Accidents (part 3)

People sometimes achieve very high level martial arts by accident. Accidents happen when we aren't paying attention, so they are often effortless.

A few years ago I was teaching Northern Shaolin to juvenile delinquents. A program was set up that was a collaboration between the school district, the sheriff's department, and Performing Arts Workshop. It was a lock down school which had a significant performing arts component. My classes always had a probation officer present watching on the side. All the students were between 13 and 16 years old and had been convicted of crimes.

Somewhere towards the end of my residency I brought my friend and Choi Li Fut expert Greg Mooney in as a guest artist. One of my rules is that students bow as they enter or exit the room. On this particular day, like most days, they were unruly, rude and disorganized as they entered the auditorium. As I introduced Greg they started pestering and shouting that they wanted us to fight, "We want to see you fight."

I looked at Greg, he is a performer, a stunt clown (he used to do 500 shows a year), we had sparred enough to know each others stuff. He looked game.
"OK," I said, "I'll make a deal with you guys." "You give us your full attention, you work hard, concentrate, and give todays class the best effort you've ever given, and we'll fight for you-- at the end of class."

As I said it, I thought to myself, 'these kids don't have any discipline, there isn't much chance that they will really concentrate?'

"Really?" They asked, "If we do our best you'll really fight each other, for real?"

"Yes," I said. I knew I was taking a little risk, I looked over at the probation officer and he was motionless. "Alright, it's a deal then let's practice."

That day they practiced harder than they ever had before, it was a fun class. I guess they trusted me. So at the end I had them all sit down and Greg and I went at it.

Neither of us were looking to connect a punch, we were putting on a show. Our strikes were intentionally missing by just enough to make it look real, we each took a couple of dive rolls on the hard floor, our sweeps were slow enough to give each other time to fall the easy way, our kicks were to the meaty parts. The juveniles were screaming with delight.

Then I did a simple bagua zhang single palm change. Greg accidentally turned into it. I was trying to make all my movements empty of force, and at that moment I wasn't even aiming at a target, I was paying attention to my audience. But my elbow connected with Greg's temple and he flew backwards into the air. His temple opened up and blood spurted out everywhere. My movement at that moment was so effortless I didn't even feel my elbow connect.

I helped Greg to his feet and we had an eye to eye bonding moment. The juveniles were completely blown away, their enthusiasm was profound. They also found it incredible that after such an event we were showing all the signs of being best friends.

As they left class that day, each of them bowed with reverence and sincerity I hadn't believed possible. The staff of the school reported to me that a year later the students were still talking about it as their best day ever at school.

Accidents (part 2)

Why are accidents so potent? Have you ever seen that style of both Chinese and Japanese painting which begins by spilling the ink on the paper?

I've seen it done a few times. For instance, a blotch of wet black ink still creeping is led out into the branches of a plum blossom branch. As the ink sinks into the paper, the peddles are added.

I was with George Xu the other day and he mentioned a Chinese Idiom which I didn't quite catch in Chinese. He said it meant, "A Wild Man Beats the Master." In other words, for some reason a completely wild man with terrible technique, who kicks in the wrong place and loses his balance...can beat the trained master of martial arts. It is as if the wild man beats the master because he does everything so wrong, he is unpredictable and unselfconscious. (He is not in his own way--he is not his own obstacle.)

Does this suggest a way to practice? Can you find a martial arts way to spill the ink?

(I accidentally got the cool photo of the ceramic cup/cans from a google search for "spilled ink demo" but the site itself (geekologie.com) was too big for my computer so I don't know the back story, still it is a cool picture. If anyone figures it out please add the artist's name to the comments.)

Kung Fu Panda

Yes, I saw it. I'm a very easy reviewer when it comes to anything with kung fu in it. I liked it. If you have a child or two to take with you as an excuse, definitely go see it! It's fun--even if the sweet parts are really too sweet for anyone over age eight.

Philosophically it has something to offer. First of all I should get out of the way that modern-romantic obsession with "you must believe." What a lot of nonsense. Think: Yoda talking to Luke Skywalker about how to get his little rocket ship out of the swamp.

Noooo, kung fu is about hard work my friends, belief has nothing to do with it.

But philosophically the film explores fate, both personal and collective. It gives great attention to the power of accidents. The joke line in the film is, "There are no accidents." But actually it is about how important it is to accept accidents and work with them. Accidents can reveal a lot about how rigidly we try to control our fate.

Perhaps the most important aspect of martial arts is the ability to improvise, and improvisation cannot happen if you are struggling to control outcomes. In an improvisation, an accident is something to embrace, a thing to work with.

Falling on your face is no reason to stop the action, heck, I meant to do that!

Kicking

I teach two types of kicks.  Maiming kicks and friendly kicks.

Friendly kicks include swipes, sweeps, traps, stops, and ways to get your partner's legs jumbled up so they fall down.

Maiming kicks are designed to be used only once.  They usually sever or snap ligaments.  Sometimes they tear tendons, and sometimes they break bones. When they break bones it is usually a small bone like a collar bone, pubic bone or a bone in the foot.

I've never actually used a maiming kick to maim, but I'm pretty sure they work because I've almost had my ligaments snapped a few times.

These two types of kicks go together.  You practice the friendly ones at real speeds and the maiming ones at gentle slow careful speeds.

Both of these technical categories are different than most of the kicks used in sparring.

Anti-Talent

One thing I love about gongfu is that it is anti-talent.  I have a group of about thirty 8 and 9 year olds that I have been teaching twice a week for a year.  At the beginning of the year there were two students who showed talent in their abilities to pick up new movement, to perform it, and to comprehend it.  Neither of those two students are at the top of the class now.
I know I didn't have talent, and I'm pretty sure none of my teachers had it either.   George Xu used to say that you can't tell how good the fruit is going to be by looking at at  the unopened bud of a flower.   It could be a  pretty sorry looking bud and still produce a tasty fruit,  and sometimes the most beautiful flower produces no fruit at all.

Yagli Gures: What Not to Wear to a Fight

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

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

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

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

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

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

Workshop Yu Cheng Yong

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

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

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

Cranes Feet

Taijiquan is often said to be the combination of the movements of a crane and the movements of a snake. I haven't had a lot of time to observe cranes but there are some great blue herons around the park where I teach.

The other day I watched a heron stand on a grassy field and eat five live baby gophers. It waited in stillness and then struck suddenly into the soil. I have it from a reliable source that they are actually feeling the vibration of the gopher under the ground. They must use the difference in the intensity of the vibration in each foot to determine the location of the gopher. They may even develop a mental picture of the gopher's movement and tunnel system.

When you practice internal martial arts you want your feet to be so relaxed that you could pick up even the slightest vibration and get a mental picture of what is causing it. Any tension or excess movement in your feet and this ability will be obstructed. Your feet must be completely devoid of an agenda.

Our great ape ancestors hunt gopher-like critters called bushbabies. They sharpen sticks and wait by their holes to spear them. My guess is that they also have some ability to sense vibration with their feet and use it to create a mental picture.

I have an "edge theory" based on my experience which goes like this. At the tip of our tail bone there is a small sphere called the coccygeal body (Wiki). It is surrounded by a capillary net strongly suggesting that it excretes something which goes directly into the blood, a property which would make it an endocrine gland. But so far, no one has figured out what it excretes. My theory is that vibrations come up both legs and meet at the tip of the tail bone simultaneously triggering this gland and vibrating the spine all the way up to the teeth. If the frequency of the vibration is one we associate with small animals which we would like to eat, our mouth starts watering. If the frequency of the vibration is very deep like from an elephant, a stampede, or a lion, our mouth goes dry, creating a fear response. (Here is a wacky site which presents another edge theory.)

Anyway, practice keeping your feet so relaxed that you can feel under the ground.

Why Ritual?

Sometimes we have very rational explanations for our actions which later turn out to be dubious. The human mind likes to believe it is taking a particular action because it is right or justifiable or natural or smart. We have the ability to think up strategies for gaining advantage. We can manipulate our environment. But we also seem to have the ability to get "stuck" in "mind-sets" and to repeat strategies which have worked before but which no longer are very effective.

Occasionally I get a student who has a strong reason for wanting to study gongfu or qigong who sticks with it for a few months or a year and then forgets why they are studying. Perhaps that is because their relationship to movement and body image has changed and they simply don't have the same problems they used to have.

Sometimes that forgetful student who used to have strong motivations will quit practicing for a time until they come up with a new reason for studying. Then they will start the cycle over again, eventually they forget why they came to practice and they quit again.

There are hundreds of great, mediocre, and rather weak reasons for practicing gongfu or qigong. Just because you are able to remember your "strong" reason for practicing doesn't make it true. In actuality our reasons for practicing are changing continuously. From era to era, from year to year, from day to day, from hour to hour.

The ability to use reason effectively means understanding both how easily it can change within a complex or dynamic context and how easily we can fall prey to dogma or a mind-set or a "strong reason."

Ritual; whether it is doing a gongfu practice everyday, or performing a Daoist ceremony on a particular day of the calendar, is done regardless of the immediate reasons one may have or not have. Ritual is action taken with out consistent meaning. Ritual practice itself is not a defense against dogma; however, the practice of ritual has the capacity to reveal the way or mind seeks to lock on to a particular way of perceiving our world.

For heaven's sake, ritual is not a discarding of reason. It is a good thing we use reason to manipulate our environments for pleasure and power. But reason is a form of aggression which itself can cloud our vision. Ritual has the capacity to re-pose the question: How important is reason?

If you don't practice ritual from this point of view, you will occasionally have a crisis of meaning.

What David Mamet Understands

David Mamet understands that whether you are in your own backyard practicing forms, in a knife fight at a bar, or competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship--martial arts is a performing art which does two things:

1. It demonstrates that martial prowess has a unique potential to transform situations.

2. It transmits a set of values.

Whether your martial prowess is called "Weakness with a Twist" or "Bloody Elbow," it still demonstrates potency. Your martial arts performance can convey a wide range of different values, from extraordinary discipline, to winning is paramount, to never intensionally hurt someone--but it always communicates--it always transmits. In that sense, it always has a social function.

The film Redbelt is a must see!