What a stiff(ness)!

Wow, it’s been a pretty intense week martial arts-wise!

At the Nam Wah Taijigong Association, we’re working on the Yang-24 sequence now; for me it’s much-needed revision, as I haven’t practiced this for a long time. My practice of the sequence has also gotten a bit mixed up, as Nam Wah’s sequence is small-frame, whereas in Beijing I learned the large-frame version. We’re moving very slowly through the new moves, holding each position for what feels like very long periods! It isn’t really for very long, but a lot of muscles and tendons aren’t used to even short pauses in these positions, and complain vociferously!

As I mentioned, I’m now also studying twice a week with Master Zhou. I think he feels that this will give us plenty of time to finish the form, so last night we tried something new. Next to where we practice, there’s a trio of heavy upright wooden poles, set in a triangle and supporting metal bars for pullups. When I first started studying with Madam Ge, I used these to try to work out the applications for the moves; I stopped that fairly soon, after I was reminded that I needed to work more on the basics first. (Looking back on that post with hindsight is pretty interesting; I now know that Mr Ng was taught bagua by Master Zhou’s twin brother!).

Anyway, last night, Master Zhou decided to focus solely on applications. Normally, although he shows me a lot of these, we don’t do much repetition, so I tend to forget them. This time, he showed me a sequence of moves, and I just did them again and again, circling one of the poles and using it as my target, to a chorus of “Hit the eyes! Hit the eyes! Hit the balls! Hit the chest!” Etc, etc…. Hehehe, my contribution was to teach Master Zhou the English word “balls”, which he’s very pleased to add to his vocabulary of what to hit and how to do it!

This, as you can imagine, gathered a lot of attention from passers-by! We were joined for a lot of the lesson by a very tall, striking woman from Dalian and her small son, about six years old I would guess, who was totally fascinated by this! (The son, I mean, the mother less so). Master Zhou’s very good with kids, and chatted away happily to them as I kept on circling and striking… Later, the Chin Woo Lion Dancers started drumming away nearby; the boy really wanted to see this, so off they went to watch… After class, as I went down to where I practice solo, I passed the drummers and they were still there, the mother talking to Chin Woo students, the little boy doing gymnastics… They wouldn’t have been there if they hadn’t stopped to watch my practice; I wonder whether something has been set in motion that will change that little boy’s life, however slightly? It would be nice to think so!

So, then it was time for solo practice. Most of this was working on the needles form, trying to drill it into muscle memory, and getting it into the circle walking. Thank goodness I took that video of Mi Lao Shi – there’s absolutely no way I would have remembered this. With repeat views of the video, though, I think I’m getting it, and was eventually finishing the form in the same spot that I’d started in. After that, I wound down with some sets of CMC-37 taijiquan, and xuan xuan dao, before going to meet some of the Chin Woo folks in a coffee shop on Keong Saik Road.

This morning…. oh my…. my ankles and leg tendons ache from holding the Yang-24 positions…. my back and shoulders ache from the whirling and twisting of the needles form… my palms, shoulders , back of my heel and sole of my foot ache from hitting and kicking those poles! Ouch! Ouch!

End of the needles

Well, yesterday was our last class for the bagua needles. There was a bit of a sting in the tail – I’d thought that it would just be a revision session, but there was more to learn, and it was the toughest session yet for me.

Up until this class, I’d thought that we were learning a linear form; this isn’t unheard of in bagua. Yesterday, it turned out that it’s a circular form. We’d been taught the movements in a linear form to make it easier, but yesterday, we  turned it into a circle. Mostly this was pretty straightforward, but there were some parts where I wasn’t sure what the frack was going on… It didn’t help that it’s intended to be performed in a small, 8-step circle but – due to the size of the class, we were walking around a much larger circle, so when we were supposed to be on the circumference looking outwards, we were actually at the centre looking inwards, as it were. I think most other people found this easier to get the hang of, but of course I couldn’t follow the verbal explanation and got totally lost…

Anyway, I had my camera so at the end I  asked Mi Lao Shi if I could film her doing the set as it was meant to be done. She was OK about that, but we had to go down a floor to get decent light (the class was back in our regular place, on the top of a car park; the light was pretty bad). Sun Lao Shi was waiting for her so that they could leave but, to be fair, they were very patient! As soon as she had finished the set, she jumped into the waiting car, and off they went! Perhaps I’ll see them in Beijing, perhaps not…

I’m glad to have the video, anyway. I can put it on my iPod and use it for a learning aid when I’m practicing in the park!

Unofficial religion in China

I”ve had about two dozen tabs open in Firefox for the last week or so, keeping pages open that I thought might be worth following up on. One of these is the statement of Professor David Ownby to a “Congressional Executive Committee on China”, on the topic of Unofficial Religion in China. I can’t remember how I arrived at this page, though I suspect it may have been via Scott Phillips’s blog.

Anyway, it’s quite interesting. It starts with an account of how ‘modern’ qigong was developed post-1949, by attempting to strip the religious and philosphical elements out of traditional mind-body health and healing practices. It also covers the growth of ‘folk Christianity’ (apparently, Christian villages are easier to control, because they’re more amenable to hierarchical power structures), and of the Falun Gong movement.

Regarding the Falun Gong, they seem to be getting a bit more active here in Singapore lately – I’ve noticed people handing out their newsletters, in Chinese and English, outside MRT stations in the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure what to think about them; they seem friendly enough, but a religious movement that hijacks satellites starts to put me in mind of Aum Shinrikyo a little bit too much…

The growth of new religious movements is one that I find fascinating, though: take a look at this article in The Atlantic on the subject… It’s something that could be worth watching in China. Professor Ownby’s statement mentions that much of the Christian revival in China stems from pre-1949 believers who kept their faith, and are now starting to spread t again. I wonder whether the same thing is happening with traditional Chinese religion, such as spirit-mediums?

San Huang

The Buddhist Channel has an interesting little piece about the San Huang retreat, near the Shaolin Temple. A 48 year-old reporter for the Sunday Times goes to Shaolin, endures a few days of agonizing training, then heads off for the peace and quiet of this small retreat community. Nice.

65. While worry fuels unnecessary torment

While worry fuels unnecessary torment, carefulness breeds security.

Master Sheng Yen

Bagua bi, nearly done

It’s Christmas Day, but that doesn’t stop dedicated bagua students from attending class! For today only, we were indoors, in a local school’s sports hall.

As I’m not taking the “Applications” course, I got there just as that was winding up. Apparently I’d missed Master Sun doing some demonstrations, though later I got to see him showing xingyi set that was very impressive.

We finished the needle set today, and were all given a certificate of attendance for the course or courses that we’ve participated in:

My goodness, what a terrible picture of me! Or perhaps not, since I’ve completely failed in my plan to lose weight

Today’s final part of the set was quite tough for me to get right; Mi Lao Shi had to correct me a number of times; I’m sure I’m straining her patience, but if so, she doesn’t show it! Anyhow, we still have one final revision class tomorrow night, and then that’s the needle class finished. It’s a very nice form, I do still really like it!

So now it’s time to go do a bit of last-minute Christmas shopping, sparing a thought for my bagua classmate Jono, who as I speak is somewhere in Eastern Russia, heading for Moscow on the Trans-Siberian express…

Nadolig Llawen

Merry Christmas, everyone.

True self, right path

As I mentioned, I went to a Dharma talk last week, given by Zen Master Wu Bong.

The marketing by the KYCL centre was a bit mixed up, I think. It only mentioned a talk on the 20th of December. It turned out that there was a Dharma talk on the 19th as well, and the session on the 20th was really meant as more of a Q&A. Master Wu mentioned that on the previous night there were very few people but many questions; on the 20th, many people but few questions – not surprising, really!

Master Wu teaches through telling stories, which in some cases went over the heads of some in the audience. There was, I think, a pretty eclectic audience; some who knew very little of Zen, some who knew a lot. Of course, what we take away from a Dharma talk like this depends very much on what we take into it. On this occasion, I was struck hard by his teaching that Zen means finding your true path in life, and striving to follow it. What your true path is, is something each individual must choose. In response to a question from a Caucasian (German?) woman, he stressed that it’s not about “feeling” what your true path is, it’s a matter of actively choosing it and then living it and following it with commitment.  The founder of the Kwan Um school movement, Zen Master Seung Sahn, says something very similar in one of his books, perhaps The Compass of Zen. I’ll have to check my copy again.

This got my attention, because I have to say that I’ve recently been feeling intensely insecure about my future direction. As you know, I’m heading off to Beijing in February, and I’m looking forward to it very much. The fact is, though, that it’s for a short-term contract, and I really don’t know what I’m going to do afterwards, or where I’m going to be living. I’m very much concerned with trying to “find my path”, after my MBA didn’t help me to make the career transition I’d envisaged.  Over the past couple of weeks, this has been worrying me a lot. The key takeaway was that Master Wu really emphasised finding the right path, and sticking with it regardless of the difficulties. Find your true self.

Through coincidence, or karmic destiny, I found myself a few days later browsing in one of the second-hand bookshops in the Bras Basah complex. A couple of books almost jumped out at me. One of them was The Buddha, Geoff, and Me by Edward Canfor-Dumas. I’ve seen it before on the shelves at Kinokuniya, but wasn’t tempted then. A quick flick through the pages, though, and I bought it. I even got an unexpected discount on the marked price! It could have been written for me, in the situation I’m currently in, and I got through it in an evening. I’ll give it a couple of days to percolate through my subconscious, and then I’ll read it again. There’s a lot of down-to-earth wisdom, and very recognizable characters in this book! It’s actually a novel, written in a memoir style; at first, I was taken in, and though it actually was autobiographical.

These two events have actually been pretty helpful to me, as they have resonated so strongly with things that were already on my mind, and ideas I was already juggling with. How to actually turn these into a path I can follow? That’s the challenge for 2008…

Oh, and to answer the question that was on my mind, Master Wu Bong is not a monk. In the Kwan Um school, both lay people and monks can be Zen Masters.

Invasion of the history snatchers

The Qianmen district of Beijing is one that is very dear to my heart – although sadly, I now have to write that it was very dear to my heart. It’s gone now, replaced with an identical copy of itself.

I’ve mentioned before why I liked it so much. I spent many summer nights there, getting lost in the narrow, wandering, alleyways, drinking beer and eating delicious food in tiny little restaurants where staff bantered with customers, and everything was great as long as you didn’t look in the kitchen.

On my first trip to Beijing in 2004, my Norwegian friend Stefan and I stood around watching the card games in the street, and stayed around until the only people left were the locals, who would be walking around in their pyjamas because of the heat.

In 2005, I hung out with Fei from Xi’an; we dived into the old courtyard buildings, looking at the different architectural styles, and chatting to the migrant workers who paid extortionate rates for clapboard rooms that had been thrown up in the courtyards. Everywhere we went, we encountered a warm welcome. With her, I had a really enjoyable evening in a tiny dumpling shop, where we were quizzed and teased by the rest of the diners.

In 2007, I went back to find the area reduced to rubble, surrounded by hoardings. The new “walls” were graced with huge pictures of the future Qianmen; it looked like Second Life.

I guess I’ll see the reality for myself next year. It sounds like it’s appalling. I’ve just found an article about it in the online journal China Heritage Quarterly. An area that once was part of the jianghu (in my interpretation of it – see my About page):

he previously privileged occupants of the Inner City during the Ming dynasty were forced to move elsewhere, often to new residences in the Outer City. As a result of this brief southern migration Qianmen flourished, as erstwhile residents of the Inner City relocated their roots and businesses to the south. In addition to its already existing reputation as a mercantile centre, the area also soon became a new entertainment district which residents and visitors, many of them scholars from other provinces who were in Beijing to sit the civil service examination, could dine out at the many restaurants that lined the streets, find lodgings, purchase luxurious goods, or attend a performance of the opera.[1]
Fig.1 The demolition of buildings in Qianmen district in January 2007. [Kelly Layton]

Equally important for social life in Qianmen, and for its status as Beijing’s entertainment district, was the commerce in brothels catering to the varied sexual appetites of their male clientele. Indeed, according to the local historian Zhang Jinqi (and many salacious accounts in ‘apocryphal histories’, yeshi), it was here that the Tongzhi Emperor (r.1862-74), during one of his late night incognito excursions to escape from the frustrations of court life and his libidinally frustrated eunuch retainers, contracted syphilis whilst fulfilling his own concupiscent urges, from which he would eventually die.

has been transformed into a sanitised, commercial zone of shopping malls disguised in “authentic” Qing-style buildings.

OHO’s redevelopment of the area of Qianmen promises to be a new, faux-Qing-style pedestrian shopping mall, a place where Beijing’s residents and tourists may engage in lifestyle practices that dabble with history whilst never really having to come to terms with it.

Of course, the life will all be gone, and the community dispersed. I guess I can only be glad that at least I saw it as it was.

5 years

I arrived in Singapore on December 20th, 2002. I only expected to be here for a year.

Five years! Five years! Five years! *

Five years ago today I had no idea that taijiquan could really be used as a martial art. I’d never seen baguazhang or xingyiquan. I’d never been to China, and could only speak a word or two of Mandarin. I was about the same weight I am now, ie over-. I’d never meditated.

I think that over the next few days I need to reflect deeply on what’s happened in those five years, and on my plans for the next five. Reckon there’s some big decisions coming up…

* h/t Grosse Point Blank