Jianghu :: 2.1

Over the last few months, I haven’t been posting much but I have still been administering the site. It’s got to the point where 250 spam comments have been left every hour. As a result, I’ve had to implement a captcha system. If you want to leave a comment, you’ll have to solve a very simple maths problem. Sorry for the added inconvenience, but I’m afraid there’s no alternative.

Sorry for the long silence – re-insertion into the world of work has been …. hectic. I’ll get a real blog post up here soon.

In brief, the yiquan has been going very well, and I learned a lot during the holiday that’s led to some improvements. I’ve been meditating, and last night got time to attend an improv acting workshop, which was cool.

Lots of ideas are buzzing about in my mind, hopefully I’ll get to write something about all that…

I was back in Zhongshan Park this morning, and oh my, but it was cold.

There’s something I want to get off my chest… I was checking one of the martial arts blogs in my RSS reader, I honestly forget which, and caught a reference to “keyboard martial artists”. I don’t know who the author was referring to; I’ve got no reason to suppose it would be me, but it still got me thinking. I’d hate to be considered one such, if only because if I ever considered this to be a martial arts blog, I certainly don’t now. In fact, I’m pretty sure I never did; as the ‘Jianghu’ name was intended to convey, what I’m writing about is the experience of being one of those following “a different drummer”. For me, that means martial arts, yes, but also (and perhaps, more so) meditation, and acting… In the zen sense, I’m trying to discover my ‘original purpose’. Martial arts is a way of doing that, but I could choose others. So… I appreciate everybody’s contribution – genuinely – and I’ve been lucky in finding that most of the people I’ve encountered in the ‘world of wushu’ to be very genuine, nice people. I’m aware though, that there are those who are snarky, who want to know whose style, whose teacher, whose skill is ‘best’…. I’m not interested. I’m doing this for myself and my own reasons, and if my slow progress bothers you, then too bad – my progress or lack of it doesn’t affect anyone else’s.

OK, so that’s said. Now, back to normal programming!

So, this morning it was back to bagua. I’m definitely still back to the beginning, but with a bit more practice and thought, it was interesting to reflect on why.

I haven’t practiced bagua in over a year, as I mentioned. Thinking about it, I suspect one reason was watching the clips of my training when that TV unit filmed me in the summer of 2008; I could see that my posture was all wrong, that my tailbone wasn’t tucked in, etc etc, and I realised then that all my training hadn’t sorted my posture out.

That’s when I switched over to yiquan and, as I’ve posted since then, I’ve found that the zhan zhuang and other yiquan practices have made significant and lasting improvements in a number ways, including:

• relaxing my shoulders
• dropping the scapulae and rounding the back
• getting my tailbone relaxed and tucking under
• opening the kua and relaxing the ankles

That’s not to say that these are perfect, but I’ve made far more significant progress than ever before. As mentioned previously, it was noticing these changes that made me think I was ready to come back to bagua. What I realised today is that my muscle memory is trying to get me to stand and walk the way I always did before – so my shoulders were bunching up, my tailbone was arching the wrong way, etc etc, and that’s why I found the tang ni bu so difficult last week! I’m having to start again with a whole new posture…. Hmmm.

Of course, there are other things, like simply being out of practice, there being some small differences between the way Liu Jing Ru’s style steps and the way Sun Zhi Jun’s style does it, but those are minor. The main thing for me to be focussing on is awareness of body tension and posture at this point. I’m fairly certain that I’ll manage to get the tang ni bu right soon, and then I’ll be able to progress a bit further, and on to other things.

As for the tension…. I was very, very cold while we were training. Kong Cheng told me that this is because of my internal tensions, which aren’t allowing my qi to flow freely; that would fit in with what I was writing about recently. I’m aware that due to all of the issues of 2009 my triple burner’s energy is weak; getting that stoked up again is one of 2010′s tasks!

What else? Oh, we did a bit of bagua tui shou, which was interesting since I’ve hardly ever done it before – only once or twice with Master Zhou Yue Wen, IIRC.

All of the packed snow is giving me lots of tang ni bu practice, by the way!

Prompted by chickenrice’s recent comment, I went back to the old version of this blog to refresh my memories of studying CMC-37 taijiquan with Master Rennie Chong in Singapore. I found a post I’d forgotten about:

In There are no secrets, Wolf Lowenthal quotes Cheng Man Ching on loosening the joints of the body, in the context of the concept of sung, or relaxed strength.

I won’t quote the whole thing, but the essence is that the body has nine joints: three in the arm, three in the leg, and three in the back. One begins by loosening the arms; the most difficult joint is the shoulder. Then one loosens the legs; the most difficult joint is the ankle. Then the back is easy to relax. Bruce Frantzis says saomething similar in The Power of Internal Martial Arts; I saw it earlier this evening, but I can’t find the quote now. I wish that book had an index!

Still, my personal experience is following this rule. When I first came to Singapore and started practising taiji regularly, I found that my shoulders were terribly rigid. The near-year I spent at Nam Wah Pai relaxed them enormously. Now, with Master Chong constantly urging me to lower my stance and open up my gua (groin/hip joints), I’m finding that I’m getting a lot of pain in my hips and lower back. It isn’t because these areas are under strain particularly, though – I think it’s because my ankles are stiff and weak, so other muscles are trying to take the strain. I think once my ankles become sung, my hips and back will be able to relax a great deal.

I would agree with that even more these days. What I’m finding is that yiquan’s zhan zhuang exercises are really helping me get this done…

Robert Twigger’s book, Angry White Pyjamas, is an old favourite of mine. I read, and re-read, it many times back in the period when I was starting to feel stifled in the small mid-Wales town where I spent much of my twenties.

In the book, he relates how he was working as an English teacher in Japan, about to turn thirty, out of shape, and going nowhere fast. His response was to sign up for a year-long intensive Aikido course with the Tokyo riot police, which would get him out of his rut, get him in shape, and qualify him as an instructor. Reading that book – along with watching The Matrix – is probably what got me back into studying taijiquan. It also got me thinking about my own imminent thirtieth birthday, and what was happening in my own life.

A couple of years later, I was in Asia. A lot has happened since then, and I’m now contemplating my fortieth birthday.

Twigger, who now lives in Cairo, has his own blog, and I’ve just read his latest post: How Much Talent Do You Have?. It’s interesting enough, but he stops just when he reaches the most important point:

The main thing is: practise as if your life depends on it. The original impulse to learn is a survival instinct. You learn in order to survive better. Therefore if you can con yourself somehow that your very survival is at stake then you will learn very much faster. One way is to do it intensively, focusing to the exclusion of everything else.

That’s the hard part, though. I was discussing this with S. recently: it’s very difficult to study martial arts and meditation seriously and commit yourself to your job and have a successful romantic relationship. There just isn’t enough time and energy to do them all well. Something’s got to give, and for most people it has to be the martial arts and meditation because they, we, put a very high value on having a job and being part of a couple. It’s very hard indeed to walk away from those.

I had the opportunity to do it, a few years ago. I had a lot of savings and didn’t need to work – but I opted to go back to grad school for my MBA instead.

Still, the idea has popped into my mind again. As I’ve mentioned, I have been doing a bit of research out in the Chinese countryside, looking into how mobile phones and the internet could be used to help rural development. However, though I set out to see if we geeks could help the farmers become more like us, I find myself wondering whether we shouldn’t be seeking to become more like them. After all, they can feed themselves, and if the internet vanished tomorrow, it wouldn’t hurt them: they have the skills to survive. I, on the other hand, would be screwed. I’m an e-commerce guy; what other valuable skills do I have that could be traded for food and shelter once peak oil arrives, and the internet has to compete with other essential energy needs? Fortunately, the day won’t come for a while yet, so I have time to prepare.

I’m thinking, as a result, of emulating Twigger. I could work one more year, save more money, and then switch to part-time work that would cover food and rent. Then, I could spend a year training hard, almost full-time, in yiquan, baguazhang, qigong and Chan meditation. The aim would be to be qualified to teach by the end of that year. I could also get some basic grounding in TCM. I wonder if anyone would pay me to write a book about it…

The Piper guys were kind enough to give me the nickname “The Druid”, which I’ve been musing on lately. Of course, I’m not really a Druid – I haven’t been elected to the Gorsedd of the Bards of the Island of Britain, nor am I ever likely to be! I suppose it’s possible that one day I might try for the language qualification and become an Ovate, an entry-level Druid as it were, but…. probably not!

Obviously, coming from Wales, I’ve always known about Druids. I don’t know what your mental image is when I use the term. Some people, I guess, will imagine them as Caesar described them, bloody to the elbows in entrails; others will think of Wicker Men, stuffed with captives waiting for the torch. Yet more will think of the neo-pagan movement and OBOD.

Me, I have a rather different conception of them. I see the Druids as observers and thinkers, heirs to the tradition of insight that goes back into the Neolithic period. Since the dawn of humanity, people were looking sitting on mountain tops, or venturing out to sea in tiny ships, and observing…. Observing the vast natural world, and pondering our place in it – and what makes us different. This was the slow thought, over years and decades, which gradually pieced together the great cycles of the stars and allowed the building of the megaliths and stone circles. I notice with interest the possible etymology of the name itself – most books will tell us that it’s somehow connected with the Celtic word for ‘oak’, but the Wikipedia entry suggests that it may rather have roots that mean “clear-vision” or “rooted knowledge”, something like that, which resonates with me.

I used to go solo up into the hills, back in the days when I lived in Wales. There’s something about being on a long ridgetop, with the bowl of the sky above you, the endless sea below on one side, the mountains receding to the distance below on the other, that clears the mind, that is so far beyond the reach of the mind, that the gates of comprehension are broken open and the fire of inspiration rushes through from the other side. When this energy is channeled into the grooves of practice and discipline, that’s when poetry and philosophy are created. It’s also the root of prophecy – when our knowledge is freed from the shackles of “I want”, or “I’m afraid”, and the truth of events can be seen – to the astonishment of those who won’t let themselves see….

In Welsh, we have a word for this, “Awen”. I’ve felt it on occasion; for example, there have been times when I’ve given an impromptu speech at Toastmasters, and felt the spirit take me; afterwards, people slap me on the shoulder and congratulate me on a great speech – but I really can’t remember what I said; the words just passed through me, not from me, it feels.

It was probably this sense of the Celtic poet/seer/Druid tradition that led me to adopt Thufir Hawat as one of the heroes of my teen years. Hawat, a character from Frank Herbert’s novel, Dune, was a Mentat-Assassin. A mentat is someone trained to use the full power of their mind. As Wikipedia puts it,

Mentats are not simply calculators. Instead, the exceptional cognitive abilities of memory and perception are the foundations for supra-logical hypothesizing. Mentats are able to sift large volumes of data and devise concise analyses in a process that goes far beyond logical deduction: Mentats cultivate “the naïve mind”, the mind without preconception or prejudice, similar to the contemporary practice of Zen, that can extract the essential patterns or logic of data, and deliver useful conclusions with varying degrees of certainty.

That, combined with martial arts knowledge? Wow! The Mentat Master of Assassins was a great role model!

It isn’t such a great step, either, from the mentat to the “Scholar Warrior”, the wuxia hero who cultivates mind as well as martial skill.

A Geordie girlfriend once complained to me that she thought the mountain-tops meant more to me than she did. She was right. She left the scene soon after, with no hard feelings on either side; my love for the hills still endures. Every now and again I get reminded that once I saw the truth; that once I had the clear vision, and deep-rooted knowledge. Time passes; material things and attachment cloud my sight, but I still know where the truth lies, when I’m reminded.

I’m writing this to remind you, the reader, and myself why it was that I got engaged in martial arts. Of late, I’ve been more and more focused on practical application – to the extent of losing sight of the bigger picture. To paraphrase Wang Xiangzhai, it’s an essential step – but only the first, and lowliest step.

Meditation, on its own, gives a lot of insight and detachment; it’s another route to that state of “no-mind”. I also need to work harder on my meditation! However, meditation is easy when you’re sitting comfortably on your cushions, safe in your home, with chanting or music on the mp3 player…. What about when you’re up against it, when things are not going your way, and the tide of the world is against you? This can happen on the mountain – the mist comes down, the storm rolls in, and suddenly you’re reduced to the most basic struggle of survival. Sometimes, one can transcend thought in these situations; the focus on finding your way out becomes a state of no-thought, no-mind, calm concentration on the task. Usually not, though… and even so, it’s not something we can organize or structure!

Martial arts, though… That’s the way… The internal martial arts have meditation built in; to keep one’s mind calm and empty, to loosen the grip of fear and attachments as someone actively tries to take you down… that is the way to develop strong meditation and detachment, calmness and freedom of mind and body, while under pressure. Furthermore, it’s something one can schedule, repeat, and learn from – unlike storms!

At the end of the day, that is why I’m studying martial arts. That is the journey that this blog is trying to chronicle!

I’m back in Wales, visiting family and old friends; nothing will be happening blog-wise for a couple of weeks!

As I mentioned, we are now in the Year of the Ox, which represents slow and steady effort. That is precisely the situation in which I find myself – the next year presents a lot of opportunities, but I am going to have to work hard to take advantage of them. Hmm, OK.

However, I find myself driven to comment on the final two weeks of the year just gone – the year of the Rat. I signed a new contract with my employer. I began a relationship with a woman who truly engages and challenges me, and who is very, very important to me. I made significant choices about my future – which wasn’t unrelated to the first two points I just mentioned. I also deepened my interactions and relationships with a number of relationships with a number of readers of this blog: Jose, Carlos, Pern Yiau, Tom, and another who doesn’t want to be named yet.

I need to make clear that I do believe myself to be a Buddhist. That means that I accept that things change. In the past, there have been times when I’ve been affluent. There have been times when I was been influential in public life. There have been times when I was so broke I couldn’t pay my rent, and was extremely lucky to have good people I could borrow from. All these times have come and gone. I accept that this happens: circumstances change, and that all I can do is at least strive to be the best person I can be in the circumstances.

To a large extent, that’s what this blog is: my chronicle of my attempt to become the best I can be. If you know me, or meet me in the future, you’ll know that the real me is far more complex and messy, and generally not so cool, as the persona that appears in this blog. Nevertheless, it moves me deeply that some people at least find value in this blog. It’s important for me to acknowledge that the best, kindest, and most generous people I know are often people from the world of martial arts, and many of those are readers of this blog. I’d just like to say thanks to you all for visiting, and for getting in touch. I do appreciate it!

I haven’t been training much for the last week or so. Partly it’s just been pressure of work, partly it’s because the extreme cold has made my achilles tendon stiff and painful – this is the one that I trashed a few years ago in Singapore. It hasn’t bothered me much for the last year or so, but I guess something like that never really heals. Anyway, a week of rest, and it seems to be recovering; I’ll just need to be a bit careful for the rest of the winter!

Anyhow, so the upshot is that I haven’t gone to bagua class. I have been to yiquan, which continues to get better; I’ve had a couple of minor breakthroughs in my understanding of the use of body weight and redirection of force, and I feel that I’ve improved a lot. Now I just need to consolidate these so that I don’t slip backwards!

One of my regular readers, Jose from Portugal, flew in to Beijing on Tuesday evening. He’s here for a few weeks on a training course with Liu Jing Ru. The course has been organized by Frank Allen and Tina Zhang from New York, and who probably need no introduction to readers of this blog! I met Jose yesterday at his hotel, and showed him a few sights. We walked from Qianmen Gate through Tiananmen Square, and into the outer courtyards of the Forbidden City. After that we went to a very good little restaurant for lunch – my favourite, Beijing dumplings, mmmmm! Jose was introduced to the world of Sichuan mala green beans and erguotou. He seemed to like them!

After that, a visit to Wanfujing shopping street, and to the Stone Boat bar in Ritan Park…. I won’t embarrass Jose here, but I’ll just say that he’s a really nice guy, and very interesting! It’s the first time that I’ve met one of my readers this way, I think, and this was a good beginning!

At the end of the afternoon, we went back to his hotel to meet the rest of the group, who are a mixture of mostly Americans and Germans, with a couple of others. I met Frank and Tina, who are both really friendly and chatty. Tina invited me to join them all for their meal, which was at a nearby restaurant. I tagged along, and got to know some of them. It was quite an odd experience, in a way. They’re all very nice people – but as I’ve written before here, I wasn’t really into martial arts deeply before I moved to Asia, and so I’ve never been in a large group of Western martial artists before! All of the Westerners I know here who practice martial arts have lived in Asia for quite a long time, ans are pretty well immersed in Asian culture – so there were a lot of differences in attitudes, and a lot of things that I hadn’t realized I’ve taken for granted were obviously a bit new and strange to some of these guys. Not that that’s bad It just gave me a little bit more insight into how I’ve changed over the last few years!

Soon, the meal was over, and the guys got back into their bus to return to their hotel. They needed to get an early night – their class started at 9am this morning! Not so for me – I planned to see in the New Year, and so I went on my way to the Drum Tower. Here the
evening turned sour, I’m afraid. The last time I was in Beijing for New Year, in 2006, I stumbled upon a ceremony where at midnight the drums in the Drum Tower were beaten, and the bell in the Bell Tower was struck, in a dialogue that lasted for perhaps half an hour. It was a magical experience, all the more so because I had only encountered it by chance. The crowd that had gathered to watch was small and happy, and the police presence was light and relaxed. I was really, really, looking forward to experiencing it again….

It was not to be, though! The police presence this time was oppressive – hundreds of officers and guards sealed off the square completely, and when I got there at around 9pm, they were already refusing to let people through. I managed to get past because I happened to talk in Mandarin to a sympathetic official, and was able to name the bar I was trying to get to. Once I got into the square, I realised that it had been filled with a huge scaffolding structure,, with media gabbling away, garish lights turning the towers yellow and purple, and even more police all around. The band I saw at the bar were very good, and there was a great atmosphere there, but they finished all too soon…. In the course of the evening, I had a romantic disappointment which actually hit me quite hard, so it was a rather sad blogger who saw in the New Year – with the sound of the bells and drums all but drowned out by the noise of the media circus and security apparatus…. Bah, that’s all I have to say! In the end, it’s perhaps a good thing – it was confirmation again, as if I needed any, that clinging to attachments – be it romantic hopes, dreams of repeating a happy experience, or whatever – is a cause of suffering and unhappiness. Better by far to meditate and cultivate non-attachment

And so here we are in 2009! Even if my night was mixed, I hope that all of you had a great New Year’s Eve, and that the new year will be happy and prosperous for you all I don’t usually make resolution, but this year I will:

• I will focus hard on my martial arts training
• I will resume meditation practice, and start attending dharma classes again
• I will study hard to improve my Mandarin
• I will not allow anything else to distract me from these

How about you?