New bagua spear classes

Madam Ge Chun Yan will be teaching a new course on bagua spear from March 6th, 2007. The classes will be held at Marine Parade Drive, and will run from 20:45 to 22:00. The course will run for 4 months; the fee for the course is S$350. For more information, check the ‘classes’ section on Madam Ge’s website.

Angulimala

It may not be obvious to all readers of this blog that I am actually a very angry person. Not all the time, of course! Usually, it won’t be apparent in my behaviour. Much of the time, even I won’t be aware of it. But deep down, there’s always anger, bubbling away, looking for a reason to explode.

Where does this anger have its roots? Back in the UK, the circles I moved in were extremely political, and I found it a very unpleasant experience. It’s high-pressure, very manipulative, and ego-driven. Without really being aware of how it had happened, I suddenly realised that it had changed me, and that I’d become quite an unpleasant person. Even I didn’t like myself.

I managed to undo the damage. Fate, or perhaps good karma, enabled me to get out of the environment that was locking me into that behaviour. That was the start. What really changed me for the better was attending a 10-day meditation retreat organised by the Goenka Foundation. This had a tremendously positive effect on me; afterwards, I felt totally cleansed, emotionally and spiritually. My anger was completely gone, and I felt transformed. This ’small enlightenment’ was instrumental in my eventually becoming a Buddhist, and led me to change what I planned to do after my MBA – which was about to start.

Unfortunately, the MBA is also a high-pressure, ego-driven environment, and old habits resurfaced. Gradually, I wasn’t able to keep up the meditation, and began to react to events again with anger and frustration. The lessons and benefits of the meditation didn’t entirely go away, and continued to help me – plus, I was able to attend classes at Odiyana, which helped. So, I never became as nasty as I had been before.

But.. the year post-MBA has been very stressful, and that negativity has been boiling away behind the scenes. Some events over the last few days have stoked the fire, and last night, I just lost it; I wound up being a real asshole to someone who had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just rudeness, nothing more, but they didn’t deserve it and I feel remorseful, not that I can do much to remedy it now.

I suppose that if I can’t undo it, I can at least try to learn from it. Lesson one is meditate, meditate, meditate. Meditation regularly increases awareness of sensations, and teaches disengagement from them; recognising the stirring of negative feelings, and learning not to let them take hold. If I had been stronger in my practice, I wouldn’t have accumulated so much rage, and I would had have been able to control my temper. Secondly, the importance of sangha – that is, engagement in the Buddhist community, to learn from others and benefit from their support. Trying to learn and practice alone is much harder.

So why am I blogging about it? Well, if I can look at this action of mine, and take lessons from it that help me to be a better person, perhaps the message will help someone else to avoid making the same mistake. Secondly, putting it out there may help me stick to my resolve to practise more seriously.

It’s perhaps the right time; I was told that the the Year of the Dog was going to be unlucky for me, and it’s certainly been far from my best year ever. Maybe this is its parting shot. The Year of the Pig should be better, and I’ll try to get it off to a good start by trying to reform. And the title? Well, if even Angulimala, through effort, could become enlightened then I, through effort, should at least be able to be less obnoxious.

The real meaning of Shaolin?

I haven’t made it to the Shaolin Temple yet; I still hope to visit some day. I have a personal connection of sorts, in that Xiaoyan, my teacher in Beijing, studied at Shaolin for twenty years, but it’s not as if I can claim any real expertise on the topic.

I was reminded of Shaolin the other day, though, when I saw something on the Kwan Yin Chan Lin Zen Centre website.

I’ve seen many, many explanations of the temple’s name, 少林寺 or, in hanyu pinyin, Shàolínsì.

少 – “Shào” can mean ‘few’, ‘less’, or ‘young’.

林 – “lín” means ‘forest’.

The most frequent translation I’ve seen is along the lines of ‘temple in the small forest”. However, the wikipedia entry says that it actually means “monastery of the woods near Shaoshi peak”. No doubt that’s the case.

Metaphorically, however, it could be taken as something else. The ‘Lin’ in ‘Kwan Yin Chan Lin’ is the same Chinese character as used in ‘Shaolin’, and here’s what they say:

“‘Lin’ means many tree. The many trees that make up a forest give it strength, and cannot be blow away by strong wind.”

In other words, the ‘Lin’ refers not to an actual, literal, forest of trees, but to the community of believers who support one another in their learning and belief. Using this interpretation, Shàolínsì, could mean ‘the temple of the small group of fellow-believers‘ – or maybe, as was said in a different context, ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers’. Doesn’t that make sense?

On this night of stars….

… OK, so it’s an Evita quote, so sue me. Actually, the tale of how I wound up going to see Evita in the company of a wildly eccentric Spanish artiste is a whole other story that shall not be told here. I use the quote to make the point that I have had the most amazing evening…

I went out to work on my taiji and bagua in Duxton Plain Park, as usual. I decided to try out my new approach to bagua practice, and discovered that I’m on the right path. I just concentrated on two things: 1) breathe from the tantien 2) keep facing the centre of the circle. I don’t say that I managed to do both of these all the time, or even most of the time. But when I did, everything else just worked. The stepping, the posture, everything just fell into place. Tonight was more difficult than it ought to have been, because I was also breaking in a new pair of shoes (in the shop, and in my apartment, I was able to mud-step very smoothly, but when worn on concrete they suddenly became super-grippy). All the same: I really feel like I’ve made a breakthrough.

As if to reward me for getting it right, a number of other things fell into place. Mr Wang, who I’ve mentioned before, came along again – but this time he was in a chatty mood. He said that he’s 56 now, and he started learning yinfu style bagua when he was 6 years old; he was taught by his father, who was also a yinfu style expert. We talked for some time. I can’t call it a conversation; my Mandarin is so bad that I wasn’t so much answering him, as trying to use any vocabulary I have in order to say something that might be tangentially related to what I thought he might have said. Nevertheless, he gave a demonstration of his bagua, comparing it to the Cheng style that I know.

Since I was just finishing as he came along, we walked along the park together until we came to where the Chin Woo (Jing Wu Men in Mandarin) were practicing; they were out in force tonight, with maybe thirty people there. This was where I was meeting a friend, so we parted company at that point. Through my friend, I know quite a few of the Chin Woo people, so I got talking to one of the senior instructors. It turned out that they had a special guest instructor visiting from Shanghai, so I was introduced to him… and it turned out that he knew me and wanted to talk to me: he was one of the two guys who stopped to watch me working on my bagua on Monday night – the one I didn’t talk to on that occasion. He also knows bagua, and gave me a demo. I really had trouble with his Shanghainese accent, and couldn’t understand much of what he said, to my shame, but it looked a lot like the Fu style I’ve previously seen at Chin Woo. I liked him immediately; he came across as a really nice guy, the kind of upright, straight-talking martial artist you just have to respect.

I arranged to meet my friend at the coffee shop I mentioned on Monday; when I got there, who did I see but Mr Ng (who I’ve often written about here), who is also part of Chin Woo, and also knows bagua. He was hanging out with a group of friends who, from what I caught of their conversation, are also martial artists. I got talking to the waitress I mentioned before; she’s from Shandong province.

I know that these words won’t convey as much to you as I would like them to. Understand that when I was still living in Wales, colleagues and ‘friends’ would see me practising taiji, and say to me “You’re into some weird stuff, aren’t you”, in the kind of voice that meant ‘We think you might be a serial killer’. To have moved to Singapore and get so much martial arts goodness in one night, I really think I must have done something double-plus good in a previous life! Which is also a kick up the backside to remind me that I need to get started on doing good things in this life, because I would appear to be well overdue on that account. Still… I have two important take-aways from tonight. Firstly, it’s to recognise how amazingly open and friendly people can be once you’ve established that you’re serious about practicing martial arts. Secondly, it’s that I must, must, must improve my Mandarin, because without good Chinese I’m crippled.

Aaaah, so zen

Stop thinking and do

Dharma class was even better than usual this evening. Wangchog’s theme was ‘Making time for meditation’, delivered in his normal rambling manner and hilarious style. Where else could you see a monk trying to imitate a washing machine in its final spin cycle?!

His point was serious, though; normally our thoughts are so disorganised, so busy, that they’re not helpful to us and , in fact, all they do is contribute to our unhappiness. For the first time since I’ve been going to these Tuesday classes, he referred to higher levels of Vajrayana Buddhist thought: the chakras, and energy flow channels (although he only discussed them briefly to give background to his main theme, and made it clear that he wouldn’t answer any questions about this aspect of his talk). The main theme at this point was that our emotions, our mind, and our energy flows within the body are all tightly interwound, and that an imbalance in one affects the others. Consequently, it’s important to deal with our busy thoughts, to let go of the objects to which we direct those thoughts, and to pull our attention back inside ourselves on a regular basis. This will have positive results for both our karmic development, and our physical health.

(By the way, let me be clear that this is just my interpretation of his lesson – any errors, ommissions, or misunderstandings are my fault entirely).

Now this isn’t the first time that Wangchok’s lesson has related directly to something that was already on my mind, and just this afternoon I’d been reflecting further on the way I’ve been practising my bagua circle walking.

It occurs to me that I’m still doing it wrong – by which, I mean to say, that my entire approach may have been wrong at the root. Although there’s no doubt that my actions are the right thing to do – ie walking very slowly, sinking my weight, and so on – I’m approaching my practise from the wrong direction. I have too many checklists – Is my back straight? Are my feet placed correctly? Am I opening my kua enough? – that my mind is too busy, and my focus is dispersed.

Instead, perhaps I should just empty my mind, breathe from the tantien, and just… walk. It seems that might be a better way to develop internal strength – and to move towards baguazhang’s higher levels. Of course, either way, in both meditation and bagua, there’s a lot of eating bitterness to come, in the way of hard practice…

35. Don’t measure success

Don’t measure success and gain by wealth and rank: to benefit ourselves and others as best we can is all that matters.

Master Sheng Yen

Fighting against the rust

I wasn’t working today, so I took some time to give my sword some attention. In Singapore’s humid climate, there’s a lot of sweat running down my arms during bagua practice and, since the sword blade is held against the forearm a lot of the time, rust is naturally a problem.

I do clean the blade from time to time – once a month or so on average – but I was getting a bit worried that sweat was running down the blade into the handle, and so I wanted to check that out. So, today’s job was to dismantle my bagua shuang shou jian (2-handed sword, about 4.5′ long). You would think that this would be easy; after all, a sword doesn’t exactly have any moving parts! It turned out that the tang was a bit rusty, but it was pretty minor and not as bad as I’d feared. I gave the blade and tang some attention with rust-remover followed by oiling; it didn’t take too long. However… the problem when it came to re-assembling the sword was the pommel. Inside, I’d found there were seven pieces of plywood, about 1″ x 1/2″‘ they were obviously meant to keep the end of the tang, and the small metal sheath that surrounded it (in two separate pieces) steady as the sword moves. The trouble was… the pommel is hollow, and rather larger than these bits of wood – so, when trying to fit everything back together, I simply could not work out how to get them to lie straight! They kept falling away at an angle, and always blocking the tang when I tried to put it though! In the end, I cheated: I got some glue, and stuck them together in two layers of three. That worked, and I was able to put the sword back together. That left one piece unused; I’ve kept it in case seven was chosen for some mystically significant reason that will mean I need to put that piece back in. I also noticed for the first time that thehandle is shaped so that right-handed users will always use it one way, and left handers will use it another. I wonder if that’s just a manufacturing oddity, or a deliberate design choice..?

This evening, I was back in Duxton Plain Park, working on my taiji and bagua sets again. As a consequence of some of Ge Laoshi’s comments, I’m having to completely relearn the bagua stepping method. To do this, I’m going through the set veeeeerrrrryyyy sssslooooowwwwwlyyyyyy which is murder on my leg muscles, I tell you! I’m also trying to work on my posture, by paying attention to the bai hui::perineum axis, and trying to keep it vertical, and to move around it as I keep facing the centre of the circle. Let’s just say that I don’t anticipate getting this right anytime soon.

The area of the park where I practice gets a lot of passing traffic, which doesn’t bother me. Recently, though, I’ve found that quite a lot of people are stopping to watch, often for long periods. I just try to tune them out in general. It worries me slightly that some of them are Chinese contruction workers from a building site across the road; I truly have nothing against them personally, and it’s just a couple of them at the moment – but I do worry that they might call their friends, and thirty or more will arrive to form an audience!

Some observers are a bit more welcome, though. Last night, Mr. Wang, the chef at a nearby Beijing-style restaurant walked by again. We met before, last year: he knows yinfu style bagua, so it was nice to chat to him again. Tonight, a couple of guys were watching for about 40 minutes as I went through the bagua form veeery sloowly; one stopped to talk afterwards: he wants to learn martial arts for health, and wondered if I could recommend somewhere. He’s a local Chinese, in his 50s and a restaurant manager. He said that Marine Parade Drive, where Ge Laoshi teaches, is too far, so I suggested he try Nam Wah Pai. Also, Madam Phan walked past. I often see her coming by with her (maid? grand-daughter?) female helper when I’m practising, and she always says aah, lian gong! She’s often helped up the steps by the Indian security guard of the building she comes out of, and I got talking to him tonight; he seems to take a proprietary interest, and showed me a copy of a newspaper clipping about her. I love Singapore

After tonight’s practice, I went to grab a beer at a coffee shop on Kreta Ayer Road (no wonder I’m gaining weight, eh?). There’s a very pretty waitress there, who I think is mainland Chinese. I wouldn’t say that she’s the reason I go there, more that it’s just a convenient place, and it’s a bonus that she’s there. She doesn’t speak English, so I communicate in my bad Mandarin when I order. I don’t know her name, or anything about her. The sad thing is, tonight she had bruises on her neck as if someone had grabbed her throat very hard; they weren’t hickies, for sure. What to do? I don’t know her, I’ve got no place getting involved, and I’m a foreigner with no-one to mind my back. Best to say nothing, and pretend I haven’t seen the bruises, I guess.

34. Work swiftly

Work swiftly in an orderly fashion; never compete with time in a nervous flurry.

Master Sheng Yen

The more I practise…

… the worse I seem to get. I’m talking about the baguazhang here. I would hope that it’s a case of rising standards and expectations; that would be the most gratifying explanation. Against that, I can’t deny that Madam Ge is correcting me more and more often in class, and I wonder whether I’m getting sloppy. Most of it is always down to the same root: bad posture. I often just don’t notice that I’m slouching forward, or to one side. Deeply rooted bad habits… After class last night, I was saying to ‘D’ – the other British student of Madam Ge, who’s much more experienced in martial arts than I am! – that this comes and goes; my posture was very bad when I came to Singapore, improved a lot when I was with Nam Wah Pai, then deteriorated again once I stopped practising qigong regularly. There’s an obvious conclusion to be drawn: start the qigong again. I’m trying to do this; ‘D’ recommends horse stance, so I’ll try to do my zhanzhuang in that position.

Last night’s class was also memorable for being filmed. I’m not entirely clear on the details but, as I understand it, some film company in Beijing is doing a retrospective on Wulin Zhi. As a part of this, they’re tracking down all of the stars, and finding out what they’re doing these days. They wanted Madam Ge to go back to Beijing to be interviewed but, as this wasn’t convenient, she’s recording her interview here, along with pieces on some of her students, and showing a class under way. This will all be sent back to the film company for editing. I got interviewed as a part of all this; I wasn’t expecting it and had to come up with a spur-of-the-moment critique of, and response to, the film. It wasn’t too bad all things considered, but I’ll probably still end up looking stupid in front of 1.3 billion people if it gets aired…

Since I mention Nam Wah Pai, I had lunch the other day with Pern Yiau of World Nam Wah Pai. We met at Annalakshmi, the vegetarian Indian restaurant on Amoy Street. We had a really interesting and wide-ranging chat, covering NWP, Wu Tu Nan, qi, the martial arts in China… a lot! Pern Yiau’s a nice, softly-spoken guy; he’s got a background in the arts and theatre scene in Singapore (including The Necessary Stage, who I encountered over the weekend!) and we had a good chat about that, the nature of the acting experience, and the role of the arts in Singapore. In the end, we were talking for about three hours, and were the last to leave the restaurant! I hope we’ll be able to meet up again soon.