04.30.08

Jade Maiden

Posted in Martial Arts, Taijiquan, Daoism at 7:34 pm by Scott P. Phillips

Jade Maiden Works the Shuttles is the name of a taijiquan movement/posture. What does it mean?

The full title is a constellation in the night sky. Like all stars, they are connected metaphorically to fate, in this case we have the image of a maiden weaving the fabric of fate.

A Shuttle is the part of a loom that scoots back and forth as the warp and weft are opened and closed. It is like a card or a stick that you throw. It is wrapped in yarn symbolizing, I believe, infinite time.

So each time you do the form you are weaving another thread in the fabric of time.

But what is a jade maiden?

By definition they resists being defined. Even the gender of a jade maiden can be hard to pin down, they are sometimes called jade lads. By the time I finish explaining this, the meaning may have changed.

A jade maiden is like a muse, because it comes to you bringing inspiration. It is also a type of intermediary. Unlike a Chinese god or a ghost, they no birth.  They can deliver messages back and forth from the gods, even take you to visit other realms. The Queen Mother of the West (Xiguanmu) has and entourage of jade maidens pulled by dragon chariots.

Jade maidens also play the role of intermediaries in the Daoist elixir practice known as jindan. They are simular to dakinis in Tantric Buddhism in that they only show up if you are completely and utterly desireless and free of aggressive intent. However, if you get even a flicker of desire, a dakini will go from being the hottest, most intelligent babe-olla you have ever seen in your life, to being a scary filthy hag with sharpened teeth. Jade maidens, in contrast, simply disappear. (Which tells you something about the difference between Buddhism and Daoism.)
Jade maidens are in one sense the opposite of ghosts. Instead of being lured in by dangerious, violent, chaotic, energy draining or destructive behavior; they are attracted to those people who are pure of heart–people whose living hearts have become like cold dead ashes. They are attracted by non-aggression.

Daoist poets like Li Bai (Lipo) would sit perfectly still in meditation with a brush, ink, and paper for hours waiting for a jade maiden to show up. When they come, they come to tease and test, whisper and giggle. They never stop moving and they dance the most alluring and inspiring dance there is. They are beauty itself. They peer around corners and then suddenly disappear.

They sometimes carry copies of the books which hang from the trees on the moon. These sacred texts known as jing, are true for all time, they can appear in any language in any era. Occasionally a jade maiden will hold one of these books and turn the pages for you as you read. This, of course, can only happen if you are completely open to experiencing things the way they actually are, without preconception or agenda.

(The term jing, so often translated “classic,” actually means weft, as in warp and weft! In that sense it is a distant cousin of jin and jing, power and essence, because all of them refer to some underlying structure.)

Is Taijiquan a jing?  Was it originally taught by jade maidens?  If we truly let go, and practice the form without any preconceptions or aggression will a jade maiden show up to dance with us, or whisper instructions in our ear and correct our postures?  Are we the “shuttles” being worked?

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04.29.08

Taijiquan’s Language of Exorcism

Posted in Taijiquan, History, Daoism at 1:28 pm by Scott P. Phillips

Long time readers know that the relationship of martial arts to exorcistic rituals is a pet topic of mine.

Wayne Hansen who comments at the Formosa Neijia site offered this wonderful linguistic explanation of peng [bing1], the most basic and pervasive form of taijiquan power (jin).

Peng is the lid on a quiver.
Imagine a cane laundry basket with the lid just caught in the lip at the top,by pressing the two sides the lid springs open. I am told this is how the Chinese quiver worked. With a press of the back muscles the top, which was covering the feathers from the rain, sprung open.
Peng jin works like that and so the name.

Archery competition now a days is mostly about accuracy at hitting a static target. But great archers had to be able to hit deadly moving targets and hit static targets while galloping on horseback. And perhaps even more importantly, they had to be able shoot arrows in rapid succession– One arrow per second.

So popping the lid off of your quiver with a little rounding motion would have been a very threatening act. In fact you might translate it into words by saying, “Back off!” The standard translation of peng is “Ward-off.”

To explain this difference, I imagine I’m riding along on a mountain path and I sense something threatening. My first instinct is to pop my quiver lid, which would in fact make a “pop” sound if it were water tight. Even if I haven’t seen the actual threat, I can prepare myself, and I can let who ever is lurking know that I’m aware of them. This sort of communication could easily be translated as “ward-off.”

Hold on because it gets better.

Common exorcist rituals begin with fire-crackers. The purpose? To ward-off ghosts. Ghosts and demons who are strong enough to need an exorcism, don’t usually leave when they hear fire-crackers, but their groveling sidekicks and entourages do take to the hills. The fire-crackers are meant to give mediocre ghosts who are just lost a chance to get away. But particularly malicious demons, the ones that feed on chaos, will actually be attracted to explosive sounds in hope that they will find suffering and death.

The next ritual action would be the “offering of spirits.” In both Chinese and African traditions this is done by drinking from a bowl of strong alcohol and then suddenly forcing it back through pursed lips to create a spraying effect which turns into a mist. The mist attracts mischievous spirits. Alcohol is spilled on the ground too.
In the beginning of the taijiquan form, peng leads directly into ji. Ji is a small quick burst of force, sometimes described metaphorically as liquid spraying out of the fingers. Ji by itself doesn’t do much– it can be used for a throw only if your attacker has uprooted themselves by first pushing against your peng. (Of course ji directly in the eye would hurt!) I was taught to project ji into the opponents “empty” spots, those places where they are unaware, because it will stir them to attack and thereby make themselves more vulnerable!

The opponent’s attack naturally leads into lu, the next move in the taijiquan form. Lu is a gathering and a drawing-in of your opponent (usually translated “rollback”). Lu defuses the attacker’s force.

After the “offering of spirits,” the next ritual act is the drawing in and capturing of demonic forces. Offending demons are drawn into a pickle jar and then trapped there.

The final movement in the taijiquan beginning sequence is an. An is usually translated “press,” or even “press down.” It is very much like resting your hands on a rounded pickle jar lid and weighting them so that whatever is inside won’t get out!

The final ritual act is called “Applying the Seal.” The seal is like a piece of tape that holds the lid on the jar and records the date the spirit was trapped, what type of spirit it is, and when it can be released. (It is considered ritually irresponsible to just leave them there. Some are starved to death, some are transformed in bi-annual rituals, others are freed after “serving time.”) Michel also posted in the same thread I linked to above. He quoted the fabulous Louis Swaim:

“If the opponent wants to change hands in order to apply Push (an), I then extend and open my right hand, pulling it toward my thorax to the point where the two palms are facing in and diagonally intersect like an oblique cross-shaped sealing tape (fengtiao), preventing the opponent’s hands from getting in. It is just like closing the door against a robber. This is why it is called ‘like sealing’….The image used of “sealing tape”refers to fengtiao, which were strips of red paper pasted across parcels, doors, crime scenes etc…, as seals.”

All those other uses of “seals” are historically derived from the exorcist’s seal.

That ought to liven up your form!

Here is the best site on Chinese Archery

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04.25.08

Sharing Cultural Treasures

Posted in Health at 8:08 pm by Scott P. Phillips

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Tea

Posted in Health at 12:54 pm by Scott P. Phillips

Here is a cute article from the NY Times about tea.  They are talking about Pu’er which is a little like drinking warm dirt, except it is a wonderful kind of dirt.  It is definitely an acquired taste.  But people are acquiring it.

Pu’er is actually a different plant then all the other things we call tea, but it has simular effects.

When I have more time I’ve got some things to say about tea, but not today.  I was totally deep into Chinese tea for about ten years.  Then I just quit because it seemed like I was accumulating too much stuff.

When I went backpacking or mountaineering or rock climbing I would bring all these little cups and a pot or brewing device.  So refined.
Then I discovered instant coffee.  Wow, so cool, so convenient, and what great flavor!

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Troubled Kids, Performance, and Society

Posted in Martial Arts, teaching at 12:33 pm by Scott P. Phillips

I have a group of elementary school kids I have been teaching on Fridays after school. I turned down the job three times because I know from experience that kids lose their impulse control on Fridays after school and I didn’t want to deal with that. But for some reason, I no longer remember, I said “yes” the fourth time they asked me.

Well, they are some of the most difficult kids to teach. They get in fights, which never happens in my classes. They mess with other peoples stuff. They whine too, about hunger and pain, it is like being stuck in a giant nest with 20 hungry crying baby pterradactyls.

But something happened that made me think.

The school asked me to do a performance; to have the kids perform at a parent night. I said, “sure,” and I guess because the other acts were things like “kid poetry,” they made my group the headliners. The kids were totally not into rehearsing and I really had almost nothing planned. The night of the performance I had no idea even which kids were going to show up.

But 12 kids did show up and they were really excited. I put them on the stage and just had them do stuff that I had tried to teach them over the last 10 weeks. To my complete surprise, it went well, the audience was cheering and kids were like a dream class: They had presence and focus and they were game for whatever I threw at them. One little girl found her way to the front when I was having them do forms and she did it perfectly with a smile and charisma, and all the other kids were following her like their lives depended on it!

My thought is this: How can we give people who are on the fringe, frustrated misfits, or underworld types ways to be at the center of attention.– I’m thinking “star status,” ranks, roles and positions which give them ritual potency. Rappers and hip-hop celebrities come to mind. This is not about good and bad, it is about establishing order.

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Ritualized Violence (short)

Posted in Martial Arts at 11:49 am by Scott P. Phillips

All martial arts is ritualized violence.

I don’t care whether you are invoking a deity, doing friendly push-hands in the park, or training solo for the UFC.

All competitions, matches, duels, and stagings are ritualized violence. All martial arts forms and improvisations are ritualized violence too.

Even standing still in a martial stance for an hour is ritualized violence.

We are the ones who make these rituals, and we are the ones giving these rituals meaning. They function in some way to make us who and what we are.

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Short Posts

Posted in Health at 11:37 am by Scott P. Phillips

I’ve been teaching a lot, and I’ve been sleepy from all the pollen in the air.

I’m creeping up on my one year anniversary, my first ever blog post was May 2nd, 2007.

I’ve also been working on an essay which is up around 20 pages and the publication date is also creeping up. I feel guilty if I blog instead of working on the essay.

Add to that some fantastic books I’ve been reading which suck brain cells yet leave behind inspiration.

And lastly, this Passover San Francisco stores ran out of Matzos! I had to make my own for the Seder we just had. It was fun, never did that before. Just putting flour and water together is like a miracle.

I’ve been making my usual lists of blogs to post but they are all long ideas I don’t have time to flush out at the moment, so I’ve decided to post them as mini-thoughts. To be elaborated on at a later date.

Thanks for reading!

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04.21.08

Cultural Differences

Posted in Clothing etc. at 1:45 pm by Scott P. Phillips

Here is some funny art about cultural differences that I found posted at Frog in a Well.

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04.17.08

The Sound of Wen and Wu

Posted in Martial Arts, History, teaching, Daoism, Books at 2:27 pm by Scott P. Phillips

I woke up this morning with my arms crossed.  Actually more than crossed, knotted-up would be a better description.  One hand jutting past my armpit, the other arm wrapped around it twice and dangling between my ear and my shoulder.  It took a minute to figure out which arm was which.  My honey says I do gongfu in my sleep.

Anyway I’ve been reading a wonderful dissertation, which I will review when I finish reading it, called “Martial Gods and Magic Swords,” by Avron Boretz.  The Daoist scholar Paul Katz recommended it.

Today I just want to talk about one of his footnotes.  In a discussion about the relationship between wen (civil, scholarly, cultural) and wu (military, martial) he mentions that the drum is wen and the cymbal is wu.  That really got me thinking.

The drum establishes order, it is steady and precise.  The cymbal is an explosion of sound, it breaks the air and shatters the peace.  When I teach kids or perform, I use the drum for stepping, and the cymbal for sudden kicks.

The large gong is, of course, used for bowing, but it is also good for transitions or even moments of transcendence.

The wood-block (called a fish in Chinese) is used for accenting orders or commands, it is often answered by the performer with a stomp of the foot (leading into cat stance or monk stance).  It is a high sharp sound.  Wood-blocks are used for chanting invocations, and by Buddhists for chanting sutras.  The same wood-block sound was traditionally used in formal arguments and teachings to accent an important point that had just been made.

“The Dao which can be named is not the true Dao!” “PAAHK.”

The flutes and reed instruments mimic the human voice.

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04.16.08

Confucius

Posted in History, teaching at 12:57 pm by Scott P. Phillips

Confucius said, “If I show the student(s) one corner of the square and he doesn’t show me the other three, I change the subject.”

There are some scholars who believe that this quote from Confucius is about taxes. They believe this because taxes were paid in grain which was grown on square plots made up of nine sections. Eight families would work together on all nine sections and the center section would be collected by the government.

Ahhh taxes, well at least we don’t have to pay them in grain anymore…

Anyway… I don’t think Confucius was talking about taxes.

What I love about this quote is it really shows the reciprocity that is key to understanding Confucius. It even implies cosmology–a cosmology where everything is mutually self-re-creating.

If I show the student one corner of the square, it is the student’s job to show me the other three. That is not my job. It is the student’s job to bring significant energy and commitment to the lesson.

One the other hand, if the student doesn’t respond to my lesson I don’t look to criticise the student. I first reflect and then acknowledge that I’m not offering a teaching which meets the student where they are, at their learning level or interest. A good teacher will move on to a new subject or try a new approach.

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04.14.08

Spiraling Bones

Posted in Health, Martial Arts, Taijiquan, Bagua zhang at 7:30 pm by Scott P. Phillips

All the bones in our bodies have a spiral. The direction of every bone’s spiral is pretty much the same on everyone. These are set while we are still in the womb.

Ligaments give the spirals in each bone continuity across joints; from one bone to another. A given bone may spiral more than once while it is growing, but the second spiral will be in the same direction.

A good example of this is the clavicle (collar bone).  You can see that there is a spiral on the left side of the picture where it would attach to the scapula and the rest of the arm.  That spiral rotation is contiguous with the spiral further to the right where the bone would attach to the sternum.  Each of those spirals are actually the same spiral but the one on the arm side grew first, the one on the sternum side happened later.

So if you are trying to figure out how the spiral in you humerus (upper arm) continues through to your sternum, find the first part of the spiral rotating your arm forward/inward, then find the second part of the spiral by bringing your sternum up.

The spirals in our bones are there all the time.  If you know which way each bone spirals,  you can figure out which ways force will transfer through the body most easily.

Internal arts are all designed with these spirals in mind.

Here is a cool website which says something different about human structure, but interesting none-the-less.

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04.09.08

Ligaments

Posted in Health at 11:44 am by Scott P. Phillips

One thing that I recently learned about ligaments is that they are generally more elastic than tendons.

Muscles, bones, tendons, cartilage, and ligaments are all made up from the same basic stuff but in different ratios. So tendons are like ligaments, the defining difference being ligaments connect bone to bone, tendons connect muscle to bone.

The main purpose of ligaments (besides stopping our mass from flying apart when we smash into a more solid mass) is to transfer force from one bone to another.

Since all our bones grow into a spiraling shape, the ligaments continue those spirals from bone to bone, transferring force through the continuity of a given spiral. It is key to the effective transfer of force that weight does not go into the joints. Thus if your opponent touches you or puts their weight on you–all of that force should travel in a spiral through your bones to the ground.

Whenever you transfer force from one bone to another, it is the ligaments that do that job.

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