The Dao of Learning

There is a common convention of Chinese culture in which the word Dao, meaning the way, is applied to any field of study. Thus we have the Dao of archery, the Dao of writing, the Dao of mothering, and even the Dao of basketball. This expression refers to a way of knowing and embodying which is unique to each pursuit, and implies both ease and confidence. It is somewhat like saying in English, "She really has the knack of tree climbing." In addition to implying that a person is really skilled at something, it implies that the activity itself transforms the person who does it, it is not just an act of doing, it is an act of mutual self-recreation.

Truly knowing a skill, or even a subject, further implies a curriculum. Thus many books have been written describing the Dao of Archery, the Dao of making Tea, or even the best selling book The Tao of Pooh.

In Japanese, which uses Chinese written characters, Dao becomes "do," in many familiar arts like Karatedo, Judo, Aikido, Budo (the warrior code), and Chado (the art of tea).
For most of the last 1500 years in China the first lessons one received when learning to write calligraphy were instructions on how to sit without obstructing circulation, how to hold and move the brush in coordination with ones breath such that the student might start discovering the Dao of writing from day one. In fact, implicit in this idea is the notion that one is learning how to embody the physicality of great public officials of the past. This is also true of all traditional subjects, music, martial arts, medicine, weaving, etc. In traditional Chinese culture the physical process of acquiring knowledge is not subordinate to knowledge itself-- How one learns is, in a sense, given priority to what one learns.
This idea is beautifully illustrated in the story of Cook Ding in the 300 Century BCE text, the Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu). The story is an ironic tale in which Cook Ding butchers an ox in front of the king, it is the title story of the third chapter called "The Mastery of Nourishing Life." In the story, the king is amazed by the dance like beauty, grace, and ease with which Cook Ding butchers the ox. When asked, Cook Ding explains how the naturalness of his skill came about and in the end the king declares that listening to these words has taught him how to nourish life.

Zhang Daoling

This is a continuation of my series answering basic questions about Daoism.

Who Was Zhang Daoling?
Zhang Daoling is the founder of Religious Daoism (Daojiao), the Celestial Masters (Tianshidao) and Orthrodox Daoism (Zhengyidao). All Daoist lineages trace their inspiration back to him. He was born in Eastern China and as a child studied with five fangshi, which was a general term used for shaman-doctors. These fangshi were probably experts in ritual, healing, and trance. Still in his youth, Zhang traveled to Western China, to the area we know as Sichuan. There he went into solo retreat in a cave on Heron Call Mountain (Hemingshan).

The revelations of Lao Jun
When Zhang Daoling came out of retreat in 142 CE he began teaching publicly and healing the sick. He said that he had met Lao Jun (Lord Lao), the source and the original inspiration for the Daodejing. His teaching centered on the meaning of the Daodejing, the text was read aloud so that even the illiterate could memorize it.

True for all time and in all eras
Zhang taught that Lao Jun’s revelations had appeared to humans many times throughout history, transmitted through ‘seed people,’ such as himself and Laozi the original author/compiler of the Daodejing. Zhang taught that the Daodejing was the perfect expression of Lao Jun for the time it was written; however, the text was by Zhang’s time nearly 500 years old and the original inspiration had become occluded. Thus he was inspired to reveal its true meaning through his teachings and commentaries. He further taught that new expressions of this essential teaching would continue to appear in each era because these revelations are both true and always available. The characteristics of each era are different and so the same essential teaching may manifest in different ways at different times.

Healing by Commitment
Zhang performed healing ceremonies in which part of the healing process was a commitment on the part of the person being healed to change their behavior. He began the method of making written talismanic contracts called fu, which were burned, put in water, or buried in the earth as a way to reify peoples new commitments. This brought about healing among his followers. Some of the talismanic style of writing he produced is still copied and used today.

A Daoist Country
Zhang Daoling’s following grew steadily and his teachings were carried on by his descendants. By the time of his grandson Zhang Lu, the Celestial Masters had founded a small country. Each family contributed five pecks (a bushel) of rice, and thus for a time early Daoism was called the Five Pecks of Rice school. Zhang Daoling is still represented in ritual as a bowl of rice with the tip of a sword stuck straight down into it.

The country they founded was approximately 40 miles across, was multi-ethnic, and from what we know it was administered very successfully from 190 until 215 CE. When the general Cao Cao swept across China with a huge army, Zhang Lu personally rode out to meet him and the two forged an agreement. The Wei Dynasty which Cao Cao founded was short lived (215-266) but his agreement with Zhang Lu allowed Daoist priests to be spread throughout every part China.

Sacred Texts
Zhang Daoling and Zhang Lu both wrote commentaries on the Daodejing which are still read today (though parts of each have been lost). Zhang Lu is the author of several of Daoism’s founding texts, including the Xiang’er Precepts and The Commandments and Admonitions for the Families of the Great Dao.

Zhang Daoling, his sons, his grandsons and all of their wives reach the highest level of xian known as "rising up in broad daylight with one’s dogs and chickens!" (Xian is usually translated ‘immortality’ or ‘transcendence’.)

Conference on Daoism

On Saturday I made it to the last session of this conference on Quanzhen Daoism, which was exciting. Unfortunately I didn't get any of the papers in advance so I'm just reading them now.

David A. Palmer and an old friend of mine Elijah Siegler are collaborating on an interesting project investigating the relationship between Daoism in America and Daoism in China. Unfortunately the paper is in draft form with a request not to cite or circulate, so I'm not going to talk about it, but it seems like a good time to link to my own "American Daoist, Tours China" article. This is really just a bunch of emails I sent out to friends in 2001 before I had even heard the word "blog" but if you can stomach the jarring transitions and feeble use of paragraphs, I do explore some of the same questions these scholars are asking.

David A. Palmer has a book I'm dying to read and review, but If you want to pick it up before I review it, here it is: Qigong Fever.

I met Terry Kleeman whose book Great Perfecton deals with the multi-ethnic origins of Daoism. It is a difficult read, but if juicy footnotes make you hot, you'll love it.

I also talked with Paul R. Katz whose book Images of the Immortal deals with Lu Dongbin and the founding of Quanzhen Daoism. When I read this book my particular interest was in his thorough exploration of the on-again off-again relationship of Quanzhen (Perfect Realization) to Zhengyi (Orthodox Daoism).

Professor Katz immediately picked up on my interest in the links between martial arts and ritual performance, exorcism and social organization. He recommend three books, so I have some serious reading to do. He also has a new book out called When Valleys Turned Blood Red: The Ta-pa-ni Incident in Colonial Taiwan.

Lastly I've gotten some requests for references backing up my claims about rhythm and music in my videos African Bagua and African Bagua 2. So I plan to write a few blogs on Daoism Martial Arts and Music. Let me just say up front that I stand by the claims I make, but if you want to understand why I make the claims I do, the place to start is reading all the major writers of the 100 Schools who wrote on music during the Warring States Era (400-200 BCE), starting with Xunzi, Mozi, and Hanfeizi.  Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius and Mencius also all comment on music and its place in society.  There isn't one book to read.  The major writers on Daoist ritual all have chapters on music.  As someone who came to Daoism and Martial arts with a dancer's ear, I've listened for references to music all along and slowly put together my ideas.

American Qigong Ethics (part 3)

Here are a few more American Qigong Ethics.

2. Know the actual history and cultural context of your qigong methods. Are they part of a larger system or tradition? What inspired them? Don't exaggerate your knowledge or experience--or that of your teacher.

3. Be explicit about what your qigong methods are supposed to do. Being honest here may be counter intuitive. Because kinesthetic learning is characterized by continuously changing cognitive understanding, my best explanation of what a method will do is the one catered to the kinesthetic knowledge of the listener. In other words, this will not lead to pigeon-holing. More likely it will lead to complexity with some ambiguity.

For example, in In Erle Montaigue's book Power Taiji (Which by the way I like because his writing has the flexibility of a conversation.) he lists the Taijiquan posture/movement "Repulse Monkey," as being good for the Gallbladder. While I have a clear and distinct perception of my gallbladder and can evaluate "Repulse Monkey's" direct effect on my gallbladder, most people can not. I also happen to know that in classical Chinese the term "gallbladder" is not only technical but highly metaphoric, it means to open into a springtime of revitalization that will re-inspire and give support to your decision-making capabilities. In contrast, in English the gallbladder produces bile.

If you understand the statement "Repulse Monkey is good for the gallbladder" the way I do, than you also understand that it is not referring to a remedy. It is an engaged process of complete embodiment. My regular readers will recognize this statement as being in tune with a world view that encouraged long-life, slow motion, continuous and consensual exorcism.

4. Help your students understand their own motivations. Don't encourage people to practice for silly reasons or reasons which will eventually leave them feeling disappointed.

(For instance, regular practice of taijiquan will make your calf muscles smaller, so don't expect to look better in These boots!)

The Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang (last chapter)

The last chapter of The Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang, is titled "A Moving Yi Jing." The meat and potatoes of this chapter are two great lists.

The first list is a paragraph for each of the qi transmissions associated with each of the eight "mother palms" and gua (trigrams) of B.K. Frantzis's baguazhang system (which has no form).

The qi transmissions are supplemented in the applications section too. The authors clearly and succinctly describe the feeling of each palm change; how it moves and what makes it distinct. They also explain that the best way to develop these qi transmissions is through the practice of Soft-hands, Roshou (a dynamic moving and slapping version of push-hands).

I plan to do a video for each of the Baguazhang qi transmissions with in a year.

What is a Daoist Body? 

The second list is this:

1. The Physical Body


2. The Qi Body


3. The Emotional Body


4. The Thinking Body


5. The Psychic Body


6. The Causal Body


7. The Body of Individuality


8. The body of the Dao

The authors give very short descriptions of what each category might mean, calling them energy bodies. Beyond that what they say is embarrassing for it's lack of connection to anything real.  (Baguazhang is not a self-help program, and neither is the Yijing.)
Religious Daoism conceptualizes a human being as not just one body but many bodies. Calling them "energy bodies" is misleading. Your house is a body that you share with everyone else who lives there. You can clean, remodel, or move to another house, but the fact that you have such a body is a given. All bodies relate to other bodies. If you live in a damp shack for a month your physical body will start to creek at the joints and your lung capacity will decrease (effecting your qi body).

The way religious Daoists conceptualize it, we share a body with everyone who reads this blog or speaks English. More importantly, we share a body with everyone who makes the same commitments we do, thus Christians all share a body, Muslims all share a body, and everyone who worships Guanyin shares a body.

Ghosts have very weak bodies, demons and gods very strong ones (we give them our strength).

Horror movies are so visceral because as you watch them your various "commitment bodies" are being contorted, poked and exploded. (Obviously, I love the horror genre.)

This is a list used to train Daoist exorcists. In order to do an exorcism you must be able to recognize all the different types of possession in other people and in yourself.

1. Physical possession is pain. In it's lesser forms we recognize it as tension or even "strength." Physical possession causes people to lash out and to blame.


2. Qi possession is associated with controlling the breath, it amplifies feelings, creates excitement and it can lead to transcendent states. (Godlike or "I can't feel my body" types of disassociation.) Mania.


3. Emotional possession translates perfectly into English. Possessed by fear, anger, love, etc...


4. Thinking possession is like believing that the oceans are going to rise because we drive to work. Or that everything that happens in the Middle-East matters. You know, "Global Conspiracy," "The world is in crisis, dude."


5. Psychic possession is believing you know what someone else is thinking, or what is about to happen next.


6. Causal possession is like schizophrenia. When you think objects or icons or voices in your head are the cause of something in the real world. Profound disassociation.


7. The body of Individuation is supreme ego-mania. There are a number of narcotics that can bring about this near-death experience. It is when you feel/believe that you are the cause and purpose of everything.


8. The body of the Dao is a complete death. Sometimes call immortality. It is experience without any limits or conceptions.

Baguazhang is a dance form that explores all the different ways we can become possessed.  It is dancing with what it is to be alive.  Perhaps we could think of it as a personal, daily exorcism, although that certianly isn't traditional.

In case I lost you-- and you don't see the connection to martial arts-- notice that I just made a really good list of what might cause someone to attack you.

The Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang (Part 4)

Continuing my discussion of the Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang, by Frank Allen and Tina Chunna Zhang, we turn to the chapter entitled "The Daoist Roots of Baguazhang."

The chapter can be summarized like this: Dong Haichuan and Liu Hung Chieh both studied with some unnamed Daoists and Daoists do meditation. Baguazhang practitioners do sitting, standing, and walking meditation, which must have come from these unnamed Daoists. See the problem yet?

In the second paragraph we read:

Apparently, these Daosits looked to their predecessors--the shaman founders of Chinese culture--for some of the patterns of their moving meditations. Some of the oldest texts relating to the study of the Dao have chronicled a few of the dance patterns of the legendary Yu, mythical father of Chinese Shamanism. The patterns of many of these Shamanistic practices were circles and spirals.

The connection of the Dance of Yu to baguazhang is one of those big multi-layered topics for another day. But I can at least point out what the authors don't; Da Yu (the Great Yu) was an exorcist. The reason he is considered the founder of Chinese culture is because 4000 years ago he toured the known world (the whole country) performing the first national exorcisms.



I grew up around a lot of Cantonese speaking kids. When they got mad they would shout "Fuk Da Yu!" which sounded so much like F--k Y-u! that we had a lot of fun saying it. It turns out that they were saying "A curse upon your ancestors." Yu is the mythic ancestor of all Chinese and his name has actually come to mean "ancestor!"

The authors present Professor Kang Gewu's thesis that the roots of baguazhang are to be found in a circle walking practice of the Longmen sect. The concept of "secularism" does not translate very well into Chinese. For instance, Catholicism and Protestantism have often been viewed by Chinese as completely different religions. The idea that Daoism has sects is foreign to Daoism itself. This notion adds somewhat to the confusion about baguazhang's daoist roots. If it's possible to be ordained in a Quanzhen monastery, go and study ritual with a Tianshi householder, and then go live in a Zhengyi hermit enclave on Mao Mountain--then these categories don't meet the definition of sects.

To the authors credit, Longmen (Dragon gate) is correctly identified as a later Daoist lineage (1656) of the Qing Dynasty which merged with Confucianism and promoted a public code of conduct for lay practitioners. (I think of it as decaf-Daoism. It would be very hard to figure out why people drink coffee everyday if the only kind you had ever tried was decaf.)

That's most of what the authors have to say about Daoism. At one point they describe the meditative goal of circle walking as, to "make heaven and earth reside within one's own body," thus joining our inner world with the outer world to become "One with the Dao." Thanks for that. Basic Chinese cosmology posits that we are a temporary contract between Heaven and Earth to hang out in a body for, give or take, 80 years. How does walking in a circle make that more or less true?

In the second half of this chapter, the authors describe in detail a method of "dissolving" taught by B.K. Frantzis. The method described here is great. The problem is that without contextualization, without some grasp of the view which inspired this method, there is a very high probability that the fruition of practice will be overlooked. (And that appears to be what happened.)

The method they describe has the goal of clearing "energy blockages" from the body so that we can store unlimited amounts of qi. I'm deeply familiar with this method but I don't personally like to think of myself as being full of energy blockages, whatever that means. Frankly, the method is not very important.

My intension is not to sound dismissive, by all means, clear out those energy blocks! But taking a step back, isn't that what I am-- a big old energy blockage. To all my fellow energy blockages out there (this means you, dear reader) I say this: Respect yourself, lighten up, and trust your experience. You'll figure it out.

Buy it From Amazon

The Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang (Part 2)

Here I continue my commentary on The Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang, by Frank Allen and Tina Chunna.
The first section of the book is called "The Origins of Ba Gua Zhang: A Blend of History and Legend." It is the most complete collection of stories about baguazhang that I've seen. It follows all the various lineages down from Dong Haichuan. Wow, how do I put this? Writing should be like fighting a war. I fell asleep six times reading this section.

Still I found lots of material that was new to me. I didn't know that Wang Shujin spent a year studying with Wang Xiangzai, the founder of Yiquan. Hong Yixinag and Wang Shujin Yi were both members of the Yi Guan Dao religious society. "The outer teaching of the sect revolved around the belief that Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam and Christianity are all different expressions of the same universal and unwavering Dao, while the esoteric teaching of the sect involved various qi gong and other energy practices. " Wang was a Yi Guan Dao leader and thus fled with the Nationalists to Taiwan in 1948.

This section has lots of interesting material I didn't know before. I think my frustration with it stems from that fact it wavers between the encyclopedic tracking of all the various bagua masters, and stories about them. Should I memorize these stories? Is there some teaching point behind them? Does this history mean anything?

I know a reason these histories are important. If you go into any park in the morning, anywhere in the world where there are people practicing Chinese martial arts, and do your baguazhang, people will come up to you and ask where you learned. They will probably trace you back to a common gongfu ancestor with someone else in the park. Chances are good that they will ask you to perform and that if you have been taught correctly you will refuse twice, saying each time that you really are not good enough, that you would only embarrass your teacher, and that only your teacher's teacher was really great. But the third time they ask you, it becomes your duty to perform. The benefit of this is that after you perform you can point to anyone who was watching and they will obligated to show their stuff. It's kind of like a drinking game with your "new family."
There is also another reason. Many of us want to know how our individual style got its characteristics. The authors do a good job of tracing this "progress" or "decline" (which ever you prefer) from Dong Haichuan. However; where Dong Haichuan learned his Baguazhang is at this point, just a bunch of ledgends and unconvincing theories.

Frank Allen's main teacher is B.K. Frantzis and since I also do his style of Baguazhang, we have the same lineage through Frantzis to Liu Hengjie (Liu Hung Chieh).

In the section on forms (p. 87-88) the Authors explain why Liu Hung Chieh didn't teach a Baguazhang form and why his style is not orthodox Yinfu or Cheng Tinghua:

While still in his teens, Liu Hung Chieh became the disciple of bagua master, Liu Zhenlin. Liu Hung Chieh furst studied with Liu Zhenlin when Liu was teaching in the school of Cheng Tinghua's son Cheng Youlung and Dong Haichuan's student Liu Dekuan. Liu Zhen Lin was a famous fighter and bodyguard who first studied bagua under Yin Fu's student Liu Yongqing (who was a close friend and training partner of Yin Fu's top student, Ma Gui). The young Liu Zhenlin learned all of his basic bagua from these two masters, but his teachers brought him to bow before and become the disciple of court minister Liang Zhaiwen; in this way, Liu Zhenlin received entry into the third generation of bagua masters, which was the same generation as his foundation teachers. Liang Zhaiwen was a military man who had been the chief guard at the most important fire gate on the Great Wall before becoming a court minister. Due to Liang's position in lthe court, his association with the palace eunuch servant Dong Haichuan was not widely known until after Liang's death. Because he was the top student of Liu Zhenlin, it is same to asume that young Liu Hung Chieh also received training under his teacher's gongfu "uncles," Liu Yongqing and Ma Gui.

I am indebted to the authors for supplying this history even if my regular readers are likely to find it on the boring side. I promise to spice things up in the next couple of posts!

The authors go on to say that Liu Hung Chieh spent many years studying Daoist Circle Walking Meditation which influenced the development of his style of practice and teaching. In my opinion, someone, very possibly Liu, studied Daoist exorcism, not just circle walking. From my experience of Daoist exorcism it is a more likely source for the diverse phyiso-spirit knowledge that Liu passed on to B.K. Frantzis, (even if I'm the only one who thinks so.)
Buy it From Amazon

The Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang

Let me begin by saying that books are very important to me. My books are like my relatives, each staring down at me with their own ideas and expectations for me. And like relatives, there are those that I would prefer to see only once a year on Thanksgiving. That being said, I have a whole shelf of martial arts books that make me feel uncomfortable and for whom I am embarrassed.

I love baguazhang. When I pick up a book about it, an intense struggle begins. For the last month I have been struggling with The Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang, The Art and Legends of the Eight Trigram Palm by Frank Allen and Tina Chunna Zhang. I wish I could write an objective review of it, but I care too much. If you love baguazhang, you need this book. It is clearly one of the best books on the subject written in English.

I'm going to spend a few days talking about the book, but more importantly the book is a good jumping off point for my own ideas.

Since it is late, and I haven't published a blog all day, let me begin with the superficial.

Frank Allen can really manifest the different qi qualities of the various palm changes but that doesn't really come across in the photos. Photos of applications are of little use, applications must be felt because in Baguazhang they rely not on the movements, or which foot is where, but on the quality of movement in contact with an active opponent. To photograph it well would take a very skillful photographer who understood what they were trying to capture. Also, what is the point of photos of a bagua form? Or in this case three forms. I don't get it. Nobody can learn a bagua form from a book. A book like this should be a collaboration with a great photographer or the photos should be left out.

I asked a non-martial artist what she thought of the picture of Frank Allen with all the tattoos doing roushou with B.K. Franzis and she said, "Oh, is he a Hells Angel?" So I showed her the picture in the back of Frank with his reading glasses on and she said, "He looks like a guy in the advanced stages of Wise Man Syndrome." So if the authors were shooting for funny, they got funny. (Note to Frank, I think it's the hair.)

If you practice Baguazhang, buy the book and we'll talk about it more tomorrow.

Yang-Chu

If you haven't read Yang-Chu, I recommend it. Yang-Chu is considered one of the early voices of Daoism (300 BCE), a voice for wuwei.

His ideas are recorded in the seventh section of the Leizi (Lieh-Tzu). It's a short section and you can read it on-line here.

Yang-Chu said, all we are is a body and a story. It isn't much but applying his minimalism is useful for cutting through hype.

Yang-Chu didn't reject qi, or wealth, or pleasure--to him these are just relative ways of describing experience. He seems a little anti-fame, but that's because he sees freedom in the possibility of changing our story and fame has a tendency to lock us into our stories. We definitely have a body which moves around, thinks, and changes. And we tell all kinds of stories.

It is hardly ever the body that stops people from developing great martial arts skills, it is usually the story that gets in the way.

Most modern people find discussions of fate kind of silly. Like dude, I'm free, right? Yang-Chu cuts through all that. You do have a body, and it does have limitations. Those limitations are not always known, but they do shape our life and our experience of life. Our body does have a fate, or put another way, our fate does have a "shape."

Our story also has limitations, fate. Tell too wacky a story and you'll get yourself locked up. But even if you are walking around with a bad reputation, you are still pretty free to change your story. That freedom to change our story also suggests that we might be able to discard our story or cut it down to a nice manageable size.

The book Blink talks about a guy in Oregon who studied couples on video and developed a scoring system based on observations that could tell him with 90% accuracy if a given couple would still be together in 15 years. When I first heard this I was in shock for a few days. Why was I bothering with all the little details, like doing the dishes and "communicating" if almost all the significant data was in a 15 minute video interview? Is it possible that we really don't have free will?

Anyway, I would really like to get a video scoring system to determine whether or not a student is going to practice everyday, or if they will still be studying gongfu in like 10 years. Heck, I'd like to score myself!

We should definitely be offering discounts to people who have the FATE to practice everyday. What is your fate?

Shyness

I've been teaching children for 20 years. In my opinion, there is no such thing as shyness. I believe it is possible that there is some type of mental illness which manifests as shyness; but for the most part what teachers call shyness falls into two categories: Reluctant deadbeats and indolent wannabe royalty.

Fear is real. Students may feel afraid that they are going to be humiliated, or that their assertiveness will result in abuse by their classmates. They may even fear adults.

Some teachers believe that the way to deal with such fear is to create incremental steps which allow students to make conservative choices. Modest choices which are not really threatening. The logic is that over time frightened students will see that participation is fun and will want to take more risks.

Wrong! That only proves that they were reluctant deadbeats or indolent wannabe royalty. If students are afraid, the teacher should try to create exercises which feel really scary. The teacher should simultaneously model supportive behavior. Teachers should communicate that anything that goes wrong in the class is the teacher's fault! I tell students "Blame me!" Give students honest feedback and they will trust you. Make it clear that you will take responsibility for anything that goes wrong and they will take risks.

Activities which seem frightening at the beginning become thrilling when they are experienced with out actual negative consequences. (That's how I got addicted to horror movies.) Children who are taught to take risks grow into spontaneous confident adults. Students taught to make conservative choices feel stifled and repressed.

Reluctant deadbeats are usually suffering from lack of sleep or bad nutrition (either too much food or not enough of the right foods.) These problems should be dealt with outside of class.

Indolent wannabe royalty should be given maximum responsibility, preferably control over life and death! Address such students by their proper titles; Prince Zhang, Princess Alia, Queen of the Elves. Allow them to pick the next "volunteer!"

That usually works, but sometimes a very skilled princess will pretend that they are afraid to speak. In that case pretend that they gestured with their eyes at some other student who wasn't looking and call that student up. If they are a true queen they will become indignant and declare that they did not, and would not have made such a choice. You have won. Now all the other students know they are not shy.

[I got this line of thinking from Keith Johnstone who wrote Impro, which is the best book on teaching I have ever read. It claims to be about teaching theater but all the principles are universal.]