Becoming a Taijiquan Transformer

Here is the last installment of the interview I did with George Xu where he talks about the meaning of the Taijiquan Classics, being quiet and in action, being a big meatball in the sky, and how to become a Transformer!

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Just for fun I'm posting this write-up I did for a one day class I'm going to teach to a private group at the end of the month. It's fun:

Taijiquan (also written T’ai Chi Ch’uan or just "Taichi") is one of many traditional Chinese long-life practices which explore the human relationship to nature. When taijiquan is performed daily in conjunction with a healthy diet, times of rest, and regular sleep, it becomes a stable platform for embracing simplicity in the midst of the exciting chaos of modern life.

Taijiquan is a martial art that uses our natural softness and weakness to develop flexibility and integrate the power of the whole body so that everything moves as one. The movements of taijiquan simulate a journey back to the womb, to a state of primordial animation, where we explore the very roots of aggression and how it arises in the body. Traditional Chinese cosmology posits that because all things are mutually self-re-creating, the most potent position to be in is one of interconnected non-action. This potent non-aggressive position is called wuwei

Please join Scott P. Phillips as he leads some fun simple exercises designed to improve circulation, unravel tension and leave us feeling self-possessed.

George Xu's Biggest Mistake

Here is Part 2 of my interview with George Xu.

170ith Post (am I Gay or Chinese?)

This is my 170ith post. I have been writing everyday for half a year. Last month my blog averaged 900 hits per day. I took a little break over the last few days, not because I didn't have anything to write about, but because I just didn't want to sit down at the computer.

Besides being social, I've been reading papers from a recent conference on Daoism and I pulled out my video camera → so I'll have some more video for you soon.
Last week I had a number of server problems which are unsolved, floating in the air. I know very little about computers really, but I manged to add a few plug-ins like this colored highlighting. I suppose I will learn eventually. Meanwhile I'd like to point out that although my list of categories on the right hand column is rather general, the search box works really well. For instance, you can search for every mention of the word "fear," and get an interesting list, or if you like try "death" or "medicine"
I've also been lax about responding to comments, kind of like how some people get behind on their emails and just decide to forget about them. But that reminds me, Dave over at Formosa Neijia asked me a question I didn't have an answer for:

Why didn't I mention homosexuality in my post about the Rabbit God (the Chinese God of Gays)? Why did I do that? For one, I wanted to see if people were following my links. But I think I was also internally conflicted about how I should be talking about gayness to an international audience.

I'm pretty sure that 10% of my international audience is gay and at least 20% of my Youtube audience is gay but in the closet. I'm not myself gay (yet) but I do have a rainbow flag bumper-sticker on my car. This is not just so that if someone cuts me off in traffic I can claim it is a hate crime. No, I actually have an affinity with gayness. As a martial artist who hardly ever gets a chance to really test his skills, I have been hoping that someone will attack me for being gay and I will have a righteous reason to demonstrate my martial superiority!

This reminds me of a rather surprising question which I get quite often: Am I Chinese?

This question is all the more surprising because it is more often than not Chinese Elementary School children or their parents who are asking me the question. Chinese-ness is not as well defined as one might think.

I was teasing a friend of mine from Sichuan the other day. The word Chinese doesn't really exist in Chinese. There is Zhong guoren which means "Center Country People," and there is the term "Han," which is sort of like an ethnicity because citizens of "the Center Country" who do not identify as Han are considered ethnic minorities. (The term Han is really a reference to the first long lasting historic dynasty, the Han Dynasty which lasted 400 years from about 200 BCE to about 200 CE.) So I asked my friend from Sichuan how long her family has been Han and she said, "We registered about 400 years ago during the last part of the Ming Dynasty." I'm not sure there are reliable numbers available, but I'd bet at least half of China could make a simular admission.

I put the question "What makes a person Chinese?" to a rather well informed scholar and she said, "It is clearly not one ethnic group, and clearly not a language either. The cohesive fabric could well be the written language, but most people for most of history have been illiterate. So I would have to say it is Qigong! What all Chinese communities have in common is that people get up in the morning and do long-life movement routines."

Being literate in Chinese written language has some merit as a definition of Chinese-ness. For 2000 years up until the 1800's China had the highest percentage of literate people in the world (unless you include Jews which have had nearly 100% literacy for men for nearly 2000 years.)
I asked a woman from Taiwan if she was Han, and she said "No, my people originally (500 years ago) came form South China which was never part of the Han Dynasty. It would be better to call me Tang! (After the Tang Dynasty 600-900 CE.)

So as the gongfu teacher in several Elementary schools, the answer I usually give to the question, "Are you Chinese?" is: "That depends on how you define Chinese." Which has so far satisfied all inquires.

George Xu: On the Difference Between Predators and Humans

Here is the first part of the video I took this Summer of George Xu talking about the differences between predators and humans.

The material he presents is "indoor" high level martial arts. It is rare that teachers are willing to explain the most refined aspects of their art, especially in such a public way. One reason for this is simply that kinesthetic learning resists cognitive explainations. True secrets keep themselves.

Still I hope people will appreaciate these animated lectures and will take his words as a challenge to improve their art.

Predator vs. Human

Bowing

There is a Daoist precept against subordination. In fact there is a precept (one of the 180 of Lord Lao) that says, "Do not serve in the military. If you must serve in the military do not serve in a subordinate position." I take this to mean join as an officer and be in a position to make decisions about life and death.

I think people living as we do in a commercial society find the idea of not being subordinate both appealing and at times unworkable.

(Currently I feel subordinate to my web hosting service and my ISP which are never able to solve all the weird intermittent and indeterminate problems I have in my daily struggle/walk-in-the-sun to publish my blog. 2 hours on the phone, zero results. If you occasionally get a “Yahoo 404 Error� or a "500 error" when you try to read my blog, I’d love to hear from you.)

What is the purpose of bowing? A traditional class has at least three bows. The first bow is done upon entering the space. Why bow to the space? This tradition comes out of the shamanic practice of subordinating oneself to allies (gods, spirits, ancestors) in exchange for power. The power one gets through subordination is then used to exorcise, scare away, or subordinate all other beings in a given space. It is often called "purification." (Today at the farmer’s market I watched a large man attempt a rather weak version of purification while swinging a bible and shouting in a horse voice about revelation.)



The Japanese term Dojo means Hall of the Dao. It most likely comes from Sung Dynasty (900-1200 CE) Daoism. Clan halls, trade halls, and halls associated with the mega-deity-category "Earth," were used as community centers, places for everything (Dao). When you entered one of these halls to practice gongfu (meritorious martial training) it was important to clear the space of spirits that might try to possess you--dangerous spirits are particularly attracted to weapons and those who wield them.

When a shaman purifies a space, she uses her acquired strength to forcibly evict all the ghosts and spirits that have taken up residence there. Since Daoists did not practice subordination to other entities and they were weak by precept and commitment, they didn’t actually purify the space immediately. Instead they bowed. The act of bowing is a declaration that human beings are going to temporarily use the space for meritorious actions. Bowing doesn’t scare away ghosts, or banish them. Bowing is a way of asking spirits to temporarily clear out. It is a declaration that the practice about to be performed will not be of any interest to ghosts. A ghost is an entity defined by weak, deficient, or lingering commitments.

The second bow is usually to the teacher. The teacher joins this bow because the bow is not to the person but to the teaching itself. It is as if all the teacher’s teachers are standing behind him and he ducks so that the bow of the students will fly over his head to be received by all of the ancestors of the teaching itself.

(In many schools, before and after working with a partner people will bow to each other as equals. This bow again represents a declaration to practice only acts of merit.)

The third bow is to give up the space to who ever or what ever is going to use it next. It cautiously invites the spirits back. After doing this ritual in a space for several years the spirits attracted to dangerous behavior or people with weak commitments will have had time to find another place and will have moved on. Through this continual demonstration of acts of merit (gongfu) some spirits will have found the strength to complete themselves and become one with Dao. Thus we call this place a Dojo, a hall of the Dao.

Zhang Daoling

This is a continuation of my series answering basic questions about Daoism.

Who Was Zhang Daoling?
Zhang Daoling is the founder of Religious Daoism (Daojiao), the Celestial Masters (Tianshidao) and Orthrodox Daoism (Zhengyidao). All Daoist lineages trace their inspiration back to him. He was born in Eastern China and as a child studied with five fangshi, which was a general term used for shaman-doctors. These fangshi were probably experts in ritual, healing, and trance. Still in his youth, Zhang traveled to Western China, to the area we know as Sichuan. There he went into solo retreat in a cave on Heron Call Mountain (Hemingshan).

The revelations of Lao Jun
When Zhang Daoling came out of retreat in 142 CE he began teaching publicly and healing the sick. He said that he had met Lao Jun (Lord Lao), the source and the original inspiration for the Daodejing. His teaching centered on the meaning of the Daodejing, the text was read aloud so that even the illiterate could memorize it.

True for all time and in all eras
Zhang taught that Lao Jun’s revelations had appeared to humans many times throughout history, transmitted through ‘seed people,’ such as himself and Laozi the original author/compiler of the Daodejing. Zhang taught that the Daodejing was the perfect expression of Lao Jun for the time it was written; however, the text was by Zhang’s time nearly 500 years old and the original inspiration had become occluded. Thus he was inspired to reveal its true meaning through his teachings and commentaries. He further taught that new expressions of this essential teaching would continue to appear in each era because these revelations are both true and always available. The characteristics of each era are different and so the same essential teaching may manifest in different ways at different times.

Healing by Commitment
Zhang performed healing ceremonies in which part of the healing process was a commitment on the part of the person being healed to change their behavior. He began the method of making written talismanic contracts called fu, which were burned, put in water, or buried in the earth as a way to reify peoples new commitments. This brought about healing among his followers. Some of the talismanic style of writing he produced is still copied and used today.

A Daoist Country
Zhang Daoling’s following grew steadily and his teachings were carried on by his descendants. By the time of his grandson Zhang Lu, the Celestial Masters had founded a small country. Each family contributed five pecks (a bushel) of rice, and thus for a time early Daoism was called the Five Pecks of Rice school. Zhang Daoling is still represented in ritual as a bowl of rice with the tip of a sword stuck straight down into it.

The country they founded was approximately 40 miles across, was multi-ethnic, and from what we know it was administered very successfully from 190 until 215 CE. When the general Cao Cao swept across China with a huge army, Zhang Lu personally rode out to meet him and the two forged an agreement. The Wei Dynasty which Cao Cao founded was short lived (215-266) but his agreement with Zhang Lu allowed Daoist priests to be spread throughout every part China.

Sacred Texts
Zhang Daoling and Zhang Lu both wrote commentaries on the Daodejing which are still read today (though parts of each have been lost). Zhang Lu is the author of several of Daoism’s founding texts, including the Xiang’er Precepts and The Commandments and Admonitions for the Families of the Great Dao.

Zhang Daoling, his sons, his grandsons and all of their wives reach the highest level of xian known as "rising up in broad daylight with one’s dogs and chickens!" (Xian is usually translated ‘immortality’ or ‘transcendence’.)

Conference on Daoism

On Saturday I made it to the last session of this conference on Quanzhen Daoism, which was exciting. Unfortunately I didn't get any of the papers in advance so I'm just reading them now.

David A. Palmer and an old friend of mine Elijah Siegler are collaborating on an interesting project investigating the relationship between Daoism in America and Daoism in China. Unfortunately the paper is in draft form with a request not to cite or circulate, so I'm not going to talk about it, but it seems like a good time to link to my own "American Daoist, Tours China" article. This is really just a bunch of emails I sent out to friends in 2001 before I had even heard the word "blog" but if you can stomach the jarring transitions and feeble use of paragraphs, I do explore some of the same questions these scholars are asking.

David A. Palmer has a book I'm dying to read and review, but If you want to pick it up before I review it, here it is: Qigong Fever.

I met Terry Kleeman whose book Great Perfecton deals with the multi-ethnic origins of Daoism. It is a difficult read, but if juicy footnotes make you hot, you'll love it.

I also talked with Paul R. Katz whose book Images of the Immortal deals with Lu Dongbin and the founding of Quanzhen Daoism. When I read this book my particular interest was in his thorough exploration of the on-again off-again relationship of Quanzhen (Perfect Realization) to Zhengyi (Orthodox Daoism).

Professor Katz immediately picked up on my interest in the links between martial arts and ritual performance, exorcism and social organization. He recommend three books, so I have some serious reading to do. He also has a new book out called When Valleys Turned Blood Red: The Ta-pa-ni Incident in Colonial Taiwan.

Lastly I've gotten some requests for references backing up my claims about rhythm and music in my videos African Bagua and African Bagua 2. So I plan to write a few blogs on Daoism Martial Arts and Music. Let me just say up front that I stand by the claims I make, but if you want to understand why I make the claims I do, the place to start is reading all the major writers of the 100 Schools who wrote on music during the Warring States Era (400-200 BCE), starting with Xunzi, Mozi, and Hanfeizi.  Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius and Mencius also all comment on music and its place in society.  There isn't one book to read.  The major writers on Daoist ritual all have chapters on music.  As someone who came to Daoism and Martial arts with a dancer's ear, I've listened for references to music all along and slowly put together my ideas.

A Useful Metaphor

Few people know that as a teenager I joined the Sea Scouts where I crewed on a 100 year old sailing whale boat (see picture, it was black back in my day.)

I got a lot of practice rowing in small boats filled to the gunwales with gear, in wind with choppy seas. If you waste a stroke by trying to muscle it or by inserting your oar into the water at the wrong angle or by digging too deep, you loose several strokes. Efficiency is the only way to get headway in rough seas. Those were the days.

We worked on this all wooden boat and took really good care of it. When we tied the boat up to the dock we used a method called a spring-line. This requires four ropes (called lines on a boat). Each rope if tightened by itself will pull one part of the boat in toward the dock and push another part outward. By balancing the tension between all four lines there is a magic spot where all the ropes are a little slack, and yet the boat is sprung away from the dock. If you crank down on all the ropes or even just one, the beautifully finished and finely tuned boat will crunch against the dock and your hair will stand on end. But if you find that perfect balanced tension the boat floats effortlessly just off the dock.

The coast guard has an O.K. picture of it.

Think of your shoulder as a boat floating in water tied to the dock using a spring-line. The ropes are the little muscles that go between the proximal part of your upper-arm bone (humerus) and both the front and back parts of your shoulder blade(scapula). All the ropes must be loose and yet balanced with all the other ropes, and then the shoulder will float without pulling away and without crunching.

Flexibility

Practicing flexibility is a Daoist Precept. Still, I'm kind of down on yoga. To me, true physical flexibility is the range of motion that you can use to express an emotion, a feeling, or a task. The feeling most people express when they are doing yoga is pain. (I know, it feels soooo good afterwards.)

Let me be the first to admit that if you are already in pain, stretching may be the simplest and most straightforward way to temporarily get rid of it. Fair enough. But until you change the regular activity (or inactivity) which is causing the pain, the pain will keep returning.

Dance is generally a good way to develop flexibility. Unfortunately the standards of ballet and most modern dance are based on teenage bodies, which are far more pliant than adult bodies. Thus injuries are too common. But there are many different types of dance.

I know most martial artists are afraid of dance, but incidentally I was at a serious Kick-boxing gym last night where fighters were jumping rope and doing endurance training. I'm willing to bet that any professional ballet dancer can beat these fighters in an endurance match.

I suspect that most people will not understand what I am saying because they don't have the experience. Let me put it another way. If it hurts, it is wrong. If it disconnects the limbs from the movement of the torso, it is wrong.

If Elvis were alive today he would have put it this way: If your "downward dog" can't chase rabbits (or at least scamper around the kitchen), he ain't no friend of mine.

I know that was some tough talk, but if you still love stretching (think pain), contortion is a great option! San Francisco now has a world class contortion training program, The Circus Center.  Make sure you scroll down to the middle of the Adult classes part of the schedule where it says Advanced Contortion and Mongolian Contortion. This is the real deal!

(Also, yesterday I attended a fabulous show at The Circus Center's Clown Conservatory, for those of you into the high art of clowning!)

Ghosts, Demons and Immortals

I hope you all had a lovely Halloween, hah, hah, haaa!

There are five basic types of human death; either we become a god, a ghost, a demon, an immortal, or a supportive ancestor.

Most people die and are forgotten, even their descendants forget them in a generation or so. Most people are mostly forgotten in seven years. People who die young, or die with a lot of unfulfilled potential may linger a bit longer. People who lived long fulfilling lives are generally remembered by their descendants simply as supportive ancestors, the more time that passes, the more generally we feel their support. I don't know how my deceased grandparents would feel about me writing a blog, they didn't live to see the internet, but they loved books and innovation, so I feel fairly sure that they would be regular readers if they were still alive.

But it is also safe to say that my grandparents are not completely resolved. I still wonder what they would think, and thus they live on through me and the many other people that knew them.

All ghosts, gods, demons, and supportive ancestors eventually become immortals--they become one with Dao-- they become undifferentiated from the totality of everything known and unknown. The Hindu God Shiva is one of the oldest gods, but eventually he too will be forgotten.

As you may have gathered, Daoism has a vast cosmology which is capable of incorporating new material, new world views, and also subsuming older cults, and mythologies. One of the "cults within the cult" is the quest for Immortality, called Xian in Chinese.

The cult of Xian is extremely diverse. While there are some general suggestions about how to go about becoming a Xian, even manuals and programs to follow, there really is no method that works every time. Even though there are routes by which one may become a xian, like "Rising up in broad daylight with one's dogs and chickens," every process of becoming Xian is truly unique for that person, time and place.

One thing I can say however, is that to become a xian, one must leave behind no unresolved entanglements, no lingering or unfulfilled commitments. An Immortal in that sense is the opposite of a ghost.

Going a little deeper into the subject, it is possible to be still alive and to have begun taking on a ghostly presence. Poor diet, drugs and aggressive behavior, all lead to what we call in Chinese Medicine, "deficiency." Deficiency, as a key concept in Chinese Medicine, takes many different forms, for instance it effects each organ differently and may only be noticed in one organ. From a Daoist point of view, "deficiency" is a draw for ghosts to feed and eventually take up residence in one's body. Ghosts if you remember, are weak commitments; commitments too "deficient" to follow through.

Thus we have one of the most basic connections between Chinese Medicine and Daoism. But don't think I'm letting you gongfu people off the hook. Gongfu, at its most basic level, is about establishing strong commitments. In Chinese Medicine the most potent way to "tonify" (the opposite of deficiency) the spleen and kidneys is through routine exercise. Health in this sense, completes the incomplete, it transforms ghosts into immortals.