adjusting to your environment (2)

Another week, another business trip – ah, the perils of having found employment once again.

This time – on the train back up to Tokyo – ended up working through the opening of the second Sha family tai ji quan form in the space between two cars of the train.

This is not any train, but the Shinkansen, or “bullet train” which zips along pretty quickly indeed and which connects all major Japanese cities.

The prior week I had a full schedule everyday (up in Hakone, another Shinkansen ride away from Tokyo), then gong fu with my daughter on Friday night, special Liu Jingru Laoshi review session all day Saturday, special Sha Laoshi review on Sunday – and directly onto the train from the workout, my roller suitcase full of sweaty clothes and clean suits, and my head still buzzing with three days’ intensive martial arts training.

That week had been spent entirely within the confines of the training facilities, apart from the solace to be found on the rooftop (read about that in a prior post). The change from that setting to three days of Chinese martial arts was immense and much-needed, though I might have used a brief transition.

Again without transition, I plunged back into the work world, spending the next week (i.e. last week) on a mountain outside of Osaka, having boarded the train immediately after Sunday’s practice session. Upon arrival at last week’s facility, I was pleased to discover that we were completely free to wander outside in the forest. So off I went, early every morning and late most nights. I had parallel lives going – work during the day and workouts before and after.

I was stuck between two worlds in another way. It was easy to get lost in the forest as I ventured further and the trail narrowed and I started to worry about getting back on time – and then glanced up to find a giant power line overhead. A small clearing in the forest with both wildlife – the frog I almost stepped on, the birdsong overhead – and reminders of civilization, with the sudden appearance of a set of concrete stairs leading down to….nothing.

In that clearing and other, smaller ones, I worked through the tai ji and tai ji jian (sword) forms of the Sha family, trying to lock in the recent corrections I have absorbed. For a brief period, I could put aside matters related to work and do nothing but move slowly in the mountain air.

I have been transcribing my stack of practice journals into a more orderly and digital form, typing everything onto a computer for my own use now and for possible development into a text in the future (very maybe on that one…). The going is extremely slow but I hope to finish (most of ) an early version by the end of this year.

But in such a wonderful setting, it was not the time to hunch over a laptop and make notes about the wrist curling inward in the direction of the little finger….no, far better to get out and do it, learn with the body and all that. Remember, there are precious few spots of nature left in Tokyo, so I got fairly excited about the woods on the mountain with birds and frogs and – gasp – even signs warning those who stray from the path to be on the watch for snakes.

Back to the Shinkansen and civilization. The week’s work done, I was on the way back to Tokyo and watching the scenery whiz past while hunched over my laptop and making notes on the second tai ji form of the Sha family.

This was actually the first form of theirs which I worked on, started by fortuitous chance but left largely on my own to review during the long gaps between sudden bursts of new motions. I have always been a little shaky on the first sequence of moves, which involves a series of horizontal circles and strikes with the palms.

I had ironed out the sequence of motions back in the woods but couldn’t type out a description of the motions without doing them. And with staring eyes all around my motions were constrained in my seat. So I did the only reasonable thing and moved to the space between the train cars and drilled that section even further between trips back to my seat to tap out more notes.

I got it figured out somewhere between Nagoya and Shizuoka in that small, swaying space and it will be forever etched in my memory. We can’t always choose the best times and places to practice. Sometimes they choose us, and when it goes well, it is an experience to hold onto. Leaning back into another bagua-like palm circle, seeing another unremarkable town flash past out the corner of my eye, returning with a double-handed push to the front – I was far removed from the peace of the mountains, but had created my own brief period of tranquility in a very different space.

Kunming (1)

Just a couple pictures from the 2007 and 2008 Kunming trips, in honor of my not being able to go this year due to financial constraints. Much as I wanted to go, it was good to stay in Tokyo and review daily – one of the few benefits of being nearly unemployed in these dismal times.

More Kunming photos coming, but I realized that I have no photos of people in action in Kunming – lots of eating and drinking pix, scenery, the usual. But when people were practicing or demoing, I was only thinking video. Hence, no such photos.

By the way, anyone out there with connections to the Sha family style, please leave a comment.

If I were a true master...

…I would have played a tune upon it, without an instant’s hesitation.

As it was, or as I am, I managed only a single note.

I was outdoors, doing the first of the Sha family tai ji forms. It would have been a nice variation on shou hui pi pa or “strum the lute”, which pops up all over the place in various branches of tai ji. That is a fairly nice and benign motion, except for the fact that the application involves smashing an opponent’s arm from opposing directions, probably doing considerable damage to any joints like the elbow, which might get caught up in the action.

Would have been, except that I was doing dao juan gong, “reverse reeling”, though I prefer its alternate name, “repulse the monkey”. Your body is moving backward although one hand is exerting force to the front. One hand reaches back behind yourself, then pushes forward, scraping over the lower hand, which moves in toward the body while sinking down to the level of the dantian.

The Sha family version has in interesting, seldom seen variation, in which – while the body is stretched to the maximum in opposite directions, hands front and back – you lift the front foot up to the lead hand before stepping down, moving back, and pushing forward with the upper hand. This version requires much more balance and dexterity - and is quite beautiful when done well.

The first three in the series of four had gone smoothly. Just when I had reached back on the fourth and final, and stretched myself maximally in opposing directions front and back, I felt the string, plucked it with the hand behind me. It was stretching from neighbor’s house to our tree, having been blown down lower by the previous day’s wind. I had been watching it a few days, above me as I practiced outdoors. But this time, unknown to me, it had fallen within my reach. I stretched back in the motion, happened to touch it, became aware of it, hesitated an instant, moved my hand slightly, and continued the motions of the form.

Somehow, I did not break it, only gave it a good shake, probably gave a good scare to the spider who had spun it. Being freed of all constraints of ego, I of course felt no satisfaction in my martial accomplishments whatsoever. Those non-masters of lesser martial accomplishment would surely have snapped the string, after all. But me...I had shown the light touch of mastery not to an opponent, but to a hapless spider on its web.

These spiders suddenly appear in late November. Out of nowhere. One morning, the beginnings of their webs can be seen everywhere, single strands of web stretching from branch to branch and from roof to tree. They are called jorou gumo, which could be literally translated as “prostitute spiders”, or more loosely as man-snarers. Japanese folklore links them with waterfalls and pools of water and the ensnaring of the unwary. Perhaps they are not so hapless after all.

You can read more about them here: www.obakemono.com/obake/jorogumo and you can see some here: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/jorougumo
There is also a story by Tanizaki in which they figure in the title, and which was later made into a movie.

I have always been fascinated by these spiders and their webs, which sometimes stretch for several meters through the air. They fly through the air on gusts of winter wind, carrying a strand of web with them as they go, reaching out and crossing vast distances in the spider world. I like the idea of something both fragile and strong, shaken but not blown down by the wind. I always take care not to disturb these webs when gardening or trimming trees in the spacious one meter of “garden” surrounding my house.

So I must admit a guilty streak of pleasure upon realizing the lightness of my touch, the softness of my reaction as my fingers played upon that strand behind me. But at the same time, I must also recognize the instant of hesitation I felt, that moment of awareness. Sigh, the path of True Mastery still lies far ahead of me.

Meanwhile, all the jorou gumo are gone, vanished as suddenly as they came. I actually wrote the first (and better, if I may) version of this post last night, and JUST as I finished, some evil entity entered my laptop and wiped out everything I had written but the links. Were I not a True Master, I would have uttered some few strong words under the cover of darkness and solitude.

This morning, I went out to take more pictures (you can find one back on the “REEEEEEEN” or however-many E’s post), but they had all disappeared, the spiders and their webs. So I am left with memory traces of the post written last night and that instant of slight stickiness and awareness as my fingers caressed a string but produced no sound.

(picture from one of the Universities which hosted an Olympic event, probably wrestling, in Beijing)

ending, beginning

I love the feeling of completing a new form – that is part of the addiction of martial arts for me. But it never really ends, does it? You’ve got to keep practicing it to recall the gross motions, then drill it endlessly to get the finer motions. Then you start playing with different timings, different applications. And you have to start training back-to-back with similar but different routines, making sure everything is fully consolidated and separated.

Sunday was the third day-long seminar in the Sun style tai ji form (the competition form, 73 moves. Any Sun stylists would not be satisfied with it, I am sure…) and we have finished connecting the dots to string the motions together after months between each seminar.

So I have finished/ begun a new form and have the joy of playing with a new toy. But this is not a toy to be set aside once the initial excitement fades for the child

Sun style is one of the five main styles of taiji. I don’t have plans in the near future to go any more deeply into the Sun system – this form is enough to give a taste. Mere mortals cannot master all five main styles. I am pretty satisfied with this exposure to the Sun style – it should keep me satisfied for some time.

It has many similarities to the Sha family taiji routines. Actually, the reverse is true. Sha Guo Zheng (Sha family patriarch) was a devoted student of Sun Lu Tang and paid tribute to the Sun style in several movements when creating his own routines. That connection alone is enough to draw me in for a taste of Sun style – but now it is back to work on more long-term projects, such as those Sha family routines (while keeping the Sun form alive).

As always, I feel lightness and heaviness at the same time. The lightness is the excitement of wrestling with and coming to understand something new. The heaviness is the burden of maintaining a wide spread of routines…

rainy season

Rainy season May 27, 2008

Tough practice tonight, went to sword class, got nice improvements on tai ji jian no. 1 of Sha family. Then we took a break and I was unexpectedly called on to demo xingyi lianhuan tui, which I will perform Sunday for my debut at Setagaya Ku enbukai exhibition/ demo. A disaster, totally stuck in the middle, stiff, the works. Tomorrow is the last day of a three-week intensive training at work, no time to practice, then boom.

There is a move where you spear down low with the right palm as the left palm blocks up by the right ear (all this in a crossed-leg crouching stance). The same move shows up in this xingyi form as well as in the lianhuan 24 form of tongbei quan. I had just learned both these forms on a visit to the Sha family in Kunming, China earlier this spring.

But the subsequent move, rising up out of that crouch stance, is different in the two forms, and that is where I got stuck. Obviously hadn’t practiced deeply enough to separate the two…(The same spearing-down palm move – and yet another different subsequent rising move – also appear in Sha family taiji quan…)

But there are no excuses.

So first, do a round trip of bengquan (punch lower, punch lower) the long way down that big middle school gym. Of the five basic fists in xingyi, beng quan is the only one which does not alternate feet while advancing. My right calf muscle was burning at the half-way point of the trip down. I feared cramping up on the return, but survived.

Then five times through the form (with mini-reps inside), then extra work on my own, adding some zip while punching and kicking a stack of mats. I could have gone back to the much-needed sword work, but decided the extra time on this was more valuable at the moment.

Humid, covered in sweat, spilling drops across the wooden floor. Each punch spraying drops onto the window in front of me, each kick leaving a dark shadow of moisture on the mats…

The hardest Mr. T has pushed me physically in a long time and it felt good, need more of it.

All this on the heels of big progress in a Sun style taiji seminar with Li Sensei on Sunday, plunging further into that form….getting greedy these days, reaching for too much. You have to take the chances when they are offered, but the price of greed can be failure in front of all.

June 3, 2008
It has been raining the past several days but rainy season officially opened today. And it seems a good call, as the light rain continued throughout the day – in tandem with the passing of a distant typhoon, one too distant to affect us much here in this part of Tokyo.

Tonight the finest of mists tickled me in the chilly air (this is June, isn’t it?) as I at last returned to the Sha family taiji forms, 1 and 2, after reviewing Sun style.

The June 1 hyouenkai demo passed without major incident. Lots of good stuff to watch, my own to demo. I My performance was average (what I expected given the circumstances – a recently learned form, virtually no guidance once back in Tokyo from Kunming, scant time to practice due to work) – but then a point was deducted since I went out of bounds.

In one sense, it is a pretty simple form. A whole bunch of attacks (forward and to the diagonal) down a long straight line to the front, then different attacks on the long way back, and a little segment returning to the front. You just move forward, plowing through people, no thoughts of retreat or evasion.

I saw the red boundary line approaching on my way back down the long line, but didn’t restrain myself. There had been no forewarning about the gravity of going out of bounds. But more to the point, I didn’t know the form well enough, could not perfectly judge its length.

These are hard days for me as there is so much I want to practice and review but I have less time than ever now that I am working so much. Even tonight, I wish I could stay out in that chilly mist for much longer, but leftover work calls.

Early rainy season begins with a short and wonderful period of cool, breezy days with light, misty rain. Then it gets hotter, then cooler, and again through the cycle, until one time, the heat is followed by more heat. No coolness follows – only more heat and humidity.

The process escalates until it feels like you are walking through water outside. Sweat pours even when you are standing still. There is a brief respite each time rain approaches. The humidity swells, then the temperature drops just before the rain falls. But even before the rain lets up, the heat and humidity start to crank up again.

Kunming is famous for having wonderful spring-like weather all year long. But here in Japan, they take great pride in having four seasons and are often surprised at the concept of there being four seasons in other countries. Each year, rainy season is the hardest time for me. It wears you down, saps your energy and brings you to a halt. Yet there is nothing to do but move forward, work your way through it.

re-emerging

Re-emerging
April 15, 2008

Practice early this morning, practice late tonight. The same yesterday. Tomorrow is Wednesday, Mr. T day – classes with him in the morning, in the afternoon, and again at night. These are the best days.

I am coming back to life, waking up again, something. Not waking up, but reawakening, rediscovering. In recent months I have been extremely focused on training related to the Sha family (tai ji quan, tai ji jian, xing yi jian….), culminating in my second visit to train with Sha Laoshi and Li Laoshi in Kunming, China in late March / early April. Had really been avoiding this, but since I am getting ever more deep into Sha family tai ji, I took the plunge and learned the first tong bei quan form (24) since the family also specializes in TBQ. I was also introduced to the xing yi lian huan tui form, my first deep exposure to foot techniques in xingyi quan…

Now I am back in Tokyo, reviewing all the new things daily.
And getting back to much-neglected Liu Laoshi training. I have kept the bagua zhang up pretty well (learned the fine yuan yang yue (crescent moon knives/ deer horn antlers/ various other names) form from Liu Laoshi in Beijing several months back. But the xingyi quan has been suffering.

This week it is coming back to life. The fire is burning and it feels good. We have a class in Tokyo each week (on that busy Wednesday) but it is too short and has been swamped with new members since Liu Laoshi’s second Tokyo visit last summer, meaning we have done endless review of the five fists, lianhuan, and bashi. I am all for review and deepening one’s basics, but at some point, the hunger for broadening also calls to be satisfied.

As of today, I am back on track with the twelve animals, drilling jixing (chicken) and yao xing (sparrow hawk???). In recent months all my outdoor practice has been in the single parking space outside our house – the one-meter wide strip of land surrounding our house just doesn’t afford the space, especially as some of my attempts at gardening are actually yielding results. Spring and rebirth and all that…

The five fists, the linked form, bashi, I have kept these up fairly well. But the animals, I am embarrassed to say, have been neglected – until now.

Tonight after my daughter fell asleep I went out to the small public space a few hundred meters away – not a park, but close enough and with a few trees to almost hide my movements from passersby on the road.

A half-moon visible overhead, fine spring breeze, no mosquitoes yet. Another run through the new material, then a return to the old.

While my wife was pregnant, I did a lot of late night training in that public space (with mobile phone at hand, just in case). I still recall some of those nights from five, six years ago. Drilling the five fists (wu xing quan) up and down the space, running through a few of the twelve animal forms each night. The zigzag of the snake, the wonderful arm motions of the mysterious tai-bird as they spread and come back together before striking, thigh muscles burning from the leaps and dives of the dragon form…

I had started xingyi quan not long before, so I was alive with the excitement of entering a new world, learning something completely different. I was phasing down my karate training. Xingyi quan was different enough to avoid interference (except for this style of XYQ’s habit of pulling the reverse fist to the center of the body in front of the dantian, rather than all the way back to the hip as in Shotokan karate). But at the same time, I appreciated its directness, a great contrast to the taiji quan which was my first area of study with Mr. T.

After my daughter was born, I learned how to make use of late night milk time by catching up on martial arts videos, standing in horse stance, and the like. My late night, outdoor training time diminished. I got by with compressed forms in the living room but the fire did not burn quite as brightly. The once-a-week XYQ class became the focus of my practice – an excellent class by itself, but not enough without regular supplement.

So these days I can feel myself returning to a very good place in my XYQ training, with near-daily review. Coming back to life…

I did things a bit backwards tonight. I ran through several reps of a couple animal forms, reviewed the five fists, then did some standing practice. I had worked up a good sweat and once motionless, my glasses fogged over completely. I waited it out – relaxed, sank more fully into the santishi stance, relaxed again. All without being able to see anything.

A quick wipe with the thumbs – suddenly all became clear again, and I returned to motion. My hands snapped exactly into place, returning to familiar motions. It is going to be a good spring.