The Jade Master

A story my girlfriend told me:

In ancient China, when a jade craftsman would take on an apprentice they had an unusual way of training them. First, they would give the young child a piece of jade. Then, the master would read from a book; explaining the history, different kinds of jade: all the book knowledge on jade available. During the time, the young child would probably not listen, and just play with the piece of jade. after a period of time, the master would give the child another kind of jade to play with; all the while he never acknowledged the jade to the child, just read from the book and let him play. After doing this for several years, upon receiving a new piece, the child would suddenly call out "this piece isn't jade, it's just a stone!" At that time the master knew the child was ready to start crafting the jade, now he intrinsically knew the feel of jade, even if he couldn't explain why he knew if it was jade or not.

Interview with Kunyu Shan's Master Guo Xin Min

Master Guo Xin Min is a master at Kunyu Shan Kung Fu Academy, he is the successor of Grandmaster Yu Xian Hua for Jin Gang Li（金刚力）, a system of Qigong specialising in developing incredible power. He is the only person in the world to successfully break a slab of marble resting on tofu, and has managed many other feats of power, such as breaking marble with 2 fingers. He is also a master of Ba Ji Quan, Wing Chun and Chen Style Tai Chi. He has studied martial arts for over 30 years, and has much experience, both in performance and combat. He is currently ranked at level 8 in Chinese martial arts, and has created his own qigong techniques, which have been listed by the Chinese Martial Arts Committee. He is also vice-secretary general of the Kunyu Mountain Cultural Research Association.

He teaches Baji Quan and Wing Chun together, and has a friendly, easy going teaching style. He believes it is up to the student to get what he wants from training, and will give students back as much as they put it. His training regime includes a balance of all aspects, mainly concentrating on both forms and applications, with supplementary qigong, power training and sanda/wrestling.

W (Will, me): Master Guo, please could you tell us about your experiences in learning kung fu:

MG: My grandfather’s master was a monk from the Shaolin temple. He taught him several styles including monkey and Da Hong Quan. Then, during the Japanese invasion of China, my father learnt a rare style called Guan Xi Xiao Jia. My family at that time were farmers, during spring and autumn they were working on the farm, winter and summer there was no work, so they had a lot of free time and would hire travelling kung fu masters to teach them for a period of time. You see, there was a very big family in our village, which would bully the other smaller families and were like a mafia, so we learnt kung fu to protect ourselves. My father was very strong from farm work, he used to carry very heavy bags around and operate heavy machinery. He was very skilled at wrestling and locking skills. When I was very young, I saw him fight with someone, and he knocked the man flying several metres! This left a deep impression on me and I knew I wanted to learn that.

When I was very young, I was often bullied, I was the youngest of several brothers and sisters, and my parents were very poor, so I didn’t get much milk as a baby. I was very weak and small, and the other children bullied me. I started kung fu at about 3 or 4 years old, but even at the age of 8, I still couldn’t fight. I spent too much time learning acrobatics and flexibility skills. When I was 8, I started to learn more practical kung fu, and when I was 10 I had my first fight. My sister was being picked on by some much older kids, so I went and beat them up. When I was a teenager I had a lot of fights with much bigger and older kids, and gained a reputation among kids in my village.

W: Can you tell me about your qigong training:

MG: My parents wanted me to have a good education, but I always wanted to do kung fu professionally. When I was 14, I became a student of a qigong master. He taught me Shaolin Nei Jia Yi Zhi Chan (少林内家一指禅shaolin 1 finger zen). I would stand in horse stance for at least an hour, with bricks on my arms. I sweated so much, there was a huge puddle underneath me, and in winter my whole body would steam. Sometimes I would even stand like this for up to 4 hours, and I could feel the Qi shooting out of my fingers.

Then, when I entered high school, I changed to learn Jin Gang Li, which included martial arts, as Yi Zhi Chan was just developing qi. In 1992 I lived with my master, first I would stay with him in the holidays, later I quit school to study full time. I would do qigong in the morning and free fighting in the afternoon. After 1 year, I began to help my master to teach. In 1999 I travelled overseas to teach and perform kung fu.

W: Your teaching focus is on Baji and Wing Chun, could you talk a bit about them:

MG: In 1995 I felt like I wanted to learn more kung fu, so I travelled around looking at different styles. At that time I started Wing Chun. Most northern Chinese would make fun of Wing Chun, saying it’s for women and it lacks strength, so I was already biased against it. It wasn’t until 2000, that I was invited to teach some bodyguards in Guangdong, that I really came to appreciate it. You see before I was young and liked beautiful forms.

My master often travelled to Hong Kong in secret during the revolution to exchange ideas on kung fu there. So the lineage I teach is a mixture of mainland and Hong Kong Wing Chun. The big difference people notice in my Wing Chun to what they learn in the west is there is an extra form, which comes before Siu Lim Tao. This form is called Shi Er San Shou (十二散手12 free hands), this form gives the student the fundamentals of wing chun, it is 12 principles for combat, which are practical and easy to learn. For most of my short term students, I will teach them this form. In Guangdong they say if you just want to learn self defence, this form is enough.

In the south of China, they use upper body techniques, but I am a northerner and my foundation is northern, so I like to use my legs a lot more. Traditional Wing Chun says kicks must be low, but I think that if you are good with your legs, high kicks are good too. In street fighting, low kicks are more effective, but in the ring, high kicks are better. Also, you can use a low kick, and then follow up with a high kick. They flow together. This is something I have added to the wing chun I teach.

Baji, however, I liked straight away. It’s strong, powerful and vicious. Wing Chun took me several years to appreciate. Wing Chun is like a gentleman’s art, it’s very reserved and humble. A Wing Chun fighter won’t move so much, and will act humbly. Baji is like a demon, it’s vicious, strong, and proud. So, it depends what mood I’m in as to what I practice, if I feel calm, I train my Wing Chun, if I’m excited, I train my Baji. Baji uses much more of the body than Wing Chun. In fact, Baji, Wing Chun and Taiji, in essence are very similar. Beginners can’t see that, but we all have the same body, there’s only so many ways of issuing power and moving it. In Wing Chun, we use the principle of leverage, in Taiji, it’s called Yin and Yang. They are both the same. In Baji, there are a lot of elbows and takedowns.

My Baji comes from Wu Lian Zhi, native of Meng County in Hebei. He is the oldest generation still alive. Our lineage is Wu Shi Kai Men (wu style “opening the door”) Baji. In fact, our basic zhan zhuang, or standing posture, is a horse stance, with the arms held one bent up, one bent down in the figure for the character 呉 (wu), the surname of my master.

W: Can you talk a little about the relationship between traditional forms and modern Sanda (散打kickboxing)

MG: Many young people in China really like Sanda now. But after they train for several years, they often feel they want to develop more. This is where traditional forms come in. Forms were created by old masters by taking their fighting experience and condensing into a form, like a catalogue of fighting techniques or strategies. So a fighter can research the forms to find fighting techniques suitable for them.

When you want to get a higher level, you can learn Qigong or Taiji. A lot of Sanda fighters get injuries; qigong training can help your body to heal faster, also to make it stronger and more resistant to injury. Many people who just practice hard kung fu get problems later in life, arthritis etc. I have a friend who was an iron head performer. He broke a concrete slab with his head one time and suffered a serious head injury. His face became partially paralysed and the doctors couldn’t do anything. I taught him qigong and he practiced for up to 8 hours a day! After breakfast, he would just do standing postures, and wouldn’t finish until dinner! After a period of time, his head had healed fairly well.

Thank you Master Guo for sharing your knowledge and experience with us!

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Jin Gang Li Gong, Iron Strength Qigong

The style of Qigong I practice is called Jin Gang Li. It is a martial art Qigong, which means there is a large focus on building up and developing internal power.

The main method of practice is standing posture, where you hold your hands in front of your chest as if holding a ball and a bent knee stance with the toes turned in slightly. This strengthens the leg muscles and after years of practice condenses the bones. While standing, we focus on building and strengthening the Dan Tian, which is the area of the lower belly, beneath the navel. There are actually three Dan Tians, but the lower one is the foundation, the part of your body where Qi is stored. The lower Dan Tian is strengthened through concentration on that area and deep breathing. You must breathe all the way down into your lower belly, expanding it. After a while of dedicated practice, you will begin to feel warm, numb or inflated feelings in your lower belly. This means Qi is beginning to accumulate here. It is recommended you stand for a bare minimum of 30 minutes, but 1-2 hours will give you greater benefits. It also requires long term persistence, you wont get any benefit just doing it on and off, it must be done daily.

There are also supplementary moving forms and sitting meditation. The sitting meditation focuses on using the mind to guide the Qi through different channels in the body. The moving forms help to strengthen the body, open meridians and release power. The first moving form is a collection of six basic movements which do all of the above. Then, there is the Sun form, which opens the meridians between the hands and the lower Dan Tian and increases the Qi flow there. The next form is the Moon form, which is taught once the middle Dan Tian, located at the solar plexus is opened. The middle Dan Tian acts as a kind of pump, it helps send your Qi from your lower Dan Tian to different arts of your body. The Moon form helps to open and strengthen the middle Dan Tian and the chest. The next step is the Heaven form, which focusses on releasing power. A a higher level, once your lower and middle Dan Tians are both full, you can work on the upper Dan Tian, orthird eye. This is located between the eyes, and is said to be the gateway into developing more esoteric powers, such as being able to send you Qi out of your body and other skills. I have been fortunate enough to feel this, when I had lower back trouble, while standing in Qigong, Master Guo would come over and press his thumbs into my back every day for a week. I got a feeling of intense heat coming from his thumbs into my back and my whole got a hot flush and I started sweating intensely.

Another important part of Jin Gang Li is Iron Shirt training, which is conditioning the body to withstand blows. Any part of the body can be conditioned, such as the back, ribs, stomach, arms, palm, fingers, even the head. Advanced practitioners can take full power kicks to the stomach or ribs, have sticks broken over their back, break metal bars over their heads and more.

Jin Gang Li is an art which is being practiced less and less. Master Guo told me that nowadays, young martial artists want to do acrobatics and kickboxing, nobody wants to stand on one spot for long periods of time, so the art is not spreading. There are many westerners who come to our academy and they learn Qigong from Master Guo, but few will be around long enough to get a high level in the system. In 8 months I have got to focussing on the middle Dan Tian and the Moon form, but with my main focus being Mantis Kung Fu, I dont have the time to really focus on Qigong. Perhaps in the future, when my Kung Fu is much better, I can spend some time to focus more on this interesting art.

Kung Fu Training at Kunyu Shan mountains, China

Ive just completed my first full weeks training here (here being Kunyu mountains njear Yantai, Shadong province). Im learning 2 systems, Mantis and Ba Gua Zhang and taking extra classes in Qigong twice a day and some bits of Taiji and Xingyi. The school is set at the just outside a national park, in the mountains, so the environment is really peaceful and the air is fresh. There are 4 masters at the school, 2 of them Shaolin monks, called Big Wang and Little Wang, and the other 2 are Master Qu, who is my main master, for Mantis and Ba Gua and Master Guo, who teaches Wing Chun and Ba Ji, he teaches the Qigong and other optional classes. There are about 30 students here, from UK, France, Belgium, Australia, South Africa, America, Canada and other places.

The training is much better than I expected, I was a little worried it would be a lot of Wushu forms and acrobatics and no real Kung Fu, but actually, it is exactly what I wanted. My Mantis class has just 6 of us, and Master Qu is a really good master. He is friendly and caring, but at the same time, is very strict and has high standards. Everyone here comments that Mantis class is of a high standard. Master Qu is in his 30s, but looks much younger, he is strict in class, people who mess around or swear have to do 40 push ups or hold horse stance for 5 minutes, and is someone is slacking, he gives them a little slap or whack with his bamboo cane. We have a good balance of physical conditioning and technical training. We spend a lot of time on basics, sometimes in an hour and a half session, we will work on 2 or 3 basic movements, first just doing them in the air, then on the punch bags, then as a partner drill. Afternoons we often do more application work, learning how to use our basics or forms. We do 2 or 3 mile runs a week, then Friday we run up and down the mountain 4 times, which is hell. We have a power training session, which is like strength training, we do things like doing basic movements or holding stances with bricks in our hands, practicing our grip strength on wooden poles and whatever other pain Master Qu wants us to go through. We also have a power stretching session, where you hold a stretch as deeply as you can, then someone pushes you even further, ignoring your screams and holds is for a minute, it feels so good after though! Then we do forearm and shin toughening on trees and learn to take kicks to different parts of the body.
The only downside here is that Id like to do more Ba Gua, we do Mantis 4 days a week and Ba Gua only 1. Ba Gua is a good style for me because Im small, and its all about evasion and moving round the opponent, so its good for multiple attackers. It works on redirecting force through circles and getting behind the opponent for takedowns, chokes etc.


I really enjoy the Qigong class with Master Guo. He is really friendly and approachable and seems to always smile. His Qigong is his own families system, which is very effective. We do it twice a day, standing for half an hour, the first 10 minutes we focus on the Qi in our Lao Gong points, which are in the centre of your hand, you have to build up a magnetic feeling between your palms by moving them together and apart, and when you get it, it feels great. Then, you move your focus to your lower Dan Tian, in your belly, which is where the Qi is stored. You can feel a warm and inflated feeling there. One day a week, we learn Hard Qi Gong, which is how to use your Qi to break bricks and things, which will take a while for me to get the hang of before I really try! Then we do Taiji every morning with him, although its pretty much just the form, and we do Xingyi Quan twice a week in the afternoon after Qigong, I like doing it, but I think he only really teaches the basics as its an extra class. Master Guos internal power is amazing, apparently a few weeks before I came, the Masters gave a performance, and Master Guo broke a marble slab, balanced on tofu, with 2 fingers. Although he broke 1 finger in the process, but then he used Qigong and healed it in a week.


Weve also had theory classes in the evenings, learning massage, acupuncture theory, Buddhism, Taoism, Kung Fu theory, history and philosophy and calligraphy. I really enjoy the training here and highly recommend Kunyu Shan to anybody serious about Kung Fu training.

Carefree Rantings

Since the end of June, Ive been at my mums house in Italy. She lives in the countryside of Piemonte, surrounded by green hills covered in grape vineyards and hazelnut groves, with medieval villages and large villas dotted around. My mum and stepdad grow most of their own fruit and vegetables themself at the end of the garden in a patch the size of a small backyard. With all kinds of butterflies, bees, insects and lizards, its the perfect place to sit and ponder life. I often go down the garden with my Chinese tea set and spend hours just reading and drinking tea. Its a good place for me to get some intense Kung Fu training too. Generally I have 2 or 3 hour sessions of Kung Fu a day and spend the rest of the time doing some jobs for my mum like gardening, digging, picking fruit and vegetables, or reading and pondering life with my Chinese and Japanese teas.

Ive been reading the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi (also spelt Chuang Tzu) a lot recently too. He is a very early Taoist philosopher, from around 2000 years ago, whos views on nature and stillness of mind are more attune to most Zen writers and poets of 10th century China and Japan than they are of the typical esoteric teachings of religious taoism that concentrates on immortality and new age practices. He was a wanderer, who liked a life close to nature and in tune with the Tao, that indescribable and impersonal force which guides the universe and keeps balance in all things.

Being in this environment, away from the greed and corruption of society, surrounded by nature, time to ponder and clear my head, has helped me to understand Zhuang Zi's ideas and to appreciate the harmony of nature. The flowers grow from the soil, the butterflies eat the nectar and help to cross pollenate, the dead flowers fall off and are eaten by insects and make new soil for the plants, and the insects are eaten by lizards, who are eaten by birds. Its all just so perfect and it makes me believe that if there was no force to regulate it all, there would be chaos and the universe would fall apart. Its just too perfect and it is also a very delicate balance. One which people seem determined to detroy with deforestation, mining and pollution. It makes me wonder if we really NEED the things we think we do. Do you really need a TV that big and expensive? Or all those expensive clothes made by children in Asian sweatshops? It seems to me, that in the west, the government controls people with debts, consumerism and celebrity gossip. People are too busy thinking about what new haircut David Beckhams got, than to do something to contribute to making the world a better place. People are more interested in buying the latest phone cum MP3 cum video camera cum sat nav cum whatever stupid invention they make next, rather than giving a few pounds to help starving people in Africa.

On the Kung Fu side of things, Ive had time to put together all Ive learned from different teachers, realising the similarities over the differences. Ive evolved my own training routines, so that I focus on all different aspects, including strength, fitness, flexibility, skill, basics, force training, arm/leg conditioning, Qi cultivation etc etc. Ive put together some drills and techniques I think are useful, combining elements of Wing Chun, Taiji and some Shaolin, along with bits Ive picked up from books, like Mantis, Xing Yi, Ba Gua etc. Ive also made a good workout that does all the important muscle groups and deep stetching for the whole body. ive actually found that rather than contradicting each other, the different styles compliment each other, and anyone who disagrees has probably not tried, WITH AN OPEN MIND, to do this, but in my experience, it works well.

So, all this is getting me ready for my return to China to spend a year taking my Kung Fu to the next level at Kunyu Shan Shaolin Kung Fu Academy, in the mountains of Eastern China.

Om and the Himalayas

I was doodling yesterday and I found myself drawing the "Om" symbol without realising it. It caused me to remember last year when I was in India I stayed in a little guesthouse on the side of a mountain high in the Himalayas. The head of the family was a very nice man called Mr Prakash-ji (Ji is added at the end of Indian names to show respect). He was a very spiritual man who practices yoga and meditation. All the food served in his guesthouse is vegetarian and organically grown by his own family, and all the water used, even for washing pots, is Himalayan spring water, which flows freely from the mountain. Every morning some of us would get up early to meditate with him and he would also talk to us about the nature of our mind. The type of meditation we practiced was a type of transcendental which used chanting "Om" out loud. Om is made of the sanskrit particles A, U and M. A represents that which has form, U represents the formless, and M represents that which is neither form, nor formless.

He said that the mind is like a crazy horse that runs wild. Meditation is like tying the horse to a pole. It will cause it to run around even more at first, circling the pole and getting restless, but eventually, it will calm and will become still. This stillness allows us to perceive Sunyata, or emptiness. However, we shouldnt dwell on the idea of emptiness, for then it becomes another form and is not truly empty. We should let it arise naturally.

I find it extremely hard to let my mind still, whenever I sit in meditation there I become aware of how busy my mind is, like the horse running round and round the pole, but I figure if I can sit long enough, then the horse will tire and rest.