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The study of Crane boxing and its wide diversity has become a speciality of Taiwan martial artists. One of our top publishers, Lion Books of Taiwan, has been particularly proactive sponsoring demonstrations, lectures and symposia. For the enthusiast, especially the Crane scholar, here is a new survey with a book and four DVDs all in one package. There are in depth discussions, in Chinese, of the style and its ramifications, some demonstrations before an audience, and a book of essays on focused topics such as anatomy, methods of performing and so on…

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Tong Bei (or Tong Bi) is a big style in China and lately it’s been getting a lot of attention. Some people, such as Wang Pei Sheng, considered it eligible for inclusion in that exclusive club, the Internal Styles. Why those who’ve been exposed to Tong Bei like it is easy to understand. It’s a beautiful style combining PiGua and many other fists. Though a classical style it was completely renovated in the 20th century and has emerged with an amalgamation of practical techniques and attractive movements. There are a lot of branches of Tong Bei each with its own flavor. These include White Ape (one of the oldest forms), Chi Family, Five Element, Hong Dong and more. There’s even a Praying Mantis Tong Bei.

I particularly like the Chi Family and the Five Element Tong Bei with their dynamic and practical faces. Chi Family is extensive, with weapons sets and a lot of emphasis on groups of basic skills termed “roads”. Not only do they have roads practice for empty hand but also for weapons. Chi style movements are agile and powerful combining big sweeps with very snappy little jabs.  Where Chi appears to have faster hand combinations,  Five Elements goes in for a bit more forceful engagement with bumping and crowding added. White Ape seems to have the taste of Long Arm with a lot of folding and elbow work. Hong Dong TB likes weapons and has some more exotic forms. Anyway there’s a lot of Tong Bei out there. The overall quality, considering the many branches, is pretty high. Worth a look and your time.

Got a style that you think is interesting, exceptional or just a little weird? Write up some comments and share them with your fellow plumsters.

Among the topics I investigated was the subject of mastery which proved to be bigger and even more interesting than I had anticipated. Many observations came to  mind, ideas I’ve never thought  or read about before. They went into the book.

But my brain can’t stop thinking.

One idea which I did not write about and is not new—but is important for CMA practitioners—follows  a quote often attributed to Henry Ford, “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” At first glance this sounds like the “positive thinking” stuff that always states you can be whatever you want to be. Of course this isn’t quite true. You can’t be anything you want to be; after all, American Idol has mostly runners up.

There are times, though, and subjects, too, in which believing you can do well changes drastically the possibility of that occurring. One of these special exceptions is Kung Fu. Your own belief that you can really achieve mastery in  Kung Fu means you probably can. This suggestion, that an average talented person can reach a level of mastery may seem far-fetched. And I don’t mean the strutting, over-ranked “commercial” belt wearers I see too often now. I mean a true mastery with some depth to it. How is this possible? you ask, and add that you are not even Chinese. Especially considering that Kung Fu is one of the most sophisticated martial arts in the world and, you throw in, you’re a lover not a fighter.

Let me explain it to you, it will only take a minute. And don’t’ think this is bait and switch or some sort of joke, it isn’t.

The first secret is concentration. In former days each form was considered a complete composition, not just another step toward rankhood. If you read the resumes of some great masters you would see that despite being considered major figures they often knew very few forms. Even more astonishing, they treated their knowledge with respect. Old records say things like “Meng studied Lien Bu Quan (LBQ) under Pai”. Nowadays most people think of LBQ as a beginning form to prep you for later forms but as any martial artist knows, even a beginning form can contain a pretty big batch of knowledge. It is often said in these same records that Meng studied LBQ from Pai for more than three years. A single form for three years, and not  just mindless repetitions, which implies an in-depth study. The question that interested students should ask is, “Does LBQ have three years worth of information in it?” The answer is yes, with the right instructor who uses it as a springboard for advanced information.

The second secret is knowledge base.  Unlike many other styles of martial arts, a Kung Fu student should understand that there is no need to duplicate the teacher’s entire knowledge base. You are you. The teacher has to be able to teach anyone. Take an example from the art of Monkey Boxing. Monkey style has five key forms: Stone Monkey, Wooden Monkey, Drunken Monkey, etc. The student’s body and personality dictate which branch of monkey he learns. The same is true of other styles. A Five Animals style teacher once told me that he would teach me snake… and maybe tiger. Two sets is the maximum. Only teachers are required to learn all five and, odds are, they don’t practice them equally.

The final secret is curriculum. Kung Fu has a very different curriculum than most martial arts. I touched on that in the last paragraph but should say more. In Kenpo, the 22 sets and the 250+ techniques are a requirement. In other words, each black belt knows what every other black belt knows at least to a comparable rank. That’s not necessarily true between schools but it is inside a school.

But Kung Fu is much more reliant on independent study. You could, for instance, learn LBQ then take two years to learn Wild Goose Qigong, then add Xing Yi and, voila, you have your own special field like a postgraduate. In this case you “mix” your martial arts but, wisely, and you don’t have to name the mixture because it comes from your natural growth as an individual. After all you could not  help yourself from creating a mixed style even if you tried to be the perfect clone of your teacher. It’s never worked in the last 4000 years and it won’t work now. Not to worry one way or the other.

Taking another approach: you might stick with what you’ve learned in your first system, and go off to really perfect it. After a few years you have practiced your lot of information more than your teacher ever did because he has to  maintain a host of forms, special exercises and teaching methods where you can concentrate on just a few. You add you own personal observations and discoveries. You find short cuts no one else has even conceived. In this example your marriage with the style creates a unique fusion. This approach reflects some Daoist ideas about naturalness of inherent knowledge.  You may find that while rewarding you with mastery, this method might not offer fame or universal recognition. Your mastery may be of a type few but you understand. Neither of these two approaches negate the fact that mastery is within the grasp of those people who want it.

Here’s the story that goes with all this:
An enthusiastic student is taught an important form by his teacher. However, circumstances dictate that the student must go to live with his uncle in another town. He promises to return every quarter to check in with his teacher.

The first time he returns and, after preliminaries, the teacher asks about the Big Form. Before moving, the student hangs his head and says, “Teacher, I am an idiot. I have mixed up and forgotten a lot of the form, maybe a third.”“Let’s see it,” is all the teacher says. After the performance the student looks at the teacher anxiously hoping for corrective instruction. Stone-faced, the teacher says, “Just keep practicing. Practice more.”“But teacher, I don’t want to …” The teacher raises his hand and the student leaves.Three more months pass and the student returns. Now he is so shamefaced he can’t even look the teacher in the eye. When quizzes he admits that the contagion has spread and maybe two thirds of the form has “drifted away.” After a demonstration the student says, “Is it not as I have said, two thirds of the form is now different from what you taught me?” When the student does the obvious and starts to ask for correction the teacher again stops him and sends him away.By the third quarter the student is so disturbed he can hardly think about anything but the form. When asked he throws up his hands and shows what he can. “Teacher,” he starts without even being asked, “The whole thing has altered into something completely different form what you showed. Is there anything left of the original.”

“No,” the teacher admits and then raises his face with a small smile, “From now on practice it that way. It is your form now.”

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My first impression upon cracking open “The Complete Jianshu” was that this was professionally done. Not only is the layout clear and easy to follow, but I love the fact that this was obviously meant to be a consistently used and referred to textbook. Having the book spiral bound so that it opens flat is genius, and it’s really a wonder that other martial arts books aren’t bound in the same way.

I was also taken by how the book was direct and concise, yet voluminous at the same time. There is a wealth of information to be had here, but it’s without any superficial nonsense that sometimes can be found in other books on Chinese weapon work. Jason Tsou is direct and to the point here: all he is concerned with are the basic techniques and proper conditioning that one needs to have in order to gain competency with the Chinese jian (straight sword). The dvd also was brilliantly done, and works hand in hand with the text book. Everything that is in the dvd is in the textbook, so that one can easily follow along, referring to the book when needed for review. I honestly feel that one is not just buying a well made textbook with a dvd here: one is buying a training course. Everything they need is in this bundle, and considering what’s out out there in the martial arts market at the same price range, that is saying a lot.

I was a bit concerned at first that “The Complete Jianshu” was focusing more on the sport aspect of things, rather than the traditional combat aspects of jian training. I understood the reasoning behind this, as it can be a good way to keep the art alive. But after seeing what happened with fencing in regards to small sword/rapier fighting (there are certain strategies employed, particularly with epee, that would be extremely risky if not downright suicidal to use in real combat, which are regularly used in order to score a hit), I had some concern I’d see something similar with Jianshu. I needn’t have worried, at least in regards to this book. Jason Tsou has made it clear that good technique in the sport aspect of Jianshu should mirror good technique for the more traditional combat aspect of things, and the stances, drills, attacks and defensive movement taught here all seem to bear this out.

I can’t help but compare this to Yang Jwing Ming’s dvd “Sword Fundamental Training” a decent instructional video on basic Chinese sword work, as there are some interesting similarities here. Both works forgo forms training in order to help the student build a good foundation with the necessary basic skills. Both have good drills for both the solitary practitioner and those who can work with a partner. Both gradually help the student to become prepared for free sparring. The differences between the two seems to lie in the approach.

It’s interesting to me how both teachers keep certain aspects of sword training traditional, and other aspects are shown in more modern concepts. For instance, when it comes to terminology, Tsou seems to prefer using traditional terms in traditional ways, while Yang seems to prefer using the terms in more practical ways. As an example, take the thrust and the cut (chop), or Ci and Pi, respectively. In “The Complete Jianshu”, certain thrusts are given different terms, namely the downward thrust is called Xia Za, while the other two thrusts shown are called Zhi Ci and Ping Ci. The same can be seen with the cuts. In this book, downward chops are called Pi, and diagonal cuts are called Kan, differentiating the two. In “Sword Fundamental Training” however, terms are used in a more streamlined way. All long ranged thrusts are referred to as Ci no matter the direction, and all chops are called Pi whether they are diagonal or straight down. This latter approach (which was intentionally done) might be more practical and less confusing to the beginning practitioner, though there isn’t anything wrong with learning a few extra terms.

The actual drills themselves are where one can see the two teachers change their approach. In “Sword Fundamental Training”, the drills seem to be based on more traditional training. Single person drills have the student performing movements in horse riding stance, then in bow stance, and then advancing and retreating in bow stance. In “The Complete Jianshu”, we see what might be considered a more modern approach. Single person drills here have the student performing all moves while advancing in a shuffle step. One can see this difference in two person drills as well. “Sword Fundamental Training” has the students gradually learn to defend themselves by having them drill in pre set movements which gradually builds up the ability to counter attack from just about all angles, and while building up their footwork as well. “The Complete Jianshu “takes a more free form approach, having the students build their two person drills out of the basic movements they’ve been training in, and offers a few to start out with. I don’t really think there is one approach that is better than the other here: both have merit and can help build a strong foundation in sword usage.

I do think that “The Complete Jianshu” has several advantages over just about all other manuals/dvds though, including “Sword Fundamental training”. First, it teaches about the gate concept that one has to concern themselves with when attacking and defending. The concept of gates are very integral to Kung Fu, and it amazes me how so few books actually discuss this, let alone teach how they are used. “The Complete Jianshu” does, and in a very clear and concise way. Second, it goes into detail about how the grip is used. Usually I see or hear statements about how the grip should not be too tight, or too loose… and that’s it. In the “Complete Jianshu”, it actually goes into detail about exactly HOW one is to grip the jian, and how the grip should change when one is attacking, compared to when one is simply holding the sword ready. Third, there is an emphasis on training with both hands. Throughout the book it is stressed that one should perform all the drills with both hands, and even be ready to switch hands during a sparring session. I don’t think I have EVER seen ANY other book or dvd on the Jian talk about this in depth, let alone stress it’s importance. True, I have seen a couple of sword forms where hands are switched, but it is usually shown as a feature of the form itself, and not as something that one should strive to be able to do at any time.

Then there is the section on warmups, stance training, and qigong. While I have seen some mention of this in varying degrees in other works, I have not seen all three done in such clear detail as I’ve seen here, and all in one place. In the case of the qigong exercise, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this in any other book or video. It’s actually made me wonder why no one else has attempted to do this before.

There are a few things here that I am a bit perplexed by which I think deserve some mentioning. It could be because of my lack of experience that I find them odd, but I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t relate my full thoughts on this work.

In the grips section it is mentioned that one can place their fingers along the hand guard for added support, and in some cases even past it. This is in fact encouraged throughout the book. I find this odd because in other books and videos on the subject this is considered a bad habit, and would not be practical at all in a combat situation, since the fingers could easily be cut. Even Ted Mancuso’s excellent video “T’ai Chi Sword” states that placing ones fingers past the handguard is not a good idea (although it does say one can place their fingers along the guard, just as long as it’s still behind it.). Considering that this finger placement is something I see many other martial arts teachers do when using the Jian, I don’t know if this is because of tradition, habit, level of experience, or simply a different approach to manipulating the weapon. The forward finger placement does make using the jian easier, as evidenced by people doing this with other sword styles (such as rapier). And it is entirely feasible that the experienced jian fighter could grip the sword in this way and avoid getting their fingers hit. Still, I find this to be something that should be discussed by other experts.

Then there is the topic of footwork. I noticed that footwork is mentioned in detail after the other drills. Considering that footwork is arguably the most important part of sword work, I found it very odd that this isn’t placed before the other drills, or used in conjunction with them. The only bit of footwork shown for the single and two person sword drills are the shuffle steps, which are done forwards and backwards. Compare this with “Sword Fundamental Training”, which teaches students to employ their techniques with sideways and circular stepping, besides the more conventional advancing and retreating steps. Granted, in that video, the drills are first done stationary before later moving on to stepping, so students aren’t automatically using footwork in the beginning. Maybe that’s what was the reasoning behind talking about footwork and showing drills for it after the other drills, as to not confuse the student by bombarding them with too much information in the beginning. And the employment of proper footwork does take a while to master, Plus the authors did make it a point to discuss how important circular stepping is when sticking to your opponent’s blade, even showing examples of it. Still, I would have liked to have seen a little more explanation in how the various steps could be used, such as the serpentine step. Sure, because I’ve been messing about with swords for a bit, I know that step can be used to attack the opponent from various angles while advancing, or how the circular and triangle steps can be used to swiftly attack an open gate, but the beginner might not.

Still, all in all, this book does live up to it’s name. “The Complete Jianshu” IS the most complete work I have ever seen on the topic of Chinese swordwork, and it’s the best resource I own on this art, period. It has not left my side ever since I received it. No other video or book goes into as much detail as this one does, and I honestly believe that hard working students training together with this book could build a strong foundation in this art as long as they stick to it. Considering how true Chinese sword skills are in danger of dying out, “The Complete Jianshu” is a boon for those trying their best to keep that from happening. I hope that this end up fulfilling the job that the author’s intended, because it’s more than obvious that they put their all in it.

- Marco Sainte

IF…

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

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Look!! A whole new series of Bagua DVDs from Tom Bisio! Good explanations, oodles of applications, and Bagua usage that looks suspiciously like Bagua. We think you are going to like these…

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As Shaw once remarked about George Gissing, “He is conducting his education in public.” This is somewhat true of George Xu, but in this case it is a bonus. As he evolves as a martial artist, he brings forward new ideas and some inspired insights. Here’s a small seminar on “Martial Qigong”; the moves are general enough to be practiced martially or from a health orientation. And in addition to this, there are some very interesting ideas that the practiced martial artist will find especially helpful. Pay particular attention to George’s ‘third hand’ analogy.

One minute you’re Bruce Incarnate, the next you’re unable to tie your shoes without the danger of a self-inflicted eyeshot.

It’s easy to predict that each of us will have these. It’s impossible to predict when. They are the proverbial rock and a hard place, when the whole wagon train comes to a halt in the middle of Devil’s Canyon and progress is entirely halted.

Everyone gets stumped at one place or another. And everyone feels as though they’ll never get out of it. I’m not going to tell you when or how–that’s just a matter of faith–martial faith. But let’s at least discuss some of the signs of change we can look for. (If you happen to be in one of these martial dry spells right now, so much the better!)

The mature view, which we should consider anyway, is that you cannot possibly expect martial progress to be 1.) continual, or, 2.) even. In fact, it is neither, due to its requirements. Martial progress is like climbing a ladder, only one side of your body can rise at a time. For instance: your ability to understand martial concepts, we’ll call your left arm, and your physical skill level can be your right arm. These almost never advance at the same time and one of the most confusing and frustrating phases of a martial artist’s practice is when he wakes up the next day able to perceive at a higher level than perform. At that moment you become impatient with yourself–though it doesn’t help–when really you should congratulate yourself!

The opposite experience is not so disconcerting. When your ability (right) hand stretches to the next rung of the ladder you end up being even more skillful than you can expect. “Gee! Was that my punch that just fractured the sound barrier?” You’re delighted. You’re so good! One piece of advice: don’t think about it too hard or the magic may evaporate.

If you really think about it, there’s just no other way. You, as a martial artist, are juggling so much information and so many skills at the same time; how could you expect progress to move as smoothly as a raft on the Nile? But this type of unevenness you can at least analyze and condition yourself for. This, beside the practice and the thinking, is part of the art.

Progress also comes in an odd alternation of attention and chance. You’ve hurt your foot so you take some time off from sparring (after all, who wants to spar with blue shin bones?) Your interest in forms practice has suddenly peaked so you ditch sparring class for a few weeks and spend that time perfecting your forms. You really get into it, even though you can see that, at least initially, the forms don’t improve all that much. There’s just so much material to master! Concentrating on the problems raised by this intensive work you show up for a sparring class, just for the chance to throw a punch without having to cogitate too much. And what happens? Of course, your sparring is 100% better.

It’s really more than the chaotic nature of practice. Of course, results are unpredictable, improvement uneven. But there is also the rather mysterious fact that all of martial arts components feed into one another. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle but it’s also like a code. All the parts inform one another, and somehow work on a level that seems too subtle and inter-related to even believe, much less understand. Your progress, you realize, is not entirely in your hands. You will have to shepherd it as much as command it.

There’s one more troubling stretch that occurs. Sometimes and suddenly the thing you are struggling with reveals itself to not be martial at all. A dark cloud has manifested and hovers over your practice. It may be difficult but at these time you should recognize how lucky you are. You have challenged something deep and crucial and, confusion aside, you may find that if you stand with the determination of a rock that hard spot will dissolve.

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If it seems like “Ma Hong Month” at Plum, it seems that way to us, too. We’ve had an influx of  Hongiana (that’s a technical bookseller’s term) starting with a fine set of DVDs and now with two more of his thorough books. Find here his collaboration with teacher Chen Zhao Kui and a new and expanded edition of his beautifully illustrated breakdown of Chen style self defense. If you go to this page browse down for even more Ma Hong texts.

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One of our most requested books is just and finally back in stock: Shi Style Bagua Linked Legs & Guiding Fist. This text offers two hard-to-find Bagua sets, including the Linked Legs. We get many queries for Baguazhang Leg sets, and this one is recommendable.

(The observant visitor will notice two other long-gone books on that page have had their ‘out of stock’ tags removed. They will be in next week, and we’ll post an announcement then.)

My connection to Tai Chi came late, perhaps too late, in life. I never was into the martial arts as a kid, although at the time the Bruce Lee craze was just passing its peak.  I’m a terrible athlete in traditional sports.  I’m so bad, one time I ran into an old college buddy who had lived on the same floor as me in the dorms.  It had been a few years since I had last seen him.  He said, “Tom, great to see you!  You know, you were the worst basketball player I’ve ever seen.”

My physical culture was pretty low until I got to graduate school.  I had always been active in the sense of doing chores, or riding a bicycle as my principal means of transportation, but never anything physical in a regimented sense.  (I had run cross country in high school for a over a year; see previous paragraph.)  But once I started doing “head-work” for hours on end, along with encountering the barriers set up to get you to fail, I had to do something.

At that time I was working in an art gallery as a “guard”, and had been for several years.  The gallery had a janitor, Mac, who was (and still is) one of the most well-read people I had ever met.  He had studied martial arts in his younger days, especially Wing Chun and Xing Yi, and was a fan of Robert Smith.  We had talked about martial arts off and on for some time, and I had read some books he had recommended.  So Mac and I began meeting at the university’s rec center, and we would do some Chi Sao and some knife sparring.  Occasionally bystanders or other martial artists would come up and ask what we were doing, or even join in.  Looking back on it, it was crap, but good crap.  I saw Mac this summer, and he told me as much.  He had been doing several years of intense, serious Wing Chun practice.  (I got him Randy William’s “Close Range Combat Wing Chun” Volume II for Christmas one year, which he really liked a lot.)  “Real Chi Sao is nothing like what we were doing,” he said.

Around the same time as these tentative forays was what one could call a “life-changing experience”, but not in the usual, cosmic sense.  I had been painting a kitchen, and well as re-setting railroad ties for some flowerbeds, when my left shoulder and arm developed unbelievable aching.  I got a message from a friend who has her own spa, and from her work in that one hour I learned my body was really screwed up, literally screwed up.  (This was likely why I was so bad in sports.)  I asked her what I could do, and she recommended a yoga teacher who was an acquaintance of hers.

Let’s just say the yoga thing didn’t work out so well.  For starters, the teacher knew her stuff, but in order for yoga to really do its wonders, one needs an instructor who will continually inspect and correct the student’s body structure through each pose.  This was not done.  (In contrast, another yoga teacher I know, who’s a regular at the coffee house I work at, uses a stick in his classes to correct his pupils’ postures.)  Second, the class was filled with pheromones.  I think this is a danger for any mixed-gender yoga or martial arts class: all those bodies stretching and moving and sweating can create a “charged” environment, one which an instructor needs to control in order to prevent the class from becoming a dating-service.  This wasn’t done either.  (Hence, the aforesaid use of the stick, and not hands, by the other teacher.)  However, despite these issues, I learned a lot about moving and stretching with intent, body awareness, and breath use.

I then did a 360 in my quest and signed up for a judo class at the university.  This didn’t work out so well either.  My upper body was still so tight I could barely do a forward roll without flopping.  The sensei, who was older and very advanced, was of the “see judoka-throw judoka” school of teaching.  This resulted in lots of judokas dropping like flies, again literally.  When I came home from one practice barely able to walk after getting thrown over a guy’s shoulder like greasy fast food packaging, my wife insisted I drop the class.  That I did.

So here’s where Tai Chi enters the picture. There’s a very good karate school here in Lincoln, Nebraska that offered introductory classes in Tai Chi, teaching the standard 24 form derived from the Yang system.  When I joined though the instructors were themselves students of Tai Chi (although being skilled karateka), and had only knowledge of the short form and a few principles. Their knowledge of push hands in the real sense was non-existent –in parallel with the judo sensei, it was the “see hands-push hands” kind of push-hands.

I loved it though, and began reading voraciously about the art, other martial arts, and qigong, using Robert Smith as a starting point.  I quickly got the 24 form, and exhausted the knowledge of the teachers.  (This says much more about their level of understanding than my ability to quickly comprehend.) So I left the school and began studying videos of the long Yang form, as well as of other Chinese martial arts for comparison.  As this is Nebraska, there were –and still are– no other real options for Tai Chi.  The more I studied and learned the longer form, the more I got the suspicion that there was a lot more to Yang Tai Chi than people were letting on, or knew. The sheer fact that this was a martial art was the clue.  It seemed however that so many treated it as a kind of space-dance.  (Anyone who’s a fan of Sun Ra like myself will know that Tai Chi makes for a middling kind of space dance.)

That’s when my research went into overdrive, limited by my lack of Chinese.  When I got videos and the book of the Chen Pan-ling long form, and saw rarer versions of the Yang style (most of which I found here at Plumpub.com), I knew this kind of Tai Chi was closer to the original intent of the art than Yang Cheng-fu’s beneficial, but abstract, version, let alone the space-dance version.  I learned that generally the Yang system is a close-range fighting art (like Wing Chun), focusing on take downs –take downs in the sense of taking the opponent down quickly so they don’t get back up, not in the sense of getting them on the ground and then wrestling with them.  One of my favorite anecdotes about this comes from Erle Montaigue.  A student asked him in one of his classes, “what do I do if someone grabs me or gets me in a hold?”  “Do more Tai Chi!” he replied.  To facilitate this kind of take down, the Yang system utilizes pressure point strikes, joint locks and breaks, and “internal damage” like rupturing organs or straining muscles.  Generally it is not a pounding, pummeling art.  From what I can tell, this is a principal difference between the Yang and Chen styles: The Chen system is a “cannon fist”, whereas Yang is not.

I also began in particular inspecting each pose or form as to what its martial purpose could be.  Sometimes I guessed right (e.g., among other things Lift Hands is for dislocating an elbow; White Snake Darts Out Tongue/High Pat on Horse with Piercing Palm is for a throat or eye strike).  Sometimes I guessed wrong (e.g., I thought the hook hand of Single Whip was a pressure point strike or for plucking out an eye—instead the hook hand grasps the opponent’s incoming arm).  Others, I never would have guessed (High Pat on Horse is a “wiping” movement to counter a Dim Mak or Mantis hand strike). I still haven’t “gotten” some moves after all this time (e.g. White Crane Spreads Wings or Cloud Hands).  I do variations of this too when I can’t sleep: I imagine myself doing the form from start to finish, or pick a certain form and try to think how it could be used martially.  I also imagine myself in different combat situations to investigate various options of how to react.

I found out that this kind of visualization is a key component of the stake exercises of Yi Quan.  The type of visualization depends on whether one is practicing for combat or health. I surmise it was a key component in at least all the internal martial arts that had been somewhat lost, for example, as evinced by the clue in the name “Form-Mind/Intent Boxing” (a.k.a. Xing Yi Quan).  Visualizations deepen one’s knowledge of the form immensely, and get to its heart.  It increases one’s knowledge of body mechanics and structure.  It makes the need for application videos less necessary.  Visualization techniques are used by sports psychologists for various purposes, including making performance or combat less stressful.   Studies have shown that when one imagines oneself doing an action, many of the nerves involved in its actual performance are activated, so one can practice even while lying in bed!

I still felt though something was missing from my Tai Chi, and it concerned this “internal” aspect.  Many different explanations of the “external/internal” distinction exist, but when examining my own body and practice, it occurred to me that the distinction is this:  With an external art, the form shapes the body.  With an internal art, the body shapes the form.  (Interesting trivium: in the book “Dachengquan”, by Wang Xuanjie (pp. 39-41), Wang Xiangzhai and his correspondent in an interview list four internal martial arts: Tai Chi, Ba Gua, Xing Yi and Tong Bei.)  So with an art like Yang Tai Chi, in order for it to work, one’s body structure needs to be natural, in alignment.  Any acquired misshapement, bad posture or ingrained tension is a hindrance or even a harm –for example, as Mac pointed out to me recently, a raised shoulder is begging to be locked or dislocated in a fight.

This was my problem: even though I was doing the forms as best I knew, and was understanding them a little, I was not correcting all of the bad habits I had acquired over the years: the frozen shoulder, the perpetual muscle tension in the neck and chest, the tight lumbar spine and the consequent stomach sticking out too far.  (You’d think a guy would be interested in keeping his belly from sticking out, but I guess not.)  And Tai Chi wasn’t fixing it.  Well, I think it could have, had I started when I was a lot younger and the poor body structure hadn’t become so ingrained.  So in way I had spent several years studying Tai Chi and had pretty much only gone in circles. (If only I had studied Ba Gua!)

I needed to reshape, restructure, re-form my body.  That’s when I decided to lift weights.  The knots and tension were so tight I needed to blast them out like I was breaking up concrete.  It took me some time, and a lot of trial-and-error, in order to figure out what lifts my body needed.  My shoulders and front chest remained tight until I started doing the bent press.  (You should have seen me doing a bench press with a four-pound weight and my arm shaking like a leaf.)  Squats help immensely for leg and hip strength; front squats in particular are beneficial for correcting excessive “belly extrusion”.  I discovered a lack of abdominal strength affected the lumbar area.  I should be doing deadlifts for the hips.  After quite some time with this, my body is finally returning to a somewhat “pre-birth” state.  I’m still woefully weak and revert to tension in many areas, but my shoulders are able to drop back and down now, my head is held higher, my hips and lumbar are starting to loosen up.  And I am actually using muscles that I had barely used before.

I think the old internal masters achieved similar results by doing body weight exercises.  There are clues that in the Yang system students would hold certain postures static (like peng or Snake Creeps Down) for extended periods of time.  There are proscriptions in certain internal quarters against lifting weights, but I wonder if the fear is of becoming too inflexible, embedding bad body structure into the nervous system, or failing to strengthen the tendons and ligaments.  If one lifts carefully (in multiple senses of the term), one can avoid these hazards.  The result for me has been that my Tai Chi has improved immensely.  I can actually feel some energy or heat down my arms now, my ankles don’t wobble as much or at all when I stand on one leg or kick, and the moves are more fluid and less chunky or blocky.  They’re still blocky compared to a lot of people, and flow is still a challenge, but it’s better.

That’s why my Tai Chi stinks.  I guess my knowledge of the art will always be limited, due to geography, the lack of any push hands practice, and the lack of decent live instruction or interaction.  (I’ve had plenty of good teachers in videos.)  That’s the problem of not having a good, caring, yet “harsh” instructor: one needs a lot of discipline and criticism in order to make any advances at all, and it’s easier to have someone else, who knows what they’re doing and whom you respect, do this. Also, with such instruction, the time-frame for progress is likely sped up enormously.

The dream I mentioned at the beginning actually had an ending.  I was really despondent when the sifu told me what I had already suspected.  I asked him, as he held my hands in comfort, “what can I do?”  He responded, “Do the Beginning Form”.  And that was the end of the dream.  Once my moving hunks of iron around has gotten my body literally back into shape, the Beginning Form is, I hope, my next project.

P.S.: In the Yang Jian Hou Long Form video, the narrator mentions that the Yang system included “coin tossing” and an “internal Eagle Claw”.  If any readers have any information as to what these might be, please post it in the comments section.  I have no idea, and am dying to know!

Thomas Kiefer

Thomas Kiefer has been working on Yang Style Tai Chi since 2002.  His day jobs are teaching philosophy and making espresso drinks.  He also still works on-call at the art gallery, but now helps to install works instead of guard them.

Some of the information mentioned in this article…

Different Yang style DVDs

Writings on Dachengquan

Tongbei style

Close Range Combat Wing Chun

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A lot of people are interested in Southern styles but there’s never enough written about them. Pak Mei or White Eyebrow in particular is underrepresented in both the literature and the visual form. So we are especially happy to add this well written new book to our collection. This book does not include style or technical instruction but it does an excellent job of outlining the myths, history and theory behind White Eyebrow style. We look forward to more book on this level which concentrate as much on the philosophy and meaning of Kung Fu as its movements.

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Last week we announced our excitement over the SIX Ma Hong DVDs that we had reviewed, and were expecting. Well, the wait is over! They are ALL here and ready for sale.

We are not big ‘gushers’ here at Plum, but this series is pretty exciting. There is a certain intimacy in these DVDs, that makes you feel like you are in the audience, or standing just a few feet away on the lawn while Sifu Ma is giving this detailed instruction. We highly recommend these excellent resources…

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Gu Ru Zhang is the famous master of the Iron Palm, whose picture breaking a stack of bricks is known throughout the martial world. What’s surprising is that he is regarded by some as an excellent Tai Chi teacher. This book is a collector’s item showing Gu himself performing a form, demonstrating Push Hands and generally exhibiting mastery of a style very few people knew he had even learned. Old photographs add just the right touch to the long unavailable edition.

Making a DVD like our recent Blossoms in the Spring is great; that’s to say it’s great fun and a great amount of work. When you are in the zone with just the film and the sound track with everything spread out in front of you like a jigsaw puzzle without the box cover you swear that this is the last time you will ever do this. Hours of filming and dozens of hours of editing crawl toward one another like drunken snails. You wanted to make that point or this, to illuminate that important idea and make sure that this or that exercise is described just right. These are after all instructional films so they are supposed to teach something. You have made a commitment, that IF you are going to try and teach through this medium you will actually be teaching, transmitting information. A film like this has to show everything clearly but, if you want to keep your teacher’s soul in tact, must not reduce real information to an a series of inarticulate burps.

Catching the feeling of a teacher’s true style isn’t always easy. Even though many of our presenters are very experienced teachers with a lot of great information to pass along there’s always that delicate translation to a new medium. What’s hilarious or profound on the floor can sound like tired popcorn on film. Especially when filming people other than yourself,  the occasional cloud of the unexpected passes overhead. The instructor with the monorail mouth suddenly can’t think of a thing to say. Another spends fourteen minutes talking about how to make a fist and thirty-five seconds explaining reverse reeling silk abdominal breathing. Of course it’s much easier when you film yourself because there is only one problem: you must be wearing someone else’s wardrobe because you could NOT POSSIBLY be that fat. (The only other consideration is what actually did happen to your hair? Is that supposed to mean something?)

And then there’s setting for the film. No one has ever actually been blown off one of our Santa Cruz cliffs but that oceanic possibility has worried us sometimes. On the other hand when we go inside to film we wonder  how exactly did our studio turn into a dingy closet and why can’t we do there what we’ve done there for the past two decades? (Sometimes we feel as though our main job is recording the number of dust bunnies we haven’t cleaned up.)

Often the  shock of recognition can be brutal. One teacher, seeing himself for a minute on film, remarked, “God, am I pompous!” You never know people reactions. A top expert who’s a good friend was giving an oral presentation on the history and practice of Kung Fu to a childrens’ class at a local Chinese community center. One boy continually raised his hand. When the lecturer finally called on him his burning question was, “What’s that little chain on your glasses for?” In you mind your presentation sounded like Edmund Burke, when you see it it’s barely Mister Ed.

The initially unnoticed is a persistent background story. Oh, you didn’t notice that road crew blowing up the old freeway either? Ah, that’s nice, back lighting that reduces me to a Balinese puppet actor. And the old standby, where’s the top of my head?

It’s not as though everything goes wrong but, as the Imperial Japanese Head Gardener once pointed out, the secret of a great garden is clipping and removing. Making films like we do is an odd variation on being a sculpter. First you have to amass the marble THEN you get to remove everything that isn’t the finished product. You won’t generally know how close you’ve gotten before chiseling off that last scrap of stone. Then you put it out there and see if the pigeons land on it.

So, making a film, if you care about it, can be a laborious task.

Except, of course, the next one. The next one’s going to be easy, I just feel it.

Playing now in your home theaters…

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We are proud and happy to announce that the DVD version of Blossoms in the Spring has arrived and is now available. We could go on and on about it here but if you click the picture you’ll go to the page with all the details including its special introductory price. We’d love to hear your comments on the DVD and if you feel, as we do, that it is the perfect companion to our book.

When you “click” the gears are perfectly meshed. Sometimes you know it was there only by the skid marks because it has already left. It can be a little thing like that elusive equation for string theory or it can be hugely important like suddenly knowing the right name of your unborn daughter.

In martial arts people often “click” on one level or another. It may never be the kind of fireworks that enlighten the sky but it’s too persistent and cuff tugging to ignore.

Sometimes there are preparations. I remember practicing sticky hands many years ago. My partner tried a move which frankly baffled me that he stopped halfway through with a strange look on his face. “What?” I asked.

“How did you do that, hit me there?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. And I didn’t even know which of my hands had hit him.

Then I remembered the Wing Chun saying , if you don’t know how you hit him neither will he. When I had originally read that it sounded just a little too koan-ish, beat Zen from the martial coffee shop.

But I had just lived it.

About a month ago my student, Robert, sent out a punch that was a little Bruce Lee miracle of speed and efficiency. It was so good I had to cross the room to compliment him. Sometimes the click is so fast you need a witness.

My good friend and a fine artist, Howard Slatoff, used to tell me that it takes two people to create a work of art: one to paint it  and one to say STOP! As a teacher you try to stage the opportunities for these clicks and then jump out into the theater seat to applaud them. Regardless of your contribution the click is always the student’s property and—if things go well—you end up helping most by appreciating.

It is not the perfectly aimed free throw, which can be as much a fluke as an event. It is a drop into a zone, a splash in Lake Placid. The special thing about martial arts is that the field is so huge that it can come from almost anywhere. Your hands  start flashing all over the wooden dummy like you are playing spoons. Your Long Arm form is suddenly so fluid you feel like you are in a sled. The three part staff suddenly comes alive and whispers to you in a voice comprised of its clinking rings. Your opponent/partner suddenly seems to be dog paddling in molasses and you just walk in and tap him right on his basics. You are practicing Push Hands when abruptly you see that the other guy has a “tell” just about the size of the electric sign announcing Happy New Year over Times Square.

Not everyone knows how to receive a guest or a click. Sometimes the poetry comes, and not only do they forget to write it down but they run from the room in a cold sweat. Sometimes they are bummed out because the moment of truth is also a moment of responsibility. (Well, if you could be that good you’d better start practicing for real, son.)

These unexpected occurrences don’t tell you the price of Apple stock tomorrow, or prove that psychic phenomena is real. They do, however, restore an article of faith we all need, that there are little miracles of change available and, yes,  just outside of our field of focus.

Go ahead, blink.

photos: Debbie Shayne

“Eenie, meenie, minie, mo” is based on a counting system that predates the Roman occupation of Britain, that may even be pre-Celtic. If so, it is a rare surviving link with the very distant past. It not only gives us a fragmentary image of how children were being amused at the time Stonehenge was built, but tells us something about how their elders counted and thought and ordered their speech. Little things, in short, are worth looking at.”

At first, after reading Bryson’s passage, I thought:  “Nursery rhymes, Forms, hmmm….pretty similar.” A Kung Fu form is an encyclopedia, containing information not only about its parent style, but also about its teacher, usage, and even about the performance itself.  When you  look at a traditional form, you are not looking at just a pretty face, but all the genetic material–if you will–that went into building that pretty face: the theories, principles, bones and tendons of its style. A form is an organized summary of the components of a style.

But when I reread the paragraph something else struck me: this link with the distant past comes through not just in forms but in the everyday practice of kung fu. And one of the things it tells us is how people perceived their world hundreds or, in some cases thousands of years ago.

To say, for instance, that a good part of Kung Fu is based on animals, is only to hint at what that really means; the fact that there ARE animal styles tells us much about the nature of life 500 or 1000 years ago. Our kung fu ancestors spent time observing animals as part of their natural day; they didn’t have to make a point to ‘commune with nature’ as so many of us do. The FACT of animal styles suggests a human intimacy with the environment that implies time, contemplation, appreciation, all leading to translation from the one world to the other. Just as counting rhymes tell us about childrens play at the time of Stonehenge, animal styles tell us about human interaction with nature.

Another revelation is the internal aspect to martial arts. Yes, in the 21st century we take advantage of what has come before, what was developed by our foreteachers, but think for a minute about what we would develop NOW if we did not have those to fall back on. These kung fu masters, medically unsophisticated from a modern point of view, built styles and systems, balanced for the human body. When we practice a traditional style now, we are gazing back at ideas hundreds of years before our time, and it would not be out of line to contemplate, for a minute, what thought might have gone into this. It’s not enough to say, “they were moving chi”; just the fact that chi was a tangible concept is fascinating. They did not have to ‘accept’ the idea of chi, it was a part of their culture.

We can read history and learn about times before our own, even lay back and dream ourselves into the picture, imagine ourselves 1000 years earlier. But in kung fu, as in language, we are actually bringing the past forward. When you move in kung fu today you are also moving 1000 years ago and 1000 years in the future.