Clips From Our Martial Art Classes in Tempe, AZ - 02.24.13

We spent some time working on the 180 degree reverse step and it's application to generating horizontal power from the pivot and turning the hips. Video analysis reveals errors in the students structure.

Click the image below to enlarge for details.

Proverbs...

It's been awhile since I published any old proverbs from the Chinese martial arts.  This one come from John Wang of Shuai Jiao fame.

手是兩扇門全凭腿打人

shou3 shi4 liang3 shan4 men2 quan2 ping2 tui3 da3 ren2

"Both hands are like closed doors, every strike depends on the use of the legs."

The first part of this proverb, "both hands are like closed doors" refers to the use of the hands to guard your vital areas from the opponents attacks. shan4 means a "screen" or "panel" and men2 means "door", so the sense is a "covered door".

What Concentration Looks Like

In the past, when discussing the powers of his concentration, my Sifu (Master Sam FS Chin) has said that"to me, it's as if you guys are moving in slow motion." Another student once told me that Sifu has to modulate his level of concentration when watching TV, or he becomes too aware of the individual pixles on the screen and no longer sees the entire picture.

The following is a story that comes from Anapanasati Sutta & Satipatthana Sutta by Ajahn Brahmavamso;

There is a lovely story that was told to me by Ven. Dhammaratana from Kuala Lumpur which shows how this sustained attention on one thing works and develops. This is a story of a teacher and his three students. The teacher was teaching meditation to his students using archery as a means. Instead of meditation on the breath or loving kindness, he was using the skill of the bow and arrow. After having trained his three disciples for quite some time, he decided to give them a test to see if they really understood meditation.
He took a stuffed bird and put it on the branch of a tree a long way away. It was so far away and looked so small, that it would take a lot of skill to even be able to shoot that bird. But the teacher told his students "I don't want you to shoot just anywhere on that bird. To pass this test, the arrow will have to go through the left eye of the bird!"

 He gave the bow and arrow to the first student and told him that the only way he could see was if he meditated on the target, the left eyeball of that bird. He was to make himself one with that target and only then to release the arrow. The teacher told the student that he could take as much time as he liked to meditate, concentrate and make himself one with the target. But before he could shoot, the teacher asked for a sign from the student. The student took a whole thirty minutes concentrating on the target, making himself one with the left eyeball of the bird. Then he gave the teacher the sign. However, before the teacher permitted him to shoot, he asked the student, "Can you see the bird on the tree?" 

The student said, "Yes."

Then the teacher pushed him aside saying"You stupid fool, give me the bow and arrow. Go and learn how to meditate some more." He gave the bow and arrow to the second student and gave him the same instructions. This student took a whole hour. Once the student gave the teacher the sign, the teacher asked, "Can you see the bird in the tree?" 

The student said, "What tree?"
The teacher then asked, "Can you see the bird?"
The student replied, "Oh, yes."

He pushed that student aside too and told him to do some more meditation.
Finally he gave the bow and arrow to the third student with the same instructions. The student took a whole two hours to make himself one with the target - the left eyeball of that bird. Then he gave the sign that he was ready to shoot. The master asked him the same question he asked the first two students,  "Can you see the bird in the tree?"
The student said, "What tree?"
The master then asked, "Can you see the bird?"
The student then said, "What bird?"
The master then asked, "What can you see then?"
The student said, "I can see a left eyeball, that's all."
"Marvelous," said the teacher, "shoot." And of course the arrow went straight through the only thing that was within the students consciousness, just the target, the left eyeball of the bird.

Here is a neat example of this type of concentration in a more modern context.  Amazing!
 

10,000 Techniques

Frank posted over at Tool Box Hapkido about the similarities between some techniques from Hapkido and Aiki-jutsu. The question I would like to ask is; what if there was a way to look at any martial arts technique and see only similarities? What if we went one step further? What if there was a way of training that turned every technique you knew simply into variations of a single technique?

As my Sifu (Master Sam FS Chin) says "all moves are only one move".
Sijo used to say something like "I'm not going to teach you techniques. If you want to learn techniques you pay me one dollar each and you'll soon go bankrupt, but you won't dare use a single one."

"I'm not going to teach you techniques. If you want to learn techniques you pay me one dollar each and you'll soon go bankrupt, but you won't dare use a single one."

-Grand Master Chin, Lik-Keong

The reason is that a fixed technique is a dead thing, but if you understand the principles behind a technique, the engine that drives it (often referred to in martial arts as "internal" power), then you begin to see that all techniques are actually the same. Or I guess you could say they should be.

One of the goals of I Liq Chuan is to manifest your movement as a balance of yin and yang in the body. You stick to the principles and your actions and movements form around them the way a pearl forms around a grain of sand in an oyster.

An Oral Tradition

“You've traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma. So many long days in the archives, copying, copying. The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage. Here! I've picked you a bunch of wildflowers. Their meaning is the same but they're much easier to carry.”

― Hsu Yun

Recently I wrote about the process of trying to communicate the concepts and principles of I Liq Chuan in my own words.

Often times I like to use the metaphor of giving driving directions.  When I was a kid I grew up in the rural areas of Central New York. If you've never been,  it's a rolling countryside nestled in between the foothills of the Adirondack and Catskill mountain ranges. The roads all follow the contours of the landscape and tbe twist and turns of the waterways, and in many cases began simply as game trails and cow paths. Being a rural area, road signs are often not well maintained and can be completely obscured by vegetation. In such a way, one often learns to navigate by landmarks. I could make it from my house to my destination,  but trying to give directions to someone else could be hell. If someone is coming from a different place than you "drive north until you see the old barn, then take a the next fork" doesn't work very well.

Teaching martial arts is like this. It's one thing to be able to guide someone coming from a similar place as yourself,  but if you really know the territory you can give directions from anywhere to make it to the destination.

But like most things, this is a double edged sword. It cuts both ways. At the recent workshop in Seattle, Sifu spent some time discussing the importance of not changing the vocabulary. He said; "because my English is not that good I can't use use a lot of big words. I need to keep it as simple as possible. No doubt, sometimes when someone hears my words and they can't get it, but another student explains and then they feel as if they get it more, but my words are so simple, and if they feel they understand the other words more than mine, then no doubt they get something,  but it also means there's something wrong there too [with that understanding]."

Sifu compared it to the suttas and the commentaries.  The suttas are the original words, but many people can't catch the meaning,  so they focus on the commentaries instead (someone else's elaboration). Even the original words themselves are still not the moon, but the finger pointing to the moon. To focus on someone else's elaboration is like focusing on the finger that points to the finger pointing at the moon.  You must always go back to the original.

As instructors we all feel we want our students to "get it", but as students of I Liq Chuan, we should look into whether or not an elaboration is even necessary, or is it coming from a place of ego in the sense that we want to show how much we know. The process of I Liq Chuan shouldn't build up one's ego. It should simply be a process of recognizing and realizing what is already there. If it was there all along, then really, what have you done to be proud of?

Condolences ...

Condolences go out to the friends and family David DeVere, founder and designer of the original emptyFlower martial arts discussion forum. emptyFlower became one of the most respected discussion forums for Chinese martial arts on the web, attracting some of the best known practitioners from various disciples including John Wang, Jess O'Brien, George Wood, Dan Harden and more. Over the years I Liq Chuan has received a lot of positive exposure through the forum, which lives on after Dave's passing at it's new home http://rumsoakedfist.org.

Sitting Is Killing You...

When Damo first arrived at Shaolin Temple, legend says he found the monks in terrible shape due to hunching over and copying suttas into Chinese all day, day after day. In order for the monks to have enough physical strength to cultivate their awareness, the story says Damo taught the monks several stretching, strenght and conditioning sets like The Muscle Tendon Changing Classic Yi Jin Jing (易筋經) Marrow Washing Classic Xi Sui Jing (洗髓經).

According to Wikipedia;

"Both documents were written in an Indian language which was not well-understood by the monks of the temple; apparently one monk decided that the text must contain more valuable knowledge than simply self-defense, and went on a pilgrimage with a copy of the text to find someone who could translate the deeper meaning of the text. He eventually met an Indian priest named Pramati in the province of Szechwan who, examining the text, explained that the meaning of the text was extraordinarily deep and beyond his ability to translate fully. He nonetheless provided a partial translation. The monk found that within a year of practicing the techniques as Pramati had translated, that his constitution had become "as hard as steel," and he felt that he could be a Buddha. The monk was so pleased that he thereafter followed Pramati wherever he went."

 At any rate, the real moral of the story is that too much sitting down is bad for you.  Want more on the effect sitting down all day can have on you? Check out the infographic below.