DON'T HAVE TIME?

 By Phillip Starr

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard this excuse for not attending class regularly or training at home...(sigh). My usual reply is, “You”ll never 'have time.' You have to MAKE time.” But often as not, I get the usual response, “No, really! I honestly don't have time!” And so on.

It doesn't take much of your free time; maybe 30 minutes a day (although more is better – but no more than 90 minutes at the most, lest you burn out or get careless and injure yourself). You may have to rearrange your daily schedule a bit, get up a little earlier, or make some sacrifices. It's a question of how badly you want it (genuine martial skill).

Still, there are some who persist in saying that they don't have even 30 min. of free time each day. To them, I say:

• You either need a new life, or

• Martial arts just aren't for you.

  

Blunt, but true. People's response to my statement almost always start with “Well; I can't...”. And that says it all; they're determined to justify why they're unable to train properly. There's no need to justify it to me. I don't have that problem. Perhaps they're trying to justify it to themselves.

My statement holds true for any skill that a person allegedly wants to achieve. From broad-jumping to tennis, baseball, playing the piano...to achieve a high level of skill is going to require daily practice and if you can't or won't do that – whatever the reason – you simply cannot achieve it. Ever.

DA XIANG WUXING

 by Yang Shuangxing

In a lecture by Sifu Yang Hai (a teacher of the Chinese internal arts who is of very high skill and knowledge), he spoke of a Chinese expression regarding art; “Da Xiang Wu Xing.” I means, “Great Image (is) Without Form” (大像无形), or more literally, “True Image is (almost) Invisible.” We can say that it means that an “insubstantial entity” can only be expressed through a “substantial entity” or “that which does not (seem to) exist must be expressed by something that does exist.”

Sound a little strange? It's a common theme found throughout Chinese art of all kinds; from poetry to painting, music, calligraphy, and even architecture and furniture design (it reached its zenith in the Ming Dynasty). This concept was expressed by the legendary founder of Taoism, Laozi, more than 2,000 years ago. Chinese culture impacted virtually all other Asian cultures and this same concept is readily found in their expressions of art. In Japan, simplicity and (seeming emptiness is considered to be the ultimate expression of art. This is found in all expressions of their art. One need only look at sumi-e ink brush paintings to see how true this is. Most of the paper is blank, save for a few critica strokes...just the opposite of Western art.

Okay – what has all this got to do with martial arts? Well, listen up, Scooter...

It also necessarily infers that something may appear to be rather simple (to do), but is very difficult to replicate. This is said to be especially true of martial arts (and especially the internal martial arts). You may watch your teacher demonstrate a particular technique and think you'e “got it”, but you don't...not by a long shot. Ten years later, you still can't emit the power that he can with that technique...it LOOKS simple enough to do, but there's much more to it than what you see (right away).

As we say in the West, “the devil is in the details.” But it goes even deeper than that. Tiny, often imperceptible things must be done to get the desired result. The only way to find these things is through literally thousands of repetitions. Only when you “get it” will you be able to perceive it. It is said that “you can see it only if you know it.” No amount of intellectualizing, analyzing, or instruction will be of much use...when you “get it”, you'll know. You'll FEEL it.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of martial arts students Asian and especially Westerners) never “get it.” In too much of a hurry, they gulp down the basic instructions in a desperate struggle to be able to “do it.” They see only that which is superficial and they never look beyond that.

BUT I DON'T WANNA...

 by Phillip Starr

How many times have you, or perhaps one of your classmates muttered something like, “But I don’t wanna do that @#$% form again!” Of course, the same complaint is often heard when the instructors calls out that everyone is to do more reverse punches, basic front kicks, or whatever. You just REALLY are sick and tired of doing the same thing over and over…

I know I did, back in the day, especially when I trained under the tutelage of my primary gong-fu teacher, sifu W. C. Chen. I recall when he showed us how to stand in the basic xingyiquan posture known as “santi shih” and told us to stand in this way every day for at least 15-20 minutes. I simply couldn’t understand how standing still in this posture could help me become a strong fighter (and baguazhang has its own version of the same posture). I wouldn’t truly understand it for many, many years…

And when I thought I understood, I later realized (through constant, REGULAR practice) that there was MUCH more to it than I thought! To this day, I am still discovering more about it! It’s more than just standing in a balanced position; it conditions certain muscles and other tissues, AND it teaches certain critical principles – if you pay close attention and study it as you do it.

In baguazhang, we would practice walking the circle in EVERY class. Every. Class. I thought, after some time, that I understood this routine pretty well…after all, I had become quite adept at it. But as the years passed, I realized how little I really understood. That basic exercise would foster the development of various skills that could easily be applied to any other form of martial art. If I hadn’t practiced walking the circle so much, I never would have known about them!

The same is true of our most fundamental techniques; the basic reverse punch, lunge punch, front kick, and so on, will impart their secrets only when we are physically and mentally prepared and able to receive them. How much more so our basic form(s)! And we cannot be prepared mentally or even physically able to understand these hidden mysteries until we have practiced them countless times!

Your teacher may or may not know of these special keys, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t discover them. However, it’s best if your instructor knows of them so that you can verify what you’ve found and discuss it to find out more about the various ways they can be applied. And this is one of the problems in martial arts today; many, many teachers only understand something of the “outer shell.”

Don’t say, “I don’t wanna do…” Just do it. And pay close attention while you do.

THE ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT

 by Phillip Starr

If I gave you a 500 year-old manuscript on the martial arts (and let's assume that it's written in English), what would you do with it? Would you just toss it into a pile of other books and ignore it? Flip through the yellowed pages and look at the handful of drawn pictures? Quickly browse through its writings? Or would you carefully study it, paying attention to every word?

I would hope that you'd do more than just read it; I hope you'd STUDY it very, very carefully. And take your time. Hurrying may cause you to miss some important details. Would you do that?

And...what if, during your deep study, you discovered that there was a sort of code in places...written in another language? Would you learn that language so that you could discover more secrets? What if there's a second code that's sometimes hidden within the first one? Would you learn that language as well?

And knowing how language works – after all, some words have more than one meaning and you could run into this situation several times – would you dig some more to find out EXACTLY what the word/phrase was intended to mean?

And you soon realize that really acquiring all of the information that this books has to offer is going to take more than a couple of weeks. It's going to require YEARS, maybe even decades, of careful study.

I would hope that you would. Otherwise, your approach the studying martial arts is simply one of mild curiosity; a kind of exotic hobby...but just a hobby, nonetheless.

Well, those of you who practice traditional karate or gong-fu possess such ancient manuscripts. We call them forms...

THE SWORD AND THE BRUSH; WHOLE BODY SHODO

 by Phillip Starr

Shodo is the Japanese term for the art of writing calligraphy with a brush (書道). In Chinese, it is pronouned “shudao.” To acquire skill in this art is no different than learning any other art; it requires regular practice (and patience) over a period of time. Writing characters with a brush is still taught in Japanese schools; in China, not so anymore (they use modern pens to write calligraphy, which is a shame).

You may well have missed grasping the essence of one scene in the cult-classic film, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, where the heroine (played by Michelle Yeoh) watches the younger lady (played by Zhang Zhiyi) is writing calligraphy. Ms. Yeoh's character takes sharp notice of just how her younger friend moves her wrist and arm when she brushes the characters...

Shodo masters say that the characters reveal much about the individual brushing them; his or her ability to remain “centered”, the strength of one's qi, some personality traits, and...skill with the sword (especially since good calligraphy involves moving the whole arm instaed of just the wrists or fingers as we do in our own penmanship). Ms. Yeoh noticed that her young friend clearly had studied and had skill in, the art of swordsmanship.

In China, it's not unusual to see older men (usually) out in the summer heat carrying a pail of water and a brush about 3 ft. long. Using the water in the pail, they brush beautiful characters (usuallt old poems) on the sidewalk. But the Japanese did them one better. For special occasions, calligraphy is sometimes brushed on large pieces of rice paper with a huge brush that's often taller than the artist!

Holding it in both hands, the calligraphy is brushed with movements of the whole body! And of course, most of those who are regarded as masters of this art are also...master martial artists! Their martial skill is revealed in the characters they brush. The two – brushing calligraphy and martial skill – are related...

WHAT ARE YOU REALLY TRAINING?

 By Phillip Starr

We regularly engage in all sorts of exercises and routines that involvr stretching, toughening, and strengthening many different parts of our bodies. It's not unusual for many of these exercises to be more than a little uncomfortable; our muscles scream, we pour sweat, and grit our teeth as we force ourselves to move ever forward. But, for the most part, what is it that we’re really training?

Our minds.

A well-known martial arts adage tells us, “Your mind will give up a thousand times before your body does.” And it’s true. When our muscles begin to fatigue and ache, our minds scream, “Stop! Stop!” But we must push ourselves forward, ignoring its pleas.

And when we’re about to attempt something we’ve not done before, isn’t it the mind that tells us, “Don’t even try to do this. You’ll fail!” If we listen to it and believe it, failure is guaranteed.

So we must discipline the mind; train it to be our servant rather than acting as our master. I believe this is, for the most part, what our training is all about…much more so than training our bodies.

At the advanced stages of training (which, by the way, goes on for the rest of your life), training the mind takes on a whole new level of meaning.

WHADDYA MEAN, “I'M SOFT?

 By Phillip Starr

I remember back in the 60’s when the martial arts media first referred to all gong-fu styles as “soft” and arts such as taekwondo and karate as “hard.” They said that the reason for this difference was that gong-fu utilized circular movements, while karate and taekwondo emphasized linear techniques. I was very young at the time, but I knew that this definition made little, if any, sense.

In China, no such delineation ever existed. Only in America. Yes, there are “internal” styles and “external” styles, but the differences between them have nothing to do with circular or linear techniques. Virtually all forms of bare-handed fighting utilize both. For example, xingyiquan, which is one of the “three sisters’ of the internal arts (the other two are taijiquan and baguazhang), is renowned for being very linear. Clearly, defining “hard” and “soft” has nothing to do with techniques being linear or circular…

Of course, what the magazines were referring to was the differences between the so-called “internal” and “external” forms. But to refer to “internal” arts as “soft” is a serious error. I recall that back in those days, taijiquan was very new to the West and the martial arts media was fascinated by it. Of course, all they saw was the popular Yang style, which is done completely in slow-motion. Performed well, the practitioners seem to be almost weightless and taiji teachers emphasized the need for relaxation, eschewing the use of muscular force. This led the journalists of the day to conclude that this mystical art bestowed upon its practitioners some kind of supernormal power that did not require any strength at all.

When baguazhang and xingyiquan were discovered by the media, the writers were awed and wrote many articles about how senior practitioners of these arts possessed what bordered on superhuman powers! Bagua and xingyi were still quite rare, but the taijiquan schools filled up very quickly with thousands of superman wannabees.

It would be many years before senior taiji instructors corrected these mistaken ideas. Even so, many devout believers refused to listen to them. So, this (and other) mistaken concepts about the “internal” arts persist to this day…