Jianghu :: 2.0

It’s been a bit of a rough week; I’m mentally drafting a blog post about it, as it’s required lots of soul-searching. Not sure if I’ll publish it, though.

Anyway, I’ve been feeling bad about how my practice in both martial arts and meditation has been kind of sidelined in the months since I came to Beijing - which wasn’t entirely unexpected, but I didn’t expect the extent of it! So this week I’ve been trying to change conditions to let me get back into the groove.

Buying a bike was a good, and much overdue, idea. I’ve been able to explore parts of the campus I couldn’t easily get to before, and it’s helped me to find a place to practice. Previously, the only place I could find was on the edge of the sports field, surrounded by large areas of concrete. The qi felt really bad there, plus I was in full view of the crowds of students hanging out there, which was a bit awkward. On the bike, I’ve found a courtyard park area in the midst of the older staff apartments. It’s private, shady, and the air is really good. Lots of birds singing in the trees above, and a few old people doing qigong in the morning. It only takes a few minutes to get there by bike - although, going by bike means I have to use a shoulderstrap on my sabre’s scabbard, and sling it over my back. I look like some sort of demented bicycle cavalryman as I whizz around campus; it’s surely only a matter of time before I get arrested

So, I went there this morning - first morning practice for a few weeks, made easier by the new timetable. (I’m able to re-use stuff from last semester now, rather than getting up at 6am every day to start researching & writing on the day’s new lecture material). I started with 15 min or so of zhan zhuang, then went into a couple of sets of CMC-37 taiji. After that, I tried the xuan xuan broadsword set for the first time in ages, but got a mental block halfway through. Now worries, that happened from time to time even back in Singapore, when I was doing it regularly. Experience has taught me that when this happens, it’s best to just stop, rather than keep banging away at it. Next, a few reps of the moves I’ve learned so far of the ba da zhang, working on some details that I’m finding tricky. I followed that with a first attempt in ages of Master Zhou’s wuji long xing baguazhang set; I’m very rusty, but I really need to get back into it. Not sure why yet - I’m sure it’ll bubble up from the subconscious at some point - but having started a bit of zhang zhuang, I think there’s some sort of strong connection with the wuji set. Anyhow, I finished up with a couple of sets of the bagua needles form, before cycling back home through the crowds of students who were by then on their way to the day’s first lectures.

Back home, a met a technician who’d come to fix my computer, which was getting badly clogged up by a couple of years’ worth of Singapore and Chinese dust; it’s now running much cooler and faster. Hooray!

I didn’t write up everything that happened last week when I went to the Yiquan Academy, because there were a few things that happened that called for a little more reflection before I talked about them.

You can’t knock around the world of internal martial arts for as long as I have without learning, even by osmosis, that the masters consider the root and power of their arts to lie in zhan zhuang, or standing practice, rather than in the form. However… I haven’t particularly practiced zhan zhuang, and few of my teachers have put much emphasis on it. My taijiquan practice is what’s given me a feel for it, I guess, and particularly the taijigong taught by Nam Wah Pai in Singapore.

Yiquan, of course, is all about the zhan zhuang, with no set form at all. When I went to the Academy last week, H. told me we would just practice what I know as the basic “holding the tree” posture, with some mind work to accompany it. I’ve tried this posture a few times over the years, and have a few books that talk about it, but in all my solo work I’ve very rarely practised it - time always seemed so short, and I needed to work on the forms I was learning before I forgot them again!

So I stood in this position for about half an hour. After a few minutes, of course, muscles started to ache. My shoulders are chronically stiff, so they hurt. The long muscle or whatever that runs down the right side of the spine was also really tight as well; that’s the result of all the desk-work lately. What to do? H had shown me a “relaxation posture”, where the hands are moved to the back, next to the kidneys, to use if I got too tired, but it seemed better to me to try to get through the pain while keeping the same posture.

I decided to do what I learned on Vipassana meditation retreats; when experiencing physical pain, don’t seek relief by moving the body - instead, send the mind to the pain, and try to find the exact spot where the pain is located. The result is that the pain just goes away. It worked. That let me carry on doing the other extra practices that H. had mentioned. Glenn had also reminded me to form my back into a bow shape in order to tuck the coccyx underneath, so I remembered to work on that and on sinking my weight. After twenty minutes or so, I as tired, and a funny thing happened - it really felt that my arms were being held up not by strength and muscle, but by intent and will.

It as at this point that we tried out the sparring. I’m usually very bad at this; I think too slowly, and easily get my balance messed up. My partner/opponent was quite a bit bigger than me, stronger than me, and about fifteen years younger than me. However, the effect of the standing practice seemed to be that when he issued force, it just seemed to pass through me; I didn’t need to have to consciously react to it, and it didn’t affect me. My awareness was still intense in my arms, and I could sense changes in his strength and respond naturally, without thought. At one point, he got through my guard and pushed me forcefully on the right pectoral, which would normally have sent me flying backwards. On this occasion, I could just sense exactly where the power was, and was able to pivot around it and step behind him; he went flying forwards instead, as his strength didn’t find anywhere to land.

This is very uncommon for me! In fact, it was just total beginner’s luck.

Still. This is the first time I’ve ever managed experienced what taiji, for example, is meant to be all about - to use softness to defeat an opponent who was actively seeking to throw me hard into a wall. To experience why the internal martial arts are powerful beyond qinna and other physical techniques. Heh. I know that some of the people who read this blog are very good internal martial artists and will be saying “At last! It took you long enough!”. I know. I’m a slow learner, but I’m just trying to learn at my own pace - bear with me!

A related event occurred the following Saturday, when I went for my bagua pan guan bi class with Sun Zhi Jun and Mi Lao Shi. I’ve revised the form, and can go through it without many mistakes now. They were telling me, though, that it looked ugly. How could I change that, without being able to see myself? I just did it again with more focus; putting more intent into the movements as if I was surrounded by opponents. Much better, was the response. Hmmm. So “intent” was what improved it…

As usual, none of this leads up to any particular point. However, it is an important breakthrough for me to discover that combining standing practice with a meditation technique did clearly, and immediately, show results against an aggressive training partner. Heh, apologies again to those of you who’ve been patiently waiting for me to “get it”!

Those skinny Cantonese guys, eh… gotta watch out for them…

25

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Yesterday morning I went down to Chaoyangmen subway station to meet H. My gosh - it took me longer to get from the university to Wudaokou on the bus than it did to get from Wudaokou to Chaoyangmen on the train and subway! Beijing’s traffic just gets worse and worse…

H. had brought along an American acquaintance from the hostel where she’s staying, a guy called Glenn who has studied bagua and yiquan before. The three of us went along to the Yiquan Academy, where she’s been studying for the past three weeks.

The Academy’s training area is apparently nicknamed “The Submarine”, and it’s an apt name! It’s a small basement room with no natural light, lockers along one wall, and doors leading off to a few offices. There’s also a small dormitory, with beds racked three-high. Very small… possibly even “cramped”…. There were a few Chinese students already there; young guys in their twenties who, I think, live in the dorm.

Anyhow, Glenn and I were just there as observers, not to participate in any lessons. H. told me to practice zhan zhuang, according to the way she’s learned it there; Glenn added some tips from what he’s learned. He was practicing a yiquan ‘health dance’ that he’d learned in the States; from the comments made by the Chinese students, it seems to be different to what is taught at the Academy.

After a short while, Master Yao Chengguang arrived. H. introduced us, and we had a short chat. I explained that I couldn’t start training immediately, but would like to do so intensively after my teaching ends; we agreed that I would give him a call nearer the time. First impression is that he’s very tough, no-frills, but impressive; I liked him but I certainly wouldn’t like to get on his wrong side.

After half an hour or so, Glenn tried a bit of tui shou with one of the students; it looked interesting, so I asked to try as well. I’m not strong at all, and after half an hour of zhan zhuang, my muscles were tired, so I couldn’t use strength. It was pretty cool, and I don’t think I embarrassed myself, even though the Chinese student could of course have flattened me if he’d really tried! Afterwards, Master Yao asked me if I would like to try some more - I’m not sure if he meant with him! I was tired though - my aerobic fitness is rubbish - so I declined, politely I hope. If I’m going to study there, I need to a) get fitter before I start (some hope!) and b) be prepared to be knocked about - from what I saw, they really throw each other around, and there’s no mats, or padding on the walls. Sometimes, some of the students where just sent flying through (open) doorways, or into the dormitory!

H. and I left a little early, as we wanted to go to the Xiang Shan park; she’s going back to England next week, so it was her last chance to catch a bit of Chinese nature! We had a really nice day out, and eventually said our farewells. Who knows if we’ll ever meet again! It’s been a real pleasure to meet another Brit who shares my interest in martial arts and Buddhism… Incidentally, she mentioned that if I hadn’t mentioned the Yiquan course to her, and she had gone travelling for a while before leaving China, she would have been in Chengdu when the earthquake hit. Scary. Funny how lives can turn around chance conversations…