Chocolate (2008)

We were told that the new film Chocolate would be released in February, it never showed up.  It looks like San Francisco is now a second rate film release city.  I think it got a two day release in Cupertino.  Or perhaps it just went straight to DVD.

So anyway we rented it this weekend.  They stole my idea!  I said that great martial artists probably have a subtle form of Asperger's syndrome.  Well the guys in Thailand who made OngBak have made a Kung Fu movie about a girl with Asperger's syndrome who can kick, kick-it-i-kick some serious booty.  She starts out fighting all the guys at the ice factory, think ice claws, picks, and saws.  Then she takes out all the guys at the giant Bangkok butcher shop, think cleavers, hooks, bare chests.  And I think you get the idea.  There are some yakuza moments and even an Asperger's capoeirista (I think) in one scene.

My g-friend/0.5wife cried at one point, so I'm not giving this up as a date movie, but we both liked it and there are some truly great kung fu routines.

The name is autistic.  It has nothing to do with the film.  It should have been called "Fists of Asperger's," or "I Kick 'o yo' Asperger's."

George Xu Video's

Susan Matthews, one of George Xu's long time students who lives in Durango Colorado, has posted a lot of videos on Youtube.  Some of them are rather old, and I haven't had time to watch them all but it looks like there is some good stuff here.  Check it out.
The first minute of this one must be more than 15 years old, it brought me back to the way we used to practice in the early 1990's. Some of the newer ones show George's amazing internal power.

Uniform Density

George Xu gave me a great correction this weekend.

Level one:  The whole body should be experienced as having uniform density.

Level two:  The body and the surrounding environment should be experienced as having uniform density.

Of course this is training for what we often refer to as "mind," but in this context it is somewhat absurd to call it mind since it is equally an experience of "body."

I had already done this practice, I just hadn't tried to put it together with my fighting skills.  The basic invocation of the deity Ziwei used in Orthodox Daoist ritual and jindan (internal alchemy) includes the description, "His skin is onyx-black like the night sky."

More Rain, More Books, More Ideas

My computer has been having a crash fest lately and that's a good thing because it put my nose into some great books I'll be blogging about over the next month.

Class was canceled this morning.  We were caught in a down pour even though Yahoo Weather was predicting 1% chance of rain.  We finished standing and did push hands under the trees for a little bit anyway.

This weekend I saw George Xu, also in the rain, and he delivered a few printable topics.

The 5 Types of Training Predators Do:

1. Power stretch


2. Standing still with the mind outside the body


3. Slow movement


4. Fast movement


5. Shaking

Power stretch means stretching from the inside out.  Standing with the mind out side the body means the mind is on the prey and the surrounding environment.  Slow movement includes stalking, shrinking and expanding, six dimensions power, etc.... Fast movement must be unconscious of the physical body.  And shaking is used to insure that the prey can not fight back once it has been seized.

25 Years of the Blind Leading the Blind

I just taught a workshop at the Lighthouse Center for the Blind.  Here is their blog.  It was fun.  The workshop was a two hour introduction to push-hands (tuishou).  Most of the students really couldn't see me or each other.  The title of this post is what is written on the outside of the building.

Most of my teaching methods had to be modified a little in order to work for blind people, it was a fun challenge.  Because I was teaching in their space they knew where the walls were and that chairs were stacked against the walls, which we picked up at one point and used as props and they put away with out any bumping.  But they often didn't know how close or far away they were from each other and  I would have to say, "everyone put your right foot forward," instead of, "put opposite feet forward,"  because they didn't know what their partner was doing.

We did a lot of touching, feeling, and pushing.  As students go, they were fairly aggressive, which I appreciate.  They seemed to get a kick out of my demonstration of school yard fighting styles and the similarity to Taijiquan principles.  The most difficult thing was that I am totally addicted to reading students facial expressions, not to mention relying on student's to read my face for clues when I'm joking.  Blind people don't make a lot of facial expressions even when they are aggressively struggling at push hands like two elk competing for a mate.

The next time I teach at the Lighthouse (probably in April) it will be a class open to anyone.  So if you are one of my private students who complains that you always lose against me, well, here is your chance test your mad skills!

I Don't Like to Get Hurt

The other day while I was teaching a wonderful class of 6 and 7 year olds, a student raised her hand and said, "I don't like to get hurt."  Her statement arose because I had just been teaching them a two-person, hook-punch, flow drill which works best if your partner aims directly at your temple.

I asked for the hands of students who like to get hurt, 4 in 20 raised their hands.  Human nature on display.  This perhaps led to some cognitive dissonance between the skills I was helping them to acquire and the general anti-violence dogma being taught at school.  Another student raised his hand and asked, "So what exactly do you use martial arts for?"

I answered them by saying, "You know how cats like to catch mice?"  They nodded.  "And some cats like to play with mice?"  They nodded again.  "Well, I'm the kind of cat that likes to play with mice.  But I'm not really interested in eating them."

All of this caused me to reflect afterward that since the 1970's many schools have tried to raise "cats" who neither catch, nor play with, mice.  Since this goes against human nature, we are finally seeing a recognition of how such attitudes lead to students hating and therefore failing school.  Particularly for boys.  There is a new book called The Trouble with Boys, and even better a website, Why Boys Fail.com.  And I'm a big fan of Marty Nemko's, Men's Issues.

If my popularity as a kung fu teacher is any indicator of how things are going, then things are changing for the better.  When I first started teaching in the schools 15 years ago  I ran into teachers and principals who were downright paranoid.  They feared having me in their school was going to result in bloody riots on the school yard.  These days demand for my classes is coming from all directions, PTA, principles, teachers, and of course the students themselves. (The election of action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger governor of Cal-ee-fornia hasn't hurt my cause either!)

One of the back-bones of Daoism is the notion that our true nature is without limits.  Some cats are more transcendent than others, they are more interested in exploring all the different things which can be done with a mouse than they are in actually eating one.  And some cats are more masters of simplicity.  When they see a mouse, they eat it.  When they see sun, they sleep in it.  They appear to be practicing a non-transcendent form of wuwei (not doing).  And some cats are so afraid of mice and other cats and vacuum cleaners that they are constantly on the prowl, like Shaman of old, for some advantage which will enable them to dominate.

Daoism has teachings for all three types of cats.  Observing external behavior is the basis for our three general categories of commitments humans make:  Transcendence, Wuwei, and Shamanic.  But the process of categorizing brings with it two types of baggage that beg to be acknowledged.  The first is that we simply can not tell from looking, listening or analyzing, which type of commitment another person (or cat) is making.  We can guess, and we can think we know--they can even tell us--but it is impossible to truly get inside someone else's head.  The second is that it is our nature to move between these different types of commitments.  For instance if you practice meditation you will find that you are:

1. Worried that you aren't doing it right (Shamanic)


2. Trying to perfect yourself (Transcendent)


3. Was there a third? (Wuwei)