GOT GET?

If, when, why, what?

How much have you got?

Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?

And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?

…from “West End Girls” by the Pet Shop Boys

I get this stuff; I really think I do.  The taijiquan approach, I mean.  It basically made sense to me.  And the more I study, the more I think I get it, for the most part.  That’s great, it’s nice to feel smart.  So maybe I do get it.  But do I “got” it?  I can say I get it but if I can prove it, that shows I really got something.  If not, as the Kinks said, then you really got me.  Got me exposed with not enough of the real stuff.

“Get real!” we used to say all the time, some years ago.  But in taiji you have to get unreal too.  Otherwise too yang not enough yin.  Takes a lot of yin to balance that tough old yang, that’s for sure.  Oh well, back to work………………

 

THE TEST OF MOBILITY

Do they have bumber stickers in other countries?  Here is the U.S. where cars rule the land, lots of folks put little statements on the backside of their car for others to read.  Some funny; some political; etc. 

Saw a new one today that I thought was pretty good:

If you haven’t changed your mind lately
how can you be sure that you still have one?

 

ONE CHANCE III

This is about the knife defense topic.  I was thinking about various things tonight…. bodyweight, lines of reference, sea of qi, the curve and the straight, alignments, movement, points and lines, etc.  Then something made me realize what I forgot to mention when I wrote about “What could you do if someone threatened/attacked you with a knife”.  I was discussing an unarmed response.  That’s what hit me tonight.  Duh yeah, there are various ways to go and I said my prime choice would be an immediate, kneecap-destroying savage kick.

Assuming that running away isn’t likely to work.  Nobody will call you chicken for running away from a knife.  Except maybe the wielder, but who cares what that idiot thinks?

But in fact there’s a Plan B to any armed attack by someone upon Unarmed Me.  Get armed!  In a serious self-defense situation, grabbing anything that’s handy to deal with your attacker ought to be right at the front of your mind.  If you have a few seconds to work with and it’s a knife you’re worried about, two classic avenues are one’s jacket (if wearing one) or belt (same). 

Jacket could serve as shield in various ways; or if you’re feeling bold you could hold two ends and try to tie up the opponent’s freedom of movement somewhat.  (But best be prepared to either run away fast or cripple the guy once he’s been slowed down.)

A belt is basically a whip with a weighted end.  Better be fast and aim for the face.  If you do get a lick in, don’t expect him to say “I surrender!” But you might create the beginnings of escape from the situation.

Quicker than taking off belts and jackets might be grabbing anything that’s within reach that’s denser than a pillow.  Actually, a pillow would be better than nothing!  But predators are pretty good at choosing their moments.  Alone and with nothing at hand, that’s the profile of the ideal victim.  Thus the martial arts were created to restore a little balance to certain human interactions.  And to proclaim that culture does not equal sissification.

 

STANCE TRAINING II

I think this Stance Training II, though I have a nagging hunch that I might have posted Stance Training II already… which would make this Stance Training III.  Who cares, right?  More significant is the fact that “Stance Training” was basically the first post I wrote as Chenquestion (who later morphed into Taijiquestion).  That was intentional (it being the first post I mean).

Don’t worry, I won’t self-reference any further here, I just wanted to report that I was pleasantly surprised to find that Weakness with a Twist blog also has a post called Stance Training.  Here it is: http://northstarmartialarts.com/blog1/?p=35

A very experienced kungfu teacher who is active on the internet, once wrote me (we corresponded a bit) that “Any stance builds qi”.  He was talking about Asian martial arts stances of course.  At least I assumed so, and still do.  I won’t attempt to discuss this further except to say that I found his remark very heartening, it was one of the earliest instances where someone who’d actually been there and done that, imparted to me that while gong fu has its complications, there’s a lot of simplicity at the core of these arts.

 

BREATHING. AND FOOTWORK.

Sunday.  House cleaning.  Some cluttered closets crying out for my skills and techniques from 30+ years of working in and around warehouses.

Found a binder stashed away with some old printouts of taiji/MA study material from the internet.  Here’s a goodie from Shaolin Wahnam Institute.   Notes from a martial gathering they hosted in early 2007.  I wasn’t there… but thanks to this published material I could gain some benefit from their teaching workshops.

About two-thirds of the way down the page is “Art of Flexibility/Just Breathe” with a good take on qigong, breathing, and stretching.  I liked the advice about no mind; about natural breathing; and about transforming conventional exercises into qigong practice. 

It reminded me of some tips exercise guru Matt Furey gave in regards to his Back Bridge (a floor pose with body bowed backward, supported by head, hands, and feet.  Matt recommended combining this pose with deep breathing to convert the exercise into qigong.  I’ve worked on this here and there over the years.)

Talking about “natural” breathing, I realized recently that though I eschew “breathing practices”, I do utilize abdominal breathing which I first learned about in school music class and later in regards to martial arts.  Maybe it’s safe to say that without abdominal breathing habits, one is totally outside the realm of “martial arts”?  That would be my supposition. 

The next presentation on the Shaolin Wahnam page is ”Footwork, the Fundamentals/a more efficient method of training“.  It talks about the problem of “aimless training”.  Often we hear the mantra of practice, practice, practice and many of us try to heed that advice.  Then we hear about practitioners who have practiced months, years, or decades yet can’t demonstrate anything besides hollow movements that look good and presumably, make the doer feel better. 

I liked the emphasis on footwork here.   How many of us would like to test our martial footwork in a no-holds-barred physical confrontation?  We may have strengths in various areas but without effective footwork built over years of deliberate training, how are we going to move and prevail when the chips are down?

I see there’s more good stuff on this link than the couple of pages I dug out of my closet, so maybe time to shut up and just offer the material:

http://www.wongkiewkit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5746

 

MIND HOLDING THIS FOR ME?

In my second-to-last post I mentioned the Dong Zeng Chen reminiscence Pushed to the Limit: One Hundred Years of Traditional Taiji Training.  I had “read” it years before, but more like skimming really, and basically just came away with some impressions like wow, martial arts sure is cool; and wow, those old time guys were really tough just like everyone says.

So this afternoon I sat down and began reading it carefully, and with the benefit of whatever growth the last few years have brought me.  So far I’ve got as far as the 5th paragraph where the strictness of the old traning is being described.  The paragraph concludes like this:

>>>”When Yang Cheng Fu taught he gave his heavy full-length brocade coat to my grandfather to hold. Dong Ying Jie would stand like a coatrack, with the coat over his arm, in Peng posture, for two hours while Master Yang instructed. After many years, his Peng was incredibly strong.”<<<

As I say, the first time I ever read this anecdote I was impressed, thinking how difficult it would be to hold anything in front of my body for two hours; even a lighter object than an overcoat.  Even just my arm itself.  And though I’ve done some zhan zhuang and taiji zhuang gong over the years, I can tell you I’ve never held any posture for two hours.  One hour in horse stance is my record.

Now that I know a little bit about Yang Style wardoff and where movement comes from, I can better appreciate the simple, effective genius of Yang Cheng Fu’s peng training regime for Dong Ying Jie.  Because how do you hold out a heavy full-length coat on your extended arm for two hours?  Not with “strength”.  A soldier under punishment discipline might attempt that, but I’m betting his arm strength would fail the test after much sweating and trembling, and then he would face further punishment for his failure.

No, something has to support your arm for that long span of hard time.  Obviously Yang taiji training gave Dong Ying Jie that something.  And “after many years, his Peng was incredibly strong.”  Enough to handle a coat or enough to handle a dangerous opponent.  Taiji gong fu.  Not strength.

 

WHAT IS THE WAIST IN TAIJI?

Over at the Internalartsia blog there’s a paradigm-changing interview with Chen Zhonghua regarding the kua.  For me, finding this article was the culmination of a mini quest in taiji and I like to think it made a real difference in the way I do things in life/taiji.  I’ve already linked to the Internalartsia post so many times that I won’t do it again here.

Similarly, I’ve tried to get a better understanding of the many other important aspects.  Just as so many aspiring students of the eastern arts.  Take the “waist” for example, one of the handful of essential terms that you will probably see in any discussion of taiji anywhere.  But what exactly is the waist in taiji context?  I’ve read the same articles, interviews, and discussions that most of you have.  (And probably had much less personal instruction than most I have to admit, just to keep the record straight.)

But as I mention elsewhere I try to work on taiji every day and yesterday I came to a juncture that goes something like this: waist = mingmen.  Possibly I’ve seen this somewhere before and forgot it or it didn’t sink in too well.  Probably other folks would say waist = dantian or waist = torso or some other formulation.  But based on what CZH’s illumination of the kua did for me, I’m going to go with my mingmen theory and see where it takes me from here. 

(Note: though I make free with his name here regarding kua, I have no idea what CZH teaches about mingmen.)

 

TO TRAIN WHAT?

Wujimon Taiji Blog recently readdressed the time-honored debate over what place physical conditioning have in these arts.  http://wujimon.com/the-role-of-physical-conditioning-in-taiji

Several years ago Wujimon turned me on to this fascinating article about old-style taiji training in the Dong (or Tung) family Yang style taiji lineage.  I’ve no personal experience with Dong Style and probably could not even mimic one of their postures correctly.  But it is held to be an effective method of taiji and this oral history sheds some interesting light on a bygone world that wasn’t all that long ago… http://www.dongtaichi.com/Writings/100years.html

I’ve blogged before, a little bit, about my own attempts to balance Strongman and Taiji man.  I don’t claim to have this all figured out but to me, there are some fairly simple benchmarks that anyone can look to.

What do I personally want to accomplish?  And why?

What will I spend time on?  How much time do I have at my discretion anyway?

If I forge progress in this, will the results work against progress in that?

Since taiji is all about seeking balance, “balance” could be a good yardstick in our daily lives.  But real balance may not be [whatever we wish it to be].  If I evade my opponent half the time and spend the other half pummeling his face and stomach, I’m not doing taiji despite my claim that I’m beautifully balancing hard and soft, empty and full.  Obviously.  Nor will trying for a “personal best” in the bench-press weightlifting exercise, do any good for my taiji ward-off or other jins, I’m fairly sure.  But neither will sitting on the couch for hours every day watching TV.  (Or the damn computer…. Thanks for listening folks!)

Oops, almost forgot.  I am going to read the 100 Years article again in more depth but one thing especially stood out for me: at the conclusion, it lists the three simple things you need, to succeed in taiji.

 

SUNG BEFORE FLING

Need peng right at home

In full before trying to

Peng the neighborhood

 

If I can’t peng my

Compliant self why try to

Push an opponent

 

Taiji fits yin with

Yang therefore my power must

Be water and earth

 

I contain both but

How to separate them so

River replace me

 

GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM

Is there any difference between sung [song]; peng; and pengjin?  Sounds suspiciously like a dumb question.  Any decent taiji program has ready definitions for these terms; a bit vague at times perhaps, but distinct.  And of course a good teacher would readily be able to demo what he or she considered these things to be.

But I thought of a counter-example.  If someone asked “Is there any difference between trees, rocks, and clouds?” one would surely take a moment to consider whether the conversation had any merit at all.  But if a student answered, “Their atomic structure” then suddenly we have a serious discussion after all.  The realities underlying our perceptions and preconceptions.