lessons in discipline and perseverance with a master of Shandong Mantis Kung Fu

After the Tai Chi master returned to Jinan I decided to go to a park where Id heard I could find people practicing kung fu. I saw a couple of middle aged guys practicing Tai Chi and they told me they practiced with a master of Mantis and that he would come tomorrow. So the next day I went to the park at 5.30am and I saw a man in his late 50s doing Qigong. The 2 guys introduced him to me as Xu Jing Yi, the head of the Taiji-Meihua lineage of mantis in Qingdao. The first thing the master Xu asked me was what Ive learnt before and I told him just a little Wing Chun, to which he asked me to show him, so I ran through Chum Kiu, which he laughed at and said it is womens kung fu and that I first need to master Jiben Gong (basic body training) before I can learn specific styles. The 2 other guys told me master Xu also teaches Shaolin Quan and Chen style Taiji Quan.

So first he taught me Ma Bu (horse stance) and Gung Bu (front stance). He told me I must first master these before I can learn the other 6 basic stances and the kicks and strikes. I had to hold each stance as long as I could and once he was confident I could do it, he would show me the next one. This went on for a few weeks, master Xu was very strict and some mornings he wouldnt show me anything new (which meant I had not made progress) and other mornings show me 2 or 3 things. This was very tiring, I had to force myself out of bed every morning and I hated going, as my whole body was aching so much. Especially sometimes when master Xu didnt show me anything new, he would just leave me practicing the same thing over and over and I never got any encouragement. When I asked him how long I need to study basics he just told me "hen duo, hen duo" (a lot, a lot).

Last week he suddenly stopped me mid practice and told me to stand next to him and follow him and he then showed me the opening movements to a basic form of Shaolin Quan, and every morning since then he has shown me 3 or 4 more movements until I finally finished it.

Yang style Taijiquan with Master Zhang Qing Bao

I was walking back from my usual kung fu class, when I happened to see a big fat man doing Pushing Hands (Tui Shou) with another man and there was a couple of women watching as well as some other students practicing. I stopped and asked the women what style of Tai Chi it was and they replied "Yang Shi", which is the most popular style seen in the west and comes from the Yang family. Then one of the students came up to me and spoke in near-perfect English. It turned out he was Malaysian and had been studying with the master for 7 years as a "closed door student". He told me the fat man was called master Zhang and came from Jinan, another city several hours away, to teach in our local park once a month. He then invited me to push hands with the master, but I said I didnt know how and so he just told me to press my arm against his and try to keep my balance. So I did and the master just casually moved his arm and whichever direction he moved it, I would go flying. Then the Malaysian guy said to try and bend the masters fingers backwards and break them, and so I tried and with his finger he moved me around as if I was weightless. He explained that the more strength I used, the more I would fly back.

The next day I went back to learn more and then they began to explain in more detail the principles. The Malaysian guy said he had studied many different hard styles of martial arts including Muay Thai and Wing Chun and he had huge forearm muscles and the muscles in his hands were like little rocks. But he had given all that up as he felt the softness of Tai Chi was superior. He explained that the reason the master was completely soft and yet still able to move me around freely lay in his understanding of using his mind (the actual word he used was Qi, but in this case it was meant as mind power). He said that he put his intention behind me and then his body just followed this intention and so I was powerless to stop it. The result was I flew back. Then the master said to try my Wing Chun on him, and he showed how the classic Wing Chun strategy of pinning and hitting simultaneously with great speed didnt work as it was like trying to grab water, his arms just moved around mine so effortlessly and then followed a gentle push, which again sent me flying. my attempt to arm lock him also ended in me going flying.

Recently I have been focusing too much on hard training and I neglected softness. This experience had put me back in touch with the softer side of martial arts. A good martial artist should be balanced, developing both hard and soft so he/she can adapt to any situation easily. I have begun to take an interest in Tai Chi, but unfortunately after the mast returned to Jinan I couldnt find his students, but I did find a teacher of Chen style, which is not as soft as Yang style, but can generate explosive power through its softness.

learning kung fu from master Ho Zhi Yuan

When I first arrived in the town of Chengyang, just outside Qingdao, I thought I wouldn't find any martial arts here. The more I asked around, the more certain I was that this 15 year old modernly built mass of concrete apartment blocks and sterile parks was completely devoid of anyone with any connection to the traditional arts.

3 months later, my Mandarin teacher Eric, sent me a text message saying he had met an old man in the university who was teaching "the most useful styles of fighting". I had absolutely no idea what to expect, so the next day I set my alarm for 5am and made my way to the universities park. I got there and there was maybe 5 or 6 young Chinese guys stretching and circling their arms. After a while this small old man in his 70s with a big coat and baseball cap walked up to one of the guys and began correcting him. Everyone crowded round and greeted him with "Aah Shifu" and a bow. When he spoke, he had a calm confidence about him, and he spoke in a very thick Shandong dialect and was matter-of-factly with the usual self importance (not arrogance though) that Chinese masters usually have.

Shifu is in his 70s and has been learning martial arts since he was 7 years old. Doing the maths would mean that he learnt it in pre-communist China and so is a living link with a world which no longer exists. He has studied many styles, but his speciality is Mizongyi, the style made famous by Huo Yuan Jia. He doesnt teach us forms or endless repetitive drills, he teaches single techniques and their applications and then he will show us variations depending on how the opponent reacts etc. Most of the stuff is pretty basic and simple, hes never style specific, he will teach what he thinks works regardless of what style it comes from. He teaches us it is vital to always use your whole body in a movement, to use your waist to generate power and to only tense at the end of the technique. This force generation in Chinese is called Fa Jing. He also says you should be alive and flexible, ready adapt or change your movement at any moment, depending on what the opponent is doing.

He was critical of many Chinese martial artists these days, who only learnt forms and didnt dedicate time to stance training and force generation, as a result they couldnt fight because they didnt understand the meaning of the movements in the forms and they didnt have stable stances or power in their movements. You must always begin with practicing basics. First train your stance, then punches and leg stretches. You shouldnt learn the next thing until you can do the first. Proper training in horse stance (Ma Bo) will strenghen your legs, waist and back. Punches should use the whole body to generate power. Forms can come later, if you can do the basics well, that is the most important thing.

The Basic Theories of Tibetan Medicine

While In Tibet I went to a lecture on Tibetan Medicine. Its is a very interesting system and is almost unheard of in the West. It was first taught by Yutok Yonten Gompo in the eighth century, who combined Chinese, Ayurvedic and Persian medicine systems with the shamanic Tibetan system. The theories are all written down on the Four Medical Tantras. It embraces the Buddhist concept that illness is caused by the 3 poisons of the mind, ignorance, attachment and aversion. The Tantras can be broken down into Thangkas, many of which are theoretical diagrams and all the basics are represented by 3 trees.
The first tree has 2 trunks. The first representing a state of sickness and the second health, this is pictured above.
The first branch of the first trunk explains the 3 energies. Whereas in Chinese medicine there is two basic energies Yin and Yang, in Tibetan theory there is 3-Loong, Tiba and Bigen.
Loong is shown as blue and represents the nervous system, Tiba is shown as yellow and represents cold and Bigen is white and represents heat.
The second branch has 7 leaves all representing the 7 bodily functions and the third shows the 3 excretions.
A Tibetan doctor will use 3 ways to observe a patient: visual, looking at tongue colour and urine. Touch, by the pulse. And talking to the patient to find out about lifestyle.
In Tibetan medicine prevention is better than cure. So the first step would be to try and prevent an illness before it happens, the second step would be through herbs and the final step would be through acupunture with golden needles or massage etc.

Shaolin training with Buddhist Monk Xing Rong

While in Xi'an, I had the opportunity of training with a completely crazy buddhist monk. He taught me some basic stances, punches, kicks and strengthening/flexibility excercises of Shaolin. He called this basic training "Wu Gong" and told me that in order to study Chinese martial arts properly, then these basic excercises must be mastered. It was very strange how I met him, I was visiting a Buddhist temple with one of my students, Li Yi Lin (or Vivian), and we just saw this monk sat in front of a shrine. So Vivian started talking to him, and somehow kung fu got brought up, She told him that I study Wing Chun in England. The monk had never heard of it and claimed that it was not any good because it wasnt a famous style. He asked me to demonstrate a form, so I showed him Siu Lim Tau, after which he told me that I had a weak stance, and the form was useless as it contained no footwork. I humbly agreed with him, despite not believing him! So, he agreed to teach me some excercises to strengthen my stance and arm. He said he regretted that i wasnt staying longer, as he wanted to teach me "the 5 famous styles of Shaolin". So I made an arrangement that every other afternoon I would visit him in the temple, with Vivian to translate for me. He didnt charge me, but seemed very proud of having a westerner as a student and took me to meet all the other monks. Training always began with a long period of horse stance training. After that I would have to do alternating splits and then more horse stance. Then I would learn some other stances and have to hold them for a long period. He also taught me some basic kicks and punches and I had to punch out candle flames from a distance.

Yuen Kay San Wing Chun with Kwok Wan Ping

During my stay in Hong Kong I had the honour of meeting and training with Kwok Wan Ping, who many would say was the top disciple of grandmaster Sum Nung. Master Kwok was really easy going and had a good sense of humour. He seemed to always wear just a pair of shorts and sandals, and his figure was in top condition, even for a 70 odd year old man he was still covered in muscles. The first day I met with him, I was invited to dinner and his wife cooked traditional Cantonese food which was really nice. Then after our food had digested, we went on to the rooftop to train. The rooftop of his apartment had been the sight of many Beimo (illegal challenge matches, popular amoung kung fu students in the 60s) and he told me that when he fled mainland China for Hong Kong all the people were practicing Yip Man Wing Chun. So in order to start teaching Yuen Kay San lineage he had to prove himself and fought and beat several of Yip Mans students.
His style of Wing Chun was a fairly hard style in comparison to the other stuff ive seen. Chi Sau with master Kwok was very tiring, his arms felt immovable and really heavy, but they werent tense. He also put a lot of emphasis on arm conditioning drills, which I did so much with him that my arms were swollen next day! He was critical of many people who are too soft, which is good in theory, but it doesnt work in real fights. And if you doubt that is true, Im sure he would invite you to test your skills on him! He said that his tremendous internal power came from a lot of Tai Chi and Ba Gua Zhuang training. He had even created some training drills which combined Wing Chun with Tai Chi principles.
In the Yuen Kay San lineage, there is 12 basic excercises called San Sik, which means free excercise. These can be done with a partner, or alone and are a good way of developing a strong foundation in Wing Chun. They are a condensed way of demonstrating the basic principles of the art.

In need of updating: why I changed clubs

So, I thought it was about time I updated this blog. It has been a long time since I wrote anything. Since then I have changed clubs and travelled Asia for 5 months, to China, Hong Kong, Tibet, Nepal & India. I will write about my experiences regarding martial arts in a later post. Without sounding like Im having a bash at my old club I think I should explain the reason I left. After getting my black sash and beginning to attend seminars of other Sifus I began to question my art. My Sifu had always talked about validating things, so I wanted to validate what I was doing for myself. Now in the class it is very easy to say ok, so this guy is throwing 2 punches and I can do these techniques and Im in a good position. However, when you do this same technique against someone who isnt just standing there to take it, the result is not as successful. I also began to question the reason why we always do drills. So now I had learnt the whole system and I thought "what next?"
People always say, once you reach black you start learning, but I felt like I wasnt doing anything anymore. In short I was teaching and doing warm ups, while the Sifu was in the back room drinking tea. I thought to myself, "am I really developing?" So I had got to a stage where I had become totally stagnant, and on top of that I had a closed minded attitude towards other styles. I was always fault finding when I looked at other stuff, instead of thinking, well why do they do this. Now I realise that you cant criticise one element of a different system without understanding the whole.
So anyway, I decided to go along to the Foshan Wing Chun class and to do some private tuition with the Sifu. He was able to answer my questions and restore my faith in the fact that Wing Chun was an alive, conceptual art. Suddenly, things fell into place that had previously felt scattered and awkward.
Following that I had to take a break for 5 months, while I travelled around Asia. During my time in China & Hong Kong I met a couple of Sifus there from various styles and I also had a lot of time to think through my Kung Fu. I think this time to reflect helped me find the cause of my ignorance. Basically I had been looking for someone to come along and be a master and show me the way. So I accepted the first who came along and developed a close relationship with him. I began to believe everything he said and became like a robot, I wasnt myself.
Now I have come to the realisation that I am my own master, and that in this life people will come and go, and they will show me which way to turn next and then I must decide for myself and then move on. There is no humble monk who will come along and tell me the meaning of life or whatever, I must take it into my own hands.
So now I feel that everything fits into place, whereas before things were clashing. For example I was led to believe that Wing Chun is Wing Chun and we do what our Sifu says and anything else will hinder our progress. However I now see that all things fit into it, not go against it. I now understand when Bruce Lee says about the man who goes to a Zen master and asks him questions. The master decides to serve tea and overflows it so it spills everywhere. The man says "what are you doing, the cup is full, it cant hold any more tea!"
So the master replies "see, likethis cup you are so full of your own opinions and ideas, whatever I teach you ,there is no room to take it in."
So I guess what Im saying is that in this life we should be open minded. Dont get sucked in to other peoples bullshit, and if you have a doubt in your mind, dont keep quiet. Speak up, find an answer to your doubt, however that may be. Most people become stagnant because they develop a comfort zone. They dont want to affect the status quo or whatever. Its when you step into the danger zone, and are on the edge, that you really develop. So, if you have a doubt, dont just ignore it, whats the worst that can happen, your questions are answered? What Im saying applies to life, not just martial arts. Dont allow your mind to be someone elses prisoner, conquer it, its yours after all!!
Maybe people will read this and say "oh, what disrespect to his old Sifu" or that i am talking crap. Well I dont care, coz I dont want my learning to be held back by blind respect. I think I have a little insight into Bruce Lees thinking now.