First the good news; then…

On the way to taiji class tonight, I was changing MRT lines at Raffles Place when I heard someone calling my name. Up came one of my old MBA classmates, a Singaporean part-time student. We did a TQM project togethed for our Managerial Accounting class in my third semester, but we haven’t been in touch since I went to China. He hasn’t finished yet; one more semester to go for him! It was nice to catch up – especially as he made plain he was astonished at how much thinner I am now! It’s true, I’ve lost 6kg since I came back to Singapore, but it’s a slow process and I guess I don’t really notice it. So it’s nice to be told, hehehe. That was the good news.

At class, we practised the form as usual, and then I spent a while working solo on the transition from ‘diagonal single whip’ to ‘punch under elbow’, as I wasn’t convinced I had it right. While I was doing that, the rest of my class were practising push hands. They’re getting a lot better! I joined in once I was happy with what I’d been doing, and got paired with the instructor – who promptly demonstrated that I’m still not very sensitive to force. He would exert just a little pressure, and have me off balance and thrown before I even felt it! Sigh. Ah well: practice, practice, practice!

Tui Shou

Tui shou, or ‘push hands’, is a part of taijiquan that isn’t always taught. The postures of the form are the actual martial movements, but push hands develops the sensitivity of your own and your opponent’s weight and movements, and is where you build up experience in being able to emit fa jin.

I mentioned that after Monday night’s class I had practiced tui shou for a while with one of the instructors. He came along to today’s class as well, the first time I’ve seen him on a Saturday. We did some more practice, under Master Chong’s guidance. I have a habit of leaning forward when I push, and this unbalances me – which allowed Master Chong to comprehensively throw me a round the room! (There are no mats, but there is a strategically placed sofa to fall on). Also, it seems that I will slightly pull back my hands when I’m about to push, signalling to my opponent what’s coming. Much work needed here.

Practising the form, in my individual session with Master Chong went over the sequence from the end of ‘parry and punch’ to ‘fist under elbow’. Later, when other students arrived, we went through the whole form; I think I just about held my own, even though I haven’t yet studied the whole form as taught by Master Chong. I have done the whole thing with other teachers, but with many differences; mostly minor, but some moves are substantially different. Today’s session also reminded me that I really do need to get working on my Chinese again…

Pushing hands

Just a quick record that at the end of Monday night’s class we spent some time practising push hands.

None of us in my class are much good at this. We were trying it for a while, and I was doing fairly well, in that I’m a lot more relaxed, and more sensitive to weight and balance, than the other students in my group.

But… one of the senior students came over to watch, and invited me to try with him – and boy, I have a long way to go before I can approach his level of skill. Very supple, very sensitive, and able to make tiny adjustments to posture that easily redirect and nullify my push. Impressive.

Grrr, a disappointment (but maybe not)

I went back through Duxton Plain Park again tonight, on my way back from a wasted meeting that I won’t bore you by describing. For the second week in a row, there were only a handful of Chin Woo people there; I guess they’re all taking a break after the big show.

I took the opportunity to chat to a couple of guys who were sitting and watching. They were initially surprised to see this ang moh approaching them, but were very friendly once I explained that I’d been to the show. I wanted to ask them about the old gentleman who had demonstrated Fu style baguazhang, and who I’d spoken to briefly at the end of the evening.

I showed them his name card, the one that’s only in Chinese that I can’t read…. and they said, ah, he’s based in Hong Kong. Drat. So, I won’t be able to find him for lessons here then!

And yet, there’s a Singaporean handphone number hand-written on it… Guess I’ll just have to call it and see who answers!

Why martial arts?

Last night, I found myself trying to explain to someone I don’t know very well why I’m studying martial arts increasingly intensively. After all, at the moment, I’m attending two classes a week in taiijiquan, and the same for capoeira. Soon, I hope to add classes in at least one form of baguazhang, and maybe two. Why?

It was harder than I expected to explain, I suppose because I’ve never tried to articulate it before. I think there are a number of complementary reasons.

Firstly, at least subconsciously, there must be an element of what motivated Robert Twigger to take up aikido, in Angry White Pyjamas – a sense of being over 30, with the constant threat of ‘desk spread’ – and (in my case) the constant memory of once having been very, very fit in those days when I worked in the African mountains. Intensive martial arts practise is a way to thoroughly pursue fitness, control, and challenge. I suppose there are also benefits for confidence – it’s certainly scary for me to attempt cartwheels on a hard wooden floor, when I’ve never done them before! With capoeira especially, it’s about being able to stretch myself (literally and metaphorically), and to avoid the ‘ossification’ that sets in with routine.

Secondly, there’s the ’sociological’ side – studying martial arts is a way into the older, more traditional side of a society. Certainly, here in Singapore, by getting involved with old-school teachers and martial arts societies, I’m getting a different and unusal insight into the history of Singapore, and its role in the social and political events of Asia.

Thirdly, there’s what you might call the ‘moral’ or spiritual aspect. It’s been said, for example, that taiji works upon the entirety of a person, and practise benefits not just the body but also the spirit. Certainly, I have felt before that I’m a better person when I train hard in taiji. As I’ve mentioned before, there have been periods of intense work in taiji, and in bagua, when I have entered the zen state of being absolutely in the present moment, with no distractions. It’s the same mental state as I’ve experienced on a meditation retreat; to have reached that state of stillness in motion gives a level of insight into change and impermanence that’s much stronger than when sitting on a meditation cushion. Note that I don’t say better – but certainly more intense. I mention Zen specifically, because studying daoist-related martial arts inevitably requires an insight into the principles of the Dao, and Zen, or Ch’an, is the result of Indian-style Buddhism encountering Chinese Daoist thought.

This is related to the fourth reason, of health and well-being. This isn’t quite the same thing as fitness – it’s more about achieving a physical and mental unity and harmony. I’ve experienced this most at times when I was working hard at developing qi, which became amplified by the practice of taiji and bagua. At present, none of my teachers are doing any qigong, and I think this is something I’ll have to address. Nam Wah Pai teach excellent qigong techniques; my time with them was extremely beneficial. It’s the qigong that really binds the whole martial arts experience together – physical, spiritual, and moral.

So, I suppose that brings me to my summary, what I should have used to explain myself last night: the intensive practise of martial arts is my route to self-actualisation – it benefits me physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, and socially. Wow, that can’t be bad.

The cat o’ three legs

Famously, cats have nine lives. They’re nevertheless usually attributed with the standard issue four legs. Tonight for the first time, I saw one that broke this rule…

Walking along Everton Road, in the five-foot way there was a black cat with a white belly, missing its rear right leg. I’ve never seen that before. How does a cat like that survive? Maybe it lives on fat, slow rats and cockroaches. Ewww. On the other hand, perhaps it has a home to go to, but it didn’t have a collar.

I’ve seen plenty of three-legged dogs, though. The one I knew best was called Bonehead, when I lived in Africa. Technically, I suppose he was four-legged, but his back leg had been badly broken when he was hit by a car; it wasn’t fixed, and withered so that when he ran it flopped around like a tied-on stick. He belonged to a couple in the Canadian equivalent of the Peace Corps. When they went back to Canada, Bonehead came to live with a colleague of mine at Outward Bound. Bonehead probably contributed to my hair going grey at an early age, by sneaking up and licking my ears while I was curled up sleeping in a cave in the mountains of Lesotho. I wasn’t expecting it, and just said “Go away, Bonehead!”, at which point my colleague sat bolt upright and screamed “THAT’S NOT BONEHEAD!”. I almost had a heart attack. It was Bonehead, though. Just goes to show, you can’t trust Canadians

Ambient orchestra

Waking up in the early morning, before the traffic starts: somewhere distant, the kettledrums of thunder roll like a portent. Nearby, the horns of the huge ships in the harbour call for attention. In the trees outside my window, the chorus of birds fills in the high notes, with the occasional soloist commanding the scene…

Who needs commercial music?

More on lineage

I mentioned that my taiji teacher’s teacher – Huang Sheng-hsien – became famous by defeating a wrestler.

Well, wouldn’t you know it – another Singaporean taiji school of the same lineage has a short video online (mpg video file) of that very fight!

Taiji lineage

I mentioned that I wasn’t sure how old Master Chong is… well: duh, of course I only needed to check his web page. In all Chinese martial arts, lineage is very important – often when I go to a new school and say I’ve studied some martial arts before, the master will want to know who taught me, and who taught him and so on… When I arrived at Monday night’s taiji class, a number of the senior students were gathered around a portable DVD player, watching a movie of a push hands demonstration. In the short clip that I saw, an old man was throwing various much younger attackers around a room, pushing hands or using an umbrella, and then just sending his opponents flying. Who was the old man? Apparently, it was Master Chong’s teacher (I don’t know how old the original film was). Anyway, when I thought to look at Master Chong’s web page to check his age, I see that he learned from Hwang Shien Xian. This master was one of Cheng Man Ching’s best students, and had originally studied White Crane boxing. He’s mentioned twice in Robert W. Smith’s book, Chinese Boxing: Masters and Methods (as Huang Sheng-hsien):

[William] Chen probably climbed higher than any of Cheng Man-Ching’s students, except the converted White Crane boxer Huang Sheng-Hsien (who after learning t’ai chi moved to Singapore and acquired some fame there; in 1970 he publicly thrashed a “wrestler” in a bout that, on the basis of news accounts I have seen, lacks credibility). (p77)

and

I next repaired to a school run by Hung Sheng-hsien, a former White Crane boxer who had studied assiduously under Cheng Man-Ch’ing in Taiwan. Huang was in Sarawak, so I missed seeing him. But his students were first-rate and the T’ai-chi, quite correct. Huang in 1970 bested a wrestler, and was given some publicity for this feat. In Taiwan he was regarded as a fine boxer, losing only once that I know of (to Wung Yu-Ch’uan, an excellent wrestler and Tai-Ch’i adept). (p109)

The school that Hung started in Sarawak, Borneo (at that time still the territory of the White Rajahs of the Brooke family), was Sing Ong, which is still going. They also have a page about their lineage, including history and photographs. While I’m on the subject, another teacher of Cheng Man Ching’s lineage in Singapore is Master Tan Ching Ngee. I can’t help wondering if the “Ong Zi Chuan” mentioned in his background is the same “Wung Yu-Ch’uan” who defeated Hung! In any case, when I first came to Singapore, I was looking for a teacher of the CMC style as that’s what I’d studied in Wales. Through search engines I discovered Master Tan, and went to look for him after I arrived. He very kindly invited me to join him for dinner that evening in the Jumbo seafood restaurant – where, it turned out, he was meeting the heads of a number of other martial arts schools to organise an inter-style competition. There were some very serious martial artists around that table! I started attending classes with him. He was teaching in the Lavender area (which I alluded to in another post). Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. According to one of his students, Master Tan was trying to retire, and was cutting down on the number of students. As a result, he taught on the flat roof of a shophouse, above a kopitiam and a martial arts association. Whenever it rained, class was cancelled. This happened a lot. Also, because Master Tan was so well-known, he was often travelling, so classes were cancelled then as well. Patience is a virtue of course, but at that time I only expected to be in Singapore for a year, so I couldn t afford so many cancellations. Ultimately, I made my apologies, and started going to Nam Wah Pai instead. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to study more with Master Tan, but I don’t regret that decision. Nam Wah Pai have a totally different approach to Master Chong and Master Tan. The former work on developing qi first, leaving practical applications till much later. The latter do it the other way around. I’m not going to say that either is better, but this difference will be the subject of another post.

Relaxation

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.