I had planned to work late in the office last night, but by the time I’d finished teaching I was feeling a bit jaded and in need of exercise and fresh air. So, I got on my bike and cycled to Zhongshan Park, stopping at home to quickly change and pick up my shashkas.

I got there a little after 7pm; the gates close at 8, so I got in just under an hour of practice. I’m working out various different patterns of swinging the shashka, and I’m getting to understand how to hold it now – which is quite diffferent to the Chinese swords I’ve used in the past. Still, I need to think about this a bit more to be sure I’m doing it properly; I’ve never studied this, but I’m aware that there are many different ways of gripping sword handles. Apparently the ‘handshake’ is the best for the shashka.

There weren’t that many people in the park at that time, which was nice. On my previous visit, last Tuesday, it was a public holiday, and the place was packed; not necessarily a problem, but I had to keep stopping when people tried to photograph or film me (which I don’t want!). Last night, though, it was just me, a few elderly couples, and some security guards. The guards never give me any bother; that’s one of the nice things about China, actually, with its martial arts traditions – you can swing swords around in a public park and it’s regarded as entirely natural

Anyway, I’ve made enough progress with the shashkas that I’m now able to work with one in each hand; when I first tried this, my co-ordination wasn’t good enough. It’s interesting to note some of the sensations here. Long-time readers know that my left shoulder used to be really tensed up. Yiquan really made big improvements there, as I’ve previously noted. When I started using the shashka in my left hand, though, I could still feel that there was stiffness there; that’s going away as I use the swords more.

Using the swords is quite good exercise; I work up a sweat, and afterwards can definitely feel the effort in arms and shoulders, while ‘dancing’ as I move works the legs pretty well. I still need to improve the strength and coordination of my left hand, though – I found little nicks in my leg where the sword had caught them – good thing they aren’t sharp! One other interesting thing: the stainless steel replicas that I bought from taobao feel heavier than the carbon steel one that I bought in Panjiayuan Market; however, I notice that my hand and arm feel more tired after I use the latter. It may just be because of the grip: the replicas have resin handles, the other has a wooden handle and it may just be that I have to work harder with that because it doesn’t slip around in my hand as much as the replicas…

One thing that has amused me in the yiquan classes is that Master Yao and other students have mentioned several times that I’m very strong – which can’t be true as I don’t do any strength training beyond carrying my groceries, and haven’t done so for years. What they’re referring to, I think, is actually that I’ve gotten better at relaxing, so they’re pushing against body mass, not muscle strength. Still, I’ve been thinking that I need to get a bit more active; I’m doing a fair bit of aerobic work simply by dashing around Beijing on my bicycle, but some strength training would be good….

With that in mind, I bought Scott Sonnon’s Flowfit from Amazon. I was under the impression that it was based on his ROSS background, which it isn’t. It’s actually derived from his Prasara Yoga system. Yoga’s totally new to me; I’ve never really looked into it at all, though I have plenty of friends who practice it. Still, since I had it, I thought I’d give it a go, and I’m really enjoying it. It progresses through four levels of difficulty, and I’m taking it easy – just working on the beginner’s level using a stool as a support. Very nice; perhaps I should look into Yoga a bit more.

A German friend of mine went to India last year for a month-long yoga instructor’s course at Svyasa University in Bangalore. It’s apparently very intense, with participants rising at 04:15 and training until 21:30, 7 days a week for the full month! Wow. She’s been training in yoga for several years, but her Bangladeshi husband had no yoga background, and he also passed the same course…. Hmmm That’s something to think about for the summer holidays – add another string to my bow, and see a bit of India as well…. Hehehehe.

As readers of his blog will know, Tabby Cat has been in Beijing lately. I had the pleasure of catching up with him yesterday, and found him to be as interesting and good to talk to as I had expected! Tabby, I’ll looking forward to catching up next time you’re in town; watch out for an email soon.

We had lunch and then took a stroll around Zhongshan Park, exploring parts of it that I haven’t been to before. I was fascinated to discover that this is one of the areas where parents gather to advertise the personal details of their children, who are too busy for dating, in the hope of finding them a spouse. I’d read about this, but hadn’t realized that it happens in the same park where I train Funny old place, China…

It was a fresher day today, thanks to a cold north wind that made my nose stream. Not much to report, really: it was just walk, walk, walk, first in a straight line, then in circles. Sometimes I did it ok, mostly I didn’t.

I was thinking further on the same lines as yesterday: that getting this right is fundamentally a mental problem, not a physical one. I’m speaking from a learner’s point of view of course. As I was trying to walk the way Kong Cheng was telling me to, I was trying to hold my attention simultaneously in my feet, my hips, my pelvis and lower back, my shoulders, and my hands. Of course, I couldn’t do it, that’s too much! I realised that I was searching for the right vizualisation.

I’ve been wary of vizualisation, which comes from my meditation training. Vipassana involves using the mind to feel what is happening in different parts of the body; the danger is that the practitioner vizualises the body part, in other words creates a mental illusion, rather than stilling mental activity and simply sensing what’s happening in reality.

For martial arts training, though, it hit me today how useful visualisation is. Rather than herding cats, as my mind was trying to do this morning, the correct visualisation of an action or movement presents the mind with an activity it’s already familiar with, so that it knows exactly what to do with the body and doesn’t have to worry about it any more. Of course, this is precisely why the Chinese martial arts have such poetic names for their postures and movements: they are precisely describing a movement, energy and/or attitude in terms that would make a great deal of sense to traditional practitioners. Of course, they lived in a more unspoiled and natural world, and so were far more familiar with the movements of wild animals etc, that we are today. Working on the basic tang ni bu, I’m having to create a new vizualisation: “Cross-country skier holds down balloon”, but there’s got to be something better….

It’s been much warmer this week, but there is a price to pay… The winds have died down, so there’s no wind chill – but it also means that there’s nothing to blow the pollution away. Going to Zhongshan Park this morning, there was an acrid mist that caught at the back of my throat. As I entered the park, I could hear a distant booming that lasted for ten minutes or so; I wonder if the weather bureau was firing shells into the clouds to bring some rain…?

Sorry if these photos are getting repetitive, but I want to keep a record of what the scene is like every time I go to train; over the months, it should track the progress of the seasons – and, hopefully, remind me of progress in martial arts!

I’ve been practicing, and my mud-stepping is improving – Kong Cheng only had to kick my heels a few times. I did a few circuits under the eaves of a park office (where a thick-set Chinese gentleman of senior years was also practicing some qigong; we politely ignored each other). After that, it was circle-walking for two hours, winding up again with a bit of push-hands.

Such a simple description of the lesson but, internally, quite a lot happened. Kong Cheng had to remind me repeatedly about posture: leaning forward or to one side; wiggling my hips a bit too much; letting one arm (usually the outer) collapse in a bit too much… It’s all good; I think these are superficial issues that will vanish as I develop the internal work.

What do I mean by that? Well, as my stepping becomes less of an issue, my mind is able to move more freely around the body as a whole, identifying tensions. In particular, my shoulders, upper arms and upper back have a clear tendency to tense up, and only relax when I send my mind to them.Of course, once I do that, the lower back is free to sink in and under, the kua can move more freely, and the stepping gets more fluid and correct. So: it’s all in the mind – and, in keeping the mind present, calm, and aware of the body. Once the mind wandered (for example, ahem, composing a first draft of this post…) then everything tensed up again…

This awareness of tension is something I just wasn’t able to do before beginning yiquan, and the standing pole practice of zhan zhuang. As I mentioned before, that explains why my bagua before was so lousy – I simply couldn’t do it before because of the tension in the areas I just mentioned, so I guess I just compensated by go fast, relying on momentum and sloppy technique…. Kong Cheng mentioned that martial arts masters say “It’s easier to learn than to fix”, but there we are: I have to fix by bad habits before I can progress. Madam Ge Chun Yan often used to say that my root was weak, and I see clearly now why she said that.

If the zhan zhuang took me quite a long time to get into, the xing zhuang of circle-walking is tougher yet – maintaining mindfulness while walking is not easy! By the end of the session I was perspiring freely, and my ankles were aching from the unaccustomed strain; I lost a lot of weight when I first trained in bagua in 2004 – with luck, the same will happen again! It’s this kind of train of thought that makes me think that finally I am on the track for learning proper neijiaquan; above all, it’s the awareness that’s important, not the form. I didn’t have that when I was training in Singapore, or indeed when I first came to Beijing. Again, it’s only since I started the yiquan with Master Yao Cheng Rong that the penny finally dropped.

So, on the whole, I’m feeling quite positive about it all at the moment.