Compression Bands

It seems that all the big sports stars are wearing compression bands or straps. Why?

Moving an arm with a straight elbow is asking for a shoulder injury. Most athletes over develop their muscles and habitually straighten their joints. A straight elbow adds leverage to whatever torque one puts on the shoulder joint-- do this frequently and the shoulder will get lots of small rips and tears.

If you straighten your elbow in motion your shoulder muscles will get bigger to protect all the soft tissue from the regular damage you are doing. Keep it up and you will accumulate lots of scar tissue.

Compression bands stop one from straightening a joint and also help weaken over-developed muscles.

But I have to ask the question; why not just train right the first time?

Most martial artists know not to straighten their joints, but some schools are lax about it. Some schools even teach peoples to straighten their joints. I knew a taijiquan teacher who didn't speak English very well and was constantly telling students to straighten their fingers. The teacher probably meant lengthen.

Kinesio Taping

Taping is sometimes a good way to deal with injuries.  I haven't tried this type of taping myself but I like the idea.  The various websites dedicated to it have a lot of theory about how it works and I'm skeptical, but the method looks good.
The standard physical therapy method for dealing with lower back pain is to apply ice and strengthen the near by muscles, thus partially immobilize the injured area.  Taping seems like a better idea.  When an injury occurs it is usually important to reduce the student's range of motion while simultaneously increasing circulation and  sensitivity.  Building muscle usually causes inflammation, loss of sensitivity and inhibits circulation.

Taping seems like a big improvement.

Shyness

I've been teaching children for 20 years. In my opinion, there is no such thing as shyness. I believe it is possible that there is some type of mental illness which manifests as shyness; but for the most part what teachers call shyness falls into two categories: Reluctant deadbeats and indolent wannabe royalty.

Fear is real. Students may feel afraid that they are going to be humiliated, or that their assertiveness will result in abuse by their classmates. They may even fear adults.

Some teachers believe that the way to deal with such fear is to create incremental steps which allow students to make conservative choices. Modest choices which are not really threatening. The logic is that over time frightened students will see that participation is fun and will want to take more risks.

Wrong! That only proves that they were reluctant deadbeats or indolent wannabe royalty. If students are afraid, the teacher should try to create exercises which feel really scary. The teacher should simultaneously model supportive behavior. Teachers should communicate that anything that goes wrong in the class is the teacher's fault! I tell students "Blame me!" Give students honest feedback and they will trust you. Make it clear that you will take responsibility for anything that goes wrong and they will take risks.

Activities which seem frightening at the beginning become thrilling when they are experienced with out actual negative consequences. (That's how I got addicted to horror movies.) Children who are taught to take risks grow into spontaneous confident adults. Students taught to make conservative choices feel stifled and repressed.

Reluctant deadbeats are usually suffering from lack of sleep or bad nutrition (either too much food or not enough of the right foods.) These problems should be dealt with outside of class.

Indolent wannabe royalty should be given maximum responsibility, preferably control over life and death! Address such students by their proper titles; Prince Zhang, Princess Alia, Queen of the Elves. Allow them to pick the next "volunteer!"

That usually works, but sometimes a very skilled princess will pretend that they are afraid to speak. In that case pretend that they gestured with their eyes at some other student who wasn't looking and call that student up. If they are a true queen they will become indignant and declare that they did not, and would not have made such a choice. You have won. Now all the other students know they are not shy.

[I got this line of thinking from Keith Johnstone who wrote Impro, which is the best book on teaching I have ever read. It claims to be about teaching theater but all the principles are universal.]

Walking #4

It's been a busy weekend but I've been reading this interview with Wang Xiangzai that "adz" sent me. It's from the 1940's and really captures Wang's voice like nothing else I've read. He riled people up in a good way. Check it out. If anyone knows the Chinese for "...intuitively perceiving the peristalsis of the whole body," I'd like to know the characters.

Here is my "Dao of the Day": We don't know how humans can walk on two feet.

Birds can walk on two feet but they have huge feet relative to the size and weight of their bodies. Humans have at least six different mechanisms which allow us to balance, a few of which we understand, like fluid in our ears. But basically walking on two feet is still a mystery. When my students are trying to learn something new that seems difficult I remind them that they have already mastered walking, and that's a skill way beyond anything I can teach.

Ibex Clothing

I've been writing a bunch of material on Daoism and will likely post it on it's own page in a few weeks.

Also I've been reading Frank Allen's new book, the Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang, published by Blue Snake Press, so I'll be reviewing it soon.

This week I started teaching new Shaolin Classes for 8 and 9 year olds. It is a 25 week residency in a public school and we meet twice a week (4 classes total). Will likely have a performance at the end.

I also gave my Taijiquan students at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine their final exam, and did a demonstration for everyone.

So instead of writing some high fa-luting little ditty, I've decided to tell you about my favorite workout shirt! The Ibex form-fitting wool shirt. They are strong, thin and light weight. They don't get stretched out and they don't shrink. They actually fit me, which is amazing.

They don't smell bad the way synthetics do. They are totally amazing because the fabric breathes so well when I'm sweating and keeps me warm and dry the rest of the time, which is really important in San Francisco fog. I just totally love them. I have two short sleeve and three long sleeve shirts. One of the long sleeves is 17.5 Microns (fabric thickness) and has a zipper, that comes halfway down the front. I wore it everyday on my two weeks of mountain adventures this summer. It took me two years but that one has finally come to the end of it's life.

I can't find the 17.5 on amazon.com but the rest of the shirts are there, and if you buy one by clicking on my links, 15% goes to me! I haven't sold anything at all from my site yet, but it sure would be cool to make enough money to cover my beer expenses.

Mens Shirt

Womens Shirt

Four Types of Teaching

The Daodejing (Tao Te Ch'ing), the central text of Daoism was written at least 2300 years ago. It is understandable to us today because around 2000 commentaries have, over the years, been written to explain it. Many chapters refers to a type of person called a Shang. In many commentaries this is often understood to mean a ruler or a king, but it could also be a Shaman-king, or simply a wise person, a sage, or even an adept or a teacher.

So in Chapter 17 (of the Wangbi edition) I take the liberty of translating Shang as Teacher.

The best teacher is one you don't even know is a teacher,

the next best is intimate and kind,

after that is the type that inspires fear,

and lastly the one that cuts you off.

Now Tom Sawyer painting the fence comes to mind immediately when I think of the first kind of teacher. Yes, but we're also talking about someone who is just a presence. They teach by example but they aren't even obviously teaching a method, their just making you a cup of tea and hanging out with you.

The second type of teacher is everybody's favorite, they praise us, we feel like they're really helping us. We believe in their goodness.

The third type of teacher uses fear to teach. They rile you up, they intimidate you, they inspire outrage, they make you push back and stand up for your ideas, your reasons for learning, and who you think you are.

The fourth type of teacher inspires revolt. If you won't leave on your own, they'll kick you out. Their gift to you is that they hack you off. They know that in certain situations the best relationship is complete disassociation.

All four types of teachers are actually four types of teaching and all good teachers use all four.

Appetite and Discipline

One of the biggest challenges of being a teacher is that students are always trying to get me to equivocate. For instance, I say, "Practice standing completely still for one hour early in the morning, everyday, before you eat breakfast."

Some student will always want to know what will happen if they don't? I usually answer, "Sifu will kill you!" But they always laugh, and then ask what if they only stand for 20 minutes? or do it in the evening? or every other day?

The truth is, I don't know. I've always practiced the whole thing, without equivocation. I can guess or I can ask other teachers. But honestly, what I really know is what I've practiced. The reason I don't stop practicing is because I have a real appetite to practice as much as I do. I stand in the morning for the same reason I eat in the morning.

There is another way, and I've used it on solo retreats. It is called the Wandering of the Mare. I have several artist friends who live this way all the time. They eat when they are hungry, they sleep when they are sleepy, they paint, or read, or call up a friend totally spontaneously whenever they feel like it. I'm never surprised to hear that they have been up all night painting.

On a solo retreat, I'm the same way, I sleep until there is absolutely no more feeling to sleep, and then I close my eyes one more time to make sure. I sit still, or stand still, or walk the Baguazhang circle, until I'm done. No schedule, no limits.

But most of us work for a living. We have people to coordinate with.  We have to at least try to stay awake during meetings. Five days a week we have to get the kids off to school with a good breakfast and matching socks.

Hermits and anyone on a long, private retreat, can freely follow their appetites. Many of the most potent and profound Chinese disciplines were created by hermits. What to a hermit is natural discipline, may seem to us, living as we do in the world with other peoples needs and expectations, like "militaristic discipline." To spontaneously follow one's personal appetite(s) is to be in an on-again, off-again, conflict with the social world.

We might do better to think of Taijiquan, Baguazhang etc... as the "ritual resetting" of our appetites.  By "winding" us back to zero once a day, they allow us to follow our appetites spontaneously--within the social world.

Perfection

There is a line from the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) that goes:

The purist white is easily soiled.

or sometimes

The purist white appears soiled.

From earliest times, Daoism has played with the paradoxes inherent in the human quest for purity and perfection. During the Sung and Ming dynasties the Chinese government gave out official titles to Orthodox Daoists. (Actually, even at times when the government had an anti-Daoist outlook, Daoshi, invested priests, had the status of "prince" if they were dragged into a magistrate's court. When the British won capitulation at the end of the Opium Wars, one of their demands was that Christian Missionaries be given the same status in court as Daoists. This was later one of the grievances of the Boxer rebellion.)

Anyway the titles were funny like: The Perfected Immortal of the Purple Mist, or The Most Perfected Immortal of Mysterious Moon-light.

I lectured on perfection to this mornings class and at the end one of my students said, "My problem with perfection is that it is boring."

I've said before that Daoism is not a self-improvement scheme. But Daoism also doesn't reject self-improvement as an experiment. If a person has an "appetite" for self-improvement, Daoism has many methods for exploring that "appetite."

The problem with perfect alignment is that it is so easily disturbed. If your alignment is really perfect, you'll be totally thrown off by a little kid who crashes into you screaming and crying, "Help me rescue my dolly!"

For years I've practiced regulating my diet. One of the methods I used was to eat rice porridge (jook, congee, baijou) every morning as my main meal of the day. I'd look at my tongue, take my pulse and feel my appetite. Then I'd select different ingredients to go in the porridge, everything from mustard greens and beef stock, to chestnuts and pork-ribs. Still the base was the same and the additions were always based on bring me back to balance, really a type of purity.

My digestion was spectacular, and my practice really benefited from it. But I couldn't travel, or go out to eat. I went to stay at my sister's house for a few days. She made some fancy fried thing one morning and my tongue turned black. The variation was too much of a shock.

So after that I kept the same porridge diet, but twice a week I would spontaneously have something weird instead; like eggs, granola, or a cheese danish. This created a kind of syncopated jazz rhythm in my diet that allowed me to travel, eat-out, and experiment further afield.

The Daoist concept of "Perfection" is really about experiencing and accepting what we actually are.

Three types of Teachers

In the martial arts world I've encountered three basic types of teachers, all of which are great and all of which have draw backs.

The first type is the Perfected Example. This type demonstrates the physical and energetic height of the art. Students tend to develop from the outside inward, meaning that the students try to copy the look and feel of the teacher. The teacher is a perfect example of what one should strive for.

The second type is the Refined Guide. This type specializes in being able to explain, and come-up with exercises which reveal, the deep inner workings of the art. They can explain how to modify or adapt the practice for different types of people or to achieve different types of fruition. A high degree of refined skill is made up of lots of smaller skills. This type of teacher breaks everything down into digestible nuggets. They tend to be interested both in innovation and in the history of how each aspect of the art developed.

The third type is the Constant Trainer. This type teaches the student how to train every aspect of the art. Their motto is, "One day missed, ten days lost." This type will usually practice with the student, so that the student sees exactly how to apply constant discipline to any training method. Without constant, yet natural, discipline, even the greatest methods produce mediocre results.

For Chinese Martial Arts to survive and thrive into the future we need all three types of teachers.  Ideally, everyone should have access to all three types.

Eyes and Baguazhang

As most readers know, when we practice baguazhang we walk a circle, sometimes around a tree or a pole. If one is practicing different ways of changing direction on the circle, as opposed to a form or routine, we call this "practicing the changes" or practicing "palm changes."

There are many different ways of organizing information into categories so that it can be remembered by students. By putting teachings into categories it makes them easier to remember (especially for the illiterate, or when what you are practicing might be illegal). Thus in some schools of Baguazhang all the teachings are divided into 8 categories. Each of the 8 categories has one Mother Palm and an assortment of teachings and variations, sometimes called qi transmissions.

The teaching about the eyes for the first Palm Change (Chien) is one I have described in earlier posts. It is to look into the distance with relaxed eyes. If you do this with your hand up while walking around a pole, you will see two illusions. One, the hand will appear double, and two, the pole will look like it is turning on its own.

The teaching about the eyes for the second Palm Change (kun) is that the eyes relax and draw in. Like I described predictor eyes in a previous post.  If you use this type of gaze to move toward someone it feels like they are getting closer to you, as if you were drawing them in. This is a subtle but important distinction. Usually when we walk toward someone we have a sense of our body getting closer to them, predator eyes are intrusive.

In the third Palm Change (xun), we practice spinning. While we are spinning we relax the eyes so that they don't catch or focus on any one thing, even at the moment when we stop spinning, or change direction. This means we are practicing becoming comfortable with the whirl or blur of the world passing by. The moment one locks on to something with their eyes, they have to keep repeating that, or they will get dizzy.

(Dancers and acrobats generally use a different technique something called "spotting," which means they focus intently on a point and then whip around to see that point again. One can also whip around from a point to another pre-chosen point. In North Indian Classical Dance we would "spot" on all four walls, spinning one and a quarter turn between each split-second turn. This cool effect was sometimes used to create the illution of a multi-armed, multi-headed deity.")

Normally our eyes are changing all the time. It's easy to imagine meeting someone whose eyes are continuously suspended in one of these patterns. If you saw someone gazing far off into the distance as they were getting on a bus, you'd wonder if they were seeing paradise just a bomb blast away. This is a yang use of the eyes, and is associated with, among other things, heroic martyrs.

I described the yin eyes of the second palm change in the brutalized assassin I mentioned in an earlier post on eyes.

Everyone is familiar with the eyes of the third palm change, it's what happens when we drink too much alcohol. Drinking alcohol and spinning, or dancing in a circle, until one falls down is a staple method of shamanic practice used to contact spirits in many parts of the world.

Previous posts on Eyes and More Eyes