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Perspectives on training in the internal arts: Natural is not easy

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  • Perspectives on training in the internal arts: Natural is not easy

    Those of you who had read enough books, articles and webpages on the internal martial arts cannot fail to have noticed a recurring theme: that the internal arts cultivate natural movements based on the reflexive responses of humans. This is why in the stress of combat, you are supposed to be able to react and respond instantaneously, in the most natural way your body was meant to.

    For example, the most fundamental pattern in Yang-style Taijiquan, and indeed all styles I know of, including Wahnam Taijiquan, Grasping Sparrow's Tail is, in theory, an expression of natural body movement, as opposed to say, the rigid and artificial techniques of the external martial arts (to which many internal martial artists mistakenly consider Shaolinquan belongs).

    But if you have any experience in free sparring or a street fight, you may find that these so-called natural movements are not what comes out naturally in the heat of combat (even simulated combat during sparring). Instead, the more common scenario for an inexperienced fighter is a display of flailing arms interposed with wild kicks.

    Even for qigong practitioners, the question of what constitues natural movement is also relevant. Sifu told me at my first course, and I have told my own students, that teaching Shaolin Cosmos Qigong is not difficult because the art merely enhances what is happening naturally in ourselves, that is, harmonious qi flow. As Sifu often says, good health is our birthright, and that being healthy is natural. It is disease that is a unnatural state.

    But as any average modern person would know, relaxation does not come easily, when one would expect it to be the most natural state of all.

    If an art is so natural, why would it be so hard to train and apply in stressful situations?

    The answer came to me when I was travelling one day - like something simple, what is natural is not easy. Humans like to take the easy way out, which is often contrary to what is best for them. We gravitate to the path of least resistance. The more uncharitable would say the human race tends towards laziness, and all of human evolution and "progress" reflects this, from our transportation to our home comforts such as electric lights and remote control devices.

    Another example came to me when I was listening to some lady colleagues discuss childbirth. Childbirth by natural means is terribly painful (I may be male but trust me, I am not unfamiliar with the pain). And so, most women who have the choice take the easy way out by having a Caeserian operation. Except for Macbeth, I believe most babies born before the 20th century came into this world by normal and natural birth. It was not until Caeserian operations became popular last century that what was natural slowly became displaced. In my country today, according to some doctors, you would be hard-pressed to find a woman who can or is willing to give birth naturally - if not Caeserian, then an epidural-assisted delivery.

    What is your most "natural" reaction to a stressful situation, such as an impending fight or a quarrel? Your heartbeat may increase suddenly, your blood pressure may rise, your vision may narrow and you may find yourself getting short of breath. All these are physiological reactions that in the past helped our hunter-gatherer forefathers to get ready for action - fight or run. In the internal arts, we do not seek to suppress these reactions, but channel them to constructive action. A good Taijiquan, Shaolinquan or Baguazhang exponent will not seek to meet force with force but move around the attack and seek out the opponent's weak points.

    But even a beginner in Push Hands will experience the "intuitive" pull to succumb to tense up and resist the oncoming force. It takes a great deal of training and practice to yield calmly to an incoming or oncoming force. And this is only during Push Hands practice, which is safe and progressive. Things change for the worse when a fight happens in your face.

    In your Taijiquan or Shaolinquan practice, be mindful that you often have to overcome long-ingrained habits which seem natural and instinctive. Foremost among them is to endure when tired or in pain or to tense up when stressed. It is very difficult to, as I told my students over the weekend, "relax into pain". Most people who are trying to improve their flexibility will bounce or jerk into a lower position, instead of slowly easing into the proper position.

    It is just like what Henry Ford was reputed to have said: "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." In my experience, most people would rather take comfort in working very hard in an inefficient manner instead of taking time out to see how they can do things more efficiently and greter effectiveness. Paradoxically, working harder is actually being lazy, because doing mindless work really takes less effort although it can still be very debilitating. In long distance running and swimming (two activities I like), many athletes tend towards "water buffalo" training, as Sifu would call it. I will use swimming as an example. To swim faster and further, some coaches advocates repeated drills and conditioning. Too slow? Swim more, and do more weight training and pull harder. A smart coach and a smart swimmer, on the other hand, would explore how to improve the swimming technique and how to swim in a more stream-lined and hydrodynamic manner. But, and here I speak from personal experience, it is much easier to just use the same old inefficient technique, than to keep paying attention to details such as finding your optimal balance in the water, re-shaping the body and using whole-body motion rather than pull with arms and kick with legs. In the same way, external martial artists (some of whom train very hard indeed and are models of dedication to their art) may rather carry heavier weights to punch harder or run further to improve stamina, rather than investigate how to use power without using muscular strength. Because that sort of internal power can be very elusive, some prefer to just slog along using a method which yields more obvious and visible results.

    I wrote earlier that we gravitate to the path of least resistance and criticised how we tend towards laziness, and yet in the preceding paragraphs, I advocated using methods to do things more efficiently. This is not a contradiction. The process of reaching the goal of making something effortless, efficient and effective may be a long and arduous one, requiring not merely effort but also much thinking, tinkering, contemplation, repeated trials and errors and learning from mistakes. It is often also necessary to pay meticulous attention to multiple facets at the same time (although at the beginning, it is vital to break the learning steps into small chunks).

    For example, in Taijiquan, moving from the waist actually involves doing and paying attention to many things simultaneously. I will share part of the secret from my Yang Taijiquan lineage (I am only using this example because there have been other and better Taijquan exponents who have published this - I have not gotten approval to share Wahnam Taijiquan secrets or other secrets from my Yang Taijiquan lineage). When you move from the waist, you have to ensure that both your arms and feet move together as your weight shifts from one leg to another. You are in fact concentrating on four limbs at once when most people have difficult keeping their mind on one limb to start with or get distracted by more than one point of focus.

    A dedicated practitioner who has spent much time on the boring basics, such as zhan zhuang or paying close attention to proper execution of a set or combat sequence, would find the higher levels effortless and natural. This is true also for great sportsmen, like a basketballer who can pass without looking or take a difficult jump shot without appearing to try too hard.

    But someone who wants a cop-out solution to a problem without working for it would never get anywhere. Each time you feel an incoming force in Push Hands and you feel that it is easier and faster to just use your muscular strength to push back, you are copping out. Bad habits that become natural to us are formed when we would rather take the easy way out. The example that Marcus Santer Sifu likes to use is how people would rather pop a pill than to exercise or practice qigong. When one puts in the effort to reach a healthy state, being healthy is of course natural. But if the easy way is chosen like eating pills (but living an unhealthy lifestyle), then one can never reach that true natural state. Much of modern technology takes us to the final destination (or a mere illusion of it) almost at once but does not allow us to learn and grow on the way there.
    百德以孝为先
    Persevere in correct practice

  • #2
    An excellent and insightful article, Wuji. My compliments and thanks.

    Somehow the following phrase just popped up (repeatedly ) when reading this:
    There are no short-cuts to true Mastery.
    Sifu Andrew Barnett
    Shaolin Wahnam Switzerland - www.shaolin-wahnam.ch

    Flowing Health GmbH www.flowing-health.ch (Facebook: www.facebook.com/sifuandrew)
    Healing Sessions with Sifu Andrew Barnett - in Switzerland and internationally
    Heilbehandlungen mit Sifu Andrew Barnett - in der Schweiz und International

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    • #3
      Very impressive, my gratitude.

      Joko
      开心 好运气
      kai xin... .......hao yunqi... - Sifu's speech, April 2005
      open heart... good chi flow... good luck ...
      ------------------------------------------------------------
      Have we not opened up thy heart ...? (The Reading, 94:1)
      ------------------------------------------------------------
      Be joyful, ..and share your joy with others -(Anand Krishna)

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      • #4
        Well written Sihing,

        Thank you.
        "Om"

        I pay homage to all the great masters of the past and the present

        Comment


        • #5
          Thanks for the thought provoking article. Thinking about Chen taiji recently, I started wondering if it hadn't been developed by someone using a taij ball - lots of the movements seem like they could have come from someone who one day started rolling a ball around in their arms.


          Anyway, just a side thought...

          I had a minor operation a few weeks ago on my wrist. I had a local anaesthetic, but it was still unpleasant. The surgeon asked me if I did a lot of exercise, becuase my heart rate was 40. I do, but, I was actually using visualisation of being in my 'happy place' - by the sea, watching the waves. Unfortunately, the nurse kept interupting me, lol, asking me questions to make me feel more comfortable! I was more comfortable in my happy place! So I understand about 'relax to pain' - although, in this case, it was 'relax to stress!'

          Comment


          • #6
            Wuji,

            Thanks for the well thought out article.

            The example that Marcus Santer Sifu likes to use is how people would rather pop a pill than to exercise or practice qigong. When one puts in the effort to reach a healthy state, being healthy is of course natural. But if the easy way is chosen like eating pills (but living an unhealthy lifestyle), then one can never reach that true natural state. Much of modern technology takes us to the final destination (or a mere illusion of it) almost at once but does not allow us to learn and grow on the way there.
            As you can imagine, I come across this a lot in the psychiatric hospital. There seem to be a few blockages I come across.

            The first is that people don't even recognise it is possible to be healthy without pills. Sometimes just introducing people to this idea with at the same time as a direct and effective method is enough. It was just a lack of information that was blocking them.

            Another blockage I come across is doubt - "It won't work for me". Encouraging people not to need to believe it will work but just experimenting, with curiosity, for a period of time seems to work for many.

            Another blockage is fear - "I don't want to try in case I fail, then I would be in real trouble". Encouraging people to see that "failure" is part of the learning process again seems to help. Often people have an unrealistic sense of what success will be like. Again, encouraging people to experiment for a while, often works in my experience.

            There are also people who seem to get these things but then either can't or won't practice. For me, it is about being compassionate enough to get out of their way and take their own path. As you said meeting force with force sets up tension. In my role as a therapist it is about giving people enough space to try their own ways without avoiding assessing the consequences.

            In my own life I experienced the difficulty of avoidng alcohol, the effects of which were damaging in many ways. The wisdom I had to come to then was that it hurt enough for me to want to do something, that there was a path that worked, that I could get hope and confidence from others who had worked the path, and that I had to put in some work - it didn't just happen by magic. And it has been/is the same when I encounter blocks in my life and practice now.

            Much of modern technology takes us to the final destination (or a mere illusion of it) almost at once but does not allow us to learn and grow on the way there.
            I think this is a real problem now. People are encouraged to expect doctors and therapists to fix them. And doctors and therapists are encouraged to think it is all their job. It doesn't help anyone but it can take some courage to stand against it.

            I am also reminded of a conversation with Sifu Piti around this area. We discussed the way the Shaman from many traditions realised that every jump to an altered state of consciousness was paid for with a drain in will/intention. The safe, but slower way, was to gently expand consciousness and learn the pathways from one plae to another.

            With metta,

            Barry
            Profile at Capio Nightingale Hospital London Click here
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            • #7
              Thank you all for your feedback. I apologise if i seem to be unresponsive - I have not had access to the internet at home, and at work, my access is limited to short spurts, given the volume of work.

              I would like to continue with the article, but before I do that I would strongly encourage everyone who has not done so to read the posts in the thread "The use of internal force...". The title while fairly accurate does little justice to the breath of discussion and fantastic insights contained in that thread. While notionally about Shaolinquan, the thread contains very useful and practical posts on internal arts mastery.

              In my post above, I talked about a mindset one should have in training in the internal arts but not the actual training methods. I shall share what little I know in this post. I realise that there is much I do not know, and my own attainment is definitely work-in-progress. I do not say this out of false humility but simply out of an honest realisation that I have a very long way to go - but that does not stop me from sharing my own experiences even at this early stage.

              To begin, let us examine what is considered a natural movement, and how this natural movement can be cultivated and nurtured.

              For students of Shaolin Wahnam, finding out what is a natural movement for combat is relatively simple. Just go into qi flow, and observe what happens. There are certain movements that simply cannot occur if you are in a vigorous qi flow, primarily stiff and tensed gestures. There are some internal martial artists who love to snipe at the external arts and say, "these karate/Shaolin/taekwando actions" are not in line with the natural flow of your body's qi or energy. Actually, that is not correct. Even a typical karate strike, which some Taijiquan practioners may contempously see as "hard" and stiff, can be a natural movement. A karate chop or a punch is really not very different from a Black Tiger Steals Heart or Chop the Hua Mountain. It is the way they are performed that makes a world of difference. Properly executed in the internal arts way (circular and flowing), I suspect a karate strike may be quite indistinguishable from a Taijiquan one.

              Once you have eliminated the unnatural movements, it is simply a matter of performing your combat movements in qi flow. I have done this in my own practice, and if I am not fluid or flowing in my movements, the usual reason is that I am thinking too much. I could be thinking of what to do next (I am not familiar with that sequence) or how to deal with an unexpected counter (I have not practised that counter enough), or trying out a new strike / counter. I have written about this before, and it bears repeating - thinking blocks the flow of qi. I learnt this during my first intensive course with Sifu, and I am still working through that problem.

              As I explained to my students, being able to generate a qi flow is essential whether for health or for combat. Without the ability to enter into a flow, the practitioner cannot direct his qi to heal or to strike. Qi flow is the bedrock of all the abilities of an internal martial artist (this is true not only for Shaolin Wahnam, but all genuine Taijiquan or Baguzhang traditions I know about - we are just very lucky that qi flow is a signature skill of our school taught in the early stages of training).

              Shaolinquan and Taijiquan techniques did not come from the imagination of ivory tower academics. They came from battlefields and life-or-death confrontations, or came to the exponent in his meditation or qi flow which may have then been tested in combat. Techniques that came from the battlefield were then refined and improved, and finally internalised into a natural body movement. By natural body movement, I do not mean it is easy to perform but rather it would be in tune with the body's flow of energy. And while everyone's flow of energy should be the same in that everyone's 12 meridians should be flowing in the same direction at roughly the same time, qigong practioners may have stronger flow and their flow may be capable of greater variations. Thus, to an average person, a Baguazhang master's movements seems highly unnatural since no human being naturally twists and turns to such a great degree, yet every twist in genuine Baguazhang follows the lines of the (highly developed) body's rotation.

              When training in the techniques and postures of Shaolinquan or Taijiquan, a novice may feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of details. For example, in Yang-style Taijiquan, one has to learn to move from the centre, to make sure the stance is stable, pay attention to the secondary hand, sink as you strike, and in the tradition I was trained in, visualise the flow of the qi, feel the weight shift, and check the direction. How on earth is anyone supposed to focus on so many things all at once? Well, the tip is to focus on just one or two at one time. I once asked my siheng "but what if when focussing on one or two areas, I neglect the rest and then develop bad habits. How do I avoid the problem of picking up bad habits because I was not focussing on getting it right in the first place (this is an expanded version of the concise kungfu saying " 学拳容易改拳难 xue quan rong yi gai quan nan"). His answer was that if you are being continually corrected, this is not a problem. I later realised what he meant - when we first learn the arts, if we are in a receptive and humble state, our minds and bodies are malleable and in a constant flux. While we are shaping our skills for the first few critical areas, there is no need to fear that bad habits will be ingrained. It takes time to develop the bad habits, and if in our minds, we are aware that the remaining areas will be addressed in due course, I think our minds do not imprint the wrong movements. Bad habits only become writ in stone when you persist mindlessly in the wrong course of action. (This incidentally underlines how important it is to have a competent instructor or master to monitor your progress and tell you to move on, or to stay with a certain drill until the relevant skill is mastered).

              So, with so many focal points, how do you manage? I will paraphrase from one of my favourite non-fiction books, a wonderful book on swimming called 'Total Immersion" by Terry Laughlin. He advocated working on no more than 5 focal points, otherwise the beginner will be overwhelmed and learn nothing. In his manual on freestyle swimming, he said to "embrace your imperfection" and do not "get stuck on achieving perfection in a particular drill....let it go and move on to your next focal point." The next few lines are worth imprinting into your permanent memory: "the learning process is circular, not linear" (interestingly, Adam Hsu Sifu also says the same thing about the martial arts in his article and in his book "The Sword Polisher's record"). The skill you develop in one drill often helps other skills even if they do not seem connected directly. So, don't be worried about neglecting other areas while you work on one. Just relax and enjoy that one drill - that is Zen's one-pointed mind training for you.

              I recently re-read the freestyle swimming manual and I saw this line "whenever you feel comfort during a drill, your natural reaction will be some kind of compensation, like craning your neck or kicking too hard. These unconscious reactions imprint energy-wasting movements on your nervous system". It summarises in a few short lines the first few paragraphs of my post above.

              I would like to make a final point about the techniques of the internal arts. When I first saw the applications for some of the Taijiquan postures, i was just blown away. They were so cool and if someone had not shown them to me, I could not have figured them out on my own. And in theory, these techniques are far superior to anything an external boxer can throw at us. But in practice, most Taijiquan practitioners who have not spent time training for combat would be clobbered even if they know the applications. Master Bruce Frantzis Kumar in his book "The power of the internal arts" gives the example of "Lu" or Rollback. Intellectually, it seems to be a brilliant counter-strike, but knowing what this technique can do is different from whether one can actually execute it. While "Lu" takes relatively less effort, it still requires effort to execute, and hence much practice is required to hone the force and the skill necessary for this technque. This is why Sifu always says that a student who attends an intensive course must continue to practice at home. At the risk of repetition, just because something looks effortless does not mean it took no effort to execute (the effort was put in long before execution).

              I leave you with another quote from Terry Laughlin: "make mindful, examined movement a habit, focus purely on sensation and awareness - aiming to reduce effort and increase flow" (sounds familiar?)
              Last edited by Zhang Wuji; 24 August 2009, 05:54 AM.
              百德以孝为先
              Persevere in correct practice

              Comment


              • #8
                I recently re-read the freestyle swimming manual and I saw this line "whenever you feel discomfort during a drill, your natural reaction will be some kind of compensation, like craning your neck or kicking too hard. These unconscious reactions imprint energy-wasting movements on your nervous system". It summarises in a few short lines the first few paragraphs of my post above.
                Oops - just realised there was a typo in the paragraph above. See corrections in bold.
                百德以孝为先
                Persevere in correct practice

                Comment


                • #9
                  easy like sunday morning

                  Dear ZhangWuiji,
                  thank youvery much for this interesting posts, ‚understood‘…so to say.
                  Would beinteresting to hear how you see this subject now as this thread is some yearsold already.
                  Here someadditional views that came up while reading this posts:
                  Some saythe ‘basic mechanics’ of what is called here a ‘heart-to-heart-transmission’ arealways in place within the members of a certain species. Following this, humansmore or less depending on the quality and intensity of the time they spenttogether always ‘download codes’ to each other ever since. Like fromkindergarden to schoolyears to university to sport or sitting in a subway or ona plain.
                  A questionrelated to this also is, whether a type of ‘fight-or-flight’-response – like theone you mentioned with narrower focus, higher heart-rate, tension as a reactionto a situation perceived as a thread – is ‘past-down’ or ‘inherited’ from pastto current human generations via ‘DNA’ or via ‘transmission’ (because thenew-born would get the ‘transmission of codes’ from ‘womb’ to adult life fromhis parents, family, friends, colleagues, teachers etc).
                  Further tothis ‘transmissions’, in thousands of cases of ‘learning’ somebody growing upin ‘our culture’ would see his mates, adult people etc. always tensing theirmuscles, grimassing their face etc. in ‘fight-situations’ or similar and mayhave ‘trained this’ himself when ‘fighting with mates on the schoolground’ etc.
                  Whensomeone watches a lot of movies or tv he will have seen further to the abovementioned thousands of scenes where people did not stay relaxed and smile (ifanybody is at all) but again would get ‘emotionally heavy’, tension etc. pp.
                  On top ofthis he may grow up within religions or philosophies that tell him it is notokay at all to fight or even to defend and he would have to feel like a ‘sinner’if he dared to consider it, which means he would have to overcome such ‘blocks’in his ‘mind’ also.
                  So, if ‘sucha person’ (which could be me or you so to say, at least before learning ‘here’)gets into a ‘fight-situation’ or a ‘perceived-thread-situation’: the way heresponds ‘intuitively’ – can this way be called ‘natural’? Can it even bereally called ‘intuitively’? Or would he respond in way that could be describedas a ‘programmed behaviour’ and ‘unnatural’?
                  So ‘such aperson’ would have to do a ‘complete paradigm’ shift, of course.
                  Now ‘theysay’ a paradigm shift within a learning situation is not, when new ‘words’ or ‘terms’are coming on top of the existing, a paradigm shift would be if the existing ‘words’or ‘terms’ change their meaning. So ‘easy’ may have a different meaning withinthe ‘western paradigm’ or ‘ch-gung-paradigm’.
                  Forexample, picking up on some themes from your posts, ‘procrastination’ may seemthe ‘easiest’ approach for an ‘average person’ say. But if one simply triesthis strategy one will find that on one side, there really were things thatnever needed to be done…but then that there are other things that needed doingand if you repeatedly procrastinate things that need doing this itself becomessort of a burden and one may see some day, that taking care of these thingsthat need doing is much easier than procrastinating them.
                  So, I’d say‘natural is easy’, however the problem from my point of view is that the waymost of us grow up makes us ‘unnatural’ and for somebody who is ‘not natural’it really is not easy to respond ‘with natural ease’, there I fully agree.
                  Thank youvery much,
                  Michael

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