Boat Burning Festival

Here is a knowledgeable article from the Wall Street Journal on Boat Burning in Southern Taiwan. 

Avoid Fame, Practice Obscurity

I recently received an email from Paulie Zink's wife Maria asking me to please write a letter to the Los Angles Times complaining that a recent article on Yin Yoga made no mention of it's founder, Paulie Zink.  My sympathy goes out to everyone involved.

First of all to the LA Times.  The one thing newspapers like the LA Times used to have over TV news was something called investigative reporting.  It involved finding experts and insiders who had something to say about a particular topic.  The reporter would get in a rental car and go visit these insider/experts, see what they were up to, and put together a summary of their opinions and knowledge.  Now any expert with something to say or insider with experience to reveal has a blog.  The LA Times has lost it's reason d'etre.

The piece the LA Times published on Yin Yoga is just a puff piece for somebodies yoga teacher.  Free advertising for a friend loosely veiled in the mystique of "research."  Come on, the reporter googled Yin Yoga, talked to the first two people who picked up their cell phone.  It took all of twenty minutes to research.

My greater sympathy goes to Paulie Zink.  He is the holder of an extraordinary Daoist Lineage of Dao Yin.  Dao Yin, like all things Chinese, is very hard to put in a box.  It is first and foremost a hermit's expression of a life dedicated to the Teachings of Laozi.  The particular lineage he holds includes master level circus and martial arts training.  Did a Dao Yin hermit decide he'd had enough of the mountains and join a traveling performance troop, or did a master performer retire to the mountains?  Either way Dao Yin is way more than Yin Yoga.  I've never seen a yogi as good as Paulie Zink. Dao Yin technology is just higher.  Regular yoga is like a computer with excellent connectivity, interface, and compatibility, but not much memory.  Dao Yin is like a high speed super computer with 2000 years of memory, but little connectivity (it's best taught in a small group or one to one), an obscure interface (it requires an enormous time commitment to learn), and is useful for only two things--being in the circus or being a hermit.

Did the "founders" of Yin Yoga study with Paulie Zink?  Yes they did.  Was Zink the first person to use the term Yin Yoga?  Probably, it sounds like something he would say.  But the Yin Yoga people didn't study long enough to learn Dao Yin.  What they are teaching is just smart exercise for hip urban professionals.  It doesn't come close to the Dao Yin Paulie Zink practices. What they do works because it is simple and easy to learn.

Laozi's Teaching's, the Daodejing, has chapter after chapter describing the fruition of a Daoist life as "obscurity."  This is not some mysterious power that will allow you to win friends and influence people, it's real obscurity.  In fact, the fifth Xiang'er Precept is:  Avoid Fame, Practice Obscurity.  (See this article for more on Xiang'er and the Daodejing.)

A few years back, Zink moved from Hollywood to the hermit lands of Montana.  He seems to be hoping that he can travel around the country and teach workshops a few times a year and perhaps pick up a few high end private students (people like Madonna?).  The depth of Paulie Zink's knowledge would be appreciated in any circus town, like San Francisco or Montreal.  He could live in a sound proofed apartment with a nice private garden and teach at a circus school.  The one in San Francisco already has three contortion teachers, but Zink's knowledge and open hearted generosity would be a welcome addition.  I've seen him take the most twisted up funky stretchy poses and turn them into loco-motor movement.  Elbow stands become bunny hops with a fluffy tail.  Static warrior poses become dragons skittering across the water.  I'm not kidding.  This stuff is amazing.

By the way, the best scenario for the origins of Shaolin gongfu (Kung Fu) is that 1000 years ago (early Sung Dynasty) someone who had learned this half-hermit, half-circus storytelling art of Dao Yin, was living in the Song Mountains around Shaolin Temple and offered to help out by teaching the orphans some discipline.  Most large Temples were also orphanages.  Perhaps he had given up a child to a temple many years earlier and felt guilty about it.  Meir Shahar suggests in his ground braking book Shaolin Temple, that one of the roots of Shaolin is probably Dao Yin.  He also says that martial arts heroes were already in the written literature of the time, the literature itself having grown out of theater!

Chinese culture doesn't fit into boxes.   Most likely the development of Chinese movement culture happened in a topsy-turvy, a little bit here, a little bit there kind of way.  Give a sword to a Dao Yin master and he's gonna stretch it to the limit.  He's gonna do something wild and explosive, something soft and silky, something spontaneous and never seen before.  That's the fruition of Dao Yin.  That is the physical expression of the teachings of Laozi-- our limitless nature--Daode.  (Dao= limitless unnameable nature, De=a person's unique expression of Dao.)

Dao Yin is a treasure.  The version I learned doesn't have all the circus stuff or martial arts in it.  So in some senses it is a lot easier to learn than Paulie Zink's material.  But what I learned is still a hermit practice.  In order to practice I built a dedicated elivated room in my isolated apartment.  I called it the sky palace.  When I moved, I dropped that practice.  Modern Qigong is namby pamby soft and flowery compared to Dao Yin.  The Dao Yin I learned is a little like yoga but it's noisy and rambunctious, it gives you bruises,  and must be practiced everyday with for at least 3 hours with meditation.  Zink's Dao Yin probably requires closer to 8 hours of practice a day.  Dao Yin doesn't make you feel like putting on a suit and heading to the office, it makes you feel like spontaneously doing nothing.  Perhaps it would be unfair to call it the art of disciplined fooling around, but you get the idea.

When I met Paulie Zink in LA at a workshop he was teaching,  he was traveling with a disciple who lived with him in Montana and seemed to be learning everything.  I'm very happy about that.  His disciple spoke very little.  I asked him a few questions and I had to lean in close to hear soft spoken answers delivered directly from his heart.  A natural hermit.  Paulie Zink's oldest student also came into town for the workshop.  He was very generous to me, answered questions and gave me some tips; he lives in a high desert town I'd never heard of halfway between LA and Las Vegas.  He too is a Hermit.

Here is his youtube channel.

Muscle Training Questions

Below I have answered some questions that were sent to me via email about the post I wrote last week, 5 Levels of Internal Muscle Training.   I love getting emails.  For reference the 5 levels are:

1. Moving and Coordinating


2. Static Structure


3. Continuous Structure with Movement


4. Empty and Full at the Same Time


5. Whole Body Becomes a Ball

Why do the steps laid out in the "5 steps of muscular training" post seem so rigid and schematic?

You are correct that the "5 Steps" are schematic and rigid.  They are part of a larger project in which I am developing ways to communicate with people who have some physical training background other than martial arts.  Martial artists rarely frame what they do entirely by the muscles;  However, weight-lifters, Pilates, and many athletes do frame their understanding of activity in terms of muscle development.
The whole truth is a much fuzzier type of logic.  I will stand by the notion that muscle training must follow the 5 level progression.  However, there are many other aspects of martial development which transcend and traverse these levels.  I tried to make that clear in the "notes."  Also, it's always possible to go back and fill in gaps in one's development later.

At which point does one start "grounding force?"

At level 2, you practice transferring your opponent's force directly into the ground.  This must be done for the entire surface of the body and with forces going in every direction.  It requires the aid of a teacher or partner.

At which point in the five level progression does a person touching you--give you the feeling that his/her force is directly going to the floor through your body?

Your opponent is not doing that, you are.  If I make my body very stiff and rigid, my opponent's force will move me like it would move a piece of heavy furniture.  If  I make my body very soft and mushy, my opponent's force will plow right through me.  If there are stiff places in a soft body, they will be broken--they will not transfer force to the ground.  The only way your opponent's force will go to the ground is if you direct it there (however, the process may be unconscious).

This is a common problem for students beginning level 3 training.  Level 3 is essentially level 2 in continuous motion.  In Aikido, for instance, this falls under "blending with the opponent."  At level 3 our body has superb structural integrity but we use sensitivity to avoid ever using that structure against any direct force.

If I try to push directly on someone who has good level 3 skills they will blend (or connect) with me, move out of the way of my force, and then "position" their structure so that I have no leverage or momentum for an attack.  If they are fighting they will use that "position" to injure, disarm, or throw me.

In Taijiquan, this is the continuous and spontaneous linking of the four jin: peng, ji, lu, & an.  If there is a break in the execution of jin-- a sensitive opponent and a strong opponent will both be able to "find it" and exploit it.

I'm totally losing my muscular strength, as well as my weight... in your training did you experience weight loss? I'm 12 pounds less than I used to be when I started training taiji one year ago, and this is not necessarily going to stop. Teacher said, oh, you'll replace that with taiji strength, don't worry?

Did I experience weight loss?  Yes, there was a period long ago where I lost some weight but not 12 lbs.  Weight gain or loss can vary a lot from person to person; however, the practice of internal martial arts will make your digestion more efficient and your appetite more sensitive! Ignore this at your own peril.  Many martial artists have gotten fat because they responded to improved digestion by eating more instead of less.

If you are paying attention to your appetite, you will simply want to eat less.  It's also a good idea to experiment with different types of food, and different styles of cooking.  I'll go even farther, if you are under 35 and having this experience, you need to learn how to cook.  It's not necessary to learn how to cook with Chinese herbs, but if you are in a place where that is easy, I do recommend it.  Learning how to cook any tranditional cuisine will include in-depth knowledge about ingredients and cooking methods.  Without this part of the practice all that appetite sensitivity training that the Daoist tradition infused in the martial arts will be wasted.

(Of course, make sure you are not losing weight because of some disease or parasite.)

While it isn't popular to say it, you are actually getting weaker and no, it will not be replaced by strength.  We don't need strength; humans are strong enough as we are.  That being said, if you have a big "appetite" for movement, if you like to practice a lot, you will develop superior integration, denser bones and sinew, more efficient dynamic muscles, new types of power, and the second of Laozi's treasures: Conservation.

Training with my Chinese "uncles" is at times pretty much not funny.  Sometimes I think their biggest goal is not losing face.  Their understanding of cooperative training seems quite different from mine.  I mean, I don't have to use muscular strength, but  this Chinese man in his 60's is stiff as hell, and strong too, so the natural reaction would be to use more strength than him. I see these gentleman (and ladies as well) who have been training for years but still rely on muscular, stiff strength, and I guess they are happy like that.  How should  the transition from muscular strength to a more song, tongtou, strength feel?  How does it work?

That's a tough one.  Your question is more about intimacy than method.  Intimacy and betrayal are kissing cousins.  My advice?  Make yourself more vulnerable.  Forget about trying to learn and just hang out.  The fruition of weakness is sensitivity.  The fruition of stillness is freedom of movement.  The fruition of not controlling the future is spontaneity.  The fruition of  trusting your body's "appetites" is that life no longer feels like a struggle.

My Chinese "uncles" seem to have only "success/fail" exercises.  I'm not getting "learn to feel" or "get more sensitive" exercises.  Am I just too un-sensitive or are they giving me inappropriate exercises for that type of development?

Another tough one.  Being un-sensitive is often just using a yard stick where a micrometer is called for.  Most of us have the "tools," it's just figuring out which one to use.  Chinese culture is big on "Hao, Bu hao," types of learning.  It's easy for someone from a Western culture to get frustrated.  Remember there is no moral content, failure says nothing what-so-ever about your character, you are just doing it wrong.  The more you enjoy your failures, the faster you will learn. Yes, learning methods can always be improved, sometimes you have to teach your teachers how to teach.

Yes, it is possible your "uncles" are teasing you, or patronizing you, or even intentionally screwing you up.  It's possible they themselves are confused and it is also possible that they are jealousy guarding what took them decades to learn.  None of that would be surprising.  But honestly I don't know.

Top Predators Practice Internal Martial Arts

I’ve been working with the “ball” material I wrote about in the last post and I’ve decided that there is an other way to explain it.

The top predators I’m likely to see in San Francisco on any given day are falcons, hawks, cats, and raccoons.  Occasionally I see a coyote or a heron too.

All of these predators are able to fluff up their bodies.  We tend to think of these moments of fluffing up as autonomic responses to fear because they parallel the goose bumps we get when we are watching a horror movie.  We also learn in school that some animals fluff up so that they will look really big to an attacker or a competitor,  and that has a parallel in the expression “I feel pumped up” which athletes sometimes use.
But of course we don’t know for sure why these predators fluff up and we definitely don’t know whether or not they consciously control it.

I used the term autonomic above.  The nervous system is divided into two types of nerves, the ones that control obviously voluntary actions (yes that would include ear wiggling even if you aren’t very good at it yet); and nerves that control much less voluntary things like pupil size and heart rate.  The less voluntary system is called the autonomic nervous system and it is also divided into two parts. One part that is active when you take a deep relaxing breath while sitting in a hot tub, and another part that is active when you hold your breath, tense up your muscles, pull back your lips and grit your teeth.  The relaxing nervous system is called para-sympathetic, the stressed out nervous system is called sympathetic.  (I know the names are ridiculous, they refer to anatomy you only see when you are doing a dissections.)

The ball practice that I wrote about yesterday is the practice of making your whole body fluff up and its opposite, shrink-condense.  This happens at the most outer layer of the physical body, between the muscles and the hair follicles.

In this practice it is key that you keep your breathing relaxed, that you do not activate the stressed out nervous system even a little bit.  Through this practice you will eventually be able to do more than just fluff up and shrink-condense.  You will be able to spontaneously change the entire surface of your body in any way you want.

I suspect that the top predators are able to do this without becoming stressed out, while prey, like bunny rabbits, only do it when they are stressed out.

This kind of practice has lots of health benefits but the fighters out there may be thinking, “How could I possibly fight using such a subtle mechanism?”  The answer is that the practice trains your body to not get stuck, to keep changing even in a situation of stress.  It will increase your power too, because there will be less inhibition in your body.

And of course when the predator ball becomes second nature, you don’t think about it, it just becomes part of everything you do.

The following Hagiography is from To Live As Long As Heaven and Earth:

"During the reign of Emperor Cheng of the Han, hunters in the Zhongnan Mountains saw a person who wore no clothes, his body covered with black hair. Upon seeing this person, the hunters wanted to pursue and capture him, but the person leapt over gullies and valleys as if in flight, and so could not be overtaken. [But after being surrounded and captured, it was discovered this person was a 200 plus year old woman, who had once been a concubine of Qin Emperor Ziying. When he had surrendered to the 'invaders of the east', she fled into the mountains where she learned to subside on 'the resin and nuts of pines' from an old man. Afterwards, this diet 'enabled [her] to feel neither hunger nor thirst; in winter [she] was not cold, in summer [she] was not hot.']
The hunters took the woman back in. They offered her grain to eat. When she first smelled the stink of grain, she vomited, and only after several days could she tolerate it. After little more than two years of this [diet], her body hair fell out; she turned old and died. Had she not been caught by men, she would have become an [immortal]." (Campany 2002:22–23)

"The earliest representations of Chinese immortals, xian (?), dating from the Han Dynasty, portray them flying with feathery wings (the word yuren ?? "feathered person" later meant "Daoist") or riding dragons."

[Thanks Wikipedia, for saving me from having to type these two quotes in myself!]

Xuan Tian

This is an image of the god Xuantian, (Mysterious heaven).  He is a slightly more martial form of the same god also called Ziwei or Zhenwu (Perfected Warrior).  Xiantian is the god who also goes by the name Xuande (Mysterious Nature), the god who met with Zhang Sanfeng the night before he invented Taijiquan on Wudang Mountian.

The names represent earlier and later parts of our era, times in which the god's job has changed.  Since all the names are still used, he is still available to do all the jobs.

Temples

Stating the obvious.

There are three basic types of temples in Taiwan (Excluding explicitly Buddhist Monasteries, Christian Churches, and Muslim Mosques).
The first are female quasi-Buddhist temples (because Buddhism is associated with compassion and these deities are all compassionate).  The big ones are Matzu and Guanyin.  Matzu it the biggest single god cult in Taiwan.
The second type are Wen temples.  Wen means culture or literature, and by implication also means political office.  These includes Rua (Confucian Temples) and altars to Wenzi, Wen Chang, Wen ...etc....  People make sacrifices here when they want to do well on tests, and when they want a promotion (based on merit?), and perhaps when they have to confront corruption (I made that up, but it’s logical).
The third category of temples are those dedicated to Martial Gods.  These temples are by far the most numerous and probably the most diverse. These temples are absolutely covered floor to ceiling with elaborate carvings and images of fighters and battles legends and weapons.

But actually, Matzu and Guanyin always have fierce protectors with weapons around them, even if they aren’t on every wall.  And Wen Chang is always flanked by military figures too.

So here is the obvious: Martial arts is the religion of Chinese people. That wasn't obvious to me before visiting Taiwan.

God of Accounting!

Back in San Francisco, most Chinese businesses have a statue of Guangong on an altar up high in the back of their stores, with offerings of incense and fruit.  He wears armor and carries a halbred, he has a red face and usually his liver is somewhat protruding to show his fierceness.

In Taiwan I learned that he is the god of accounting! The story goes that general Cao Cao (a very important figure in the spread of early Daoism) imprisoned General Guangong for a time.  During that time in prison, Guangong kept precise records of how much food he was given and upon his release he paid it back in full!   Thus, he is watching over the shop to make sure all transactions are accounted for!

For years I've been asking what this guy stands for, so just because I finally got a good answer, should not imply that your average shop keeper is going on the same information.  After all, martial gods are simply good for business.

On the floor of a business there is usually a smaller altar to Tudi, the god of the Earth, who is thought to be the first lease holder of any given business, thus some of his merit has accumulated on the spot.  It's kind of like if, a long time ago, there was a famous shop where your shop is today and perhaps someone (dead?) might come looking for their favorite (noodle? trinket?) shop--you could have some commemoration of that handy for them.  And hopefully still get their business.

Wudang Shan West

This morning I was back in the fog of my old quarry with the ravens and the peregrine falcon.  I'm back in San Francisco but I still have a few posts to organize about my trip to Taiwan.

San Francisco is Wudang Shan West.  Wudang Shan is the legendary birthplace of Taijiquan, the sacred Daoist mountain from which many of the extraordinary methods are said to have arisen.  It is also the home of Quanzhen, the Perfect Realization tradition of monastic Daoism.

Cities are generally considered bad places to cultivate Dao, because they are noisy, dusty and crowded.  Ritual traditions of cultivating Dao are of course based in communities, but development of specialized techniques and skills are often thought to require fresh cool air and quiet.

San Francisco, rarely has a hot day and never has a hot morning, yet it never snows either.  It is possible to practice in pristine ocean fog 3 out of 5 days all year round.  At 6am, a spot sheltered from the wind will be as quiet as a mountain retreat.

It took me three days of being back here to re-regulate my breathing.  If I can lose it temporarily on a one month trip, after 22 years of standing meditation, how could those with an irresolute will even stand a chance of weaving the golden thread?

Without the right environment, practicing martial arts is a struggle.  On this trip, the heat made me resistant to practice.  I got a sense of what it might be like for some students who tell me practicing consistantly is difficult.  Daily practice has always seemed natural too me, even in my rebelious teens, everyday at 6am I got up and danced around my room for a few hours, or went skateboarding, or sailing.  I was born at Wudang Shan West.

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George Xu has been using the vocabulary of two bodies.  He says we need to have both a Jing body and a Qi body.  These two bodies must be clearly differentiated.  One way to recognize this differentiation is by exploring how these two bodies respond differently in different environments. Here are some musings on that topic from the last days of my trip which you may find helpful on your own journey inward.

Think of Jing as the mass, as the reproducible essential substance --as the puppet.  Think of Qi as energy (in the most vernacular sense of the word, “I feel energized,” or “I’ve got no more energy,”), as direction, style, and dynamics --as the puppeteer.

Cold causes qi to go interior and consolidate.
Heat causes the qi to release and disperse.

In the cold we tend to “stagnate” we want to be still to sink into the couch.

In the heat it is very hard to exercise, particularly damp heat, we get tired very easily.
Meditation is easy in the cold, particularly early morning or late at night when other people aren’t moving.  Meditation and stillness are easy in the cold because the qi consolidates.
In the heat, meditation is truly difficult because ones qi is so easily dispersed.
Simple enough.
JIng is harder to understand.
Jing is more easily injured in the cold where muscles strain and resist movement.

In the heat, jing is soft, loose and relaxed, structural injures are rare, but exhaustion can set in within minutes, the qi is just too easily dispersed.  Over time our qi can become “depleted.”  As there is no 'motor' to drive the Jing, it too can become depleted.

Qi is easier to store in the cold.  Of course not everybody eats well and gets enough sleep, and the right kind of exercise, but assuming that base, qi is easy to store.
In the heat most exercise is out of the question because it would simply disperse the qi before the exercise had a chance to do any good.

In the old days, damp heat caused food to spoil and people to get sick.
In the old days, in the cold, people sometimes ran out of food.

Without proper nutrition, jing will become depleted, but qi usually gets depleted first.  In the heat, jing is easy to mobilize but the qi isn’t there to push it.

Of course in extreme cold, circulation stops and the lungs start to freeze.  In extreme heat the brain starts to cook.
Wind is a problem in either situation because it disperses the weiqi, the protective qi on the surface of the body.  In the cold, wind causes the to muscles cramp and seize, and the lungs to be vulnerable to colds and flu.  In the heat wind leads to head aches, fever, and loss of appetite.

I’m starting to think that the great deal of art and poetry produced to described the elixir practice is mostly just a way of saying, "look at my unique experience of differentiating jing and qi."  If you cultivate dao, and differentiate jing and qi, you will likely have a unique experience and you may recognized that cultivation in other people.  It is said that there are lists of ways to recognized another immortal (xian).  I have to go look for one of those lists but I know that one of the things on that list is long earlobes.  You can recognize an immortal by their earlobes!  When jing and qi differentiate, the Jing body becomes like free floating earlobes.