day 5: a thinking day

concepts:

• chi
• jing
• shen
• li
• jin
• fa jing
• yin and yang
• 5 elements

forms:

• hand drills
• tantui (line 2)

today was not directly related to 64 palms. which is fine, because i am still getting used to the mechanics of the single, double, and 3rd palm changes from the previous weeks. i suspect Sifu Jason wanted to stop and work on some techniques that are going to be necessary for the subsequent palm changes, and to review and correct the forms of what people have learned so far.

i arrived at my usual time, and found myself warming up with Feng and Lee. we started off with the basic stances, and were starting tantui when Ching-Tszieh showed up with a friend (don't remember her name). i spent some time in the past week practicing line 1 of tantui (there's a total of 12 taught by Jason), and so felt comfortable doing that. i stepped out to try to observe and pick up the other lines, but it's a little hard without a list of stances to refer to.

by this time Sifu Jason showed up, along with the other students who were attending his jian shu (Chinese sword) class in Long Beach.

i was expecting to start moving into lines to begin 64 Palms, but Jason had everybody gather together and said it would be good to discuss some basic concepts, particularly in relation to chi kung (or qi gong) and martial arts.

chi kung

i had posed a question on the Wudang Yahoo! group earlier in the week asking the basic question of "what is chi?" the Yahoo! group is a discussion board used for discussion and announcements--apparently not just by Jason's students, but also his colleagues in Wudan around the world. i'd gotten a series of responses to my question, with varying interpretations, and it had evidently generated a bit of discussion.

i hear the term "chi" used in class quite a bit. people talk about "feeling the energy" and "flowing energy" and "gathering chi" and "expelling chi" and "moving chi." but it's not quite clear to me what it is, or what people are feeling.

Sifu Jason went into an extended presentation and discussion about chi, focusing primarily in terms of its nature relative to martial arts.

i won't go into detail about what he said and what others had to say, since i figure it's an exhausting topic with a wide array of viewpoints deserving of its own forum. but i should cover the terms Sifu Jason covered:

1. chi--an apparently general term used in Chinese culture and history for "energy", and which appears to encompass the various Western notions of energy (i.e., potential, kinetic, chemical, etc.). Sifu Jason indicated that interpretations of chi as "life-force" or "life-energy" are somewhat misleading, since it gets away from the conception of chi as energy, which can manifest itself in different ways.
2. jing--this seems to be the stored form of energy (or chi) as it appears in matter.
3. shen--this was a more esoteric concept. Sifu Jason described this as the projection of a person's essence, but in a way that allows the amplification of chi. he said it is possible to have shen without chi, referring to charismatic people in history who had strange powers to influence others, but yet had no training in chi or chi kung. he noted that thermodynamic principles of radiation, conduction, and convection are useful in understanding the nature of shen in projecting energy (chi).
4. jing chi shen--Sifu Jason actually used this term in referring to jing and shen, noting that the three words are used together to give a more over-arching all-encompassing conception of energy, from storing it to releasing it and projecting it.
5. chi kung--the subject of manipulating chi
6. li--the form of chi as power generated by a human body performing actions (including martial arts)
7. fa jing--the expulsion of li in a way which releases refined energy in very specific ways
8. jin--this i was not clear about. Sifu Jason seemed to want to stress that while the words are similar, this was very distinct from jing. evidently, jin is a different Chinese character and refers to a refined form of li (so i guess this means the development of energy by a martial artist in a skilled and purposeful manner)
9. yin and yang--well, this is a pretty well known concept. but for chi kung, it's useful in understanding the nature of energy. shen evidently is a yin (or soft) form. chi can be yin (soft) or yang (hard) depending on its manifestation. i'm guessing jing, being material, is a yang (hard) form.
   
10. 5 element theory--Sifu Jason referred to this in passing, and didn't go too far into detail. from what i could gather, in terms of chi kung it relates to how there can be "good" chi or "bad" chi. this isn't so much normative (i.e., "good" or "evil") but refers more to the idea of how chi of one person can be incompatible or bad for another. the incompatibility seems to arise from people falling into 5 categories (wood, fire, earth, heaven, etc.).
    

for Jason, it seems important that we understand chi, so that we can generate it and use it for our benefit--which includes the martial arts. he took time to explain that one of the crucial aspects of kung fu is to recognize that we are using chi to generate force from our bodies, and then applying that force against our opponents. he commented that this involves more than simple physics in a fight, and that it extends further to encompass our bodies and minds in course of everyday living.

in particular, he pointed out that in Chinese medicine (and martial arts) specific movements are used to encourage and manipulate chi in the body, with movements being used with mental intent to work with the organs (the intestines, livers, kidneys, heart, lungs, muscles, etc.) and systems of the body (nervous, circulatory, cardiac, immune, etc.) so that they generate and channel chi. it is the combination of these components of the body with chi that allow the release of energy in combat. Jason noted that in bagua, for example, one of the major sources of directing energy is a spring, since it is analogous to a coil, especially in the way bagua constantly involves "twisting" force or "reeling silk" energy.

to a degree, Jason's comments addressed some of the confusion i've been having trying to understand chi. but i'm guessing it's a very complicated topic with a very large number of viewpoints that will take a very long time to sort out.

after taking some time to cover these terms, reviewing some of the questions and ideas raised on the Yahoo! group discussion, and describing them to his satisfaction, Sifu Jason then ordered everyone into lines to review the palm changes in 64 Palms we had covered so far.

hand drills

we began doing a series of hand drills. these were basically different permutations of the hand drills Art had shown me a few weeks ago and the pole drills Phunsak had worked with me on over the past 2 weeks. the difference was that all of the prior drills had involved 1 hand, whereas Sifu Jason this time had everyone do 2-hand drills.

the 2-hand drills are fundamentally nothing more than the performance of the 1-hand drills alternating from one hand to another, so that they become a continuous repetition of movement from right to left to right to left to right again and again and again. with the very basic drills (facing front, side, then back) the 2-hand drills seemed relatively straightforward. however, Sifu Jason then had us perform some 2-hand drills involving the "hawk chases bird" movement we had learned for the 3rd palm change, at which point things started to become awkward.

compounding the difficulty was that the hand drills involved more than just hands--they involved the shoulders, the waist, the hips, the legs, and the feet. meaning that i had to pay attention to everything to perform the drills correctly. in addition, Jason stressed that we needed to remember there was a vertical component to the movements, and that it was important to move up and down in synchronicity with the weight shift and waist turns.

from what i can tell, these hand drills are actually fundamental components of bagua, and are crucial for many (if not all) of the palm changes. i can see that all of the hand drills involved movements that were incorporated into the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd palm changes, and also in the combat techniques Jason has been showing in the classes. as a result, it is important to be able to do the drills properly and naturally. i suspect this is why Sifu Jason was taking some time to ingrain the movements into everyone before progressing further into 64 Palms--the palm changes are only going to get more complex, and they're going to be difficult to learn and comprehend unless we learn to do the hand drills instinctively.

for all this, while Jason made an effort to keep everyone on a count performing the drills, i had some difficulty keeping up with his cadence, and so ended up doing the drills on a different count from the rest of the class just to try and figure them out. i did the best i could, but i got a little lost, and had to stop and think things through at several points.

review and tantui (line 2)

after some time performing the hand drills, Sifu Jason had us review the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd palm changes of 64 Palms. i've been spending some time during the week reviewing all 3, so i didn't find this to be much of a problem. i was able to take some time to focus on some of the finer nuances of the palm change movements, and to pay more attention to some of the details Jason noted as he walked around correcting everyone's form.

Jason left to work with the Baji students a little later, and had Phunsak take over reviewing the palm changes. i found this useful, if nothing else then to work on muscle memory, balance, and feeling the movement.

at one point, we took an extended break to let everyone rest and review the movements on their own.

i took this time to ask John (one of the several Johns in the class) to help me with the hand drills. John was gracious enough to go through the hand drills, and went through them with me and Ching-Tszieh's friend (i forget her name). i found going through the drills with him helped, since he went at a slower pace, and working in a smaller group let me get up close to get a better sense of what we were supposed to be doing. i started to get the hang of it after a little while, although the drills are complicated enough that i can see i'm going to have to practice them some more to perform them properly.

by this time, class was coming to an end. Jason called everyone together and formally closed the class.

as people were leaving, i stopped John and asked him to show me tantui line 2--the one i'd been trying to pick up at the start of class. John took a couple of minutes and showed me the stances for line 2. we didn't go into too much detail, which is fine, since i'm pretty sure i can get that as i practice them and perform them with everybody else at the start of class. the main thing i wanted was just to have somebody show me the stances and their sequences.

i figure that i should probably make it a point to learn at least one line of tantui each week until i can get all 12 lines down. like the saying i learned last week: "if your tantui is good, your kung fu is good." tantui is another critical fundamental component of kung fu, and i figure it's important to get it right and ingrained. that, and i want to be able to do it with the rest of the class.

i stuck around a little longer to think through the hand drills, and after getting a little more comfortable, i packed up and followed everybody else out.

it was not a busy day compared to the previous weeks, but probably a very necessary one to get a better sense of some important concepts and basic drills.