monkeys (2)

August 9 and 18, 2008

I was born in the year of the monkey, 1968.

Monkeys are said to be inquisitive, troublesome, curious, and so on.

Let’s run through that list. Inquisitive? Yep. Troublesome? Don’t ask about my misspent youth, which is stretching on into a misspent middle age. Curious? We already covered that. It seems I have it pretty well covered.

Even so, something seems to be lacking in me and my monkeyness. I was trying work on the monkey form (猴形) in xing yi quan and it was not going well. It is quite unusual among the xing yi quan pantheon with its sharp turns and unusual finish. In the middle of the main sequence (repeated 3 or more times) there is a leaping motion which I just couldn’t nail.

My teacher, Liu Jingru, is 72 years old and spends his time sipping chrysanthemum tea and teaching in a park near his home. He is gentle and humorous but when push comes to shove, I am sent flying.

Our dialogue is in Mandarin Chinese with its growly, rolled R’s but punctuated by an occasional outburst of NONONONO or YESVERGOODA. He is both encouraging and demanding and almost never shows frustration with an overaged xingyi wannabe and his piss-poor Chinese skills.

But the other night I feared I would give him a heart attack. Couldn’t nail the jump. NONONO. Again. Couldn’t nail the jump. NONONO. Again. He usually speaks in simple, easy-to-understand Chinese, but I couldn’t catch any of his mumbled comments that night. Still, I think I got the general drift.

At night, the park is full of those out for an evening stroll. Forget the Olympics - there may be nothing more exciting, more eye-riveting than watching a martial arts teacher grill his foreigner student in the 100 degrees heat/ 95% humidity. More pressure, more tension, more failures. Passersby stopped, gawked, mumbled encouragement. He began to joke with them, lightening the atmosphere and probably avoiding a coronary. I had to laugh at last – and bam, I nailed that damn leap.

Xing yi quan （形意拳) is one of the three primary internal Chinese martial arts, and is certainly the one closest to the more familiar external styles based to some extent on outwardly visible forms of strength. The other two main internal styles are tai ji quan (太极拳), well known for its slow and graceful motions, and ba gua zhang (八卦掌), not so well-known but marked by its emphasis on circular motions which flow into counters from unexpected angles.

Xing yi quan is based on repeated drilling of five basic fists or attack styles. The next stage of practice involves forms named after either 10 or 12 animals. XYQ is not an imitative style, trying to copy the actual motions of animals (as with some animal styles, usually external). Rather, it tries to express some key element of the animal’s motions.

Yan Xing (燕形) is the swallow form, and it features distinctive and quick changes among high and low postures. Only once in the form does the performer’s body take a posture resembling that of a swallow with outspread wings (contrast to many eagle fist forms which are full of postures meant to resemble an eagle in physical appearance). So the point of yan xing is to show the ability to shift rapidly and effortlessly among high and low postures rather than try to physically copy the body of a bird.

Hou Xing, on the other hand, emphasizes the quick and agile hand motions of the monkey. One name for the leaping move is pa gar (爬杆), referring to the monkey scrambling up a stick or pole – hands moving all the while. Some nights after the above was written, I was doing well on the leap but had lost the correct hand motion (a series of four strikes). Seems I can’t put it all together and I have a ways to go before grasping the essence of monkeyness.

za shi chui

ZA SHI CHUI 杂式捶
August 14-15, 2008

Seventh practice with Liu Laoshi today. And I got damn lucky with the weather and the work schedule. It was a long day, pushing 15 hours with transportation time included. But in the middle of it I had a five-hour break. Liu Laoshi is waiting for a call from me each day regarding my availability for night practice. I am extremely grateful for his flexibility in working with my schedule. Especially on days like today, when I call him in the late morning and ask whether he is available for afternoon practice. He is. I am out the door.

And into the rain. Just a few drips when I walk out, but there are great rolls of nasty-looking grey clouds not far away. People are running about and backup generators are being fired up on orders from above, meaning things could be bad.

By now everyone is familiar with Beijing’s efforts at weather manipulation, firing rockets into the sky at all hours. The main goal was to prevent rain during the opening ceremony, and that was accomplished. But the thing is, that rain has to come down sometime.

And down it came, at least waiting until after I had gotten on a bus. Beijing is a massive, sprawling city and it is famous for having heavy rain in one area and rainless skies in another (it is not a city famous for clear skies, ever). Pushing meteorology to the limit, Beijing has been issuing separate weather reports for Olympic venues in different areas within the city. But this was not necessary as I moved south across the city – there was heavy rain everywhere.

One bus- subway- taxi commute later, I arrived at Tao Ran Ting park. The rain was still falling, but not quite so heavily. I had been going on sheer faith, hoping that Liu Laoshi had in fact ventured out into the rain. In our morning phone call, we had not discsussed the possibility of rain. Nor had I thought until then about whether he would be willing to teach in the rain.

No problem, no problem, as I often hear over here. I found him sipping tea under the roof of his usual teahouse. After the usual chatting and sipping, we got started right there, among the twenty-some people who were still seeking shelter from the rain. Space was cleared for us and off we went.

Fortunately, xing yi quan 形意拳 is characterized by forward movements along a mostly straight line, unlike some of the more flamboyant forms (long fist 长拳 comes to mind) which feature running and jumping all about.

We started with review – up and down the floor with the five basic fists. I could not get the piquan 劈拳 strike right (a recurring phenomenon these days), though I got his nod pretty quickly on the other four basic strikes. Several of those standing about were idly mimicking the motions and commenting on the foreigner in their midst.

After a while we sat down for another sip of tea but before it was sipped, he said “za shi chui” and we got right back up and into it. Enough of the review – on to the new. Za Shi Chui is a neat, compact form, easy to learn because it uses many familiar motions from other xing yi routines (yet without crossover problems). The new motions are straightforward and flow well.

So, for all my weather-related worries, it turned out to be an extremely productive afternoon. It was still raining as I walked out of the park toward the bus stop, but the rain felt good, and the break from days of heat and humidity added to my comfort. True, I was going back to work, but that was a long bus ride away, and my mind was filled with the excitement of plunging into a new form, one more piece of the puzzle which forms this particular martial art.

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.