08.27.07

Appetite and Discipline

Posted in Qigong, Health, Martial Arts, Bagua zhang, teaching, Daoism, Qi Jocks at 2:46 pm by Scott P. Phillips

One of the biggest challenges of being a teacher is that students are always trying to get me to equivocate. For instance, I say, “Practice standing completely still for one hour early in the morning, everyday, before you eat breakfast.”

Some student will always want to know what will happen if they don’t? I usually answer, “Sifu will kill you!” But they always laugh, and then ask what if they only stand for 20 minutes? or do it in the evening? or every other day?

The truth is, I don’t know. I’ve always practiced the whole thing, without equivocation. I can guess or I can ask other teachers. But honestly, what I really know is what I’ve practiced. The reason I don’t stop practicing is because I have a real appetite to practice as much as I do. I stand in the morning for the same reason I eat in the morning.

There is another way, and I’ve used it on solo retreats. It is called the Wandering of the Mare. I have several artist friends who live this way all the time. They eat when they are hungry, they sleep when they are sleepy, they paint, or read, or call up a friend totally spontaneously whenever they feel like it. I’m never surprised to hear that they have been up all night painting.

On a solo retreat, I’m the same way, I sleep until there is absolutely no more feeling to sleep, and then I close my eyes one more time to make sure. I sit still, or stand still, or walk the Baguazhang circle, until I’m done. No schedule, no limits.

But most of us work for a living. We have people to coordinate with. We have to at least try to stay awake during meetings. Five days a week we have to get the kids off to school with a good breakfast and matching socks.

Hermits and anyone on a long, private retreat, can freely follow their appetites. Many of the most potent and profound Chinese disciplines were created by hermits. What to a hermit is natural discipline, may seem to us, living as we do in the world with other peoples needs and expectations, like “militaristic discipline.” To spontaneously follow one’s personal appetite(s) is to be in an on-again, off-again, conflict with the social world.

We might do better to think of Taijiquan, Baguazhang etc… as the “ritual resetting” of our appetites. By “winding” us back to zero once a day, they allow us to follow our appetites spontaneously–within the social world.

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3 Comments »

renli said,

August 27, 2007 at 11:22 pm

Allow me to make a loose analogy with Jewish Law, the Torah and Talmud. Without getting to deep into it (i.e. I will ignore any religious comment - I am only using this as an analogy and no I’m not Jewish)… There are something like 100 or 200 different “laws” which must be followed by an orthodox Jew. Let’s call these “Class ‘A’” laws. These are the original laws. For example, don’t eat pork, or circumcision. Let me create an analogy to martial arts by saying these are the “rules” of the form, for instance. You must raise your hands a certain way, train your body a certain way. This is how you are taught tai chi, for instance.

Then there’s a set of “class B” laws which have the same basic enforcability of the class A laws, but there’s a difference. These laws were created by the jewish rabbis in order to protect the general population of jews from “accidentally” breaking the class A laws. Well, Scott, I feel that practising in the morning before your breakfast is a great example of this.

When you wake up in the morning, you do a certain ritual. You brush your teeth. You eat breakfast. You go to work. You come home. You do some stuff to relax. You eat dinner, watch TV and go to sleep.

Oops.. forgot to train again, damn! I’ll to it tomorrow.

So you wake up in the morning, you do your ritual. You brush your teeth. You eat breakfast. You go to work. You come home. You do some stuff to relax. You eat dinner, watch TV and go to sleep.

Oops.. forgot to train again, damn! I’ll to it tomorrow.

I think we’re starting to see a pattern here. So, when you are taught to exercise early in the morning like this, it is a way to create a habit. To ensure that you actually practice. Because sometimes we forget. That’s all. It’s simple. It has very little to do with “best hours” based on chi flow charts by time or chinese astrology. It may have arisen from something like that, but in a very survivalist sort of way it is actually a “best practice” (oh, this ties in sooo nicely with http://www.martialdevelopment.com/blog/replace-your-traditions-with-best-practices/)

Anyways, there are many, many “best practices” and “traditions” locked away in the classic nuggets of wisdom we often pass around. Some of the more obscure are “avoid a cold draft like you avoid arrows”. Why? What happens if we don’t? Well, it’s just an example, but you get the picture. Sometimes a little intermediate faith is required before we reach the destination of understanding.
Scott P. Phillips said,

August 28, 2007 at 7:09 pm

Yes, I agree with you about intermediate faith, my next post on Strength and Weakness deals with it a little too.

I’ve also been following Chris’s articles at Martial Development and I like them.

I’ve been a contributor to two U.S. Department of Education Best Practices study/reports about teaching Kungfu as a performing art is the public schools.

That being the case, good teaching is still half improvisation! Confucius said, “If I show the student(s) one corner of the square and they don’t show me the other three, I change the subject!”

Look, I probably practice in the morning because I freaking love the morning! It’s quiet, it’s cool, it’s not yet bright, it’s before everything so it “colors” my day, it puts money in my pocket before most people are out of bed, it is also unlikely that anyone is going to try to talk me into going to the movies or anything else distracting before 9 AM.

And yes, it is a habit, but honestly it’s a habit I can’t imagine breaking.

As to the 613 laws of Judaism, there are actually three types. The ones that are obvious. The ones that have multiple and somewhat disputed explanations for their existence. And the ones no one has any idea why they are laws.

The big problem with Best Practices studies is: Best for Whom? Best for where? Best for When? Best for What? Culture? Place? Era? I know it may sound simplistic, but when we discard tradition we often don’t know what we are discarding, and even if we do, we may not be able to foresee the consequences.

An Orthodox Jew (Haradi) would say that the Torah was written perfectly, to be relevant for all time–that’s why it is imperative that we constantly reinterpret it.

Better to keep this stuff around, keep it alive, keep it spinning.
Weakness With a Twist » Orange Juice and Hermits said,

May 8, 2008 at 8:42 pm

[…] The wuwei hermit method is called “The Wandering of the Mare.” Living around other people means having to coordinate with their schedules and that is antithetical to constant spontaneity. […]

Weakness With a Twist

08.27.07

Appetite and Discipline

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