Nian, Lian, Mian, Sui, Bu Diu Ding
Dans le tai chi, nous appliquons une stratégie logique et consistante avec le principe primordial de l’art – la non-résistance. Cette stratégie se résume en cinq éléments :
Nian – Adhérence
C’est surtout dans la pratique de tui shou (« la poussée des mains ») que le pratiquant de tai chi entraine cette faculté. Lors d’une partie de tui shou, on utilise les mains et les bras comme les antennes, très sensibles aux mouvements de l’autre. Bien évidemment, si l’on perd le toucher, on perd aussi une grande partie de sa capacité de ressentir les mouvements et les intentions de son partenaire. Ainsi faut-il adhérer à l’autre, se coller sur ses mouvements, sans résister bien sûr.
Mais Nian n’est pas qu’une question de toucher. Dans un sens plus large, il est question de suivre l’intention de l’adversaire avec tous ses sens. A propos cela, il est utile de réfléchir sur la question d’où poser le regard lors d’un combat. Si l’on regarde l’autre dans les yeux, il se peut que l’on puisse ressentir ses intentions. Par contre, celles-ci s’exprime aussi à traver le corps ; centrer le regard sur le nombril (ou le tan tien si vous préferez) permet de surveiller tous les membres aussi que l’intention et le mouvement.
Lian – Connectivité
Le caractère chinois « Lian » désigne, à l’origine, une chaine de chariots qui se déplacent ensemble. Ainsi est dérivé le sens de Connectivité, ou de Continuité.
Adhérer et suivre les mouvements de l’autre implique des mouvements de notre part, et des déplacements de notre centre de gravité en conséquence. C’est à dire, faire des déplacements avec les pieds, le corps, les membres, tout. Le mouvement de tous les divers composants corporels, y compris le mental, l’intention, doivent se faire de manière continue, connectée.
Dans la pratique de Tai Chi Chuan, le moindre geste implique la réorganisation de toute la structure corporelle, de façon fluide et continue. Tout le corps se déplace dans un seul geste, toutes les parties coordonnées les unes avec les autres. C’est un principe de base qui revient encore et encore.
Mian – Douceur
Un des noms anciens pour le Tai Chi Chuan est « Mian Chuan », le « boxe de coton ». On dit que les bras d’un maitre de l’art ressemble à des barres de fer entourés par des riches couches de coton.
Souvent on se trompe par rapport aux idées de « douceur » dans le Tai Chi. Beacoup confondent « douceur » avec « Yin », l’extrème du tai chi (en tant que concept taoiste) et opposé à « Yang ». Nous avons déjà fait des remarques sur l’importance d’une pratique équilibrée (2.1.1). Pensons un peu plus à ce que cela implique : Rester debout exige un certain effort, ainsi que respirer. Tenir le bras devant soi exige également du Yang. Adhérer aux mouvements de l’autre, se déplacer en conséquence : ça peut être un vrai effort physique !
Le muscle d’un animal en reste n’est pas contracté, mais se transforme dans un instant pour donner une énorme propulsion dès que l’animal saut. Ainsi le bras, le corps d’un maitre de tai chi : le Yin contien l’élément de Yang et tout l’art est de comprendre les deux et savoir transformer l’un dans l’autre sans même y penser.
Le douceur dans le Tai Chi est le Yin avec un élément de Yang, plus ou moins grand mais non pas dominant (ça serait Yang …). C’est un douceur alert, élastique, fluide. C’est les quatre grammes qui déplacent le poids de mille kilos.
Sui – Suivre
Certains traduisent ce principe en « céder », mais ce mot, bien qu’il donne l’idée générale, tende aussi à faire penser à « reculer » bien qu’on pourrait faire tout à fait l’inverse. « Donner place » aux mouvements de l’autre impliquent des mouvements dans tous les sens, y compris verticalement ! Sui équivaut mieux donc à « Suivre », parce que c’est cela qu’on fait.
Bien adhérer (Nian) exige du douceur (Mian). Notre « receptivité » nous permet donc de voir les mouvements de l’autre. Pour éviter les coups d’un adversaire, nous devons aussi le suivre (Sui), en se déplacent fluidement, avec des mouvements dans lesquels tout le corps est coordonné (Lian).
Bu Diu Ding – Refus de la force « brute »
Décomposer ce terme peut nous aider à comprendre son sens. « Bu » veut dire « non », « Diu » veut dire « perdre, abandonner », et « Ding » veut dire « opposer ».
Ainsi nous avons deux concepts en un. D’un côté, il s’agit de ne pas devenir trop tense, trop Yang et ainsi perdre son adhérence, son suivi de l’autre. De l’autre, nous ne devons non pas céder vainement à une agression, mais acceuiller l’attaque de l’adversaire avec un douceur elastique qui n’oppose pas, mais détourne, rédirige…
Ces cinq principes, la « stratégie des cinq pas », dirige la pratique de Tai Chi Chuan, s’appliquant aussi bien aux enchaînements qu’au San Shou (applications martiales). Leur application est surtout entraînée à travers la pratique de Tui Shou (poussée des mains).
30/5/06
Love Your Students
Consider it carefully. This phrase could be taken as an injunction were I to add an exclamation mark. I could also have used 'for' to make the meaning more easily discernable. But I have done neither of these things because this is neither an order nor a suggestion. It is, perhaps a question, but not in the syntax … in the juxtaposition.
Each word here has many meanings in itself and thus the way each word works with those around it throws up a surprising number of combinations of meaning. A little like the 8 forces, the 5 steps, the 64 hexagrams and the 10,000 things.
We all have our own perspective, our own map of the territory, so we will each have a penchant for one of the possible interpretations of those words, "Love Your Students". And of course one interpretation would be that I'm joking. Another would be that I'm putting words into someone else's mouth, or playing with parody.
What does the phrase mean to you?
Love, of course, is "a many-splendoured thing", whatever that means. Indeed, discussions of the meaning of love seem to me characterised by vagueness. "Love your fellow man", "Fatherly love", "the love of a child for its parents", "Jesus loves you", "The Art of Love", “Making Love”, "Art and Love in medieval France", "The Love shop", “They love each other (once every Friday evening)”. All these phrases throw up different visions of whatever-the-hell-it-is we're talking about here. OK, so let's take "Your" - a straightforward possessive pronoun implying ownership. But maybe not with "Students", because you're not allowed to own people in most of the world, and we can assume that the reference to Students is a reference to people. Indeed, given the context, a reference to people who study the noble art of Tai Chi Chuan. We put these two words together however and contorsions and explosions are bound to arise.
A student does not belong to anyone, but is typically associated, at a given time, with one teacher or school. A lot of my basic training in London was given by Steve Wooster and Godfrey Dornelly, but I was Dan's student, wasn't I? I learnt from Dan after spending two years with one of his first students, the good(ish) Ian McMillan, he who went off the rails (yet another one). But there was no confusion since the one followed the other chronologically, like one marriage may another. But what if I am bigamous, or more, and am learning simultaneously from a number of people? Whose student am I then? Well, I belong to all of them I suppose. A child may belong to a family and not just one member of it…
The question underlying this piece then, is – what kind of a relationship can a teacher have with his/her students? The Sifu, the teaching father, presumably feels fatherly love. The humanist feels human love – being for being as it were. There are also numerous cases of less platonic loving and sometimes I wonder what kind of ‘rencontre’ certain people are seeking at ‘Rencontres Jasnières’ – and sometimes I don’t have to wonder.
Personally I’ve always felt that ‘love’ between student and teacher is not helpful to the pedagogic experience. Inevitably there’s a question of just what one is trying to achieve here and this is one place where opinions may vary. I’ve always been trying to get people in touch with their own kinesthetic competences and transfer the body of techniques and theory that I’ve learnt myself. For others (and sometimes for me too), there’s a whole social side to Tai Chi classes which naturally extends to the bar next door, perhaps the restaurant down the street, and who knows - maybe “plus si affinité”! I am not only a teacher but also (on my better days anyway) a human being. I can fully understand this chain of events. But I don’t go for it – I seem to have some weird pseudo-Confucian idea that a teacher really is a sifu-like person, and this implies a certain distance. I don’t believe I’m right about this however. Though it is common knowledge that, like psychotherapy, it is the crazies that do Tai Chi, so better stay out of those ‘Basic Instinct’ situations: full-contact is enough!
However, I also accept that definitions of love are naturally vague since different kinds of love may be present at the same time. Two people, in love, would normally be able to entertain feelings of human empathy as well. There are cases too where love may be defined from a sexual base, leading on to “higher things” (yes, vague stuff again, I know) or alternatively the other way round, where the sex is an expression of … er … god? And for some I’m sure it’s between those two extremes, or can vary according to the season, the day, the time.
Finally then, for anyone who feels like being a “pygmy detractor”, no I generally don’t have sex with my students (not all at the same time). Indeed, I would get quite guilty about that kind of thing. Now, other people’s students are of course fair game. I do not have anything to say about the doings of others. I do sometimes think to myself things like “lucky git – how does she/he do it?”, and other times my perspective will be very different. I don’t want the same thing all the time. Love is totally vague. No students are mine, but I am bound and may be binding. This is the dilemma of choice and not choice.
Each word here has many meanings in itself and thus the way each word works with those around it throws up a surprising number of combinations of meaning. A little like the 8 forces, the 5 steps, the 64 hexagrams and the 10,000 things.
We all have our own perspective, our own map of the territory, so we will each have a penchant for one of the possible interpretations of those words, "Love Your Students". And of course one interpretation would be that I'm joking. Another would be that I'm putting words into someone else's mouth, or playing with parody.
What does the phrase mean to you?
Love, of course, is "a many-splendoured thing", whatever that means. Indeed, discussions of the meaning of love seem to me characterised by vagueness. "Love your fellow man", "Fatherly love", "the love of a child for its parents", "Jesus loves you", "The Art of Love", “Making Love”, "Art and Love in medieval France", "The Love shop", “They love each other (once every Friday evening)”. All these phrases throw up different visions of whatever-the-hell-it-is we're talking about here. OK, so let's take "Your" - a straightforward possessive pronoun implying ownership. But maybe not with "Students", because you're not allowed to own people in most of the world, and we can assume that the reference to Students is a reference to people. Indeed, given the context, a reference to people who study the noble art of Tai Chi Chuan. We put these two words together however and contorsions and explosions are bound to arise.
A student does not belong to anyone, but is typically associated, at a given time, with one teacher or school. A lot of my basic training in London was given by Steve Wooster and Godfrey Dornelly, but I was Dan's student, wasn't I? I learnt from Dan after spending two years with one of his first students, the good(ish) Ian McMillan, he who went off the rails (yet another one). But there was no confusion since the one followed the other chronologically, like one marriage may another. But what if I am bigamous, or more, and am learning simultaneously from a number of people? Whose student am I then? Well, I belong to all of them I suppose. A child may belong to a family and not just one member of it…
The question underlying this piece then, is – what kind of a relationship can a teacher have with his/her students? The Sifu, the teaching father, presumably feels fatherly love. The humanist feels human love – being for being as it were. There are also numerous cases of less platonic loving and sometimes I wonder what kind of ‘rencontre’ certain people are seeking at ‘Rencontres Jasnières’ – and sometimes I don’t have to wonder.
Personally I’ve always felt that ‘love’ between student and teacher is not helpful to the pedagogic experience. Inevitably there’s a question of just what one is trying to achieve here and this is one place where opinions may vary. I’ve always been trying to get people in touch with their own kinesthetic competences and transfer the body of techniques and theory that I’ve learnt myself. For others (and sometimes for me too), there’s a whole social side to Tai Chi classes which naturally extends to the bar next door, perhaps the restaurant down the street, and who knows - maybe “plus si affinité”! I am not only a teacher but also (on my better days anyway) a human being. I can fully understand this chain of events. But I don’t go for it – I seem to have some weird pseudo-Confucian idea that a teacher really is a sifu-like person, and this implies a certain distance. I don’t believe I’m right about this however. Though it is common knowledge that, like psychotherapy, it is the crazies that do Tai Chi, so better stay out of those ‘Basic Instinct’ situations: full-contact is enough!
However, I also accept that definitions of love are naturally vague since different kinds of love may be present at the same time. Two people, in love, would normally be able to entertain feelings of human empathy as well. There are cases too where love may be defined from a sexual base, leading on to “higher things” (yes, vague stuff again, I know) or alternatively the other way round, where the sex is an expression of … er … god? And for some I’m sure it’s between those two extremes, or can vary according to the season, the day, the time.
Finally then, for anyone who feels like being a “pygmy detractor”, no I generally don’t have sex with my students (not all at the same time). Indeed, I would get quite guilty about that kind of thing. Now, other people’s students are of course fair game. I do not have anything to say about the doings of others. I do sometimes think to myself things like “lucky git – how does she/he do it?”, and other times my perspective will be very different. I don’t want the same thing all the time. Love is totally vague. No students are mine, but I am bound and may be binding. This is the dilemma of choice and not choice.
Internalizing Ark
I haven’t consciously, deliberately, experienced so much physical discomfort since I started the neigong training. It made me realize that I need to do more, go deeper, longer. This was one of my two great understandings from last weekend’s seminar with Akuzawa Minoru Sensei. The second was that “this guy is simply amazing!”. I’ve met various well-known people in world of internal martial arts, and mostly the reality more or less matches the reputation. Akuzawa sensei (or “Ark” as it seems he is known to some) goes beyond reputation. He is well-known for throwing people much, much heavier than him … with his little finger! Ed was talking last year already of getting him over for a seminar and he’s done the European martial arts world a great service by doing just that. Ed told me that apart from the man’s reputation his approach is uniquely interesting. With a background in Chinese internal arts (Xing Yi) and ‘ancient’ Japanese ones (Koryu budo), he has created a modern system of exercise that yields very impressive results. Apart from throwing biggies with his little pinkie, Akuzawa is also well known for having kicked some serious ass in Chinese Sanda competitions. His teaching as it was presented last weekend was based on some simple concepts and some demanding exercises that train core competencies that can be used whatever style you’re practicing. Last but certainly not least, he is a charming man and an excellent teacher – this also goes for his assistant teacher last weekend, Rob. Both are excellent martial artists – I’ve rarely seen such evident gong fu.
One of my favourite citations from Cheng Tin Hung is that “Tai Chi should never be comfortable”. Last weekend I spent over 10 hours in more or less acute discomfort, in the company of around forty other fellow sufferers from all over Europe and indeed the world (one guy came from South Africa). It was very international so of course the predominant language was English and it was a bit of a pity for those who can’t handle “la langue de Shakespeare”, especially on the first day. However, we had enough repetitions to enable the teachers to correctly correct, and for the students to experiment and experience. It was also impressive how sensei and assistant adapted their corrections to the capabilities of the students, helping strugglers to get the basics and pushing the more capable to greater things. In my case, this meant mental training – taking the pain and going through it.
So why pain? Why suffering and discomfort? Because of the nature of the exercises. It’s all about becoming conscious of and developing the central body axis, through 6 directions: up/down, left/right and front/back. Dropping the weight down so that your thighs are flat is something we do quite often in Practical Tai Chi Chuan, especially and repetitively in the nei gong. Keeping your back straight was also not new to me. What was new, and difficult, and painful, was maintaining a “piano string” of dynamic tension across the arms, from hand to hand. I’ve seen and done some of this kind of training with some Yi quan people at various workshops and exchanges over the years, and there is some of it present in Wudang style, in the “Draw the bow” exercise in the Baduan jin that we do. But it’s not quite the same – notably you don’t have to push the shoulder blades together.
Which brings me to a contemplation of the nature of “internal” in the martial arts. One chap at the seminar, notable both for his paunch and his RAF moustache, told me that he wanted light, springy weapons, so that he could transfer his Qi into them. During lunch on Sunday, I heard the memorable tale of how Bruce “Kumar” Frantzis was once “sprayed” with his teacher’s Qi. Personally, I prefer to keep my Qi to myself, apart from the occasional gift to my girlfriend. “Hoarding Qi” is referred to in the classics, and is certainly part of the practice of “internal arts”. But that’s far from all of the truth. A great classic of internet forum threads is “the difference between internal and external”. If you are tempted to ask that question, you should really have a look through the archives first since we’ve all discussed this umpteen times. Given the muscular tension involved in holding your shoulder blades together and maintaining a piano wire of tension across the arms and shoulders, some might think that Ark’s method is not internal. I would disagree with that, as would any practitioner of Xing Yi or Yi Quan, IMHO. “Internal” always involves training the Yi, the will. Difficult postures and exercises are one way of doing this – again, this is characteristic of our Nei gong training. Tension may be done externally just my muscular contraction, but what is really internal is to do this but whilst maintaining relaxation. This really is understanding Yin and Yang. In Akuzawa’s training we were trying to maintain a dynamic equilibrium between those six directions. It was fascinating, exhausting, painful and glorious. And certainly very internal.
This inspirational seminar will, I think, always hold a special place in my memory. I understood that my gong fu was elementary, and I understood, again, what internal training really means.
One of my favourite citations from Cheng Tin Hung is that “Tai Chi should never be comfortable”. Last weekend I spent over 10 hours in more or less acute discomfort, in the company of around forty other fellow sufferers from all over Europe and indeed the world (one guy came from South Africa). It was very international so of course the predominant language was English and it was a bit of a pity for those who can’t handle “la langue de Shakespeare”, especially on the first day. However, we had enough repetitions to enable the teachers to correctly correct, and for the students to experiment and experience. It was also impressive how sensei and assistant adapted their corrections to the capabilities of the students, helping strugglers to get the basics and pushing the more capable to greater things. In my case, this meant mental training – taking the pain and going through it.
So why pain? Why suffering and discomfort? Because of the nature of the exercises. It’s all about becoming conscious of and developing the central body axis, through 6 directions: up/down, left/right and front/back. Dropping the weight down so that your thighs are flat is something we do quite often in Practical Tai Chi Chuan, especially and repetitively in the nei gong. Keeping your back straight was also not new to me. What was new, and difficult, and painful, was maintaining a “piano string” of dynamic tension across the arms, from hand to hand. I’ve seen and done some of this kind of training with some Yi quan people at various workshops and exchanges over the years, and there is some of it present in Wudang style, in the “Draw the bow” exercise in the Baduan jin that we do. But it’s not quite the same – notably you don’t have to push the shoulder blades together.
Which brings me to a contemplation of the nature of “internal” in the martial arts. One chap at the seminar, notable both for his paunch and his RAF moustache, told me that he wanted light, springy weapons, so that he could transfer his Qi into them. During lunch on Sunday, I heard the memorable tale of how Bruce “Kumar” Frantzis was once “sprayed” with his teacher’s Qi. Personally, I prefer to keep my Qi to myself, apart from the occasional gift to my girlfriend. “Hoarding Qi” is referred to in the classics, and is certainly part of the practice of “internal arts”. But that’s far from all of the truth. A great classic of internet forum threads is “the difference between internal and external”. If you are tempted to ask that question, you should really have a look through the archives first since we’ve all discussed this umpteen times. Given the muscular tension involved in holding your shoulder blades together and maintaining a piano wire of tension across the arms and shoulders, some might think that Ark’s method is not internal. I would disagree with that, as would any practitioner of Xing Yi or Yi Quan, IMHO. “Internal” always involves training the Yi, the will. Difficult postures and exercises are one way of doing this – again, this is characteristic of our Nei gong training. Tension may be done externally just my muscular contraction, but what is really internal is to do this but whilst maintaining relaxation. This really is understanding Yin and Yang. In Akuzawa’s training we were trying to maintain a dynamic equilibrium between those six directions. It was fascinating, exhausting, painful and glorious. And certainly very internal.
This inspirational seminar will, I think, always hold a special place in my memory. I understood that my gong fu was elementary, and I understood, again, what internal training really means.
Just Do It !
A standard way of asking a question in Chinese is “Xing bu xing” or “hao bu hao” – “OK or not OK?”, “Good or not good?”. I doubt if the bard knew this when he penned the immortal lines “To be or not to be”. A question is the occasion where we ask ourselves what to do, and this can be quite time-consuming since we often have many alternatives, which all have different outcomes.
A lot of my Tai Chi brothers and sisters find that the doing the nei gong training, especially on a regular basis (ie. every day) is hard going. In the morning? At lunchtime? In the evening? Before class? If you’re not careful it gets to midnight and you still haven’t done it. Godfrey once told me of a time at Jasnières where he was exactly in that situation, and he’d had a few glasses of wine to boot. He fell asleep in the tortoise posture, and awoke, still in the posture, but with his head resting on the ground. Godfrey is a very special, very advanced elder brother, one of Dan’s best students in the man’s own words. Most of us don’t have that degree of will power, let alone stamina. So decide when to do it, and then do it. Don’t worry if you’re feeling tired, or something else comes up. Switch off your cell phone, go to your ‘special place’. Just do it.
A fairly well-known internal martial artist, trained in Taiwan and London, living in Paris, recently told me that one reason he no longer teaches Tai Chi is that he was attracting a lot of intellectuals who were more interested in Chinese culture than in martial art training. This is a well-known problem for us Tai Chi teachers, and something of a pedagogic challenge. Carl wrote on the forum that he no longer advertises his classes as Tai Chi Chuan, but as Neijia quan Kung Fu (nicely mixing the pinyin and wade-giles as we do so often). I have tried to separate Form and Function in my classes, but that doesn’t really work either. The very concept of Tai Chi, even in martial clothing, seems to attract people who want to work out how it works, rather than just doing the work and letting it work. Some of my Tai Chi brothers and sisters are formidable intellectuals and can tell you all the names of all the techniques (and all the names of all the people who can do them) but have no basic gong fu. As a teacher in the Wu lineage, I have recently started asking myself if the square form is really that useful for the intellectual students, since the very fact of decomposing the movements can lead to those questions – my right hand is turned towards or away from my face, or my chest? Xing bu xing? Read the books, watch other students, ask your teacher, whatever … but for goodness’ sake, just do it.
In NLP there are basically three “perceptual systems”: Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic. There are also Olfactory and Gustatory. These are common to all animals. Something that interests me greatly is what they call Auditory Internal Digital – essentially when you’re talking to yourself, and this seems quite specific to humans. “Digital language” means language that is neutral in sensory terms, so in AID you’re asking yourself those questions (see above). Hao bu hao? In the fifteen-odd years that I’ve been teaching Tai Chi I’ve seen this in a majority of my students (maybe it’s my fault). People who are immobile, separated from their body, asking themselves what they are supposed to be doing, rather than just doing it. As I said to Guillaume yesterday, don’t talk – do Tai Chi!
Modern life can be a complex affair and can lead to lots of energetic muddles in our heads. Sport in general is a great way to unload our mental burdens and “get physical”. This is just as true for Tai Chi training as it is for weight-lifting or football. One of the things that makes Tai Chi so special however is that it is relatively complicated, with lots of movements in lots of different exercises. However, it is your body, not your mind that will master this complexity. Tai Chi training involves listening to your body, not your internal dialog (“the babbling monkey”). You will make mistakes, forget bits of the sequence and that’s OK – you will be corrected if you follow your teacher. The key is to work with your body to imbibe it with the key principles (such as alignment, yielding or jin), and then let the body express those principles in the prescribed movements. Don’t think about it, just do it.
A lot of my Tai Chi brothers and sisters find that the doing the nei gong training, especially on a regular basis (ie. every day) is hard going. In the morning? At lunchtime? In the evening? Before class? If you’re not careful it gets to midnight and you still haven’t done it. Godfrey once told me of a time at Jasnières where he was exactly in that situation, and he’d had a few glasses of wine to boot. He fell asleep in the tortoise posture, and awoke, still in the posture, but with his head resting on the ground. Godfrey is a very special, very advanced elder brother, one of Dan’s best students in the man’s own words. Most of us don’t have that degree of will power, let alone stamina. So decide when to do it, and then do it. Don’t worry if you’re feeling tired, or something else comes up. Switch off your cell phone, go to your ‘special place’. Just do it.
A fairly well-known internal martial artist, trained in Taiwan and London, living in Paris, recently told me that one reason he no longer teaches Tai Chi is that he was attracting a lot of intellectuals who were more interested in Chinese culture than in martial art training. This is a well-known problem for us Tai Chi teachers, and something of a pedagogic challenge. Carl wrote on the forum that he no longer advertises his classes as Tai Chi Chuan, but as Neijia quan Kung Fu (nicely mixing the pinyin and wade-giles as we do so often). I have tried to separate Form and Function in my classes, but that doesn’t really work either. The very concept of Tai Chi, even in martial clothing, seems to attract people who want to work out how it works, rather than just doing the work and letting it work. Some of my Tai Chi brothers and sisters are formidable intellectuals and can tell you all the names of all the techniques (and all the names of all the people who can do them) but have no basic gong fu. As a teacher in the Wu lineage, I have recently started asking myself if the square form is really that useful for the intellectual students, since the very fact of decomposing the movements can lead to those questions – my right hand is turned towards or away from my face, or my chest? Xing bu xing? Read the books, watch other students, ask your teacher, whatever … but for goodness’ sake, just do it.
In NLP there are basically three “perceptual systems”: Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic. There are also Olfactory and Gustatory. These are common to all animals. Something that interests me greatly is what they call Auditory Internal Digital – essentially when you’re talking to yourself, and this seems quite specific to humans. “Digital language” means language that is neutral in sensory terms, so in AID you’re asking yourself those questions (see above). Hao bu hao? In the fifteen-odd years that I’ve been teaching Tai Chi I’ve seen this in a majority of my students (maybe it’s my fault). People who are immobile, separated from their body, asking themselves what they are supposed to be doing, rather than just doing it. As I said to Guillaume yesterday, don’t talk – do Tai Chi!
Modern life can be a complex affair and can lead to lots of energetic muddles in our heads. Sport in general is a great way to unload our mental burdens and “get physical”. This is just as true for Tai Chi training as it is for weight-lifting or football. One of the things that makes Tai Chi so special however is that it is relatively complicated, with lots of movements in lots of different exercises. However, it is your body, not your mind that will master this complexity. Tai Chi training involves listening to your body, not your internal dialog (“the babbling monkey”). You will make mistakes, forget bits of the sequence and that’s OK – you will be corrected if you follow your teacher. The key is to work with your body to imbibe it with the key principles (such as alignment, yielding or jin), and then let the body express those principles in the prescribed movements. Don’t think about it, just do it.
Victory and Defeat
“…
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
…” (From ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling)
Well there wasn’t much triumph or disaster at the recent French national Tai Chi championships, but there was as usual some cause for reflection, and some pointers for those seeking victory (I don’t think anyone was seeking defeat).
Dominique and Ladan were in the same forms competitions, with the former coming first and the latter last (or nearly), quite systematically. What does this mean, if anything? Well, broadly speaking I would agree that the one performed “better” than the other. However, I don’t believe that either really deserved their rankings. The former was (and has always has been) after medals. The latter was by far the more courageous and, in a sense, was the greater winner.
Dan said recently that the aim of doing a competition was “medals”. A few years ago he said “experience” (he’s good at one word answers). This was the case with Dominique and Ladan.
“Normally” (which means in general, outside ‘the French exception’), forms are judged openly with points being shown after a competitor has done their thang. A Judging committee only meets if there is a wide disparity in the scores. Not last weekend, where the discussion circle of the wise and sagacious heads of the French federation met after all competitors had been through, in order to decide who should get what. Not exactly transparent, but then neither were our Russian friends in 2004, where even in Tui Shou the referees kept the scores to themselves and the competitors had little or no idea what they needed to go to get on to the next round. One of the esteemed elders on the French jury last weekend used to compete, and always got a gold medal in the French competitions but in no others. Perhaps it was just co-incidence that her teacher was always on those jury tables. Another sagacious one has a vested interest in certain people being in certain positions, all the more to bolster her own position (which is now more than ever threatened by the invading hordes). Yet another is a personal friend of the gold medalist, who I noticed smiling (serenely) at the camera, instead of looking at what she was doing with her saber. I did see other competitors from other styles who were more focused, more precise, more martial, better balanced and better structured than Dominique – but she definitely took the prize for dress sense (worth 10% of the points).
In fixed and ‘free’ pushing hands, I was matched with Philippe Danel (one of the “quatre philippes”) and a guy named Abdou, trained in Chinese boxing and wrestling. Unsurprisingly, he won through in the ‘libre’ (moving step with throws, sweeps and leg grabs). Unsurprisingly, Philippe was defeated (he doesn’t do much at all of the moving step stuff). In the fixed step, unsurprisingly, Abdou was defeated (they don’t stand still in shuai jiao). Between myself and Philippe it was the same old story: we’ve crossed hands on a good few occasions, and it’s usually 50-50 (except in Russia where sensitivity was not so important). We went to the 30 second tie break which he won by 1 point. It could have been the other way round, but I got a couple of faults for grabbing and pulling, which I discovered, you were allowed to do but only if there was movement first. I pointed out to the ref. that grabbing and pulling is, in fact, movement … and was told to be more sensitive. The ref, dear Eric, had earlier been very put out (he’s a sensitive guy) when I put a lock on his elbow as we were practicing.
There were three of us, only, equally and inequally matched, with rules that turned and twisted like the yellow river. I don’t consider that any of us won or lost.
The famous and dead Chinese master, Zheng man qing (Cheng man ching) provided the tai chi with an oft-cited saying: “Invest in Loss”. Apparently this is a bad translation. Also I would add a rider: “Invest in Loss, but try to win”. Defeat is inevitable as we gain experience. Babies don’t know how to do forms or win push-hands competitions. Everyone has to start somewhere and I am proud for both Ladan and Nathalie because they bit the bullet and got out there for their first taste, their first steps in competition experience. Few people get anywhere the first time, but these two deserve applause for just doing it. And I think they both found it’s not as bad as all that.
I’ll finish with an anecdote taken from one of Henry Plée’s excellent ‘Chroniques’. He tells the story of a French karate champion, who won his competition by a knock-out – his own. The competition format excluded excessive contact, so his opponent was disqualified for having knocked the guy out.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
…” (From ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling)
Well there wasn’t much triumph or disaster at the recent French national Tai Chi championships, but there was as usual some cause for reflection, and some pointers for those seeking victory (I don’t think anyone was seeking defeat).
Dominique and Ladan were in the same forms competitions, with the former coming first and the latter last (or nearly), quite systematically. What does this mean, if anything? Well, broadly speaking I would agree that the one performed “better” than the other. However, I don’t believe that either really deserved their rankings. The former was (and has always has been) after medals. The latter was by far the more courageous and, in a sense, was the greater winner.
Dan said recently that the aim of doing a competition was “medals”. A few years ago he said “experience” (he’s good at one word answers). This was the case with Dominique and Ladan.
“Normally” (which means in general, outside ‘the French exception’), forms are judged openly with points being shown after a competitor has done their thang. A Judging committee only meets if there is a wide disparity in the scores. Not last weekend, where the discussion circle of the wise and sagacious heads of the French federation met after all competitors had been through, in order to decide who should get what. Not exactly transparent, but then neither were our Russian friends in 2004, where even in Tui Shou the referees kept the scores to themselves and the competitors had little or no idea what they needed to go to get on to the next round. One of the esteemed elders on the French jury last weekend used to compete, and always got a gold medal in the French competitions but in no others. Perhaps it was just co-incidence that her teacher was always on those jury tables. Another sagacious one has a vested interest in certain people being in certain positions, all the more to bolster her own position (which is now more than ever threatened by the invading hordes). Yet another is a personal friend of the gold medalist, who I noticed smiling (serenely) at the camera, instead of looking at what she was doing with her saber. I did see other competitors from other styles who were more focused, more precise, more martial, better balanced and better structured than Dominique – but she definitely took the prize for dress sense (worth 10% of the points).
In fixed and ‘free’ pushing hands, I was matched with Philippe Danel (one of the “quatre philippes”) and a guy named Abdou, trained in Chinese boxing and wrestling. Unsurprisingly, he won through in the ‘libre’ (moving step with throws, sweeps and leg grabs). Unsurprisingly, Philippe was defeated (he doesn’t do much at all of the moving step stuff). In the fixed step, unsurprisingly, Abdou was defeated (they don’t stand still in shuai jiao). Between myself and Philippe it was the same old story: we’ve crossed hands on a good few occasions, and it’s usually 50-50 (except in Russia where sensitivity was not so important). We went to the 30 second tie break which he won by 1 point. It could have been the other way round, but I got a couple of faults for grabbing and pulling, which I discovered, you were allowed to do but only if there was movement first. I pointed out to the ref. that grabbing and pulling is, in fact, movement … and was told to be more sensitive. The ref, dear Eric, had earlier been very put out (he’s a sensitive guy) when I put a lock on his elbow as we were practicing.
There were three of us, only, equally and inequally matched, with rules that turned and twisted like the yellow river. I don’t consider that any of us won or lost.
The famous and dead Chinese master, Zheng man qing (Cheng man ching) provided the tai chi with an oft-cited saying: “Invest in Loss”. Apparently this is a bad translation. Also I would add a rider: “Invest in Loss, but try to win”. Defeat is inevitable as we gain experience. Babies don’t know how to do forms or win push-hands competitions. Everyone has to start somewhere and I am proud for both Ladan and Nathalie because they bit the bullet and got out there for their first taste, their first steps in competition experience. Few people get anywhere the first time, but these two deserve applause for just doing it. And I think they both found it’s not as bad as all that.
I’ll finish with an anecdote taken from one of Henry Plée’s excellent ‘Chroniques’. He tells the story of a French karate champion, who won his competition by a knock-out – his own. The competition format excluded excessive contact, so his opponent was disqualified for having knocked the guy out.
What’s Wu ?
I shall never forget Billy Tse because he is the only person to have ever pinched my buttocks. We arrived for the ‘International Wu style Meeting’ and met the president, Delphine Bart, who introduced us to Billy. He asked if I’d brought our music with us and when I replied “no” he turned me by the shoulder and pinched my ass. What a naughty boy! Well I guess this sort of thing is OK in
A curious event this Wu meeting – firstly to my mind because there was no-one from the Wu family styles present. It was more of a Ma style meeting, with a couple of honored guests. For those not aware of the history, Wu Quan Yu, a student of Yang Ban Hou, was responsible for creating what is now called the “Northern Wu” style, essentially based in
At the meeting last Sunday, the Chinese lady from the states was clearly in the mainstream of Wu (family) style. The gentleman from
I’m heartily sick of Tai Chi forms in demonstrations and competitions because it gives a false impression of the art (most people think Tai Chi = Form, unsurprisingly given the demos that they see). But at least comparing forms is a useful way of comparing evolutions in styles, and can, perhaps, give some indication of martial ability. In Sundays’ demonstrations, one young man got the end of his sabre cut off – maybe that’ll teach him not to use weapons made from tin foil. More generally with the forms, it seemed to me that the lady doing Wu style was far closer to what I’ve been taught than the gentleman from Hong Kong, who’s supposed to be doing the same style as me.
It reminds me of a story I once heard from Dan. Cheng Tin Hung was walking in a park in
It would appear then that a lot of people have not had a “complete transmission” and that very, very few people in the world of Tai Chi Chuan have any notion of martial application. The result is that in one style, with different students of a single teacher, you get a variety of results – one the one hand strongly focused forms full of applications and martial intent, and on the other softened out square form where the hands go left then right and it looks great.
My last demo of the three days was the advanced short form, which I’ve always enjoyed doing fast (or rather, with clear variations in speed). I made it clear that the applications were there, and even gave a Chen-like smack with the famous “bras d’honneur” movement. I ended up feeling like I was doing Kung Fu.
Filz Blog - le retour
Well, the serendipity app on my free account clearly got it's PHP in a twist, so here I am on a famous, hosted and hopefully secured server ... so there should be no more crashes!!
I still have the originals of most of my previous posts and will put them up "as time goes by".
I do encourage you to make comments (Philippe told me it's not a real blog unless you do), so please do indulge in your English skills - or French, what do I care. I write in English because it's a lot faster for me and this blog is above all about expressing myself.
So, be seeing you, and hearing from you.
fil
I still have the originals of most of my previous posts and will put them up "as time goes by".
I do encourage you to make comments (Philippe told me it's not a real blog unless you do), so please do indulge in your English skills - or French, what do I care. I write in English because it's a lot faster for me and this blog is above all about expressing myself.
So, be seeing you, and hearing from you.
fil
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