Yagli Gures: What Not to Wear to a Fight

Perhaps all the self-reflection I see around the blog-o-sphere on the topic of how different rule sets create completely different martial arts will also lead to some self-reflection on clothing designs.

Leather pants and olive oil are pretty good in the warm weather, very hard to get a grip and keeps away mosquitoes too.

You people into Olive Oil and Tea will want to check out Divine Tastes blog.
And there are some more masters techniques at Turkish Wrestling .

Yagli Gures is a traditional form of wrestling from Turkey. Obviously you can see why I'm a traditionalist from the pictures. Actually, the Ancient Greeks didn't bother with the leather pants, they just wore the olive oil. One of my local informants told me that, "The way to get a Russian woman is to wear lots of leather." I think I'm starting to understanding.

Oil as a commodity was not big in China until sesame oil and trees were brought from Persia during the Tang Dynasty (~600-900CE), so I doubt that oil was used in fighting there.

Matched fighting may be natural, but religions have spent a lot of time trying to regulate it. Wrestling would obviously be more entertaining if it was truly "no holds barred!"

Workshop Yu Cheng Yong

I'm going to a workshop this weekend with Yu Cheng Yong:

Master Yu Chen Yong Born in 1943 Tian Jing, China. Started his training as a wrestler in 1953 then moved to Tai Ji in 1957 with famous Master Wu and Master Niu. He also studied Ba Gua with famous Master such as Gao Yi Shen and Yang Ban Hou large frame Tai Ji with Master Niu Lian Yuan and Zhao Bao Style Tai Ji with Master Hou and Master Yue. One of his teacher is the very famous master Han Mu Xia whom defeated the Russia champion wrestler in 1930, which he then went on to win 10 gold metal from 10 different countries. The metals are now in the China National Historical Museum. In 2000, the master performance in Tian Jing master Yu got 1st place for the title of "best Master performance". In 2005, Master Yu acquired famous master Zhao Bao Tai Ji title from Wu Dang Mountain.

UPDATE:  The US State Department would not give him a visa.

How do Kids Learn?

Because I perform several different sword forms I've gotten in the habit of explaining a little bit about dueling.  It is a nice tie in with History and teachers appreciate it.  The funny thing is, students already know what a duel is.  They often don't know it by name, but when I describe the type of thing a duel would be fought over, namely honor, and that every duel needs to have seconds (to enforce the rules and to fight themselves if the rules are broken)--elementary school students all recognize the "fair fight" so common on the school yard.

Students also know the difference between a matched or a fair fight and bullying.  Why do they know this? How do they learn it?  Is there something in our DNA?  Is dueling as natural as mothering?

I loved this book.

Liver Cleanse?

It seems like I'm surrounded by people doing various things they call a seasonal liver cleanse. Inevitably these people are thin. The project varies from simply taking a purgative every other day for a week, to not eating for 10 days.

As winter turns to spring we become more active. There is more sunlight and more qi available for getting things done (whether we exercise more or not). As the weather warms we also eat less. The combination of eating less and being more active actually slows down our digestion/metabolism.

Thus, toward the end of spring people start feeling overworked and stagnant, they want to "detox."

The Daoist approach to Spring is to conserve while simultaneously taking advantage of the extra qi available. Ones diet should have lots of watery soup, lots of liquid, fresh greens. Less grain, smaller portions of meat, fruit only between meals. But it is still important to eat enough food for the type of activity you are doing. Then go to bed early.

It's not the season's fault that people have problems, and it is not really the type of food or how much. The problem is that people want to stay up late, they skip their afternoon naps and party right on through.

What most of these fasters and liver cleansers have is a miniature version of anorexia. But don't get exited. To paraphrase the Daodejing: It's not that people get dealt a bad hand, it's that they take a situation of excess and make it more excessive; they take a deficient situation and make it more deficient.

Already strong vigorous athletes, sign up for Iron Man Triathlons. Skinny people who aren't hungry, decide to fast.

There is nothing new here. Spring festivals everywhere are some version of dancing and drinking all night and waking up in the bushes with somebody else's partner.

After a night like that, purification is sure to keep you on the roller coaster road to redemption.

When you fast for 10 days you may drift in and out of transcendent bliss, wandering, day dreaming your way through conversations. By the end of 10 days your sense of smell will be heightened as will your sensitivity to breezes and changes in light. You will be prepped for doing exorcisms. Even the subtlest ghosts will be brought out of hiding--by your acute weakness--where they can be captured or transformed. (Ghosts are unresolved commitments which linger because they don't have enough qi to move on.)

Kids this time of year scream more. They also beg for food. They can't seem to stop talking and they "accidentally" chop, punch, and crash into each other. So that's my seasonal advice to all of you.

Cleanse your liver with loud sounds, laugh, sing, grunt.

Make yourself eat enough. Of course, don't over eat! But don't try to get through the day on a granola bar and a cup of coffee just because there seems to be enough qi "in the air."

And if you practice gongfu, get a little rougher. Make those "accidental" slaps sting. Then take a bath and go to bed early.

After thought: Sometimes people who are overweight from too much rich food in the winter, try to lose weight with a "liver cleanse." If you are really taking off a significant portion of weight through purging and fasting, you are also putting your heart at risk. This kind of up and down with your weight every year will likely shorten your life. Do it once; then use extraordinary discipline throughout the year to make sure you don't gain the weight back again.

Self Defense (Not)!

Of course, self-defense is not a traditional Chinese idea, village defense perhaps, crop defense probably, and family defense sure thing-- but the idea that I might need to learn self-defense to dispatch bullies or muggers, not so likely.

After all, when I was ten years old I knew what every Chinese merchant also knew; if you want to deal with bandits you're better off having a large number of armed guards, or even better, getting the government or an army to protect the roads or even hunt the bandits down with overwhelming force of numbers.

I knew that bullies who resist trickery, slight of hand, and psychic intimidation, can be dealt with by enlisting the overwhelming force of a bigger friend, a tougher friend, a group of friends, or just adults who wield punishments more severe and longer lasting than fisticuffs.

I did not begin studying martial arts because I wanted to be able to defend myself, quite to the contrary. I took up the arts because I had a huge amount of natural aggression. I'm talking about explosive aggression that by ten I had already learned I needed to tame. At ten I knew that to be accepted by the adult world I needed to suppress my own spontaneous desire to smash and bash!

No, I started studying martial arts so that I would have a place to explode, a place where it was safe to be aggressive because I would be in the company of people who could defend themselves from ME!

Hat tip: This came up because I was ranting over at formosaneijia

Link: Scientific American:  This kind of research is pure evil because if there is a genetic cause for my aggression and they find it, there will be a push to make sure people like me are not born in the first place!

Butterflies or Six Inch Knives?

One of the basic ideas of internal martial arts is that joints can open and close (kaihe). I talked about this in these two posts from last September. Joint Pulsing 1 and Joint Pulsing 2.
The elbow, like all joints, opens and closes quite easily.   In order to think about something it really helps to have words and metaphors which describe it.  Since the elbow is something we rarely talk about, we also rarely think about it, and so for most people the opening and closing of the elbow joint is a completely unconscious process.

When I gained awareness of my elbows opening and closing my martial arts power tripled.  Now you might think I'm exaggerating, you wouldn't be the first, but honestly--before I had this awareness life was gray, after gaining this awareness opponents started flying off of my arms.

Here are two ways to practice that may help you gain awareness of your elbows:

First imagine that you have butterflies on your elbows, happy, light, delicate and beautiful.  Practice moving about, do the form, even gentle push-hands, with out knocking the butterflies off your elbows.

Second, imagine you have six inch long double edged knives projecting out of your elbows; happy, light, sharp, and beautiful.  Go straight to push hands and imagine you are joyfully cutting your way through your opponent.  Be generous with your cutting techniques.

Here is a link to an article I just re-wrote about wearing Compression Straps on your elbows.  

Summer Training Camp

George Xu just put up new information about the Summer Camp he co-teaches every year with a different Chinese Martial Arts Master. The Camp is held in the woods in a place called La Honda, near Santa Cruz California. Here is the scoop on his co-teacher this year:

Master Yu Chen Yong Born in 1943 Tian Jing, China. Started his training as a wrestler in 1953 then moved to Tai Ji in 1957 with famous Master Wu and Master Niu. He also studied Ba Gua with famous Master such as Gao Yi Sheng and Yang Ban Hou large frame Tai Ji with Master Niu Lian Yuan and Zhao Bao Style Tai Ji with Master Hou and Master Yue. One of his teacher is the very famous master Han Mu Xia whom defeated the Russia champion wrestler in 1930, which he then went on to win 10 gold metal from 10 different countries. The metals are now in the China National Historical Museum. In 2000, the master performance in Tian Jing master Yu got 1st place for the title of "best Master performance". In 2005, Master Yu acquired famous master Zhao Bao Tai Ji title from Wu Dang Mountain.

Master Yu will be teaching all his secrets in this year's summer camp in California

Yi

In the Early 90's when George Xu came back from judging a tournament on the East Coast, he told us that he had been in an interesting and friendly argument with Nan Lu, a baguazhang practitioner in New York City.

The argument was over how to describe high level Yi. Yi is most often translated "intension," but the English word doesn't do it justice. Some modern Qi jocks now use the word Yinian, generally meaning something more like "mind" but in qigong circles it simply refers to "the pathway along which you intend to send qi."

When George Xu wanted to explain to a beginning student what yi was, he would describe two Doberman-pinchers. Both were told to charge at a group of people. One dog got up close and hesitated, jumping around and barking, not sure who to bite. The other dog, the one with clear yi, immediately bit the neck of the guy with the blue shirt.

George had been arguing that one should train with "killer" yi, the mind should be focused exactly on how to kill the opponent. Nan Lu was arguing that one should have "zero" yi, a mind like a translucent sky. George wasn't willing to concede but he thought Nan Lu's argument had merit.

A more common use of the word Yi, one that nearly all Chinese martial arts teachers use, means to have an awareness of technique. A student has yi in his form when a knowledgeable observer can see the fighting idea in the students movement. Numerous throws, joint breaks, and striking combination possibilities should be apparent.

Every technique must have the correct force trajectories, and these must be practiced on a live partner. These trajectories themselves are also called yi. Martial arts techniques use trajectories which are vectors, arcs, and spirals. All of this is referred to as yi.

One of the magical things about a gongfu form or routine is that because the same movement can be used for many different techniques, a seasoned practitioner will develop more and more complex yi as the years go by. A single movement can have a hundred different expressions.

This seasoned and complex yi at some point starts to look less specific. With very clear yi, it looks like I'm making an upper-cut to the chin. But if I've thoroughly trained 15 different techniques for that movement I can do the movement in what we might call an undifferentiated potential state. Instead of a specific technique or fighting idea showing itself, the yi starts to look like clouds swirling around the body. It is not that you actually see the clouds, what you see is all the possibilities at once.

Practicing at this yi level also feels like clouds, or sometimes like water, fire or mist. Once a practitioner reaches this level, she stops thinking in terms of techniques.

Kumar Frantzis said about Xingyi that when you strike you should be thinking "Only One Thing."

A Samurai by the old code (budo) didn't need technique, he needed only to be willing to die.

Wang Xiangzhai, one of the greatest internal martial artists of the 20th Century, said that "the yi should always be round." I'm working on it.

Balance, Blankets and Gnarly

As a teenager I was very good at skateboarding. This was before the technology of super light boards and thus before all the hopping and kick flips. Living in San Francisco we skated down hill using slalom and sliding techniques on both streets and sidewalks. I can count on one hand the number of people that could keep up with me.

Whenever I size someone up, of course I look at the usual stuff: their alignment, do they look weak in some areas and stronger in others? what kind of reach do they have? but the big question is, could they do something to me that would hurt more than falling off my skateboard at 30 miles an hour onto the pavement and then sliding to a stop?

I don't personally take credit for inventing the word "gnarly" but many of my friends at the time were convinced that I had a claim to first usage.

You can tell someone who is just learning how to skateboard because he or she will try to use their leg muscles to steer (and because they will say, "ahhggrrhh" and then fall down.) Downhill skateboarding requires using the whole body to balance and steer.

Balance is not something you find and maintain, it is the ability to constantly shift your weight around. To someone watching a skateboarder doing slalom down a hill it looks like he or she is leaning forward and back. Actually what happens is the instant one moves their weight to one side of the board, the board starts turning to come underneath the weight. This creates first a feeling of heaviness as your weight goes into the board, and then a feeling of lightness as your forward momentum takes you over to the other side of the board. As your weight crosses the centerline you feel weightless for a moment and then you come down heavy on the other side of the board as it turns again.

This heavy-light-heavy sequence is what wins fights. Think about the key moment of a martial encounter in which your body weight comes into full contact with the other person. Just like skateboarding, if you try to use your leg muscles to balance, you will be bowled over. Balance comes from being able to become suddenly light then suddenly heavy.

One high level description of this is that you first throw a very fine light weight silk blanket over your opponent, then you throw a very heavy one.

Dizziness

You know that feeling you get when you spin around really fast and then stop? In the cartoons this feeling is usually illustrated with a swirl and some stars around the head. But actually the whole body has this spinning feeling. You can feel it in your knees and elbows too.

With this sort of disorientation it feels as if there is a body that is now still, and a second body that hasn’t stopped spinning yet. As you gain your baring, it feels as if that "other" body comes back inside.

A similar thing happens to me (and I think most people) when I am laying down very relaxed and still. I feel my body start to move around slowly, even though I know I’m not actually moving. I can control it, but it requires that I relax first, it feels like I'm letting myself drift.

Well this feeling of the body drifting out is an important aspect of Baguazhang, Taijiquan, and Internal Martial Arts practice in general. When I soften my movement to the point where I feel like I’m continuously melting, as I turn side to side it feels like my body keeps turning even after I have stopped. If I follow the "other" body, my solid body will lose its integration, so the correct response is to stop and re-integrate. Then I can turn the other way and repeat the experience on the other side.
When doing a form, or practicing push-hands, or even fighting, we control this 'other' body, circling it around and even throwing it like a light silk blanket over our opponents.

A significant number of martial arts techniques gain efficacy through disorienting the opponent in one way or another.  Likewise, a significant amount of training is designed to familiarize us with strange sensations and orientations so that when they happen in a fight we don't get disoriented.

There have been a few studies that show taijiquan training improves balance in older people.  I like to point out that his is "fallout" from, or a  "sidecar" to, the main project of martial training and cultivating weakness, but never the less it is a nice benefit.