down on his shoulders and lifted myself up on to the very tips of my toes so that he had about 150lbs on his shoulders.  He then stood up with out even a second thought, lifting me into the air.  “That was easy right?” I asked.  “You could lift two adults couldn’t you?.”  “Yeah,” he said, looking a little brighter.  “So you’re strong enough already right?”  He just looked at me, unsure what to say.  “Now you have to figure out how to transfer the force of your legs to your arms.  That’s what you need to work on.”  And then we got back to the two-man form we had been working on when he asked the question.

If any of my readers doubt the above anecdote I challenge you to do the experiment yourself.  Find a small healthy kid, 5 to 8 years old.  Show them how to do a horse stance and then try putting all your weight on their shoulders.  As long as the kid’s back is straight and her legs are aligned to take weight she should have no trouble lifting you up.

Why is this relevant?  Why now?

On my last trip to China I wandered all over Ching Cheng Shan mountain in Sichuan.  The “trails” are mostly steep stone stair cases that wind up into the clouds.  If you are lazy and have a little cash, you can hire two guys to carry you up three miles of stairs in a litter made with some cloth and two bamboo poles.  The guys who do the carrying all day long during the tourist season have pencil thin arms and legs.  They are skinny enough to be run-way models at a fashion show.  Their leg muscles do not bulge.

Likewise, I studied twice with Ye Shaolong, the second time I trained with him everyday for three months.  He is probably the world’s greatest master of what George Xu calls “the power-stretch.”  He uses low, slow expanding movements to develop explosive and suddenly recoiling power.  In his 70’s, Ye Shaolong is one of the skinniest people I have ever met. He has no muscle.

In my early twenties, with ambitious winds blowing, I took to standing still in a low horse stance with my arms horizontal to the ground out to the sides, for one hour. I did this everyday for a year.  (20 years later, I still stand for an hour everyday but not all of it in a horse stance.) For the first few months, my thigh muscles got bigger, but then a funny thing happened.  As my alignment and circulation improved, my thigh muscles, my quadriceps, started to shrink.  After a year of this kind of practice my thigh muscles were smaller than they had been when I started.  And by the way, I wasn’t just standing, I was training at least 6 hours a day and I didn’t have a driver’s license so I was also riding my bicycle up steep San Francisco hills as my sole form of transportation.  I’ll say it again, my muscles got smaller.

Ouch! That's got to hurt

Most people who practice martial arts actually never learn this because they don’t have the discipline to pass through that first gate.  At the time, I was just like everyone else, I believed that I needed to improve my strength.  I now understand that strength itself is an obstacle to freedom.

The internal arts of Qigong, Daoyin, Taijiquan, Baguazhang, Xingyiquan, and some of the the mixed internal-external arts like Eight Immortals Sword, all have ways of training that do not require building strength.  Some Shaolin schools have these methods too.  In fact, under the proper guidance of a teacher, with a natural commitment to everyday practice, anyone can use these arts to reveal their true nature.  A true nature which, like that of your average 7 year old, is already very, very strong.

On this blog I have explored many justifications for the cultivation of weakness.  For instance:

–it makes you more sensitive,

–you need less food (making it possible for more people to eat in times of food scarcity),

–you need less energy to exercise leaving more energy available for other pursuits,

–it’s better for circulation in times of less activity (which is what we are doing most of the time anyway),

–your movement is less conditioned to a series of set responses (spontaneously agile),

–and you don’t need to wear spandex.

But the number one reason for not developing strength is that healthy human beings are already strong enough.  Even 5 year old children are very strong.  The problem is that normal human beings have disrupted the integration of natural, untrained strength, into their everyday activities.  This happens first of all in the arms, which develop both fine motor coordination and repetitive patterns, both of which leave the arms disconnected from the natural strength of the torso.  Also, adult hormones, particularly male hormones, produce muscle really easily if we prime them with lots of food and reckless exercise.  By reckless exercise I mean games or athletics that cause injuries.  Small injuries to the legs will instantly cause a healthy male to develop big thick quads, it can happen overnight. Once these arm and leg problems are established they become habits.  But natural strength doesn’t go away, it’s waiting for us just under the surface.  The real problem, the only real problem, is the fear that we need to be strong to face life’s challenges–the notion that we need strength to prevail.

The likelihood of injury from strength training, by the way, is the reason that people who do strength training have to create all sorts of schedules to “cross train” the various muscle groups.  These people are now arguing that all training is actually in the recovery! Weird.

And don’t get me started on core strength….  OK, it’s too late.  Core strength is just a marketing scheme, like Green architectural-design-dog-walking-nanny services.  It just sounds good or something.  It plays on peoples feelings of insecurity and guilt.  There is no core that needs strengthening to begin with, but even if such a core existed, the market is saturated.  Every type of movement training from Yoga to tiny-tot-tap-dancing now claims to be good for your “core.”

Here at North Star Martial Arts we specialize in Core Emptying!

That’s Right! All negativity is stored in the inner “core”–known traditionally as the mingmen or “gate of fate.”  Sign up for this once in a lifetime offer of 12 classes for only $99 (that’s a $1 discount) and you will get a bonus “card” to keep track of your first one hundred days of Cultivating Weakness!  Empty your Core Today!  (Say the words “relax your dantian,” or Tell them you heard it here at W.W.A.T.)

Like aggressive advertising, strength obscures our true nature.

Martial artists who try to develop strength are preparing themselves for some future attack, the nature of which is yet unknown.   I’m not against strength, heaven knows people love it, I’m just against the argument that we need it.  Anyone who says Chinese Internal Martial Arts require a person to develop strength is confused about the basic concepts.

note: (If you are a bit of a sadist and want to watch some people squirm, I’m about to post this at the unhinged Internet forum Rum Soaked Fist! check it out.)

This article from Kungfu Magazine is a great overview of the total overlap of Triads, Kungfu, Theater, Religion and Opera.  It dips into the relationship between Theater and the Taiping Uprising, the Opium Wars, and the Triads.  Reading it you get that sense that Chinese Theater was nurtured in a violent world.  The authors keep their focus narrowly on Red Junk Opera, but what they say is likely true for many other styles of Theater and Martial Arts.  (hat tip: Jianghu)

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Here is a quick interview where Xingyi master Song Guanghua explains:

Another interesting comment that M Song made is that the 5 element fists can be practiced in different ways depending on the context. Specifically, he stated that, for each element, there is a performance version, a training version and a combative version. Thus, when comparing the performance of the 5 elements across styles, one must know which version you are seeing, otherwise the comparison is meaningless.

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Also:

Popular Religion in China Stephan Feuchtwang

Has a great overview of Popular Religion in China!

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And if you haven’t checked out Marnix Wells site it’s worth a look!