Ping Yang memories (1)

Ten years ago I was living for a short time at Ping Yang Wu Shu School in China’s Zhejiang Province. I joined many classes with the children there and had some excellent experiences. I wish now I had taken so many more photographs, so much more video.

Immersed in the Japanese martial arts at the time, and taking part in demos of kendo and iaido in that area, I had scant knowledge of Chinese martial arts and didn’t know what to look for.

It was a pivotal year in my life and many deep memories remain. Most are clear, easily connected to my understanding. Some remain unclear. Once in a while, the unclear becomes clear. I am grateful for the realization, but hunger again for chance to return and observe and experience with more knowledge.

One of my unclear memories was of a post-dinner practice. There were three or four regularly scheduled practices each day, but students often gathered informally after dinner for more practice.

There was a room used by the boxing class and by the hard style qi gong class. It had weight machines scattered about and a large mirror on one wall. The floor was always dirty and people always went in barefoot and came out with black soles.

I had almost no Chinese language ability at the time and thus could not communicate directly with the young wu shu teachers but we all got on well enough. One of them, tall and lanky, started to demonstrate the strangest punches I had ever seen. Up and down the floor in great bursts of speed and flurries of motion, his arms flailing about in giant circles…I didn’t know how to grasp it. Yet I also knew instinctively that I didn't want to be in the way of any of those punches.

All my punches were in the straight and direct lines of Shotokan Karate. I used straight punches only, and I expected only those from my opponents (or believed that other types of punches were easier to block). I knew these young teachers were all tough, had to be tough, but couldn’t imagine why he was punching like that.

Ten years later…I begin learning basics of southern fist 南拳 in my gong fu class and here I am, working on this crazy left-right combo with wildly swinging arms…called 挂盖拳 (gua gai quan?), it is one of the fundamentals of southern fist.

（The photo is from Ping Yang Wu Shu School, but not of southern fist, alas...had I known then what to look for, what to take pictures of....)