Well, the new semester has started, and I’ve been busy, busy, busy. It’s nice to be working again, after the long break, to be honest.

I was really impressed by an article in the Times, Be prepared - take evening classes in facing ruin. It starts off by discussing a recent murder-suicide case in the UK, but gets more philosophical. I’ve certainly faced a few ups and downs over the years, and I have to agree with the writer’s conclusions. In fact, they’re very compatible with Buddhist philosophy; success and misfortune are all transient. Remain equanimous either way; they are not you.

I’ve had a few swings of fortune even over the last week or so - reminders that great opportunities can appear unlooked-for, and that disaster can strike from nowhere. The disaster was narrowly averted; the opportunities are being explored… life goes on.

Most topical for this blog: I’ve come to a complete stop recently when it comes to martial arts. As I’ve often said, I’ve considered the last few years to be research, looking to find the right styles and the right teacher. About halfway through the summer break, I had finally decided that I’d found them. So, with the research over, it was time to get started… And at that point, I had a massive attack of nerves over the task ahead, and a complete failure of belief in my ability to ever progress. Gah! Well, after a couple of weeks, I’m kind of back on track, ready to get started, step by step.

I’ll be recommencing bagua lessons with Master Sun Ru Xian next weekend; I need a bit of time to review first. I don’t think I’ll be re-starting the bagua pan guan bi with Mi Lao Shi, and Master Sun Zhijun; fun though it is, if I’m not going to train all-round with them, I think I’d better concentrate on studying bagua with just one teacher, Sun Ru Xian.

I do also want to get into the yiquan. I knew that the lineage holder, Master Yao Chengrong has his school near my new apartment, and last week I went to see where it was. It was a wet, rainy evening, and the map on the website was only partially helpful. I spent quite a long time wandering around various hutongs, which was pretty interesting in itself. Lots of the siheuyuan near the school are much larger and grander than those near my apartment, with lots of moon gates leading to the street. Perhaps they used to belong to a higher social class, or - I suspect - they were military buildings. The west of Beijing, where I now live, was traditionally the base for the army, whereas the east was for the civil administration; even to this day, the east is a much more fashionable place to live!

Eventually, I found the school, tucked away inside a courtyard. There wasn’t any activity, but that suited me; I hadn’t gone to talk to anybody, just to get my bearings, and establish how close it really was - about 10 minutes’ walk at most, it turned out. Once I’ve got my classes settled down, ie in a couple of weeks most likely, I’ll get in touch and see if I can join a class; looking at the schedule on the website, I would perhaps want to do one evening class and Saturday afternoon, but we’ll see.

So, there we are; I’m gradually coming back up to speed. I caught up with Dragoncache last night; he’s training really hard, as always, with Master Sun Zhijun, and really putting me to shame with his dedication. Oh, I didn’t mention before that Master Sun Zhijun recently got married, to his third wife, I think (the first two having passed away).

Well, this is the Autumn Festival, so I’m going to eat some mooncakes. Have a good weekend, if you’re celebrating the festival (or even if you’re not!).

I’ve got one week of holiday left, and huge amounts of preparation for work to finish. The last couple of months have been intense - a heck of a lot’s happened, and now I’m trying to process it all. Current points:

1. I am now at point zero. I know nothing whatsoever about martial arts. I’m overweight and out of shape.
2. This is OK. It’s only a few years since I came to Asia, and before that I was completely ignorant of martial arts. It took a while to realise this. I’ve spent the last few years trying to work out what it is that I need to learn. Then a bit longer to work out what I ought to learn. Cool. Now I know. The fitness thing is an issue, but I’ll work on it.
3. Everything I’ve done in the last few years has been a great education, and has given me a good grounding, but it’s time to say that from now on I need to start learning from scratch again, from the basics upward, in order to get good at the styles I want to focus on.
4. Looks like I’ll be in Beijing for one more year, then back to Singapore.

This should be interesting.

I bought this at Panjiayuan market, simply because I liked it. Does anyone out there have any idea what it might be referencing? Is this an idealized scene from the Boxer Rebellion? A reference to some actual event?

Another 5am start today, not made any easier by those beers with Dragoncache last night…. I met Sun Lao Shi back at our original location, as all of the building materials have been moved away. There are still a few migrant workers camping out in makeshift tents beneath a bridge, and the police are still there, so I’m guessing more material will appear at some point. Anyway, today it was available.

We started by reviewing the ba da zhang. I still made a few mistakes, and Sun Lao Shi talked me through those, and we looked at some basic applications. He seemed pretty happy with my progress here, overall. After that we moved on the the 64 palms, and we started on the third set. With the first two, he showed me the whole set and I tried to memorize it all at once. That method doesn’t work well for me, as I get confused after the first few moves, so for the third set we’re doing it step-by-step. I think this will help me.

After a little bit of a wobble, I got re-enthused about bagua - I’m certainly hugely impressed by yiquan, increasingly so, but I’m not going to drop the bagua!

However, some decisions are going to have to be made soon. I’m working up to a Huge Post About Where I’m Going In Martial Arts (HPAWIGIMA), which I’ve been dropping hints about recently… One of these is about settling on a bagua line. I’ve been trained to some extent in several martial arts bagua lines:

1. In 2004 by Zhang Sheng Li, who was trained primarily by Liu Jing Ru (I think)
2. In 2006-8 by Ge Chun Yen, trained by both Liu Jing Ru and Sun Zhi Jun, but who became the disciple of the latter, and teaches only his forms.
3. 2007 by Liu Jing Ru (only for two hours while I was in Beijing on holiday, but I include it because it means I’ve actually met him and got a sense of what he’s like).
4. 2007-8 by Zhou Yue Wen. A very unusual and little-known bagua style from a Shanghai-based lineage.
5. 2008 by Sun Zhi Jun (pan guan bi)
6. 2008 by Sun Ru Xian, ttained by Liu Jing Ru.

If I was told that from now on I could only be taught by one of these, it would be a close race between Zhou Yue Wen and Sun Ru Xian - but I think that at this point Zhou Yue Wen would win out. When I decided to move to Beijing, I asked him who he recommended me to study with, and he said Liu Jing Ru. My own experience also tends me to prefer Liu Jing Ru’s line; that’s not to be in any way negative about Sun Zhi Jun’s line but given my nature I tend to be happier, I find, with teachers trained by Liu. Dragoncache is the other way, he’s trained with Liu in the past but ultimately became an indoor disciple of Sun Zhi Jun. We’re all looking for different things, and respond differently to different teachers. More about all of this, perhaps, in the HPAWIGIMA.

Anyway, getting back to the ostensible topic of this post, I trained for about 90 minutes this morning, and we decided to stop there. Chatting on the way back to the road, I mentioned again that at some point in the future I want to learn the Shanxi whipstaff from him, and he thinks we can probably start in the not too distant future; he says it’s pretty simple, and won’t interfere with learning bagua, so he’ll teach it bit by bit. Cool.

We’re taking a break for a week or so now, as he gets involved in the summer camp. Next class will be on or after the 27th; probably after, as there’s a Pecha Kucha on that day, and a gig I want to take someone to in the evening.

So with that, I headed off on my bike to Wudaokou, and breakfast at Lush, before heading off for day 4 at the Yiquan Academy.

I’m finding it harder to remember what my impressions of China were before I first came here… very different from the reality, anyway! I’m still surprised all the time, though (one of the reasons I love it here, I guess).

When it comes to religion, I really thought that most of it was gone. Of course, so much is - see my post on Pingyao’s Dragon Temple. A lot still remains, though, to my great relief.

One thing I thought would be gone is the eremitic tradition. I’d seen Bill Porter’s 1993 book, Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits on Amazon, and had thought that this must surely document the last hermits of their kind.

It seems not, however! I’ve just found out about Amongst White Clouds, a film released last year, which shows that the tradition lives on.

Here are two trailers. The voiceover is the same, but the film is different.

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Reading interviews with, or profiles of, the author, it’s inspiring that he came to China to learn more after reading Porter’s book. He didn’t speak Chinese, so he learned it. He didn’t know where to find any hermits, so he just wandered around the mountains till he found some. Incredible. So there’s really no excuse for me. And if I feel that I have too much to do, so I can’t spend enough time on my meditation and martial arts… just remind me to go back and re-read this post from Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert.

Hmmm. Dilbert and Chinese Buddhist hermits, together at last…

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