Auto-Blogging

While I was out exploring the Mt. Lassen area for a couple of weeks, my blog was posting all by itself.  So if you commented or sent me an email during the last three weeks, I have finally responded to all of them.

Thanks for all of the great comments.

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.

Golf

I've never played golf but I've heard from some of my private students that one of the secrets to a good swing is keeping your feet completely still and relaxed.

Break a Leg, means Break a Leg

Before a performance I told a group of my 3rd and 4th graders to "Break a Leg." One of the students said to the others, "He means good luck." I said, "No, Break a Leg means Break a Leg."

The expression comes from the 2000 year old Indian text known as the Natya Shastra, also sometimes called the fifth Veda. I have a copy on my shelf. It's pretty cool, they talk about how auspicious it is if the performers on the stage get so rowdy and out of control that someone breaks a leg.

Update:

In response to the comments.

My copy of the Nâtyašâstra was translated into English by Dr. Adya Rangacharya, and published by IBH Prakashaha, in Gandhinagar, Bangalore, 1986.

It has been a while since I've read it cover to cover, I believe there is more than one reference that would be relevant to the martial artist/performer, but here is the quote I was thinking about:

Illumination of the stage (lines 90-93)

Holding the lighted torch one should run about the stage roaring, and cracking the joints of fingers, turning round and round, making loud noises and thus, illuminating the entire stage, should come to center of the stage.  Battle scenes must be enacted to the resounding accompaniment of conch, drum, Mrdanga, and Panava etc.  If in the course of that, things are broken or are cut or torn, with blood showing on the wounds, then it is a good omen indicating success.

A stage properly consecrated will bring good luck to the king and to the young and old of the town and country.

--Natyashastra, "Worship of the Stage and of the Gods (chapter 3)."

Ritual Blogging

Religious Daoism recognizes ritual as a something essentially human.

Earlier this year I sat next to a Nigerian named Obi while traveling by plane. We were discussion ritual and commitment. He invoked the metaphor of expectation being a piece of yarn. When you think of it as an infinite piece of yarn, expectation is less of a burden.

He objected to my use of the word commitment because he said commitment is work, effort. And he is right, not all of our commitments require work, in fact most commitments probably come to us quite easily.

Daoists created book length lists of all the various types of entities one could make a covenant with. They viewed the ability to make commitments as part of the definition of humanness. A covenant is a type of commitment.

Ritual is time. I think I read something like that in Lagerwey.

All human conduct can be viewed as ritual. This leads to a social thought perspective because it recognizes the non-spontainious, gigantic group action of millions of people bathing or drinking coffee, or practicing gongfu. Describing human conduct as ritual exposes that all types of action can be divided into smaller units of action, or time (perhaps measured by ritual itself), and linked to other simular actions by other people.

Obi is really optimistic. He said that his optimism comes his world view.

I ask the question: which is the more important enlightenment institution, the coffee shop or the University? And why? The accumulation of knowlede verses It’s free exchange. The predictable environment verses the spontainious one.
I use the term coffee shop in its historical sense, the current institution where ideas are exchanged freely and spontaneously is the internet.

Creativity (Not going with the Flow)

A few years ago I tried to teach a regular class out of a multi-purpose performance space. The place was not well managed, a few people lived in the adjacent spaces, and people kept interrupting my class, sometimes insisting they needed to cross through the middle of the room.
One day I got really pissed-off. I left my students, and went to chew out a bunch of "ravers" who had taken up relaxed poses on an outdoor sofa after having interrupted my class more than once. I don't remember what I said, but it must have been fairly direct, loud, and aggressive. The last thing the guy ever said, to me, was, "Hey maaaan, I thought Tai Chi was all about going with the flow!"

"Only dead fish go with the flow."

On the subject of where to train, check out this blog.  While you're there, check out the kind things Daniel has to say about his trip to San Francisco in the recent posts section.

The above quote comes from a book by a friend of mine who teaches improvisation. Check it out!

Trusting the Circle

One of the first obstacles a push-hands student has to overcome is the tendency to either pincer or be "against the wall."

To pincer means to bring your forearms towards each other in an attempt to squeeze off your opponent's forward attack.  A pincer motion will compress the shoulders  creating a rigid defense.

To be "against the wall" is the opposite of pincering.  It means to pull your arms away from each other as if you were falling back against a wall and you wanted to cushion yourself by having your completely spread arms hit the wall first, palms to the front.

Pincering and "against the wall" are impulses, they don't need to taken to their complete expression-- the smallest hint of either is a mistake.

Instead of these two, we learn to make a circle with our arms.  If my opponent attacks from the outside of my circle, I make it bigger.  My arms don't have to be touching each other but the arc of each arm should be on the same circle as the other arm (they should feel connected).  The most common defect here would be to push up against the attack instead of just making the circle bigger.  (This defect will force a reversal from your opponent.)

If my opponent attacks form the inside of my circle, I make the circle smaller.  The two arcs of your arms can overlap.  The most common defect with this one is pushing downward, (which will also cause a reversal).

Once the technique is mastered the opponent attacks with one arm inside the circle and one arm outside the circle.  So that you have to create two circles (arcs or partial rings really).  Then you add turning in the kua (hip region).

Once these techniques have been internalized, it becomes much easier to trust the circle.  An attack in which you can feel your opponent's jin or power, can be stopped by keeping and changing the circle.

Push Hands: Small Circle, Big Circle

Small Circle push-hands is a rules set which can have moving feet, but really ought to be learned with fixed feet first.  Small circle push-hands allows no grabbing, slapping or striking.  You can only do peng, ji, lu, and an.  The reason it is called small circle is because you are trying to develop peng, ji, lu, and an (ward off, push/poke, draw inward, cover/contain) in a continuous circle, no breaks, no moments of intermittent force.  Small circle push-hands can be completely improvised or it can follow a set sequence.
Once you have established small circle push-hands there are lots of subtler games that can be played from it.

Big Circle push-hands gets it's name because to play it one must break the small circle.  The rule set allows for grabbing (chin na), plucking (zai), elbow strikes, throws, and traps (zhou), forward strikes with the shoulder (kao), and two directional attacks to the opponent's frame which can be light swipes, slaps or sudden jolts(lieh).

Most people learn both big circle and small circle at the same time.  I think that is a mistake, the two rule sets should be clearly differentiated.   The question remains, which is better to learn first?

Small Circle push-hands is the heart of the game, but to deal with an aggressor you must know Big Circle push-hands cold.

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!"