Tibetan Medicine

I just got an  email about a Tibetan Medicine program in Berkeley which is part of the International Academy for Traditional Tibetan Medicine.  I thought my readers would want to know about it.  If you check out their site you'll see that there are classes in cities all over the world.

This is the first course of a four year comprehensive Tibetan medical training offered internationally by the IATTM. The course is based on the Four Tantras, the root text of Tibetan Medicine, covering one Tantra per year, systematically building the foundations and practical applications of Tibetan Medicine. The first years’ course covers the Root Tantra- the first of the Four Tantras. The material is organized into different trees- as depicted in the Medical Thankas; which are a visual way to remember and hold the medical system in the mind.

Topics covered in the first course include:

Introduction: an overview of the vast and profound tradition of Tibetan Medical tradition, its philosophies and basic principles.

Brief History: an introduction to some of the great masters- realized yogis, siddhas, and doctors who revealed this tradition, as well as some fundamental texts and developments from ancient Bonpo shamanic medicine to modern clinical practice.

Fundamental Principles: a study of the healthy body from the perspective of ancient Buddhist medicine. This will cover the five elements, anatomy and physiology including channels, chakras, organs, etc.

While this class provides the foundational training of the IATTM Tibetan medical program, which offers the skills to actually practice Tibetan Medicine, this first class is open to all, and useful to anyone who wants to understand more about their bodies and internal energies.

Thank you for not being Green.

I just wanted to say thank you to the Internal Martial Arts for not having succumbed to the biggest fad of our time.  Sustainability is a taijiquan sin akin to rigidity.  Thankfully, at least this one aspect of my life is inoculated against going green.

Indonesian Fortifications

My sister Laura Phillips the Archaeologist is blogging from Indonesia.  She is on her way to the Banda Islands to excavate an ancient fortification.  The Banda Islands are part of the Maluku's (Moluccas).  They are also known in our history text books as the Spice Islands.  It seems one of these islands was involved in the deal to buy Manhattan from the Dutch.  This region was important to Chinese traders for almost a thousand years .  Donn F. Draeger's book The Weapons & Fighting Arts of Indonesia dedicates the final chapter to the Maluku region.

Since we figured out how to grow nutmeg commercially, these Islands have been out in the middle of nowhere.  Check it out.  Fortifications.

New Definition of Internal

I just thought I'd spin this one out into the blog ocean of ideas.

Both internal and external martial arts are in total agreement that the ultimate result of training is a quality of movement.  In fact the word gongfu could easily be translated: great movement quality.

The difference between the two is that external martial artists pursue the perfect technique with the intent of utilizing or implementing that technique.  Where as, the internal martial arts practitioner learns technique so that it can't be used against him/her.

For the internal martial artist this familiarity with technique, this ability to sense and then neutralize an attack, is not just sensitivity--It is deep kinesthetic knowledge.

Pakua Chang Journal

If you practice Baguazhang and you haven't ever checked out the Pakua Chang Journal you are missing out bigtime.  This is the biggest collection of published articles on the subject in English and it all happened before Al Gore invented the internet.  We're happy it's all on line now.

(Hat Tip to Jianghu who has lately been blogging about the relationship between dance and martial arts!)

Meditation and War

The first evidence of non-conceptual meditation is in the Neiye and dates to the 4th Century BCE.  It was advice to a king describing a method of sitting still in an 8' x 8' x 8' foot room built for that purpose.  It was a three walled room with the forth wall open to the south.  The method included the burning of applewood incense.  The purpose of this method was intrinsic to being a king.  Perhaps we could even say that it was the "posture" of being a king which was being taught.  Perhaps it had the effect of calming the king's spirit, or slowing down his decision making process, making him less excitable.

From there the practice extended to generals.  Before going to war it was advised that a general sit still.  This is hinted at in the Sunzi, and I think is a source for the general reluctance to go to war found in his writing.  Yes, I know people like to think this stuff came from hermits.  Maybe that too.

There is something I find satisfying about imagining generals meditating before going into war.  Confucius has a saying something to the effect of:  While it is undeniable that a man who is not afraid of fighting tigers can be called courageous; If I had to follow someone into battle I would much prefer to follow a general who is afraid of tigers.

Happy Year of the Earth Ox

Check Out the Ox! (from http://www.birdsasart.com/bn204.htm)

It's Good for Your Internal Organs

The idea that something is good for your internal organs gets thrown around Chinese culture all the time.  Usually it is done with little understanding.  For instance I heard the other day that Eight Silken Brocade Qigong is good for your internal organs.

Putting aside for the moment that qigong, as a category, was invented in the 20th Century, Eight Silken Brocade is obviously a muscle tendon style of martial arts warm up of great antiquity (possibly 800 years old).  It involves stretching, twisting, sinking and lengthening.  One of the "Eight" is standing in a horse stance while pulling an imaginary bow.  It is clearly a form of gongfu.

None of this precludes it being good for your organs, as I will explain, but categorizing it as "Qigong for the Organs" is going too far.

Traditionally in China, and by that I mean anywhere from one hundred years ago to 1200 years ago, if you learned how to write you were first taught how to sit and hold the brush for proper circulation of qi and alignment, and how to breathe while you were writing.  Everyone copied the calligraphy of the same master from the Fifth Century in the hope that by writing the way he did, you would become like him.  His writing was his movement, his gongfu, and by copying his movement you would be invoking his upright (cheng) character (Cheng is also the name of that official style of writing).

So calligraphy could be good for your organs too, right?  The dao of Calligraphy was working with qi, it was what we now call qigong.  As was playing a musical instrument, and a hundred other activities which someone might "master."

But is it good for your internal organs?  In Chinese culture it is possible to divide up any event or object into it's component parts.  In English we usually call this "coorispondences" which is an academic way of saying linked-up catigories.  So I can take a muscle tendon style of Qigong and tell you which part is good for your kidneys and which part is good for your lungs.  But I can also do that with a the parts of a car.

The fuel is the qi.  The engine is the jing.  The fuel filter, the oil, the power steering fluid, and the coolent are all associated with the kidneys.  The air intake manifold, the fan, and the exaust are associated with the lungs.  The Heart is the battery, the distrubutor cap, and the spark plugs (the alternator is the paracardium).  Do you see where this is going? Because I can do this all day long.

It is highly likely that the associations of Eight Silken Brochade with healing the various organs were invent long after the fact, just like I made up associations for the car.  They are not meant to be REMEDIAL CURES!

So what is all this organ associations stuff?  What is it's value?  It is a tool for observing, remembering and possibly thinking.  By dividing something which is ostensibly already whole (like a person or a car) into separate categories it allows for novel observations.

Here is an example from Chinese Medicine.  People with "liver deficiency" tend to stand on straitend knees.  The main job of the liver is destributing blood.  Yes, I know the heart pumps blood but the liver is responsible for the surge of blood around the body which gives us the energy to get things done.  With a deficient liver it's hard to get up enough energy to get mad or to defend your positions-- and you will tend to stand on straightend knees.  Liver deficiancy will eventually lead to lethargy.  An early sign is the habit of lazily standing on straightened knees.

What I call the "Structure" school of Chinese Medicine posits that any problem one has will show up all over the body, including in the skeletal structure.  The reverse may also be true, that postural skeletal problems will eventually find their way into the internal organs.  For instance, I child with a perfectly healthy liver may imitate the posture of a liver deficiant parent over many years and eventually give themselves a liver problem.

The solution?  Bend your knees.  And practicing Eight Silken Bochade should teach you to keep your knees bent.  Atleast with practice you should notice that you are always getting tired and standing around on straightened knees...leading you to get some traditional Chinese medical advice.

So, in summary, if someone tells you a type of qigong is good for lungs, don't assume they mean that in a remedial way.  Try to find out exactly what they mean.  It is quite possible there is some useful or interesting information there, perhaps some complex and intreging notions burried in that simple statement--but you are going to have to seek it out.  Saying that such and such qigong is good for the liver, doesn't make it so.

Secret note for experts: Almost all exercise is good for the liver!

History of East Asian Martial Arts at Cornell

This is just too good to be true.  An academic course on the history of martial arts! Perhaps even I have a future?  I really think good quality martial arts history holds many keys for improving the study of Chinese history in general, as well as medicine, religion, and theater.

The class is taught by TJ Hinrichs, she has a PhD from Harvard.  Her History of Chinese Medicine course syllabus is the best I've seen.  Check it out.  (Hat tip to Tom)

Fear vs. Danger: The Real History of Martial Arts and Trance

Sgt. Rory over at Chiron has been talking about the difference between fear management and danger management and the comments are interesting.  Basically Sgt. Rory says that a lot of martial artists are using a fantasy of martial prowess to convince themselves that they are capable of real fighting.  They do this with a combination of bravado, group think, and talismanic power emblems like 'The Black Belt.'  For someone like Sgt. Rory, who does danger management for a job, fantasies can get you killed.

So the real question is, if martial arts were created for real situations, why is everyone acting so dumb?

In other posts and in his book,  Sgt. Rory has made much of the powerful hormone cocktail that takes over your body and mind when you are in a real fight.   How did traditional martial arts deal with this?  They must have known about it.  Why isn't it a part of the average dojo training these days?

Early Chinese martial arts were trance based.  They started from experience and worked backwards.  The first experienced fighters who set out to train students did so by scaring them 'out of there wits.'  As these arts developed they started to include ear splitting metallic gongs and frenetic drumming.  They told frightening war stories and sang haunting songs filled with enmity.  These were soon followed by the invocation of supernatural forces and drunk dancers channeling gruesomely demised soldiers. The teachers were using these techniques to trigger the powerful hormone cocktail in their students so that they would know what to expect.

Cults devoted to martial hero/demons are as old as Chinese civilization itself, and they are still with us.  These days they are more associated with outcast smuggler types, but historically they were the village militia.

Violent situations are full of surprises.  There isn't just one type of trance which is "best" for all fighting situations.  There are many different types of trance.  As martial cults developed they taught different types of trance, often associated with different deities or animal spirits.  Often a movement style or sequence would be taught first and then, after some amount of practice, the spirit would be invoked, at which point the routine would be dropped.   The 'student' was practicing going berserk.  They were practicing being on a high dose of naturally occurring hormone cocktail.  They developed many measures to test if the trance was real including inability to feel cuts or burns and various degrees of memory loss.

When the really fight was about to happen, they would put themselves into trance, essentially preempting the 'shock' or the 'freeze.'

The big problem with this type of training is that it shortens your life.  That hormone cocktail is really bad for your long term health.   The kinds of permission people give themselves when they are in deep trance tend to lead them to bad decisions.  Also the wild movements people do, and injures they ignore, when they are in trance really hurt the day after.



What began as trance invocation movements became dances and martial arts forms.  One of the early purposes of martial training was to make ones body strong enough to survive the more extreme trance possessions the early 'teachers' developed.  Over many generations these martial 'forms' started to include actual 'techniques' and even 'applications.'  It was a slow evolution.  In peaceful times everyone did the forms as entertainment and the music got better, and then as times turned for the worse, they re-invoked the spirits and sanctified the ground with blood.

It isn't hard to see how great performers grew out of this tradition, especially if you know that trances weren't just used for movement but to get people talking and singing.  Poetry was written in trance too.  Imagine a bunch of talented people on stage all in deep trance and each invoking different historical figure improvising their way through history with swords and masks and you are more than half way to Chinese Opera.

It's a long story for another day how all this interacted with the military, but it is an important story because although Chinese armies did sometimes use people in trance, they also had good reasons for discouraging it.

Religion and martial arts parallel each other in that both have had a long history of social movements trying to distance themselves from trance without every totally dropping it.  As we all know, doing these martial arts forms and drills without the trance or the music became a way to train fighting all on their own.  In the religious realm, meditation, stillness without going into trance and without any deity invocation, became a religious practice all on its own.

On the other hand some people became experts in many types of trance.  I believe that Baguazhang was originally a collection of eight classes of god/demon possession.  Each one distinct in its powers but woven together through ritual walking.  Such a collection of forces would have been a very secret transmission.  Althought people would have encountered it, there was no system until someone came along and transformed the god/demon forces into types of qi named after the types of gods each represented --heaven qi, earth qi, wind qi, water qi, thunder qi, fire qi, mountain qi, and lake qi.