Elbows

I've started a new anti-practice.  Often times practice is not enough to transform our bodies, we actually have to stop doing something.  In this case, I'm trying to achieve George Xu's elusive, "shoulders like soybean milk."  I decided that leaning on my elbows creates tension which I release when I practice, but if I go and lean on my elbows again after practice the tension comes back.  The habit is pervasive but breakable.  I've identified 4 situations in which I have committed to changing my behavior.

1. When I'm sitting in a chair with arms.


2. When I'm on the commode.


3. When I'm reading while laying down on my side.


4. When I'm sitting at a table.

There is a 5th situation which is potentially problematic, sleeping on my side.  When I sleep on my side my shoulders pop around in their sockets.  If I succeed in changing  the basic 4, I may be faced with the more difficult task of changing my sleeping habits.  I've been working on this anti-practice for about a month now, and the preliminary results are promising.

Ice Water Steam

Internal martial arts, qigong and meditation often use the metaphor of water to explain what they are doing.  Water is one of the primary metaphors used in the Daodejing to describe the principle of wuwei ("Like water it does nothing, yet leaves nothing unnourished.")

A simple way to know if your standing meditation posture is correct is that all the tension in your body (ice) melts (water) and pours down and out your legs.  It is then possible to experience ten directions breathing (steam) expanding and condensing in all directions from the dantian.

In the Internal Martial Arts, taijiquan, baguazhang, and xingyiquan, there is a basic sequence which allows for natural, uninhibited freedom to reemerge.  There is no inherent order to this sequence.  It can all be learned simultaneously; however, it makes some sense to conceptualize the stages:

1. Ice Man: Jin, and jing-- the revealing of our most efficient underlying structure.  This stage is characterized by unbroken power.  Continuous expression of uprightness, twisting, wrapping, whole body power, and opening and closing the joints is achieved.   While muscle tension, over extension, limpness, and collapsing, are all discarded.


2. Water Man: The fluid aspect of the body is emphasized to the point of discarding impulse control or defensiveness.  This stage is not very effective for fighting, it is more defensive in the limited sense that your attacker finds nothing solid to push or hit.  In a push hands match the opponent may lose to a "water man" only if he/she makes a mistake, like leaning or exerting a lot of effort against something that isn't there.  Heaviness is achieved.


3. Steam Man:  It might be better to call this one "air man" or "mist man" because "Steam" implies hot or under a lot of pressure, which is not the case.  In this stage the mind discards its focus on the body in the sense that movement becomes effortless.  All movement becomes unified and multi-directional.  Attacks become unstoppable.  Lightness is achieved.

The Funny Cat

There is a funny post over at Tabby Cat (hat tip to Chris).

He seems to have not noticed that I am the greatest martial arts blogger ever, perhaps he just forgot. But then he goes too far. He disrespects the Daodejing.

MIGHT is defined as machines guns and so on. So I know perfectly well that the spirit expressed in the Dao De Jing below is total nonsense:

Nothing in the world is softer than water,

Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong.

This is because nothing can alter it.

That the soft overcomes the hard

And the gentle overcomes the aggressive

Is something that everybody knows

But none can do themselves.

Yet... yet... yet. I can't help myself. That's my only real interest in martial arts.

He is quoting half of chapter 78, which threw me off for a second because it reads like a bad translation of chapter 43:

The most yielding thing in the world

Can overcome the most resistant thing in the world.

That which has no form can enter

Where there is no space.

This is how I know the Dao of wuwei.

The teaching with no words

And the Dao of wuwei

Are beyond common understanding.

I'm here to say I've met the most yielding thing in the world, and she is hot. As for chapter 78 above, here is a comment from Li Hung-Fu (10th century) that I think sums it up:

"The soft and the weak do not expect to overcome the hard and the strong. They simply do."

(Translation by Red Pine).

And by the way, while it is true that "might makes right;" it is also true that machine guns confronted with water tend to rust.

Donations

OK there it is.  I've added a donations button.  A few people have requested ways to make donations so I'm happily complying.  I would like to have a separate page for books and t-shirts someday too.

On a completely different tack, a nurse friend was talking to me about cracking joints.  She said she was dubious of the chiropractors' view that a popping or cracking joint is gas suddenly escaping, "What do they think we are anyway?  Bubble wrap?"

Unhabitual

Here is a nice little essay by T.Y. Pang on being natural, hat tip to Dojo Rat:

It is a common experience for people who are first beginning to practice Tai Chi Chuan to feel that the movements they are trying to make are unnatural.  As a matter of fact, what they mean by unnatural is actually unhabitual.

Jitong (Trance Medium)

Here is an interesting article a student just sent me from the International Herald Tribune:

Most often, Chang is possessed by Ji Gong, a maverick Buddhist monk who lived in China in the 12th century, and loved his meat and liquor. Thus the cans of beer as offerings on the altar and Chang's occasional hiccups and slurred speech as she channeled the tipsy monk.

Wrestling with Finesse

A lot of people out there in the ether are saying that real martial arts must include ground fighting and must practice throwing techniques all the way to the ground.  This new critic has come about because of Mixed Martial Arts and the dominance of Brazilian Jujitsu in that market.

In a way this is just a continuation of the, "Everything must be tested in a real situation" critic.  The problem is, we don't know what's real for us until it happens.  And as they say in military circles, we are always fighting the current fight the way we wish we had fought the last one.

If I were stupid enough to say I don't like testing I'd have a whole bunch of people writing me nasty notes.  I think every single thing you practice should have some sort of testing but I'm not that into free fighting as a test.  Every form of limited fighting, push-hands, rosho, sparring, judo, shuijiao, grappling games, wrestling--they all have draw backs.  Each method, if seen as a testing ground, has elements taken out.  If they didn't, serious injury or death would be the result of every bout.

I'm conflicted about the best way to teach, not because I'm uncertain about what is the best training for myself, but because my early experiences with fighting are hard to recreate and I don't think my students would be game for them at this point in their lives.  (Still, if I had a dojo with mats I would use them, because that's just fun.)

Early History

As a kid I never missed an opportunity to wrestle.  Never.  I loved it, I breathed it.  My earliest memories are of wrestling.

My father wrestled in high school.  He challenged me to one final match when I was 13, because he said he didn't ever want to lose to me, and he nearly did lose that one.  I wrestled every kid in my neighborhood, big or small, even the ones who like to bite.

Because I didn't wrestle a lot after about the age of 12, my wrestling skill is intuitive, not very technical.  The thing about wrestling is that certain body types have an advantage.  Thick, wide, guys with big bones are often able to beat me if they are 15lbs heavier.  Technical skill can help in wrestling but it's no substitute for body type and weight.

In my twenties I had a friend named Neil I used to wrestle with.  He had that Scotish thick body type.  He was a foot shorter than me and 30lbs heavier, without fat.  He was also an Oregon State champ, and he won a gold medal in the Gay Olympics (This was before they got sued by the International Olympic Commitee, it's now called the Gay Games.  He actual gave his metal back in protest and made a speech about how they should include transsexuals.)  Anyway he kicked my ass every time.  But he never seemed to get injured and I too often did.  My lean, small-boned body just isn't made for that kind of thing.

The rules of wrestling are pretty strict.  For wrestling to be "real" it would look more like "dirty" wrestling or even "rough and tumble."  My elbow strike really hurts, and I know where to pinch to make it really hurt, but still, a ground fighting battle to the death with a bigger opponent is a tough thing to win.

I also loved tripping games as a kid.  Loved them.  I was the conscience-free terror of the second grade school yard.  When I started training Chinese martial arts, I already had great confidence in my ability to take someone to the ground.  But after about age 7 the risk of injury starts going up fast (and I developed a conscience).

In middle school I learned something about avoiding fights.  My best friend's cousin was the leader of a gang.  The two of them taught me something about how to not trigger a fight with a predator.  How to seem dangerious without being directly threatening.  It took some years to get good at.  I got close to older, tougher gang members in high school too, so by 17 I felt comfortable unraveling the meanest looking guys using my eyes, movement and wit (without any sense that I could actually beat them).

I taught myself how to fall.  When I was a junior in high school I had a daily lunch time ritual.  I would go down to the field and eat my lunch quickly.  Then I would run full speed and practice dive rolls, over and over.  At the end I would be covered in grass stains and sometimes a bit of mud, but it didn't matter because my afternoon class was ceramics (I was in the School of the Arts).

All of this training makes me conflicted about teaching.  Honestly, if you were a kid who hardly ever wrestled, I can teach you a bunch of chin-na, joint locks and even submission holds, but you are never going to have confidence unless you wrestle roughly with a lot of different people.  Same goes for take downs.  Technique is not as important as finesse, and finesse comes from rough play.

I'm focused on teaching the aspects of Martial Arts that I find most exciting, and which can be practiced everyday without injury.  Should I be trying to provide a place for students to get that basic experience that I picked up naturally just by being a wild and crazy guy?

Impulse Control

This is such a good title, I wish I had content that would live up to its promise. Still, I couldn't resist.

My simple offering is that we need impulse control to be successful, but we also need spontaneity. Teachers and students alike can find themselves mourning a loss of wildness, begrudgingly exchanged for the ability to focus, concentrate and persist.

Martial arts are often rightly credited with the ability to instill discipline in the unruly youth-- to curb desires and focus passions-- to turn libertines into responsible citizens.

I myself have often been sited for my patience and my self-disciplined example. Yet, I'm prone to identifying with the indolent prince, the artful dodger, and the easy life.

Daoism, despite its intricacies and difficult methods, has been called an apophatic tradition. Which means it teaches by unteaching, it reveals by showing what is not so, rather than what is so.

So, with Taijiquan (and other internal arts) it is said that all movement initiates from the dantian (the belly region?). To actual do this requires extraordinary impulse control. Why? Because impulses are how we initiate movement. Any impulse which originates in another part of the body will impede the one true impulse from the dantian.

One might even say that tension itself is a rouge impulse stuck in the "on" position. This is usually stated in the positive: "relax," "let go," "melt." But the actual "doing" is "not doing." This "not doing" takes years to undevelop, and comes with a simple guarantee; you can only get as much as you are willing to give up.

In the end all good teachers transmit the idea that the worthwhile result of impulse control is freedom itself.

So people sometimes ask me, "What does qi feel like?" It can be understood as an anti-feeling, a sensation of constant, unbroken, impulse control.

Is 70% Enough?

The following is another essay by a student in my Taijiquan class at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, enjoy:



One concept in particular that I initially had trouble with was the idea of doing at 70%. Instead of using my full range of motion, use around 70% of my range, or less if injured. I also initially had some difficulty with the idea of emphasizing the middle not the ends. I was raised from a very young age on the concept of doing everything at 100% or not doing it at all; in essence do or don’t do. Because of this I have always lived my life according to this philosophy. When I do something I do it to my best ability, give it all I have, or I do not do it at all.

At first this concept of 70% and emphasize the middle not the ends seemed wrong, lazy, half assed, and noncommittal. But, I also decided to have an open mind and try to look at things from a different perspective. After allowing myself to consider that my preconceived perception of how to do things may not be the only way of doing things, I discovered that only going at 70% and emphasizing the middle not the ends was NOT weak, lazy, half assed, etc. but was in fact in its own way a strong, active, committed way of approaching something.

While I have opened up to the idea and see it in a much different and positive light, at times it can still be quite a challenge. The areas in which I noticed it the most was in paired exercises especially when I was following my partner. I had a very hard time following. I always wanted to lead, be in charge, be aggressive, attack or defend at maximum strength. In so doing I found it very hard to perform the exercise. For example, in push hands, I hard a very hard time reacting and following my partner because I was so aggressive, hard, rigid, unforgiving. I had a very hard time staying stuck to my partner because I was rigid not soft. It was only in softness and by not trying so hard that I could even get close to sticking to my partner.

In addition I also found learning and practicing the form to be much easier when I was not trying to be perfect from the get go. At first the idea that it did not need to be perfect and that you did not even want it to be perfect was very uncomfortable and disturbing. However, now I understand and to certain extend even enjoy the idea that it does not have to be precise or perfect or performed with everything I have to my maximum ability. Once I let go of the perfectionist ideology I found the form even more enjoyable and beneficial

In what to me seems a related issue, I never knew and would never have guessed that Taijiquan is a form of martial art. I had always thought of it as some kind of Taoist meditative exercise routine to promote good health and long life. I would never in a million years have thought that it had any martial aspects or applications. Again I saw it as weak, passive, non-aggressive and associated that with weakness, passivity, non-aggression, and allowing oneself to be pushed around. I could not have been more wrong. I now can at least see how weakness, reacting, following, etc. can be a in its own way very strong.

While I have allowed myself to see the world in a different light, I still have a long way to go. I look forward to continuing my Taijiquan practice and further pursuing this new way of thinking.
To me it seemed that you demonstrated many different aspects of Taijiquan, giving us an idea about the many aspects of the subject. Obviously, in 11 weeks or 22 hours of class time, there is no way we can become Taijiquan masters. While at times you definitely challenged my preconceived notions, I think that was in actuality the best aspect of the class – trying to get us to see things in a different light, from a different perspective, to be a little uncomfortable.

One example that comes to mind was when in class we performed the form very slowly. In one aspect I enjoyed doing the form very slowly but it also was very difficult. In doing it slowly I came to realize that I have a very strong issue with double weighting. I do not like at all having all my weight on one foot or the other. For some reason I perceive this as a weakness. During our class discussion on the topic of double weighting, you clearly demonstrated that in all actuality, the weakness is being double weighted. Having discovered this concept I now have something to explore further. After having experienced both sides I believe that less emphasis on double weighting in a number of aspects of my life will have a profound improvement for me. In conclusion, thank you for a different, challenging, and eye opening experience.