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…

WE'RE ALL STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

 by Phillip Starr

It’s true. We’re all students, we’re all teachers, and we learn and teach all of the time.

Just as students learn from their teacher, so their teacher learns from them! Or he/she should, anyway. I’ve always said, “A teacher who cannot or will not learn from his students is in the wrong business.” Students unknowingly teach their teachers. All the time. This is the main reason why teaching enables us to progress further on the martial path, so long as we’re willing to learn from them.

Even if the student doesn’t altogether understand something that the teacher is trying to teach, he/she unconsciously teaches the teacher. Simply being a good student is all it takes. As the teacher presents new material, makes corrections (no matter how small), demonstrates how to execute a given movement correctly… these and other facets of teaching, whether it’s a group of beginners or more advanced pupils, can and often do enable the teacher to learn more about whatever it is that he’s teaching.

Many years ago, a young aikido student who had been training under the founder, Morihei Uyeshiba sensei, had to move to Hawaii. Distraught over having to leave his instructor and fearing that he would learn no more about his art, he wrote a letter to his mentor, asking what he should do, His teacher replied, telling him that he should teach in order to facilitate his progress in aikido.

The young man did so. You may know his name; Koichi Tohei became one of the best-known aikido instructors in the world. His skill was truly amazing.

At the end of each class, my students thank me for teaching them (in Chinese, of course) and I say the same thing to them. I have learned a great deal from my students over the years; much of which I likely would never have learned without their unconscious assistance.

VERBALIZING

by Phillip Starr

One of the greatest problems that many, perhaps most, martial arts instructors face is that of being able to accurately verbalize many key principles of their respective arts. This isn't anything new; it's existed for centuries. And that's the problem.

Some (important) principles used in various martial arts are very difficult to accurately describe in words. I experienced this problem when I trained under my own teacher, Master W. C. Chen, many moons ago. Unable to find the right English words to describe a certain principles or movement, he's resort to, “do it like this.” Of course, much of the time, I couldn't really grasp what he meant and it would be many years before I'd finally “get it.” Much of the learning in the old days was done by rote; imitating the teacher and trying to pay attention to tiny details, most of which went unnoticed by the students...

This same problem – verbalization – exists within their own native languages! This is why, I believe, many “songs” were written (especially within the internal arts communities) to describe key principles. These “songs” have been translated, but the translations are often incorrect. Moreover, it's well to bear in mind that many of our martial arts ancestors were not particularly well-educated; in fact, many were functionally illiterate. Their verbal skills, as well as their knowledge and understanding of human anatomy and physiology were often very limited.

And many of the “songs” that have been accurately translated are very difficult to understand. They're not well-understood by native speakers, either. Some instructions were, and still are, very difficult to understand:

• “When you advance, the knee must empty”...

• References to the “kua”, which most people believe is just the inguinal crease. Actually, it's the entire psoas muscle.

• “Punch through your elbow”...

• “Lift the kidney.”

and so on. And once a given principle is understood and practiced, it gives rise to the discovery of other (related) principles.

But there is some measure of hope. In contemporary Japan, highly-respected masters of various arts (from karate, to swordsmanship, to MMA, aikido, and others) are now getting together to compare notes on various principles. Most of us in the West are unaware that such collaborations are even happening right now (as of this writing in 2022) and it's a phenomenon that isn't likely to occur in the West...too many egos involved. And it's been found that even some of these world-renowned masters are unable to accurately verbalize certain principles to their fellows!

Such principles CANNOT be learned online; they can be learned only through hands-on training. Many can’t be easily seen by the human eye…they have to be FELT, directly experienced.

Master Hino Akira, a martial arts genius who is a friend of mine, has expressed the importance of being able to accurately verbalize certain concepts. He laughs as he admits that it is, at times, extremely difficult to do. My most senior students, Hiro Misawa, and I have discussed this problem several times and he has expressed the importance of giving names to certain principles (which have never been named) as well as accurately describing them and how/why they work. We're working on it. Stay tuned...