Almost “Getting it”

It was ten years ago today that my friend finally discovered his own Qi. Good for him. He had a quantum breakthrough understanding of his martial arts. That is good. But several strange things happened over the ensuing years which bothered me. He would complain of strange injuries he would get from forms and pushing hands. He would pull a muscle in his hand while kicking. He would have an inexplicable problem with his hand or arm joints in push hands. In hindsight I view this as a sort of “chi sickness”. My theory is that he was involved in too many arts. He probably picked something up, some sort of general understanding, but it was not deep enough and his familiarity with tai chi (etc.) simply was not there. Many key points of internal and neijia training were simply not there or were very unclear. For example, I remember once when we discussed the importance of forms. He did not understand the concept of why the form was so important. I recall reading the Tao Te Ching, chapters 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, and many others, speak of the way to practice Tai Chi. But somehow he did not seem to have learned these lessons, or lacked a teacher who was able to explain them — either in simple terms or from the classics. As a result, he had many troublesome points of understanding. Yet he worked so hard. I wondered, if it would be enough for him. But, the point here is that the basic understanding of theory doesn’t seem to have been taught to him.

No respect for Kung Fu

In retrospect I think I can sum up many of his problems from pulling one idea out of the part 1 post. He had very little respect for traditional ways. In Dai Family Xingyiquan there is a saying, “Three years of standing, and two years of walking”. This refers to the incredible amounts of time required to train the internal shenfa and come to properly express it in taolu. My friend would always say that was bullshit. That kind of attitude never sat well with me. I always felt we should respect the old masters — we owe it to ourselves to try and follow their guidance since we do not know enough yet ourselves. Some things cannot be rushed, and often even when one feels he is making progress, he is not. Sometimes it comes in waves and doesn’t mater what you know or what you trained. It is in those moments I myself have realized that the only thing that mattered is that I was training for a certain length of time, at a certain intensity. Hard work over time. That was the only factor. But before such a realization it always seemed so important what I was training. Perhaps it is a combination of both. One cannot leave out the kung fu or getting it is impossible.

For me, personally, I am scared that if I put in the hard work it will be fruitless. This is because I am older now and if I fail in this try I only will have one more chance, at best. It is different for me than for someone younger. Perhaps being younger my friend had a more careless attitude. Perhaps this youthful reckless carelessness was the culprit. At least, a contributor. For me, to have youth again would be a great comfort because I would have time to devote myself to a wrong path out of love for my sifus — should for any reason I make a mistake in my understanding of their teaching — and would have more time to correct myself.

The Fall

Looking back I can identify the first major fall he took. He began filling in the blanks. Once it became acceptable to him to make judgements about how past masters trained, and the time and effort they put into their kungfu, it became also acceptable to start making things up about how internal arts worked and how they were supposed to function. Since he could apparently “feel his qi”, this made him an expert on almost everything, and he closed himself off from future learning.

I remember one event in particular when we were discussing how jing and shen was taught in taijiquan and he told me that you absolutely must be taught the specific visualizations for the particular series of jings at every stage of the tai chi form. This, obviously, is rubbish to anyone who knows taijiquan at a higher level. There are no such visualizations which are required for anything. There are visualizations, but they are not always specific and not always required. They likely come from other arts like xingyi and were added in later — I’d always known this to be bleed-over from other arts and qigong sets. But he believed it and felt that any tai chi that didn’t have visualizations of jing and so forth was a waste of time. He also didn’t believe in practicing the form for more than one hour a day. It was difficult to talk to him at this point because he was more interested in just spewing out whatever came into his head about tai chi and internal martial arts. It was already too late to reach him. I wasn’t skilled enough to show him either. This was my failing, a failing I one day hope to recover from. It will be a difficult task. One of the things he began doing shortly before the end is criticizing multi-decade Tai Chi lineage holders for how they practiced. I knew then it would not be too long before he gave up. He had lost his connection to the source. Maybe he would land safely in xingyi — maybe he would catch some Dai family and it would shake him up a little. I didn’t know, but I had hope.

Missing the point

My friend began to miss the point. Why was he doing the form? What was it supposed to do, exactly, Why train sword? Why do push hands? It’s just wrestling right? Look at all these people pushing and shoving. This is the way to get what works? Soon he became so disillusioned he had to take a break. I didn’t see him for about a month. When he came back he confided something in me which I will never forget. He told me he didn’t really get it. He told me he didn’t really understand the internal arts. That whenever he got frustrated in push hands against someone who was far above him in skill he would try to win with external techniques — roughing it up a bit so to speak. But strangely, this admission was not an admission of sorrow, regret, or guilt. He had embraced it. He felt he had found the secret. I could not believe how far he had fallen.

There is another thing that struck me about him. Throughout all of this time he would give a running commentary about why people didn’t get internal arts, how they didn’t have a good teacher, weren’t introspective enough, how certain people were no good because of x y or z, how Western people could never understand kungfu and why, and so on. But all of it applied to him. Read another way it was almost a confession. I began to feel sorry for him. If only he would listen to me. I could teach him everything. It was so simple. So easy. All he had to do was trust me. But he had already made his decision, and it was not my place to speak up. I could tell in his heart he was preparing the way for him to admit he did not believe that IMA were even real. And then quit. Probably for BJJ.

The Reprise

My friend surprised me. He began an in-depth study of past masters. He read everything he could get his hands on. He talked with people. He went and met people. Through this he met a sifu he eventually baishi’d to a year or so later. He gave it one last shot. I was relieved. I thought this time, he would do the work, this time, he would listen to his teachers, this time would be different. But shortly after he had begun with his new teacher he began telling me many stories of Chen Man Ching’s secret teachings, secrets of the Yang family, Tai Chi secrets and so forth. Facepalm. Now he was being led down the garden path in an entirely new way. I knew if this continued, when he fell flat on his face he would finally break. This time he would feel lied to, defrauded, and perhaps rejected. Now that he had been let in on some lineage’s “secret” qigong (oh boy… eyerolls extreme…) there was no turning back. If he didn’t “get it”, then it must not exist. Or worse, that the Chinese would never teach their secrets to an outsider.

He really bit in hard. He reversed his position on science being applicable to CMA and qigong, he idolized past masters, and he searched for wisdom wherever he could find it. After all this time he had finally been taught the very basic push hands exercises for ting jin in a somewhat proper manner. No bullshit. But to him it was new, an eye opener. Perhaps because of this he was unable to accept it’s importance.

Some part of him just didn’t agree. Ultimately I think he decided deep in his heart he just didn’t “believe” — whatever that even means. And he said so. He was calm and cool about it. He confided to me my worst fears. All along, he thought the IMA and it’s training methods were complete bullshit. I asked him what he was doing baishi’d into a lineage that did all three major IMA. I’ll never forget his answer:

This (what we do in his school) is real Tai Chi, we don’t go in for any of that “secret” bullshit.

We use force as well as emptiness. It’s yin and yang. Not all yin like those other Tai Chi people. We spar in push hands and we spar using valid techniques from many CMA. (This was a repeat of the embrace of failure mentioned above.)

I was dumbstruck. In one fell swoop he threw out all the traditional training methods, all of the word formulas and songs, the concept of qi, proper relaxation, nurturing the small, mind intent, qigong, and so forth. And what did he replace it with?

Basically? Wrestling, shuai jiao, judo, I guess, in a word. Basically his practice was to mimic the external forms and go through the motions in push hands, until he felt some opening and then use hard, external force to apply technique. He would take moves directly out of shuai jiao or judo and use them with or without the opponent’s consent. He had no idea of “leader” and “follower”. He would just resist, and use the shock of it to distract (feint) and set up a throw. This was ‘fa jing’. He was at this point beyond reach and beyond help because although he had some experience with qi and sensitivity, his tai chi had become permanently corrupted by what he knew from other arts. In a sense he was unable to let go of his other knowledge and learn the tai chi way. He wanted to learn HIS way, which was picking and choosing whatever move, shape, form, or energy he could from everything he knew and putting it into push hands like it belonged there. He didn’t even understand the point of push hands. It was a total train wreck. About this time, we stopped talking. That was many years ago. I haven’t seen him now for many years.

From what I remember he lost a lot of friends over his decision, actually. A lot of the more traditional people he hung out with began to stop talking to him. About this time he would start to go more and more back to judo, aikido, and finally MMA classes. He had made a strange decision, despite being baishi’d, to leave his lineage and study Judo and MMA. Hey whatever works. I am not calling him a traitor and I don’t think he made a mistake necessarily. I don’t want to paint it like that. But I did notice that after a while he stopped blogging and posting about his martial arts. He started blogging about other stuff. MMA, fitness. Playing musical instruments. Going out with friends. After a while like this the blog disappeared. I guess he took it down, didn’t see the point anymore.

Why did he Quit? Why didn’t he get it? Why couldn’t I help him? Am I a fool for believing? Did he know something I didn’t know?

Ultimately as I look back on his life and the things he was involved with I come to three very distinct conclusions about why he quit IMA after being so deeply involved with it. Why he felt it was useless. Why he made a switch.

1. The culture of IMA, Tai Chi in particular, is not appealing. Frankly it is difficult to find good push hands partners. Many tai chi people do it for health. Etc. Not conductive to your average martial artist.
2. He simply did not put in the required effort. Unfortunately this is more true than he and even I would like to believe. The fact is, money matters to a lot of people. And as it is said, it is dangerous to try and become stronger. If you fail, can you support your family? Not everyone can train six or even four hours a day. We have jobs and families. For some it is possible but they would rather play their videogames, have their guitar or their piano, or have their friday nights our with the boys. Some people just like drinking and smoking. Some people just don’t really want the kung fu. They would simply rather do something else.
3. He did not specialize. Kungfu requires specialization and true honestly not just with oneself but a with a deep understanding of the theory and practice of the art. How much history did he know? How deeply did he understand Tai Chi (or any one of the literally 10 different arts he was interested in)?
4. I was not good enough to demonstrate traditional skills and thus gain the credibility I needed to teach him the proper way. This is entirely my fault and a result of my own poor attitude and poor practice.

In the end I believe these were the three greatest contributions to his failure as an internal martial artist.

Within a year or so after getting involved with MMA he quit MMA and closed his blog. He doesn’t come around here anymore. I don’t even know if he lives in Taiwan anymore.

I wish I was strong enough to help him or to show him a better way. But I am not strong, I am just a beginner.