Indolence

Indolence literally means "freedom from pain," but it has come to mean: the rejection of obligation, difficulty, or even honor or class. Since most of us have neither honor nor class to reject--those meanings are rare. Indolence is a synonym for laziness, but honestly if you are going to exert all the effort it takes to call someone else "lazy," are you really going to go the extra mile and call them indolent? I mean, you might have to explain it.

The question of whether indolence in its literal sense can be a virtue in martial arts training arose last month on Formosa Neijia and on Dojo Rat, but I'm too...you know...to find and link to the exact posts.

On Formosa Neijia the subject was raised in a rather contentions way, through the suggestion that Yang stylists might not work as hard as Chen stylists. Naturally, the comments concluded that it is individual practitioners, not styles, which are variously lazy or hard working.

However, some people did conclude that to avoid pain in ones practice can have positive results. Does this really work?

Diligently practicing to avoid pain won't work. We actually need to practice what is painful, and we need to practice each and every painful thing until we understand exactly how and why it is painful. I'm not saying you need to injure your wrist on the left side and then do it again on the right side. That would be dumb.

You can certainly extrapolate that if a practice causes injury to one part of the body it will do the same to another. The more quickly you learn what truly hurts, the more quickly you will progress. Learning, in this case means learning not to do what hurts.

But....

I've been teaching kids some short Shaolin routines called Stone Monkey. One of the characteristics of the Stone Monkey is that you bang your elbows and knees on the ground and even grind your fist into the ground with your entire body weight on it. If you do it right, it doesn't hurt. But it always hurts the first few times you do it and if you have a case of blood stagnation from too much time on the cough watching Kungfu movies, it will continue to hurt until you improve the quality of your blood and your circulation. That could take a while.

Good martial arts training works backwards.

About 80% of the people I teach habitually slightly dislocate at least one of their hips. While they are young it hardly matters, young hips are juicy and forgiving. They just develop protective muscles which limit range of motion. But if one of these students takes a lot of weight in a slightly dislocated hip they can have pain. As people age the slight dislocation of the hips becomes a bigger and bigger problem.

The key to training is to notice the dislocation, notice that it causes a tiny bit of pain. The pain is usually so small it quickly turns to numbness if you ignore it, but don't ignore it! Understand exactly how and why it occurs. Then stop doing it. And when I mean stop, I mean STOP!

You have to take these sorts of mis-alignment-pain seriously enough to re-teach yourself how to walk, how to run, how to climb stairs, how to get in and out of a car, just about everything.

At one point (years ago) in my standing practice, about 40 minutes into standing still, my foot would start to hurt. I'm talking about, "I want to scream," type of pain. The first 1000 times I felt this pain, I wiggled, and jiggled until it stopped. Finally one day I stuck with it. When I was done standing I didn't shake out, I moved very slowly and carefully through my taiji and bagua and even while doing push hands. It hurt really badly the whole time. At some point I fell into trance and lost the pain.

But I had held onto it long enough to know that it was a problem I was re-creating with the inefficiency of my movement on a daily basis. So for the next week or so I stood until it hurt and I stayed with the pain until I could identify its causes in my daily behavior.

You won't really understand what is hurting and why it is hurting unless you push your body through the difficult parts of training. If you want to transform yourself through martial arts, you've got to hold low stances, do extreme power stretching and high kicks, get bumps, bruises and twists, and slowly and methodically unravel the bad habits and old injuries--pain is part of the whole package.

That being said, don't eat an 800 pound bag of potato chips. If something is hurting and you understand how and why, than stop already. There is nothing wrong with potato chips, as long as you don't eat more than five.

I might add in passing that pains of the heart and mind work the same way; the experience of intimacy is linked to betrayal, and abandoning rigid thinking is linked to cognitive dissonance.

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Note: I got the picture of people doing taijiquan in wheelchairs from United Spinal. Apparently taiji is of benefit for people with MS.

Best Products

Occasionally I do product reviews. Lately I hear people worrying about the "economy," which I think is silly. If the economy slows down, it's like it's doing taijiquan. We notice where we're wasting energy, we discard excess, our appetites readjust and become more refined, we redesign our interactions for the space and things we use everyday-- generally we simplify our lives.

That being said, of course, most of the people reading this blog will not be effected in any significant way by the Economic Tai Chi Effect.

In fact, since I'm getting between 1 and 2 thousand hits a day, by my rough calculations, there are about 20 people reading this blog once a week who make more than 50 million dollars a year. One man's economy, is another man's splurge.

There are a few products I have purchased over the years which out class all the others for their sheer usefulness and contribution to my simple life.

The first is my skateboard, and I make no brand recommendations.

The second, my weapons, which will each get their own reviews at some point.

The third is my programmable rice cooker which has a setting for porridge (jook, congee). I've got a Neuro Fuzzy.

The forth is my Japanese warm spray toilet. I love that thing. I love it so much that when I go camping I now bring a hand held high-pressure squirter. (Saves money on toilet paper too.)

The sprayer I bought was cheap ($72 on Craigslist), but heck, if you're saving money by moving to a smaller home or something, you might consider spending $13,000 on this new toilet by Inax!

The blog where I saw the toilet also has an Auto Healther--massager that would be a welcome addition at most schools. In fact, it would be nice to have one handy to put my Kung Fu students in when they are acting like monsters.

Update: After posting this, my reader numbers suddenly dropped suggesting that perhaps my calculations were wrong.  200 Americans made $50 million last year. That number could be almost doubled if we include the whole English speaking world.  So I was assuming that 1 in 20 were reading my blog, and that is probably too high.  It is probably closer to 1 in 200-- which comes out to 2 very wealthy people.  It would be safer to say that there are 10 people with assets of 50 million or more who practice taijiquan, have an interest in Daoism, and sometimes read my blog.

Jade Maiden

Jade Maiden Works the Shuttles is the name of a taijiquan movement/posture. What does it mean?

The full title is a constellation in the night sky. Like all stars, they are connected metaphorically to fate, in this case we have the image of a maiden weaving the fabric of fate.

A Shuttle is the part of a loom that scoots back and forth as the warp and weft are opened and closed. It is like a card or a stick that you throw. It is wrapped in yarn symbolizing, I believe, infinite time.

So each time you do the form you are weaving another thread in the fabric of time.

But what is a jade maiden?

By definition they resists being defined. Even the gender of a jade maiden can be hard to pin down, they are sometimes called jade lads. By the time I finish explaining this, the meaning may have changed.

A jade maiden is like a muse, because it comes to you bringing inspiration. It is also a type of intermediary. Unlike a Chinese god or a ghost, they no birth.  They can deliver messages back and forth from the gods, even take you to visit other realms. The Queen Mother of the West (Xiguanmu) has and entourage of jade maidens pulled by dragon chariots.

Jade maidens also play the role of intermediaries in the Daoist elixir practice known as jindan. They are simular to dakinis in Tantric Buddhism in that they only show up if you are completely and utterly desireless and free of aggressive intent. However, if you get even a flicker of desire, a dakini will go from being the hottest, most intelligent babe-olla you have ever seen in your life, to being a scary filthy hag with sharpened teeth. Jade maidens, in contrast, simply disappear. (Which tells you something about the difference between Buddhism and Daoism.)
Jade maidens are in one sense the opposite of ghosts. Instead of being lured in by dangerious, violent, chaotic, energy draining or destructive behavior; they are attracted to those people who are pure of heart--people whose living hearts have become like cold dead ashes. They are attracted by non-aggression.

Daoist poets like Li Bai (Lipo) would sit perfectly still in meditation with a brush, ink, and paper for hours waiting for a jade maiden to show up. When they come, they come to tease and test, whisper and giggle. They never stop moving and they dance the most alluring and inspiring dance there is. They are beauty itself. They peer around corners and then suddenly disappear.

They sometimes carry copies of the books which hang from the trees on the moon. These sacred texts known as jing, are true for all time, they can appear in any language in any era. Occasionally a jade maiden will hold one of these books and turn the pages for you as you read. This, of course, can only happen if you are completely open to experiencing things the way they actually are, without preconception or agenda.

(The term jing, so often translated "classic," actually means weft, as in warp and weft! In that sense it is a distant cousin of jin and jing, power and essence, because all of them refer to some underlying structure.)

Is Taijiquan a jing?  Was it originally taught by jade maidens?  If we truly let go, and practice the form without any preconceptions or aggression will a jade maiden show up to dance with us, or whisper instructions in our ear and correct our postures?  Are we the "shuttles" being worked?

Taijiquan's Language of Exorcism

Long time readers know that the relationship of martial arts to exorcistic rituals is a pet topic of mine.

Wayne Hansen who comments at the Formosa Neijia site offered this wonderful linguistic explanation of peng, the most basic and pervasive form of taijiquan power (jin).

Peng is the lid on a quiver.
Imagine a cane laundry basket with the lid just caught in the lip at the top,by pressing the two sides the lid springs open. I am told this is how the Chinese quiver worked. With a press of the back muscles the top, which was covering the feathers from the rain, sprung open.
Peng jin works like that and so the name.

Archery competition now a days is mostly about accuracy at hitting a static target. But great archers had to be able to hit deadly moving targets and hit static targets while galloping on horseback. And perhaps even more importantly, they had to be able shoot arrows in rapid succession-- One arrow per second.

So popping the lid off of your quiver with a little rounding motion would have been a very threatening act. In fact you might translate it into words by saying, "Back off!" The standard translation of peng is "Ward-off."

To explain this difference, I imagine I'm riding along on a mountain path and I sense something threatening. My first instinct is to pop my quiver lid, which would in fact make a "pop" sound if it were water tight. Even if I haven't seen the actual threat, I can prepare myself, and I can let who ever is lurking know that I'm aware of them. This sort of communication could easily be translated as "ward-off."

Hold on because it gets better.

Common exorcist rituals begin with fire-crackers. The purpose? To ward-off ghosts. Ghosts and demons who are strong enough to need an exorcism, don't usually leave when they hear fire-crackers, but their groveling sidekicks and entourages do take to the hills. The fire-crackers are meant to give mediocre ghosts who are just lost a chance to get away. But particularly malicious demons, the ones that feed on chaos, will actually be attracted to explosive sounds in hope that they will find suffering and death.

The next ritual action would be the "offering of spirits." In both Chinese and African traditions this is done by drinking from a bowl of strong alcohol and then suddenly forcing it back through pursed lips to create a spraying effect which turns into a mist. The mist attracts mischievous spirits. Alcohol is spilled on the ground too.
In the beginning of the taijiquan form, peng leads directly into ji. Ji is a small quick burst of force, sometimes described metaphorically as liquid spraying out of the fingers. Ji by itself doesn't do much-- it can be used for a throw only if your attacker has uprooted themselves by first pushing against your peng. (Of course ji directly in the eye would hurt!) I was taught to project ji into the opponents "empty" spots, those places where they are unaware, because it will stir them to attack and thereby make themselves more vulnerable!

The opponent's attack naturally leads into lu, the next move in the taijiquan form. Lu is a gathering and a drawing-in of your opponent (usually translated "rollback"). Lu defuses the attacker's force.

After the "offering of spirits," the next ritual act is the drawing in and capturing of demonic forces. Offending demons are drawn into a pickle jar and then trapped there.

The final movement in the taijiquan beginning sequence is an. An is usually translated "press," or even "press down." It is very much like resting your hands on a rounded pickle jar lid and weighting them so that whatever is inside won't get out!

The final ritual act is called "Applying the Seal." The seal is like a piece of tape that holds the lid on the jar and records the date the spirit was trapped, what type of spirit it is, and when it can be released. (It is considered ritually irresponsible to just leave them there. Some are starved to death, some are transformed in bi-annual rituals, others are freed after "serving time.") Michael also posted in the same thread I linked to above. He quoted the fabulous Louis Swaim:

If the opponent wants to change hands in order to apply Push (an), I then extend and open my right hand, pulling it toward my thorax to the point where the two palms are facing in and diagonally intersect like an oblique cross-shaped sealing tape (fengtiao), preventing the opponent's hands from getting in. It is just like closing the door against a robber. This is why it is called 'like sealing'....The image used of sealing tape refers to fengtiao, which were strips of red paper pasted across parcels, doors, crime scenes etc..., as seals.

All those other uses of "seals" are historically derived from the exorcist's seal.

That ought to liven up your form!

Here is the best site on Chinese Archery

Sharing Cultural Treasures

If your headed to Beijing you may want to check this place out:

Raw or roasted, whole or sliced, tip or base: the penis binge is not meant for Chinese guests as a superficial test of courage, but rather as a serious treatment for the libido. "The sexual act of this Russian dog lasts 48 hours and its mating season is seven months out of the year," is how the colorful, photo-filled menu praises a €16 ($25) penis dish.

For me, it would definitely be a test of courage!

Hat tip: Bookworm.

Tea

Here is a cute article from the NY Times about tea.  They are talking about Pu'er which is a little like drinking warm dirt, except it is a wonderful kind of dirt.  It is definitely an acquired taste.  But people are acquiring it.

Pu'er is actually a different plant then all the other things we call tea, but it has simular effects.

When I have more time I've got some things to say about tea, but not today.  I was totally deep into Chinese tea for about ten years.  Then I just quit because it seemed like I was accumulating too much stuff.

When I went backpacking or mountaineering or rock climbing I would bring all these little cups and a pot or brewing device.  So refined.
Then I discovered instant coffee.  Wow, so cool, so convenient, and what great flavor!

Troubled Kids, Performance, and Society

I have a group of elementary school kids I have been teaching on Fridays after school. I turned down the job three times because I know from experience that kids lose their impulse control on Fridays after school and I didn't want to deal with that. But for some reason, I no longer remember, I said "yes" the fourth time they asked me.

Well, they are some of the most difficult kids to teach. They get in fights, which never happens in my classes. They mess with other peoples stuff. They whine too, about hunger and pain, it is like being stuck in a giant nest with 20 hungry crying baby pterradactyls.

But something happened that made me think.

The school asked me to do a performance; to have the kids perform at a parent night. I said, "sure," and I guess because the other acts were things like "kid poetry," they made my group the headliners. The kids were totally not into rehearsing and I really had almost nothing planned. The night of the performance I had no idea even which kids were going to show up.

But 12 kids did show up and they were really excited. I put them on the stage and just had them do stuff that I had tried to teach them over the last 10 weeks. To my complete surprise, it went well, the audience was cheering and kids were like a dream class: They had presence and focus and they were game for whatever I threw at them. One little girl found her way to the front when I was having them do forms and she did it perfectly with a smile and charisma, and all the other kids were following her like their lives depended on it!

My thought is this: How can we give people who are on the fringe, frustrated misfits, or underworld types ways to be at the center of attention.-- I'm thinking "star status," ranks, roles and positions which give them ritual potency. Rappers and hip-hop celebrities come to mind. This is not about good and bad, it is about establishing order.

Ritualized Violence (short)

All martial arts is ritualized violence.

I don't care whether you are invoking a deity, doing friendly push-hands in the park, or training solo for the UFC.

All competitions, matches, duels, and stagings are ritualized violence. All martial arts forms and improvisations are ritualized violence too.

Even standing still in a martial stance for an hour is ritualized violence.

We are the ones who make these rituals, and we are the ones giving these rituals meaning. They function in some way to make us who and what we are.

Short Posts

I've been teaching a lot, and I've been sleepy from all the pollen in the air.

I'm creeping up on my one year anniversary, my first ever blog post was May 2nd, 2007.

I've also been working on an essay which is up around 20 pages and the publication date is also creeping up. I feel guilty if I blog instead of working on the essay.

Add to that some fantastic books I've been reading which suck brain cells yet leave behind inspiration.

And lastly, this Passover San Francisco stores ran out of Matzos! I had to make my own for the Seder we just had. It was fun, never did that before. Just putting flour and water together is like a miracle.

I've been making my usual lists of blogs to post but they are all long ideas I don't have time to flush out at the moment, so I've decided to post them as mini-thoughts. To be elaborated on at a later date.

Thanks for reading!

Cultural Differences

Here is some funny art about cultural differences that I found posted at Frog in a Well.