What I'm Watching

Here are some videos I've been watching, the first is Chen Style Taijiquan Master Feng Zhiqiang.



The second two are Cheng Style Baguazhang Master Sun Zhijun





Enjoy!

Fighting Skill

So little of my actual life and practice is about fighting; it is absurd to write about it.  Yet, I teach the art of fighting so how can I avoid the absurdity?

The art of fighting is a beautiful thing.  It is art and it is endlessly intriguing.  One of the things I love about it is the absolute necessity of simplicity.  Complexity in fighting is out of the question.  The simplest movement, the plainest idea, the shortest summary--these are all trump cards.

Recently George Xu summarized the highest level of fighting with four words!

Unmovable, Unstoppable, Unreachable, and Unliftable.

Brilliant.

It occurred to me later that these four words could be considered translations of the four primary powers in Taijiquan, peng, ji, lu, and an.

Unmovable is peng,

Unstoppable is ji,

Unreachable is lu,

and Unliftable is an.

I hesitate to say any more about it but how can I resist making fun of "the Unreachable martial artist."  Unreachable means that regardless of whether the situation is wrestling or sparring, the opponent always finds themselves over extended.  Unreachable is not just great yielding, it is the ability to get out of the way--by just a hair every time.

After having thought about these four words for a few weeks they now seem self-explanatory to me.  I could talk about why and how a punch is unstoppable.  Or put another way, why a punch can not be cleared out of the way.  But suddenly we are into details better felt than talked about.

Give these four simple words some time to soak in.  Simplicity is a trump card.

________

Here are some links to articles I've written about peng, ji, lu, an:

Peng,

The Language of Exorcism,

Daoist Shoes, and More,

Push-hands.

Tai Chi - Health Insurance You Can Afford

Catchy title huh?  I listened to California's Insurance Commissioner on the radio for about 3 minutes this morning.  He said California doesn't sell health insurance anymore.  The only products available are pre-paid-medical-treatment packages.  There are 55 state mandated components of anything sold as health insurance, which sort of makes the insurance part of the package fade into the mist.

I'm not big on selling Tai Chi as a cure-all, but if you practice everyday you've done something positive for your health, something which the health insurance companies have yet to calculate the value of.  By practicing everyday you create a standard by which you can measure changes in your experience.  Most people don't pay much attention to their health until it is a problem, and they are convinced that paying attention to health is a waste of time and effort.  But practicing Tai Chi automatically makes you sensitive to small changes in your health.  Of course you can try to ignore them, awareness itself is not a cure, but you are way ahead of the game if you notice small changes in health because the best time to deal with big problems is when they are small.

Something on the order of 2/3rds of all health problems are self-induced by inappropriate conduct.  Those problems disappear when you decide not to "go the extra mile," whatever that mile might be.  For the other 1/3 of problems, most can be wiped off the list by catching them when they are small.  The list of potential health problems got a lot shorter.

The list of things that Tai Chi is supposed to be "good for" will probably grow from time to time, and shrink too.  It's probably like the stock market in that way.  This week "balance" is up, last week "vision" was up, and next week "mental health" may be down.  I can't predict it.  As a "stock" Tai Chi will always be a good long term investment but in the short term it's vulnerable to market fluctuations.

Right now my local weekly paper has an ad selling medical marijuana as a cure for anxiety. Somehow I don't believe that.  Can you say paranoia? I thought you could!

And Newsweek did an article on the uselessness of anti-depressants.  We knew that didn't we?

When I injured my knee a few years back.  I never stopped practicing Tai Chi.  My knee was bad, so swollen I had to keep it elevated as much as possible for months.  I was hopping around on crutches or a cane for weeks.  But the whole time I was still able to do Tai Chi.  It is easier than walking!

Of course that's only true if you have been studying it for years when you have your injury, or accident, or illness.  If you have to learn Tai Chi after you have a problem, that's a whole different can of worms.  It still might be a good idea, but it isn't like having insurance.  Tai Chi Insurance, that is.

I think we are a long way out from having catastrophic insurance specifically for people who practice Tai Chi everyday, but while I'm waiting for it--I think I'll just keep practicing.

Girls Are Doing the Monkey Dance

Dojorat linked to this article and video about girls fighting in school:

Two teenage girls went at it. Two adults allegedly watched and another minor videotaped the whole thing in Louisiana. The fight popped up on YouTube more than a week ago. Days later, in Lowell, Mass., local authorities discovered similar videos online and said local educators report about 80 percent of school fights are now girl against girl.

80% of fights at school are now girl against girl.  Wow.  When I was in school there were girl fights once or twice a year, they were very rare compared to fights between guys.  Fights at school were almost always what Sgt.  Rory Miller calls "Monkey Dance" fights.  That is, fights for status.  Fights at school are always broken up by adults, and are usually witnessed by other students.  From my own experience, Middle-school had small fights everyday, larger fights every couple of weeks.  High-school had one small fight every week, and larger fights every few months.  High-school was safer over all, but the fights, if they happened were more dangerous.  People also got " jumped," which was kind of like being mugged by a group, but it was usually people you knew.  I suspect that
"jumpings" went unreported most of the time.

Anyway, I'm willing to believe all that has changed.  Now 80% of high-school fights are between girls.  If you read the article above you'll see some silly theory about the Internet is causing fights.  I think the reason young women are fighting more is that they are taking on more responsibility and authority.  Specifically they are taking on the types of authority that require spacial dominance, something only men and prostitutes used to do.

Young women in the US who are in high-school today have mothers who "benefited" from Title 9, which mandated that girls have equal access to athletics.  They are second generation athletes.  There is also a new phenomenon of female clowning which seems to be part of the same change.  The clown school in San Francisco has 50% female enrollment.

I've tried raising this issue with friends to see what they make of it, and 4 people so far have quipped some thing like, "I guess guys these days are just wimps."

I'm not recommending this site, but if you want to get a quick sense of what's happening check out Girl Fights Dump.

I think a lot more boys these days have serious martial arts training and I think it has made them safer, wiser, and more skilled at avoiding fights.  I think this is particularly true for those boys who are the most naturally aggressive and competitive.  Many of these boys have also learned that they can gain social status by using their own marital prowess to convince other boys not to fight.

So I have a simple solution to the problem of '80% of high-school fights are between girls.' Teach martial arts in the schools!  If your school or school district is too narrow minded to appreciate the social and intellectual benefits of quality arts training, than of course get your daughters into private martial arts classes.  The sooner the better.

Anyway, let me know what you think of my, 'women are taking on new positions of authority which require spacial dominance' theory.  Or submit your own theory.  It's a brand new wide open field.

Making a Living

This article about how to make a living playing music is a fun read.  Most of what he has to say is applicable to artists in general--including of course, Martial Artists.

Insurance

Last year I went through a big drama trying to get Martial Arts Insurance that would travel with me from site to site.  I wasn't able to find anything reasonably priced that would cover what I needed.

But Idea Fitness looks like it has what I needed, and will soon need again.

If any of my readers have experience with this company or know about anything better, let me know.

Big Kungfu Tournament in San Francisco

San Francisco "Golden Gate Kung Fu Championship"

July 2-4, 2010

Master Tat-Mau Wong and Nick Scrima bring you the "Golden Gate Kung Fu Championship" an official ICMAC 5 Star Rated event.

Over the weekend of July 2-4, 2010, a first rate Chinese martial arts championship will be staged in the beautiful city of San Francisco.

Over 350 divisions will ensure exciting competition in Traditional and Contemporary Wushu-Kung Fu, Taiji, Bagua, Xing Yi, weapons forms, Tui Shou (Push-Hands) and fighting.

We are excited to bring this tournament to what is considered the biggest home to Chinese martial arts outside of China. This is another great opportunity for West Coast competitors to build up their points standing for the Inside Kung-Fu Top Ten Rating and also to qualify for the ICMAC World Championship in the Bahamas in December.

We have secured Marriott Marquis in downtown San Francisco as the official tournament venue. Located in the heart of the city, the hotel is easy to get to from the airport by subway ($8.10 one way is the best transportation rate).

We look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones in what is sure to fast become a premier Chinese martial arts competition.

Coaches, "Fire-up your Team", the 4th of July Weekend is going to bring some real fireworks to San Francisco!

For additional information please contact:

Nick Scrima at: Nick.Scrima@kungfuchampionship.com

Chinese speaking competitors may contact Master Tat-Mau Wong at:

tatwongsf@yahoo.com

Martial Arts and Meditation

Standing still practices are widespread in the Chinese martial arts world.  Most styles have some type of standing still practice, and most qigong is derived in some degree from these practices.  For the sake of explication I'm going to divide stillness practices into two halves-- meditation and power-stretch.  Power-stretch is a group of methods dealing with the transitions from stillness into movement and will be the subject of a future post.

Meditation is only half of the big subject; "stillness practices."  But meditation in the martial arts happens in both movement and stillness.  The most difficult thing for modern people to understand is that meditation training requires no instruction.  It is not something we do with our minds.  Meditation is not a clearing process or a form of mind-body repair.  The martial arts are loaded with many different types of trance which do such things, but meditation is simply not a mental process.

The most common type of meditation in the martial arts is the practice of a form.  In order to practice meditation using a martial arts form one simply does the form.  (This is true regardless of the style, shaolin, taijiquan, baguazhang, or something else.) Do the form without self-correction.  Do the form without any attempt to make improvements.  Do the form without thinking of applications.  Do the form without any agenda or focus, and you will be practicing the most basic and essential form of martial arts meditation.

Standing meditation is essentially the same.  Stand in a posture which makes it easy to be still and discard the idea that stillness has an agenda, a focus or a reason.  Some postures are easier than others, and for this reason having a teacher to correct your posture is very helpful.  But whether you have a teacher or not, basic standing is practiced daily for one hour.  After about 100 days the posture itself should start to reveal effortlessness.

The subject of trance in the martial arts can be divided into three basic categories, all of which are total sensery experiences.  However; for the purpose of explication, each of them can be distinguished by the ways in which they use visualization.

Before I describe them, let me make it clear that I believe one should first practice a form, devoid of planning, agenda, magic, power, or utility.  However, being a realist, I know that it is a rare student who comes to the martial arts without an agenda of fighting, prowess, heroism, health, vanity, or the desire to dominate.  The old masters got around this by insisting on total subordination to the teacher.  In my world I offer limited fulfillment of these "martial wonders" up front-- from day one.  Through developing a personal relationship with my students I can slowly introduce the practice of emptiness and having a "zero" agenda.

In other words, the "zero" of martial arts meditation, and the one, two, and three of "power-healing trance" (see below), have no inherent order.  They can be taught in any order-- in a disheveled go-with-the-flow way.  However, at some point that zero-emptiness meditation practice must be established or the student will not have a dantian for their practice.  The word dantian (literally cinnabar field) refers to a large empty space for doing ritual.  It is most often described as a location in the center of the body; but as metaphors go, we could also describe it as a container, a vacuum, or silence.

The three types of visualization:

1.  Deities.  These are aspects of truth and nature.  Some have biographies, or histories, and some do not.  They are known by a list of their attributes which are then visualized in front of the martial artist, then above one's head and then descending into and merging with the visualizer.

2.  Environment.  One can visualize walking on a lake, in mud, through clouds or on a high mountain ridge.  There is really no limit here.  In baguazhang for example there are visualizations of walking through a tunnel of spiraling fire, or being surrounded by five mountain peaks.  One can also visualize abstractions like the eight trigrams of the yijing (I-Ching) transforming into each other.  Probably the most common thing to visualize is martial applications of fighting techniques.

3.  Visualizing spaces within the body.  For instance a huge palace can be visualized at the throat notch, or two deities sitting on your kidneys.  Spaces can be empty or full, vacuous or active, dark or light.  Spaces can be finite and solid, or infinite and formless.   Basic "dissolving" practices like ice to water, water to steam fall into this category.

The three categories can overlap each other.  A deity can be both inside and outside the body.  The boundary between inner and outer can dissolve.

Next week I'll deal with the power-stretch half of stillness practices...ways of understanding transitions to movement.

New Home?

Lately I've been looking at studio space to rent or buy so that I can teach children's classes in the afternoon and adult classes in the evening.  The dream is to make my business better.  I'd like to have more opportunities for my students.  I'd also like to have a place I can call my own and do what I want with it.  I'm drawn to the idea that building or making a home is a basic human appetite that if left unfulfilled starts to creep up inside us like a giant wolf.

For years now, I've been getting cards and letters from students.  Thousands of thanks.  Most of the time students in the schools where I teach are telling me they want more lessons.  Schools budget a certain amount of money for classes and when it runs out that's it until the next year.  It isn't the way I want it to work but it has worked so far.

Here is one letter from a stack of about 60 I got the other day:

Dear Master Scott,

Thank you for taking the time to teach us kung fu.  I had fun with you.  The exercises were painful.  Thank you.--Sebastian

Obviously this 4th grader has been studying irony.  Here is another one.  This one is a card with a collage of a wolf, some trees and some bushes:

Master Scott,

In the trees, wolves lurk, glaring at their juicy lunch, and then they attack.  So be careful!  And your slim body will move as fast as lightening.  Thanks for sharing that power with my class.  I practice every night.  It is a lot of fun.--Alyssa

This next one has a cute cat drawing, lots of color and flip up tabs, with pictures and messages.  Here is one of the messages:

Thanks, Master Scott!  Before we started Kung Fu, I thought Kung Fu was some lame marshall arts for losers.  Kung Fu is really fun.  I wish you could stay.  Thanks times 1,000,000.--Jenny

And here are a few choice quotes from others:

...We will miss you a lot.  Now that you taught me Kung Fu I can flip my Dad.  Thanks again...

...I had a very good time going to your kung fu class.  You taught me how to break a wrist and a bunch of fingers.  You were the best teacher ever...

...My favorite part was when you brought the sword.  It was cool when you did the "5 Tiger Sword."  I though you were going to slice my head off.  Thank you for being so committed and devoted...

Kung Fu Rocks!!!

So if you live around San Francisco and you want to help me look for a dojo I'm looking for at least 1600 square feet with high ceilings.  At the moment there are spaces renting at $1 a foot.  A mixed commercial/dwelling arrangement in the 2500-3500 square foot range would be great too, so would a neighboorhood on the West side of town with parking.  An existing space that is willing to rent out two or three evenings a week and three to five afternoons a week could work too.

Spectacle and Sacrifice

"Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China"

a new book by David Johnson, Professor, History Department, UC Berkeley

DATE: Wednesday, January 27, 2010
TIME: 4:00 PM
PLACE: IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor, Berkeley, CA
FORMAT: IEAS Book Series: New Perspectives on Asia
SPONSORS: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies

"In the ritual world of a group of rural settlements in Shanxi province in pre-1949 North China, temple festivals, with their giant processions, elaborate rituals, and operas, were the most important influence on the symbolic universe of ordinary villagers and demonstrate their remarkable capacity for religious and artistic creation. UC Berkeley History Professor David Johnson's new book describes the great festivals as their supreme collective achievements, carried out virtually without assistance from local officials or educated elites, clerical or lay.

Chinese culture was a performance culture, and ritual was the highest form of performance. Village ritual life everywhere in pre-revolutionary China was complex, conservative, and extraordinarily diverse. Festivals and their associated rituals and operas provided the emotional and intellectual materials out of which ordinary people constructed their ideas about the world of men and the realm of the gods. It is, David Johnson argues, impossible to form an adequate idea of traditional Chinese society without a thorough understanding of village ritual. Newly discovered liturgical manuscripts allow him to reconstruct North Chinese temple festivals in unprecedented detail and prove that they are sharply different from the Daoist- and Buddhist-based communal rituals of South China.

Introduced and moderated by Wen-hsin Yeh, Richard H. and Laurie C. Morrison Professor of History, and Director, Institute of East Asian Studies."

--I'm going to go hear this talk tomorrow, I haven't seen the book yet but it looks interesting. Join me if you've got the time and you're in the area.