Jianghu :: 2.1

As you’ve probably understood by now, I’m back in Beijing. Whenever I fly, I want something to read. I have many books of my own, but I’m a bookworm: I read, and re-read my books, and so for a long-haul flight I tend to want something new, and always buy something from the airport bookstore. On this occasion, I picked up a copy of Ross Kemp’s Pirates – partly from a Jianghu-inspired interest in Pirate Utopias, and partly from something mentioned in William Gibson’s Spook Country… It was interesting, but blah, didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know from reading the news, you know?

Still, it got me curious about what else this actor had done after he turned to journalism (given the adverts inside the cover of the book), especially since he seemed to have done a lot of programmes about gang culture around the world. After checking the relevant Wikipedia page, I searched YouTube… ANd found the programme that Kemp filmed about the Cape Town prison where Piper’s roots can be found….

It’s far from perfect – there’s a lot of metropolitan English attitudes that annoy me. For example, in the first episode, Kemp treats (it seems to me) some of the prisoners as stupid because they can’t understand him and he can’t understand their Afrikaans accent. This continues throughout the programme; the prisoners are always subtitled. Well… dunno – I can understand them with no problem, and it’s over 20 years since I was in South Africa but there we are…

There’s also a moment (in the second clip) where he describes a hardened criminal as “looking like a 12-year-old child”. WTF? You watch it, and tell me if that guy looks 12 years old!!! I just can’t understand why he says that….

Anyway, here is the program. Lots of good background on where Piper comes from.

It seems that the US Government has a need for Combatives Training. I haven’t read the details but… are you listening, Piper?

I’ve just been going through my hard drive, trying to find some pictures I took of the Piper guys when they visited Singapore in January 2008. I mis-filed the photos, and I’ve been trying to locate them for ages… Finally, I’ve located them. I particularly like this one…

Lloyd, Corey, and Nigel…

I’ve just realized that I never blogged about their visit; it was during my final days in Singapore before the move to Beijing, and I guess I was just too busy. It was extremely cool, though. I didn’t have time to train with them, but I saw a public demo, and hung out with them a couple of times. I was very impressed by seeing Piper in action; it’s fast, vicious, and extremely effective. The guys are really sound, I enjoyed their company. Hehehe, we exchanged some insights, and I think I made Lloyd’s eyes bulge at one point with a technique I learned from Master Zhou Yue Wen

The extra practice I put in last week seems to have paid off, and yesterday’s pan guan bi lesson made some real progress.

When I went to Master Sun’s apartment, I was greeted by my teacher from Singapore, Madam Ge Chun Yen. She’s in town for a while because her father is ill. We chatted briefly, and then I went outside for class with Master Sun and Mi Lao Shi; Madam Ge stayed inside.

The lesson was good. Mi Lao Shi corrected me on a number of fine details, and is particularly trying to get my performance to flow more smoothly. When we learned this set in Singapore, it was in poor light, and with a big class, so everything was broken down into small steps; I’m still mentally counting “yi, er, san, si, wu, yi, er san si” etc as I go through the stages, and I’m tending to stop at the end of each move rather than flow seamlessly into the next. My arm movements also tend to be stiff and cramped, rather than sweeping and expansive. Lots to work on; for the first time, I’ve used my phone to record Mi Lao Shi doing some moves, and then asked her to film me so that I can contrast the two. Hopefully that will help my solo practice; should have thought of it before!

Master Sun seems to have decided that I’ve made enough progress that he’ll get more actively involved, and for the last ten minutes or so we started to work on some applications; he showed how to block some attacks, and respond with strikes to pressure points in the arms, throat, and shoulders. Of course, I found that under pressure, I couldn’t remember the specific moves – I need to practice more, to get this ingrained and automatic! Heh, it was very cool, though; this is what I’ve been aiming for. Mentally, my challenge for myself is to get good enough that I could use the bagua judge’s pen against the Piper system – some hope, eh?

I need a holiday to recover, how am I going to face work tomorrow…?

As I mentioned, the Piper guys were passing through town for a few days; I managed to catch up with them on Thursday night at a seminar they gave at a local school, and then again on Friday night – after my class with Master Zhou – as they explored Chinatown. Very, very nice guys. More on that in a later post.

Yesterday was taken up with a small part of the seemingly endless preparations for my move to Beijing, followed in the evening by Ch’an meditation. Our sifu instructed us in the different kinds of meditation, and their purposes. I am still hung up on the koan of “What is a butterfly?“. Katz!

Today was the second in my interview series as I sat down over lunch with Madam Ge, and asked her about the Beijing wushu team, life in the movies , and the future of Chinese wushu. Many, many thanks to her for her time – and even more to my gongfu brother Jono, for translating.

A bonus was meeting up with a visiting Taiwanese master, Mr Liu Pang Yao. We had much difficulty understanding each other, but it turns out he’s expert in at least Cheng Man Ching taijiquan and Cheng-style bagua (and probably much else besides). He gave a few demonstrations of applications, which were very, very cool – and which I will appreciate a lot more once my back and shoulder return to normal Very, very, effective, let’s put it that way! He gave me a few flyers for the World Cup Tai Chi Chuan Championship, to be held in Taipei in October this year. Email tccass at ms35 dot hinet dot com for more info.

Now, it’s home again, and settling back into paperwork before work tomorrow…

A quick note for anyone who’s interested but didn’t notice Lloyd’s comment on the old blog: the Piper guys will be in Singapore for a few days. They’ll be giving a demo of their Urban Shield system on Thursday; it’s a private event, but they’ve extended an invitation to me – should be very interesting!