Unhabitual

Here is a nice little essay by T.Y. Pang on being natural, hat tip to Dojo Rat:

It is a common experience for people who are first beginning to practice Tai Chi Chuan to feel that the movements they are trying to make are unnatural.  As a matter of fact, what they mean by unnatural is actually unhabitual.

Jitong (Trance Medium)

Here is an interesting article a student just sent me from the International Herald Tribune:

Most often, Chang is possessed by Ji Gong, a maverick Buddhist monk who lived in China in the 12th century, and loved his meat and liquor. Thus the cans of beer as offerings on the altar and Chang's occasional hiccups and slurred speech as she channeled the tipsy monk.

Wrestling with Finesse

A lot of people out there in the ether are saying that real martial arts must include ground fighting and must practice throwing techniques all the way to the ground.  This new critic has come about because of Mixed Martial Arts and the dominance of Brazilian Jujitsu in that market.

In a way this is just a continuation of the, "Everything must be tested in a real situation" critic.  The problem is, we don't know what's real for us until it happens.  And as they say in military circles, we are always fighting the current fight the way we wish we had fought the last one.

If I were stupid enough to say I don't like testing I'd have a whole bunch of people writing me nasty notes.  I think every single thing you practice should have some sort of testing but I'm not that into free fighting as a test.  Every form of limited fighting, push-hands, rosho, sparring, judo, shuijiao, grappling games, wrestling--they all have draw backs.  Each method, if seen as a testing ground, has elements taken out.  If they didn't, serious injury or death would be the result of every bout.

I'm conflicted about the best way to teach, not because I'm uncertain about what is the best training for myself, but because my early experiences with fighting are hard to recreate and I don't think my students would be game for them at this point in their lives.  (Still, if I had a dojo with mats I would use them, because that's just fun.)

Early History

As a kid I never missed an opportunity to wrestle.  Never.  I loved it, I breathed it.  My earliest memories are of wrestling.

My father wrestled in high school.  He challenged me to one final match when I was 13, because he said he didn't ever want to lose to me, and he nearly did lose that one.  I wrestled every kid in my neighborhood, big or small, even the ones who like to bite.

Because I didn't wrestle a lot after about the age of 12, my wrestling skill is intuitive, not very technical.  The thing about wrestling is that certain body types have an advantage.  Thick, wide, guys with big bones are often able to beat me if they are 15lbs heavier.  Technical skill can help in wrestling but it's no substitute for body type and weight.

In my twenties I had a friend named Neil I used to wrestle with.  He had that Scotish thick body type.  He was a foot shorter than me and 30lbs heavier, without fat.  He was also an Oregon State champ, and he won a gold medal in the Gay Olympics (This was before they got sued by the International Olympic Commitee, it's now called the Gay Games.  He actual gave his metal back in protest and made a speech about how they should include transsexuals.)  Anyway he kicked my ass every time.  But he never seemed to get injured and I too often did.  My lean, small-boned body just isn't made for that kind of thing.

The rules of wrestling are pretty strict.  For wrestling to be "real" it would look more like "dirty" wrestling or even "rough and tumble."  My elbow strike really hurts, and I know where to pinch to make it really hurt, but still, a ground fighting battle to the death with a bigger opponent is a tough thing to win.

I also loved tripping games as a kid.  Loved them.  I was the conscience-free terror of the second grade school yard.  When I started training Chinese martial arts, I already had great confidence in my ability to take someone to the ground.  But after about age 7 the risk of injury starts going up fast (and I developed a conscience).

In middle school I learned something about avoiding fights.  My best friend's cousin was the leader of a gang.  The two of them taught me something about how to not trigger a fight with a predator.  How to seem dangerious without being directly threatening.  It took some years to get good at.  I got close to older, tougher gang members in high school too, so by 17 I felt comfortable unraveling the meanest looking guys using my eyes, movement and wit (without any sense that I could actually beat them).

I taught myself how to fall.  When I was a junior in high school I had a daily lunch time ritual.  I would go down to the field and eat my lunch quickly.  Then I would run full speed and practice dive rolls, over and over.  At the end I would be covered in grass stains and sometimes a bit of mud, but it didn't matter because my afternoon class was ceramics (I was in the School of the Arts).

All of this training makes me conflicted about teaching.  Honestly, if you were a kid who hardly ever wrestled, I can teach you a bunch of chin-na, joint locks and even submission holds, but you are never going to have confidence unless you wrestle roughly with a lot of different people.  Same goes for take downs.  Technique is not as important as finesse, and finesse comes from rough play.

I'm focused on teaching the aspects of Martial Arts that I find most exciting, and which can be practiced everyday without injury.  Should I be trying to provide a place for students to get that basic experience that I picked up naturally just by being a wild and crazy guy?

Impulse Control

This is such a good title, I wish I had content that would live up to its promise. Still, I couldn't resist.

My simple offering is that we need impulse control to be successful, but we also need spontaneity. Teachers and students alike can find themselves mourning a loss of wildness, begrudgingly exchanged for the ability to focus, concentrate and persist.

Martial arts are often rightly credited with the ability to instill discipline in the unruly youth-- to curb desires and focus passions-- to turn libertines into responsible citizens.

I myself have often been sited for my patience and my self-disciplined example. Yet, I'm prone to identifying with the indolent prince, the artful dodger, and the easy life.

Daoism, despite its intricacies and difficult methods, has been called an apophatic tradition. Which means it teaches by unteaching, it reveals by showing what is not so, rather than what is so.

So, with Taijiquan (and other internal arts) it is said that all movement initiates from the dantian (the belly region?). To actual do this requires extraordinary impulse control. Why? Because impulses are how we initiate movement. Any impulse which originates in another part of the body will impede the one true impulse from the dantian.

One might even say that tension itself is a rouge impulse stuck in the "on" position. This is usually stated in the positive: "relax," "let go," "melt." But the actual "doing" is "not doing." This "not doing" takes years to undevelop, and comes with a simple guarantee; you can only get as much as you are willing to give up.

In the end all good teachers transmit the idea that the worthwhile result of impulse control is freedom itself.

So people sometimes ask me, "What does qi feel like?" It can be understood as an anti-feeling, a sensation of constant, unbroken, impulse control.

Is 70% Enough?

The following is another essay by a student in my Taijiquan class at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, enjoy:



One concept in particular that I initially had trouble with was the idea of doing at 70%. Instead of using my full range of motion, use around 70% of my range, or less if injured. I also initially had some difficulty with the idea of emphasizing the middle not the ends. I was raised from a very young age on the concept of doing everything at 100% or not doing it at all; in essence do or don’t do. Because of this I have always lived my life according to this philosophy. When I do something I do it to my best ability, give it all I have, or I do not do it at all.

At first this concept of 70% and emphasize the middle not the ends seemed wrong, lazy, half assed, and noncommittal. But, I also decided to have an open mind and try to look at things from a different perspective. After allowing myself to consider that my preconceived perception of how to do things may not be the only way of doing things, I discovered that only going at 70% and emphasizing the middle not the ends was NOT weak, lazy, half assed, etc. but was in fact in its own way a strong, active, committed way of approaching something.

While I have opened up to the idea and see it in a much different and positive light, at times it can still be quite a challenge. The areas in which I noticed it the most was in paired exercises especially when I was following my partner. I had a very hard time following. I always wanted to lead, be in charge, be aggressive, attack or defend at maximum strength. In so doing I found it very hard to perform the exercise. For example, in push hands, I hard a very hard time reacting and following my partner because I was so aggressive, hard, rigid, unforgiving. I had a very hard time staying stuck to my partner because I was rigid not soft. It was only in softness and by not trying so hard that I could even get close to sticking to my partner.

In addition I also found learning and practicing the form to be much easier when I was not trying to be perfect from the get go. At first the idea that it did not need to be perfect and that you did not even want it to be perfect was very uncomfortable and disturbing. However, now I understand and to certain extend even enjoy the idea that it does not have to be precise or perfect or performed with everything I have to my maximum ability. Once I let go of the perfectionist ideology I found the form even more enjoyable and beneficial

In what to me seems a related issue, I never knew and would never have guessed that Taijiquan is a form of martial art. I had always thought of it as some kind of Taoist meditative exercise routine to promote good health and long life. I would never in a million years have thought that it had any martial aspects or applications. Again I saw it as weak, passive, non-aggressive and associated that with weakness, passivity, non-aggression, and allowing oneself to be pushed around. I could not have been more wrong. I now can at least see how weakness, reacting, following, etc. can be a in its own way very strong.

While I have allowed myself to see the world in a different light, I still have a long way to go. I look forward to continuing my Taijiquan practice and further pursuing this new way of thinking.
To me it seemed that you demonstrated many different aspects of Taijiquan, giving us an idea about the many aspects of the subject. Obviously, in 11 weeks or 22 hours of class time, there is no way we can become Taijiquan masters. While at times you definitely challenged my preconceived notions, I think that was in actuality the best aspect of the class – trying to get us to see things in a different light, from a different perspective, to be a little uncomfortable.

One example that comes to mind was when in class we performed the form very slowly. In one aspect I enjoyed doing the form very slowly but it also was very difficult. In doing it slowly I came to realize that I have a very strong issue with double weighting. I do not like at all having all my weight on one foot or the other. For some reason I perceive this as a weakness. During our class discussion on the topic of double weighting, you clearly demonstrated that in all actuality, the weakness is being double weighted. Having discovered this concept I now have something to explore further. After having experienced both sides I believe that less emphasis on double weighting in a number of aspects of my life will have a profound improvement for me. In conclusion, thank you for a different, challenging, and eye opening experience.

Climate Change Daoism

The idea of environmental stewardship has found it's way into Daoist discourses many times in history. Conservation is a Daoist precept and has often found its way into government policy decisions over the long history of Daoism's relationship with the state. This is not a human centered enviornmentalism, and because of that, Daoist have sometimes found themselves on the "wrong" side of population debates.

Still, many Daoist precepts have a personal/collective conservation ethic: For instance, "Own only one pair of shoes," "do not set fire to uncultivated fields of mountain forests," "improperly pick flowers or fell trees," "throw poisons into the sea, lakes, ponds, or rivers," "do not frighten birds or animals..."

So it was with great interest that I read this news article:

Something unprecedented happened in China in late October. It may not have been as glitzy spectacular as the Olympics in Beijing over the summer. It did not attract heads of state or world celebrities. But it possibly leave a more lasting imprint on the future of China and indeed the world.

Taoist masters from all over China gathered near the ancient capital of Nanjing to agree on a seven-year plan for climate change action. Anybody with minimal knowledge of China will immediately understand that this is more than a curiosity.....

snip...

Fourth, the Taoists are walking the walk. Over the last year or so they have installed solar panels on half of their thousands of temples around China and the job will be completed soon for all their sacred places. They are providing comprehensive guidance on all aspects of environmental and climate stewardship: water and land management, protection of biological diversity, energy efficiency of buildings, educational curricula, moral teachings, outreach through media and advocacy to business, etc. They will use their Seven-Year Plan to make a holistic and systematic contribution to climate responsibility and environmental stewardship in China. The perspective goes beyond seven years. The ambition is to change the course for generations to come. Because the Taoists plan to be around for quite a while longer, continuing their sacred cosmic dance that transcend time and space.

Then I read this comment at the bottom:

In order to save the environment, first you must realize the truth: that there is no global warming. Then, it is not the environment which is changed, but your mind.

There is a Daoist precept against challenging the veracity of local cults. The wuwei approach to politics is all about spin. Pollution and filth are reason enough to get together and issue a policy statement on the environment. Daoist have been dealing with apocalyptic cults who claim human conduct is the reason the whole world is going to hell in a hand basket since the first century CE. Notice, there is no quote from a Daoist claiming doom is here, now!

Crime

Well, I said a week ago that my blog and website would have a new look by now. In case you are wondering, this is still the old look. I've been aware of changes I wanted to make for 6 months, and I've tried various experiments and strategies to accomplish them. Even when something works, it tends to create new problems. Software is a lot like a used car, you get it "AS IS." If it stops working there is always a tech labyrinth waiting to trap you. "Hey," the used car salesman/tech says, "we just got a new model in, would you like to take it for a spin?"

So I hired someone named Scott Hawkins who responded to my Craigslist ad. I met him at a cafe, he helped me figure out what strategies were best for me and offered to do everything I wanted for $300 dollars. After I paid him he disappeared.

I found a site called Rip Off Report. Here is the rap sheet for Scott Hawkins:

After I changed all my passwords, I went to my local police station to report the crime. That was weird. Of course I knew that $300 is a non-event to the police, unless there is an assault, they won't investigate it. But I figured there were other reasons for reporting it.

The officer on duty was about 50 years old, and he had blood shot eyes. Now I know that being a police officer is tough work, I really appreciate the work they do. He struck me as intelligent and caring. His movements were slow, his voice soft and deliberate. While we were both still standing, he asked me for a summary of what happened. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: This guy contacted me through an ad I put on Craigslist, I met with him in a cafe and he agreed to do some work on my blog and website, I wrote him a check and I haven't heard from him since.

Officer: Where did you meet him?

Me: At a Cafe in the Mission district.

Officer: So you just met this guy in a cafe?

Me: No, he responded to my ad on Craigslist and I arranged to meet him at a cafe.

Officer: What kind of work did he agree to do for you?

Me: You want me to explain exactly?

Officer: No, just generally?

Me: He agreed to work on my website.

Officer: So he did some work on your computer?

It occurred to me that maybe the officer didn't know about the Internet. But since I had some contact info and a description of the guy, he agreed to file a report and we sat down at his desk. We got interrupted continuously by the telephone. Many of my younger readers may never have seen one of these, it was a desktop landline with about 30 buttons on it. When I gave him the con-artist' email address he wrote it down on the paper report like this: 4celling at gmail.

It was like I was talking to Rip van Winkle. Being a police officer you see such horrible stuff, that it makes it difficult to have friends or intimates outside of the emergency services. I'm sympathetic to that, and I don't have a solution. But I'm I tempted to say that the protection of civil service unions makes police officers extremely difficult to fire, even if they are living in an isolated impenetrable bubble.

Not everyone at the San Francisco Police Department is computer illiterate. Check out these interactive crime maps. (You have to click "I Agree" twice, but then you're in and it's easy.)

I also sent an email "Tip" to the FBI, since Scott Hawkins (or what ever his name real is) appears to be involved in both interstate and international swindles.

Needless to say, I've made zero progress on my blog/website. I'm now thinking that rather than look for someone to do the work for me, I can find an office with a few computer people in it. I can pay them a modest fee to let me bring my laptop to their office while I work on my projects, when I get stuck, as I'm sure to do, I can just lean over and ask a question or two. Are any of my computer savvy readers interested in letting me sit in their San Francisco office for a day or so?

On a positive note, I'm getting busy with teaching--so expect a lot more blogging over the next few months! Management rule #11: "If you want something done quickly, give it to someone who is busy all the time."

What do my readers think I should do if I run into the con-man Scott Hawkins again?

China Trip 2001

The following collection has been on my website for several years. I’m publishing it here because over the next week I’ll be integrating my website with this blog and moving my blog URL to northstarmartialarts.com. Enjoy.

China Trip 2001

The Following is a collection of emails sent to friends and students during my last trip to China  (Blogs weren't really invented until the end of 2001 and I am a little embarrassed about the organization which seems old-fashioned now, but if you haven't read this yet, I hope you find it enjoyable).

Hi Everybody,
This is the first installment of my 2001 trip to China. This will be a short one because I've just finally got my list together and I've been on line for an hour now.
I bought a Chinese Cell Phone today! The negotiations were Herculean. My language skills aren't so good so when a new friend here at Beijing Tech University offered to come along I said great. 8 People ended up tagging along for entertainment’s sake. It took a couple of hours, We went to two different stores, there are probably thousands of cell phone stores here, and hundreds of different models. Cell Phones work better in China than in the US because they have a better "system", I don't quite understand it, but I just called someone in the north west part of Tibet and it was crystal clear. Anyway...The first phone we managed to negotiate and pay for, wasn't actually in stock, so I had to get my money back...something like India, where there are many different types of retail 'components' which don't overlap. At the next store, after all the negotiations of features, pre-paid inserts, batteries and charging methods...I bought it...and then they said I had to be Chinese to get a phone number. The store people wanted one of my friends to show ID so the number would be in one of their names...I insisted they photocopy my passport and for some reason that worked...I actually don't know what happened. Then they said that the 240 Yuan worth of insertable prepaid calls which I had already paid for, was only worth 100 Yuan, the other 140 Yuan was for the number itself!!! The Qi of the particular numbers...like it has an auspicious 'ring'...go figure... We went out for tea afterwards.
I have been having a good time going into the parks early in the morning and doing gongfu/martial-arts with the locals...a few times it has turned into a game where I show a "form" then I get to pick someone else to show, than they pick someone...it's a great way to start the day. Basket Ball is big here too...Michael Jordan is a hero...all ages play together...they never seem to call 'walking' or "traveling"...it is a real group bonding thing...

click here to keep reading
Breakfast here is great...Millet Porridge or Warm thick soy milk, or Huntun soup (Chaos Soup also known as wanton in the south) Pork Buns, tea boiled eggs...everyone eats all meals at the same time. I've slept through lunch (it's really hot here) a few times and by 1:30 the restaurants are almost empty.... Doing things in China is about doing things together. --Scott
PS a note for my students: everybody walks, stands, and rides bicycles with their elbows out!
PPS: With the metaphor of the "Great Leap Forward" being such a colossal failure...everyone here takes small, slow and easy steps...no one is in a hurry!

Hi EVERYBODY,
For those of you who don't know, I'm in Beijing. I've been hired by a company that does trips in Asia mostly for teenagers called Where There Be Dragons. We have ten students and three leaders in our group but I went over early so none of them will be here until July 12th. I met the other two leaders Amy and Frances and they are both fluent in Chinese, they are lots of fun...I'm going to be the slow one on this trip.
Being alone here is sometimes difficult but I've noticed that if I just stop and sit down, most of the time someone will come over and ask me what I'm doing. I continue to be amazed at how thoroughly inclusive the people here can be...they really like to do everything together. In America if you play chess in the park, people may come and watch, but here, if you pull out a Chinese chess set everybody swarms around. They all get in really close and talk boisterously about the next best move(s) the only people not playing both sides of the board are the two people playing. You wouldn't even have to know how to play...to play against the best players! For America's, this would be frustrating and inconclusive because the person who wins may have just had better advise. The 'bystanders' will actually pick up or move the pieces and have arguments with each other...while the 'players' look on.
I just played a grueling game of basketball with a bunch college students and teenagers...not having played seriously in 20 years...I think I brought my team down to defeat...this was an evening game, with NBA like rules. The morning games have a lot more older people...sometimes 20 people under one net (no net actually) those games are following some pattern...but it doesn't actually look like a game with 2 sides.
After a week with my $10 bicycle! It was stolen. It was worth $10 dollars in the US too, if I bought it at a garage sale in SF I would have tried to get it for $9. The question is why steel such a cheap used bicycle, especially when there are literally millions of bicycles everywhere! They tell me it is quite common, one theory is someone is taking large numbers of them to the country side where the economy is less developed. Another theory is that they take them from one university to the next and sell them to new students...with the excuse that they just bought the bikes off of students who are graduating. I almost bought another one today.
Oh yes...traffic. If you have ever been to India you know that it takes two people to drive a car there because every interaction with another car or an intersection is negotiated on the basis of some illusive "status." In China everyone drives pretty slowly...if I pressed down on the peddles of my bicycle people would wave at me to slow down. The way it works is not by right of way rules...as far as I can tell, nobody has "right of way" however people do drive very predictably and the cars have no dents! It is that feeling again of we are all in this together. If I want to turn left and there is space...I just do it and people accommodate me. When there are enough bicycles piled up at an intersection to block the cars...they just all creep out together and the cars stop. Sometimes it can be a crazy mess...but much of the time it works. They are building a lot of big roads and elevated bypasses here...I fear however, that the cars will keep increasing.... There are probably 5 times more cars here than when I was here in '97.
The subway here is fast, clean, and easy to understand...but getting to and from the stops is sometimes difficult.....Buses are pretty reliable but standing up on a crowded Chinese bus in the middle of summer takes years off your life. I'm mostly taking air conditioned taxi's now...no regrets.
The perfect Chinese fruit is Watermelon! Why? because you have to have a lot of friends to eat one! The watermelons are really good and in the afternoon everyone is either carrying one home or eating one in the park. The peaches are really good too. And while I’m at it I guess I'll mention the cucumbers are especially delicious.
I don't know if Emma Goldman would have approved of this revolution but they certainly do a lot of dancing! Last night in the park there were about 30 couples dancing to a tape deck playing Bob Marley (by the rivers of Babylon)...ballroomish... Lots of dancing in the parks...in the morning these old ladies do some dance in unison that really looks like taijiquan except they bounce and sway a little to the music. ---more later, --Scott

Hi Everybody,
I've received several questions about religion which I will get around to answering...but they aren't simple questions.
I recently visited BaiYunGuan (White Cloud Temple) it is the official center for Religious Daoism (DaoJiao) in China. It is a training center for Priest/Libationer/monks...there really isn't a clear English term for it and I don't know exactly what the training is, or even if everyone gets the same training. The contacts I was given by Luc and Steven Bokenkamp didn't turn in to much. Luc's friends are no longer there and Steven's friend is retired and was sick. What is accessible to the public are about 12 or so 'shrines' to popular cults (gods)...the cults which are allowed in this type of temple all represent principles, for example: the principle of scholarship/being a good student (WenCang) or the principle of motherhood, or the four directions. This subject is very difficult to summarize...but if you ask a local Chinese person about religion they will say they believe (or don't believe) in those things...the Chinese word for believe is 'xin' and it perhaps is closer to the English word trust. These same people will make very little distinction between religions... Buddhism, DaoJiao, Confucianism...and.. local cults. Knowing something about the history of Religion is pretty rare, I haven't met anyone yet....People say to me that they go to many temples...people who are into it go to a different 'type' to make offerings every weekend...others go a few times a year to the ones they like...If asked people will express some preference for Buddha or Dao...but...it is a light preference, seemingly with out much behind it??? So Daoism or Daojiao to most Chinese is just a place to burn incense to your favorite god...I'll leave it at that for now and try to follow up later. Oh one more thing... Each alter in BaiyunGuan has two vases with flower offerings which are very specific to that deity and that time of year/place. I believe a clear historical link to the wonderfully elaborate (sometimes starkly simple) Japanese Flower arranging tradition.
On Luc's advise, I visited a Bagua Zhang lineage Shifu (martial artist). Sun Shifu lives in a high-rise apartment complex like everybody else and I had an address with the building and floor numbers reversed...however I found someone to translate for me while I was looking in the wrong building. Sun shifu was drinking from a large bottle with a snake in it and reishi mushrooms, wolfberries and Ginseng. My translator turned out to be faulty so communication was difficult...for about 2 hours...I bought his VCD’s (cheap version of DVD’s) and gave him my card.
The next day I got an email from one of his students who is American and wanted to meet me...so....I this time I went to where Sun Shifu practices/teaches and met with him and his students and a good translator...He is like third generation from the founder of Bagua for any of you who know what that means...Cheng Family Bagua...he is really good 69 years old...His senior student/teacher is a woman and she's really good too...His students do a form that has some pretty difficult twisting and unusual angles of the torso spiraling from up to down and also from down to up....O.K. you need to see it to get the Idea...but I liked it...we had a good discussion, demo of all the different walking styles and I learned some cool stuff form them....They take big steps and also go really low. He was "sent down" during the Cultural revolution and one of his students told me he cried when he talked about this time.
After practice we had a wonderful meal: Cucumbers (long small ones, slivered) with golden needle mushrooms, Cucumbers with tofu skins, bitter melon, and two kinds of dumplings: lamb with carrot and pork with fennel.... I got a lot of questions this time...so If I forget to answer you...write again... ---Scott

Hi Everybody,
My 8 students and the other two leaders have arrived, the 9th student seems to have lost his passport, so he may or may not be coming on another plane. The ratio of leaders to students means I should get plenty of time to myself for retreat or email or following the wanderings of the dark mare.
Amy (my co-leader) and I met with a comparative religions scholar the night before the students arrived. His name is Wang Liuer which means Wang 62...we asked why the funny name and he said his brother was named 61 which was a year that had some special significance to his family, but he was just number two. He really did understand the history of religion and we had a great talk. His specialty is Christian and Buddhist mysticism, he presented the theory that mysticism is the source of all religions because religion is created in relation to 'inexplicable' experiences. I responded that that is a view from the outside and that deeply religious people 'live their religions' in a way that makes the mystic experience inseparable from daily life. It went something like that...anyway we really enjoyed each other and the fish was fantastic! We also ate Deep fried shrimp...the crunchy kind with the head and shell...not greasy...delicious.
The students are here and I started teaching them some Shaolin yesterday...at the beginning of the warm ups two guys in their twenties with a baby came up and joined us. In the middle an old guy came over to one of my students and tried to help him with his leg stretch...and at the end I was having the students hold the different stances and this middle aged guy came over and started giving corrections and making them sink lower, or for the one leg stances, get their knee up higher!!! He told us we could come the next day for more training!! Everybody joins in... We went this morning to Black bamboo park, there are a lot more people practicing there....so many....I scouted it out last week and pushed hands with some old guys and some young guys too...some of these young guys are big...fat even...and they were really getting rough with each other...slapping and grunting...it is so hot that some people have shirts off and the sweat is dripping/spraying. Lot's of Chen style Taijiquan...I visited Tiantai Park also...even more Chen style...Yang and Wu styles are here too 'though. The Chen style of push hands tends to move quickly to grappling and leaning in on each other...not the style I prefer...but there is something interesting to learn here. The coolest thing is that these guys are all just meeting in the park, they are not fellow students, they come every week and share a milieu...they get a lot of practice...for those of you who are wondering how I "did" against the locals...I'm not telling...but they all wanted to know my age and how long I've been practicing. There is lots of dancing in the morning...fan dancing (to keep cool?)...ballroom...Wushu, Shaolin...weapons everywhere...seems like half the people out in the morning have a sword over their shoulder. The students loved that, after their training, I was able to coax the interested watchers to show us some of their forms...Bagua here too...more of this Cheng family style. As to questions about YiQuan...I haven't actually seen it...I have seen some XingYi that could have been YiQuan...If they are just standing or practicing one movement...sometimes it is hard to tell...maybe.
New breakfasts: Black-bean Rice porridge...(good stuff, a little better with the optional sugar and watered down a bit.) Silken Tofu with a ladle of stock(pork?)--self seasoned with pickled turnips, cilantro, and choice of 5 sauces...I tried the tahini-ish one......People were waiting in line for Fry-Bread, which I haven't yet dared to try, and suddenly the propane tank tube leading to the wok started flaming...very exciting but no bang....yet.... ---I visit the Great Wall tomorrow for an overnight...outside... --Scott

Hi Everybody,
I visited a Sui (500CE) dynasty Buddhist temple built on the sight of a (sacred?) well. The well was at the front gate and is an octagon. The 'temple' no longer has any Buddhist symbols in it, it has been converted into a spacious garden tea house. It is in a small Hakka village about an hour and a half ride from Chengdu by very rickety bouncy metal vibrating bus. We (Simeng and Justin) found the site by chance after buying a very cool bamboo baby basket backpack...which I wore all day...unlike most packs...bamboo packs don't leave your back all sweaty! Also they are light and strong(crash proof?) [See picture]
We also saw a lot of coffin makers...really heavy solid cedar coffins. Any way the "tea house" had two beautiful buildings surrounded by covered walk ways with tables all around...people relaxing and enjoying themselves, steles on one side showed dedications going progressively back in time. The garden was it self surrounded by a 15 foot? wall, which I think is part of the definition of garden here. Afterwards we visited a three story traditional house and it was marvelous. A huge open courtyard and then a smaller inner one...great use of space and air, really usable, rooms off to the sides and balconies above...it was built a little like a mountain with two ridges like arms that come around to face each other, like you are getting a big spacious hug?....some contractors and a couple of TV announcers were there and insisted we sit down and join their lunch already in progress...so Chinese to just decide to drag in some strangers...we had a great time.
I'm now staying at Sichuan University. Next move uncertain...I love the gardens 'though...If I sit alone...people usually come up and join me...If the conversation is in Chinese I get to practice but the details are inevitably rather simple...If the conversation is in English or mixed sometimes it is quite good...got in a long conversation with a Chinese legal scholar about everything under the sun. The flowers in Chengdu are beautiful...water lilies, lotus blossoms, and a bright red and yellow flower...more about gardens later...
Ice cream: There are so many kinds. I don't normally eat ice cream but...it's hard to resist: Last night I had a wheat flavored pop-sickle, 12 cents. I like the really little coconut ones, 6 cents. For 40 cents you can get the equivalent of a Haagan Das Bar. Today I had a black bean goo covered in vanilla ice cream dipped in white chocolate and nuttyflakes, 12 cents. There are mung bean, black bean, red bean, and purple bean. Strawberry with orange, chocolate with everything...I think the only one I've tried more than once is the coconut...
--I wrote a very long message on economics a week ago, but the computer crashed...I guess it's not my fate to write about such things...perhaps I'll be re-inspired later. best to you all, --Scott

Dear Everyone,
Censorship in China seems to include my personal website. It also includes my father's (so I haven't been able to find out the answers to his quizzes from Japan). It also includes the Taoist Restoration Society website....I think what all these websites have in common is discussion of Qigong. Any information on Falungong is definitely banned. I suspect there is some kind of software that searches for key words. In conversations with University professors and students, including a wonderful professor of comparative law, it has become clear that people who show any interest in Daoism, Buddhism, Islam or Catholicism, or Protestantism (the five official religions), are jeopardizing their careers. This includes government workers or employees, party members, students, professors, many office workers (part Gov. part private) and military. The groups that are exempt from this rule are pick-up labor, farmers, entrepreneurs, and retail workers. The reason for this is that Marx-Mao-Deng theory is inconsistent with belief in religious things...if you don't fully take on the theory of Marx-Mao-Deng, you will fail to act in a way which is constant with the theory/consciousness-- and that is an exclusive closed system. All students must take and pass exams on the theories and ideas of these three men.
The numbers I hear for Daoshi (priest/monks) in all of china are 40,000. Almost all of those are QuanZhen Monks in "Temples". There are 3,000 in temples in Sichuan, but the official registered number is less. The Zhengyi tradition (which I am part of) live at home and marry. The scholars around here are giving me evasive answers when I ask, but it seems that there are Zhengyi Priests in Sichuan. They live in the absolute poorest regions of farmland and are known to all the locals, but none of the locals will say anything about it. The priests all have "day-jobs" and travel to do ritual when they are requested. One of the scholars I spoke with, Zhang Qing, said that they know this from anthropology-field work, but (if I understood him correctly) the Daoshi move location-- so the ones they knew about are no longer locatable. I have also heard that there are Zhengyi ritual experts teaching at Baiyun guan in Beijing and perhaps a few other places...but the categories Quanzhen and Zhengyi seem to be existing officially in Quanzhen mode, i.e. monastic.
Today I visited HemingShan, which means red-headed crane mountain. It is the place ZhangDaoling went on retreat and first gained a following, it is being called the birth place of Daoism. The mountain is in DaYi county and has 24 cavities, which correspond to the 24 festivals, and 72 caves which contain the 72 climates, including the Cave where Zhangtianshi went on retreat. The many buildings associated with Daoism in the area were all completely destroyed during the cultural revolution, including a Han Dynasty building which had been rebuilt many times over the last 2000 years, (I saw a photo). The buildings that are there now are not really of note, but the mountain is beautiful: Every available space is covered in corn and plum trees, both of which are being harvested now. The plums are delicious...I saw very dark red, bright yellow, and iridescent blue butterflies...cool mushrooms too. There are a few small meadows and small forested areas as well. The oldest Daoshi there wrote out some calligraphy for me and we drank tea. He wrote: Dao Fa Zi Ran, The mechanism of Dao is spontaneously natural? great to watch him write.
Other highlights: I managed to pay for the taxi ride of two female University Students who were helping me find my way in the rain....and after that they went nuts doing and paying for everything for me, they took me to Sanxingdui (archeology site) bought me Knife cut noodles, the mother and father of one of the women drove us all around in their Cherokee...Hot Pot for Dinner (which I really didn't like, pig brain!)...They wanted to have him drive me home (3 hours round trip?) but I managed to get away with a free bus ride and some snacks....Everyone seems to want to marry me to a Sichuan women...people peek over my shoulder while I'm on the Internet and ask if I have a girl friend.... Given this drive to spread the Sichuan Genes, it is astounding that there are still ethnically unique communities to the west and south.
Other High lights, I met a Daoshi at YangQinggong who took me to an inner courtyard and played the jin for me...it was amazing... ---Scott

Hi Everybody, I've settled in to Language classes here in Chengdu. There are some really huge cities in the world, Lagos, San Paulo, Tokyo...and then there are some very big ones, London, New York, Mexico City...but China must have 100 or more cities of this size. Great quote...I went out to visit an archaeology site and this college student said to me, "welcome to the small town of Guang Han" Oh, I said, how many people? "Oh, only five million." However, despite size and urbanization, I must admit China is lacking in Cosmopolitanism...granted it was closed to outsiders for a long time...but there maybe some real resistance to Cosmopolitanism in the social structure. I think it is often the case that Western analysts give 'credit' to the government for things which actually have there basis in Chinese social structures. There is a real conceptualization of the world outside China as really different than the world inside China. Nationalism is very strong here...the common history which the Chinese have been telling about themselves includes many foreign invasions...which always end in the invaders becoming more Chinese...rather then say...more Tibetan, or more Mongolian..... People don't really believe me when I tell them that everyone I know in San Francisco is good with Chopsticks. Despite the numbers of people, the focus is very local, and travel is still pretty rare. The bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia is universally considered to have been intentional, and almost no body thinks that the downed U.S. spy plane should have been given back.
There are a lot of students in this Internet center playing video "death" games, it is noisy and smoky most of the time...but they are nice and they always bring me a cup of cool filtered water to drink.
I had a great conversation today with Louise, who is a friend of Elena's-- who I met at the Daoist conference in Seattle. Louise is an anthropologist who studies the contemporary movement of rural people into Chengdu...but she has opinions on everything. We drank great tea in the fantastic bamboo garden which is five minutes from my room... we ate white peaches, sunflower seeds, and sesame snacks...everything gets dropped or flicked on the ground....while we watch the giant lotus leaves and pink and white blossoms sway in the breeze.
She pointed out that Falun Gong was really unique in that it had no official connection to the government. There are lots of qigong organizations, and lots of individual teachers, but nothing else like Falungong...she agreed with me that it is/was a real challenge to the government. She said that people here have so little experience with "religion" that they can be easily drawn into cults of all sorts.
I really have to watch my tenancy to view things romantically. I presumed that Daoists in China would now be interested in recovering something of what was lost in the turmoil of the last century...but really they have just started up again from right where they are. Twice a month Qing Yang Gong(the city temple) has a trance-medium come in and dance and go into trance....I hear that it is heavily attended....QingChengShan is a gongfu school for Children in the Summer, they challenged EMeiShan to a competition this August. The little students there practice chanting the Daodejing at night. They gave me a warm reception...and made me demonstrate my gongfu, they really liked the 8 immortals sword, I was a little surprised to see people smoking cigarettes.
I watched a ritual in the morning.... Some tourist or perhaps a community representative...ran in near the end, spoke with one of the 9 Daoshi,(six were in yellow vestments and faced the alter the whole time, playing music and chanting) and I thought she told him to get lost but he ran back a minute later with about 10 pages of text,(the Daoshi had just offered some blank paper to the alter and then set it on fire and took it outside the ritual room...) they then offered and burned the text that he brought. I didn't stay for the whole thing, but it ended with a huge round of fire crackers which were answered from the temple to the east a few minutes later, and from the west a few minutes after that.
As far as I can tell Daoist sights are heavily focused on tourist, perhaps they view tourism as a national cult which needs to be "managed"-to see to it that it doesn't get out of control?.
Ordination of Daoshi takes 10 years and includes a full 2 year retreat in the mountains, I think most study Taijiquan, the study of more gongfu is an option, everyone practices neidan (meditation practices) in separate small rooms, but all in the same hall?, the study of ritual may be optional? the curriculum seems flexible...I'm left uncertain about lots of things. The Chairperson of QingYanggong told me that the Daughter of the Brother of the TianShi (the lineage decedent of the founder of religious Daoism) is living in Hawaii. Having read her website...I told him that I thought she was a little crazy...but he seemed convinced otherwise. I don't know what to think. I'm going with my Chinese teacher to an Yi (ethnic) Village in the southwest for a few days...there is some kind of fire festival there...After that I will fly to Hong Kong for a few days and then home...I return on August 20th. --Scott

Hi Everybody,
I'm leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow, two days, and then home...it's been a long trip...but not long enough to actually figure out what's going on here. I went to the area around Xi Chang for a week with my language teacher and her girlfriend, who is also a language teacher. I told them I would be to embarrassed to go if they tried to pay for everything, so they came up with the brilliant solution that we would each give 500 Yuan, and we would share the money, and split up what ever was left in the end. They of course would hold the money...so it would seem as if they were paying for everything. We did this but, in reality, we didn't get to pay for anything because we were met at the station by one of their students who lives down there. His father and brother are Policemen and we got taken everywhere in a Mitsubishi SUV with a siren on top...the father seemed to have unlimited use of the car... easily lent the Keys to his sons...the brother was sometimes in uniform but the father wasn't.
We went to a mountain where a "Daoist Saint" once went on retreat. Actually he was a Buddhist when he went there, but then became a "Xian"...granting wishes and doing magical feats to improve the lives of the locals. Buddhists later took over the area and Built a temple which includes an alter for granting wishes which is the seat of this local god ("Daoist Saint"). Most of the people living in the temple/monastery were part of the Yi ethnic group, and they seemed to all be elderly, men and women. I had to be careful not to point to something I liked because it would likely be packaged up and handed to me by my hosts.
The next day we went to see a satellite launching and building station...(really high on my interest list <sarcastic>) all they did was take pictures...and I was in most of them...and it was hot and clear...so I'm sure I look sun-burnt. But then, I guess because I was with the police, they took us to see a top secret experiment! They took us to see some rice being grown in samples of soil from the moon, in special low gravity containers! They say they can produce 5 crops a year. Traveling around the countryside you see that every inch is planted...we went through this river valley which seemed to be all cannonball sized large rocks, but every inch of it was planted, rice, corn, squash, everything. The rocks were just piled up everywhere to make fences, building foundations, and just piles. Anyway, don't be surprised when you hear that the Chinese are growing rice on the moon. We visited a big lake, which was developed on all sides...lot's of Chinese tourists come here, but it is hard to see the appeal...it is hot and exposed, little shade...mainly people come to play mahjong...which they do all over Sichuan all the time anyway?
We also visited another "Daoist" mountain...There were two Daoists there but the alter was to the god of being a good student-- Wen Cheng? The other "temples' on the mountain were all Buddha's and Bodhisatvas. This is really the popular religion of China that has always been here...for people to ask for wishes to be granted, dreams fulfilled. Now instead of Kowtowing, half the people take pictures...the cult of photography we will call it.
After a few days of, this they took us to stay at the village farm where about 40 family members still live. The building was really cool, mud brick, one of the uncles is a carpenter so the wood work was well done. The Pig room is also the poop room...and there are chickens and ducks and turkeys and goats.... They killed two goats for the many feasts we had to celebrate our arrival. So now to food. The first time they fed me...I tasted everything...and everything was very hot and spicy... I think the coolest dish was a bowl full of fresh stir-fried ginger. After that I tried being discreet; to eat just a little of what ever seemed to have less spice...but they would just put things in my bowl. So I had to explain that I really couldn't eat anything "La" or "Hua" (hot and Spicy), it was really getting painful...it got to the point where I would sit down to eat and realize that my mouth, nose, and eyelids were still burning from the last meal. After a while I started to think the plain rice was spicy...perhaps they have been here so long the soil itself is spicy.
So many dishes...one that most Americans would cringe at was a large plate full of bacon...but actually there was almost no meat on the bacon...it was just the fat strips in a big pile. There were so many people at meals we filled two rooms...the center alter room and the one next to it. Everyone sits on two person wooden stools at square wooden tables. There were four massive power lines following the river down stream...one of them was very close to the house...someone wanted to know if I thought the power lines were beautiful? The family alter is in use and has the written characters (no idols) of all the important officials of heaven...locals cults, Quanyin, the god of thunder, education, wealth....The characters for heaven earth center seat teacher are in the middle. The ancestors of the Liu Family are thanked for their generosity on the right side of the alter. I saw a two year old running around making the international sign for "too hot" (waving a hand in front of the mouth), everyone just takes it for granted that things will be really spicy. Two year olds can eat with chop sticks...because it is O.K. to throw anything on the floor (except a drink of booze you have just been poured, but that's another story) and babies are allowed to get rice all over their face and run around with their bowls. They wanted to take me out to catch some fish...I was really at my limit of being carted around...and they weren't letting me get out of it...by chance I said what I'd really like is a place to sit and write. wow...that worked...they loved that...I got a room with a desk and they lit some incense for me... and said good bye. I finally managed to get away from this endless hospitality and good will, it wasn't easy, but they put me on the train to EMeiShan.
I hiked from the bottom to the top in two days...a really spectacular mountain. I spent the night in a Buddhist monastery in the clouds, I did my qigong etc...in what must be 'the' perfect spot. One final note, since Beijing is now the host of the Olympics I hear they are trying to get Bus Driving added to the list of official Olympic sports...India, Nepal, and Mexico are all said to have crack teams...the debate right now is whether the buses should actually carry passengers during competition and training. I saw 5 people puke on two different buses in one day, and another from the bus in front of us. ---miss you all, --Scott

Hi Everybody,
One last note about Daoism in China. I had tea and peaches with two Daoshi; a man and a woman who are friends, about my age, and began their training’s 11 and 13 years ago. They are both pursuing doctorates in the history of Daoist Religion at the Sichuan University. One did an Island retreat for 2 years the other a mountain retreat. They both practice mediation in the evening, chanting in the morning, and have studied ritual. At university they wear their hair up, but do not wear vestments or shoes. One lives at Qing Yang Gong (a city temple) and the other lives in a top floor apartment on Campus, where we had tea. She had just moved in so she said she had not set up an alter yet but planned too. They showed me a series of books from Taiwan used for teaching ritual there, part of one of the books had pictures of all the graduates. My hosts pointed to their friends. The guy received a request to teach in Hawaii for a year and was considering it. They are both brilliant gu jin players, the woman tutors at the university. I describe all this because I have raised the question of the difference between Daoism in America and Daoism in China. Are we the same? are we different? It depends on how far back one stands, it depends on where one focuses attention. Really we are human beings with real life appetites, finding expression for those appetites differs from place to place, and from generation to generation.... The opportunities we have for expression of a Daoist life are different, but our situation-- that of having to find our place in an ever changing world, in which the past may be helpful, but by no means a chart for our futures-- is the same.
My last night in Chengdu, I came upon a fortune teller with a modest crowd...he had the image of Zhang Daoling on a piece of paper on the ground and people were shaking sticks out of a small box on to the paper, a form of divination. He would then read from a little flip book. I started a little conversation with the people there and of course got asked again: ni xin bu xin? Do you believe or not? I answered that believing and not believing are the same thing...to which I seemed to get general agreement if not a bit of enthusiasm from the woman on a bicycle who had just checked on her fortune. Walking back I was haunted by the sounds of a wrinkled couple singing call and response with erhu accompaniment...perhaps they were blind...the woman’s head tilted to the side, the man sat upright and played...he had a straw hat and his bottom row of teeth were gold...people seemed not to want to get too close to them...but they listened....they listened to these sounds from far away and long ago.... ------By the way my classes start on Wednesday 22nd, I will need the 21st for catching up on sleep! I hope to see you all soon. --Scott

PS I love hearing your thoughts on these travel notes.

Push Hands and Wuwei

The following article has been on my website for several years. I’m publishing it here because over the next week I’ll be integrating my website with this blog and moving my blog URL to northstarmartialarts.com. Enjoy.

There are innumerable different techniques used to teach the two person T'ai chi practice known as push-hands. This essay explores what the fruition of any push-hands practice method should be, so that when students experience a particular method coming to fruition they will be able to distinguish the method from the fruition itself. It is common for people to practice a method religiously and miss out on the results the method was originally developed to induce.

The Daode jing is a classical Chinese text said to be authored by Laozi. This text is a foundation text of religious Daoism. Two terms which summarize the most essential thrusts of the Daode jing are wuwei and ziran¹ . The T'ai chi chuan practice known as push-hands (tui shou) appears to be a natural expression or embodiment of these two important concepts.

The first one, wuwei, means non-aggression or non-action. It is doing without doing. "...Wuwei--literally (means), water does not purposely "do" anything, and yet the environment thrives because of its presence."²

Actually wuwei is a concept which includes both action and non-action, aggression and non-aggression. The term itself suggests that we be flexible and adaptable in trying to give it meaning in translation. Perhaps arousal is a simplified way of stating it; arousal without a plan, without a strategy, without technique.

Ziran is the Chinese equivalent of beauty. I say equivalent because it means something different from our 'beauty' but it is the term used to describe inspiring art and great music. Ziran is spontaneity and naturalness. The way the natural world is. It is used to express a feeling of being "in-tune" with our surroundings, a cultivated yet natural sense of freedom.³ It expresses a sense of intrinsic conservation, a thing (event) appropriate to what it is.

Sounding like push-hands yet?

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This may sound funny but push-hands isn't really about pushing.

A teacher of push-hands tries to cultivate a very solid root in his or her students. The essence of a solid root is not sticking to the ground, it is one's relationship to an active partner and the ground. A solid root is one that is ziran, free and spontaneous, able to respond to any situation.

A teacher of push-hands also tries to give his or her students a good frame, a structure with integrity, which does not overextend itself. When students begin push-hands inevitably they are either too rigid or too flimsy. An honest assessment of the natural limits of our range of motion is what is called for here. With time, students become ziran, spontaneous and natural, like bamboo, firmly rooted and yielding.

One of the consequences of practicing T'ai chi chuan is the unfolding of proper (re: natural/uninhibited) alignment and push-hands is a great place to 'test' or experiment with this. Practicing push-hands with someone more experienced than yourself can also be a great training ground for feeling and learning to manifest the eight differentiations of qi used in the form: Peng, liu, ji, an, cai, lieh, zou, and kao.

When a teacher uses push-hands to teach real martial-arts strategies of avoiding an attack, or strategies for uprooting or disorienting a partner, it is to broaden the student's experience. It is to initiate them into a realm of subtle and intimate experiences which are part of being human. Such methods are in a sense tools for learning self-acceptance, but these 'strategies' are ultimately what you don't want to do!

It's like this, if you charge straight into the surf from the beach, the wave may knock you down. With a little practice, and experience with waves, you may get better at keeping your balance in the face of a crashing wave, but this is not the point!--The point is to be like water, to become one with the ocean.

Wuwei means not initiating action. As teachers and students it is perfectly appropriate to initiate action because we are becoming familiar with the qi shape of the practice of push-hands, like learning the acupuncture meridians of the body, in this case, a two person body. We are becoming familiar with the mechanism of qi flow.

"Although the changes are numerous, the principle that pervades them is only one."⁴

Ziran is the way you are in push-hands, wuwei is what you do.

The best strategy is no strategy, simply staying with the situation at hand. True confidence is no confidence, being content with life's uncertainty.

T'ai chi chuan is called the practice of "four ounces moves a thousand pounds." But what if you meet someone who practices "three ounces moves a thousand pounds?" The T'ai chi classics pose the question: "What is the true nature of inner strength?" Followed by the statement: "When you know this you will be the peerless boxer."

Push-hands is an intimate expression of our true natures. Practice push-hands with people you have an affinity with, push-hands is a very intimate affair. Observing practitioners at the very highest levels, it is possible to tell who 'won' because their partner will be blushing.

Students may find the following story helpful in unraveling what push-hands is really about. However, his story is not exclusively or explicitly about push-hand, and this unraveling process happens over time as the story is internalized.

One day while Xiao yun was staying at a hermitage in the mountains of Taiwan, an old man wandered in who announced he was there to teach him dream practice. The other people in the hermitage seemed uncomfortable around this old man and kept their distance from him. Xiao yun's main teacher consented to let this old man teach him and so for the next six weeks he stayed around to do this.

At some point during his stay the old man began to do things which made Xiao yun very angry. Actually for three days Xiao yun was pushed to the limits of what he could handle. At one point the old man held a knife to Xiao yun's throat for hours, saying if you move I'll kill you. Xiao yun's fury built steadily like that of a ferocious warrior preparing for battle, he began to plan his revenge. Deciding that he would have to kill the old man, he planned to do it as they were walking along one of the steep cliffs that were all around the hermitage. Later as they were walking along the path Xiao yun suddenly hunched down to a low position and struck the old man with his shoulder, skillfully launching him over the edge of the cliff. The only problem was that the old man held on to him and together they fell over a hundred feet to certain doom.

Just before being pushed the old man was talking to Xiao yun about something on another mountain, and as he fell he didn't loose his train of thought. Inexplicably they landed on their feet in some mud. The old man went right on talking as if nothing had happened and pointed out some structures near a distant peak. The anger and aggression which had been building in Xiao yun for the previous three days was completely gone, it just evaporated.

After the old man had left, Xiao yun found himself in an argument with the cook at the hermitage. She said, "That old man wasn't here for six weeks, he was only here for an afternoon! And nobody even knows his name!" Xiao yun suddenly realized he never did get the man's name, and when he asked around others seemed to confirm the shortness of the old man's stay. The vividness of the last six weeks still fresh in his mind he went to see his main teacher who explained that although they had sent for a special dream teacher to come and instruct him, the old man was not the one they had sent for and that he must have somehow interceded in the other one's journey. The old man had seemed keen on teaching Xiao yun and his teacher went along with it.

Xiao yun also went back to look at the place where they had fallen off the cliff. It seemed that for them to have landed where they did, they couldn't have fallen straight down, they would have had to fall slightly back in towards the cliff, around a rocky overhang.

---

¹ Isabelle Robinet, Taoism, Growth of a Religion, p.27. (Stanford University Press, 1997.)

² Roger Ames, Yuan Dao Tracing Dao to Its Source, with D.C. Lau, p.18, Ballantine Books, 1998.

³ See Jordan Paper, The Spirits are Drunk, S.U.N.Y. Press, 1995

⁴ Wang Tsung-yueh, "Tai Chi Ch'uan Lun", from The Essence of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, the Literary Tradition, by Ben Lo, Martin Inn, Robert Amacker, and Susan Foe, North Atlantic Books 1985.

Qi

The following article has been on my website for several years. I'm publishing it here because over the next week I'll be integrating my website with this blog and moving my blog URL to northstarmartialarts.com. Enjoy.

The nature of qi is that when ever you try to pin it down, it transforms, coalesces or disperses. What I would like to communicate in this chapter is the idea that qi is a vast concept, a worthy concept of adopting, and a comfortable concept, something that enriches our view and experience of life.

What is Qi? The word Qi has been in common usage since about 300 B.C.E. It is usually translated as 'energy' or 'vital force' which is far too limiting a definition. "In the very earliest texts qi is the vapor or steam that arises from the heating of water and watery substances and subsequently appears as the actual air that we breathe. By the time of the Huainanzi (139 B.C.E.), qi is the universal energy/matter/fluid out of which all phenomena in the universe are constructed,..."¹ An important thing to understand about this word is that it is adaptable to the 'scale' in which our bodies² are capable of feeling and practicing.

Fortunately the term qi is already in the process of being adopted into the English language, so readers are likely to have some experience with it. The first thing to say is that qi is absolutely rooted in experience, not fantasy. This is all one needs to know to begin practicing; however, for those interested in exploring the concept further, consider the following statements.

When the term qi was adopted into the Chinese language, logical thinking and analysis of historical precedent had already made a mark on the philosophical thinking of the time.

The choice to use the word qi carries with it a comfort or ease with experiences of ambiguity. It is an expression of ambiguous experience, which never the less has a feeling quality, an experience of time(s), direction(s) and can include shape(s).

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Qi is only experienced in context, when jing³ or substance is in motion or in relation to motion. For example, when we are touched, when we visually track motion, or when we feel time passing, we have an experience of jing. Jing, is an aspect of qi.

Qi is the quality of our experience which we clearly experience, but which to enumerate or dissect or 'nail down', would obscure the totality of the experience, shrinking its multidimensionality, and it's connection to cosmology. Thus, qi transmissions done through some practice, playing the flute, calligraphy, martial arts, etc..., can contain innumerable layers of intimacy.

Though we can have clear experiences of what blood feels like under the skin, a somewhat ambiguous experience is far more common. With in or around our bodies there may be 900 different cycles or rhythms going on at once. All of these can be felt. Perhaps they can even be felt simultaneously, but differentiating even five of them at a time, seems daunting. Any of the 900 may actually be undifferentiatable. The arbitrariness of naming and the contextual nature of names are imperfect tools for communicating experience, this very concept is key to understanding the use of the word qi.

Qi is unifying, it connects and permeates everything. It is zaohua--to take form and transform.

" ...Qi gives form to (zao) and transforms (hua) everything, in a two-sided operation, since it defines the fixed form but also changes it constantly. Zaohua is the Chinese equivalent of our word "creation," but it is a creation without a creator. The only constant reality is Qi in its transformations, the continuous coming and going between its undetectable, diluted state and its visible state, condensed into a defined being."⁴

Qi is what holds things together and what shapes and changes them. It is inspiration, that which has no substance and yet permeates everything.

Qi is time and direction, it is a body, a community or communities, in ever increasing, or decreasing, concentric circles, or spirals or formations, of smaller and larger entities which are connected because of their participation in a larger body. The body which is inclusive of everything known and everything unknown is called the Dao.

Qi is the central focus of a unifying cosmological view of the universe, which includes the known and the unknown, the detailed and a broader calculus which extrapolates the unity of all things. It can be summarized as breath but it would be a breath large enough to inhale tables and chairs, whole battle fields, and planets. It includes an ordinary sense of breath but is not confined by time, space, density, purity or refinement. Though it is not confined by history or density, it can be practically defined in a scale or a context. The temperature of one's blood can be measured but its particular qi quality can never be proved, it can only be experienced.

Qi has nothing to do with questions of belief, and it is not romanticism. Qi is not human centered and is not given a value, good or bad, personal or tribal.

Qi as a concept was harnessed by Daoists or proto-Daoists to unify different tribal, linguistic and cultural groups. The concept of qi was used to consolidate and categorize supernatural forces, including the cults of local ghosts and gods, into natural categories, like wind, water, thunder and fire. So there are fire type spirits and wind type gods. It is the experiencable qi aspects of the supernatural which allowed them to be categorized. Early Daoists used this consolidating notion of qi to bring people into unity by including them in larger qi bodies. This expansive notion folded supernatural and mythic thinking into larger categories of condensed or rarefied qi, including, larger categories of identity. It is the foundation of Han culture, the seed of Chinese civilization.

This process is captured in the image of a dragon:

"As a composite totem, the dragon possesses at least the head of a tiger, the horns of a ram, the body of a snake, the claws of an eagle and the scales of a fish. Its ability to cross totemic boundaries and its lack of verisimilitude to any living creature strongly suggest that from the very beginning the dragon was a deliberate cultural construction. The danger of anachronism notwithstanding, the modern Chinese ethnic self-definition as the "dragon race" indicates a deep-rooted sense that Chineseness may derive from many sources. "⁵

In this world view things with out substance, or with virtually immeasurable or imperceptible substance (mass), are included in (not excluded from) a larger cosmology.

The modern notions of science expand fragmentation by increasing the perceptible, not decreasing the imperceptible.

Folk culture everywhere speaks of ghosts, demons, spirits and gods. Modern culture everywhere speaks of bacteria, rates of infection, surgical cures, viruses, nerve dysfunction, blood pressure, toxic waste, and ultra violet rays. To Daoists they are all manifestations of qi, because qi is what we experience directly. Any of the above explanations of experience may be useful in a particular context, yet there is no need to make 'leaps of faith'. For Daoist's, science which claims-to-know, belongs in the same category as reckless shamanism, trance mediumship, and blood sacrifice. It is something to coexist with, but not encourage.

If this definition seems overwhelming, keep in mind that talking about the qi of a time sequence, a work of art, or an event is far easier than describing or defining the whole concept at once. Actually, feeling it requires no effort at all.

By practicing the same movements day after day a certain comfort, ease the familiarity with this ambiguity emerges. Add to this the element of time and one will be feeling qi momentum.

The following is from one of the earliest surviving commentaries on the Daode jing:

"Ho-shang kung says: "The Dao gives birth to the beginning. One gives birth to yin and yang. Yin and yang give birth to the breath (qi) between, the mixture of clear and turpid. These three breaths(qi) divide themselves into Heaven, Earth, and Man and together give birth to the ten thousand things. These elemental breaths are what keep the ten thousand things relaxed and balanced. The organs in our chests, the marrow in our bones, the spaces inside plants allow these breaths passage and make long life possible."⁶ (Red Pine)

Qi comes into being at the moment of polarization between any two divisions of experience. Movement and stillness, time and space, twisting and wrapping, up and down, or clear and turpid.

Qi gong can be viewed as an experiment with altering our physical relationship to any two polarizations.

Let's look at time and space. By slowing down the time it takes to do a movement, the refined details of that movement unfold in space, continuously transforming over a longer cycle of time, and eventually changing one's range of motion. From a purely physiological point of view both time and space are sensory perceptions, which all emerge in utero with the development of the nervous system and the inner ear, in relationship to movement.⁷

With qi gong the amount of time you do some movement is always being calibrated against the space you do it in. The more slowly you go, the more details emerge in the space you are moving through.

Simply doing the same gentle movements over time will give the practitioner a measure of how all the other things they do in the space of their lives effects the movement of their bodies; noticing first the effects of food, rest, and work, perhaps becoming more subtle or refined in one's observations over time.

Time cycles can be sped up or slowed down. Qi gong is relating to time in an unusual way. There are an infinite number of clocks, or swirling colored clouds, growing and shrinking around substance (jing). We can give them names like gonad time, nose time, finger time, hair time, sun time, moon time, and computer time. Qi gong sensitizes us to time, and the relationship the factor of time has to everything else, including other senses of time. This is the practice of qi gong, bagua zhang, taiji chuan, and is a link these practices have to ritual.

So as the saying goes, when we rush we are speeding toward our own death. So what is happening to our bodies over time when we regularly sit, stuck in traffic, in our cars wishing and trying to go faster?

Pain itself may be a forward or a backward movement of time. Diarrhea is fast, constipation is slow. If my finger hurts, is it because I'm getting to re-experience all the time it moved over the last three days all at once? Or is it perhaps that the next three days are being thrust upon me all at once? Repetitive stress vs. sudden trauma.

When we are aggressive, we tend to get catapulted forwards in time, when we are gentle perhaps we can go any direction in time.

Qi is a sense of many times, felt together.

Qi gong is moving while feeling time.

Part of what has been the inspiration of Daoist hermits and ritual practitioners alike, is a deep sense that we are all connected. This same feeling can also be a strong and clear inspiration for the practice of qi gong. However: Those who seek the heart of qi gong will also find themselves swimming in the weak and the murky.

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¹ Harold D. Roth, "The Inner Cultivation Tradition of Early Daoism", p.125, in Religions of China in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., (Princeton University Press, 1996).

² The Daoist concept of body is not meant to be limited to the 'flesh bag'. It could also be translated as community and could refer to anything from all the 'entities in the body of the adept, to the limitless cosmos itself. (see Schipper)

³ Different jing from the one mentioned earlier which means classic. This jing, which I am here calling substance is an aspect of condensed qi usually translated as 'essence'; however, it also has the meaning of "the self-reproductive quality of nature" as it manifests in things, i.e. pollen and seeds in trees, the part of our bodies which makes scabs, and as some vulgar individuals have translated it: semen.

⁴ Robinet, Growth of a Religion, p.8.

⁵ Tu Wei-ming, "Chinese Philosophy: A Synopsis," in a companion to World Philosophies. Edited by Eliot Deutsch and Ron Bontekoe. (Oxford: Blackwell).

⁶ Red Pine, Lao-tzu's Taoteching,( Mercury House, 1996).

⁷ A sense of timelessness and infinite space also seem to emerge in utero. See Bonnie Cohen, "The Action in Perceiving," in Contact Quarterly Dance Journal, Fall 87, Vol. XII no. 3.