Wudang Mountain High

Wudang Mountain High

I don’t often review movies, and this won’t appear on Netflix, but I was struck and awed by a documentary we saw recently called Mysterious China: Holy Mountain. The is a promo for it on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGwx_XPilIA. The film is part travelogue, part history lesion, part martial arts demonstration and part Busby Berkley. 90 minutes of breathtaking photography at and around Wudang Mountain, also known as Mount TaiHe or Mount XuanYue. Wudang Mountain is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site and is considered “Holy” to Taoists. Legend has it that Zhenwu, a Taoist deity, discovered the “Golden Elixir” there which made him immortal. Besides Taoism alchemy, Mount Wudang is the birthplace of Wudang school Kung Fu as popularized in movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The possibly mythical figure, Zhang Sanfeng (Chang San Feng) is supposed to have created the Wudang style of Taiji Quan. It’s interesting that there is a rivalry between Wudang and Shaolin Monasteries over the invention of Taiji and Kung Fu, but these seem more akin to Taoism than to Buddhism to me. At any rate, Wudang Taiji has an interesting lineage so far as we know it. Here is a video of the Zhang San-Feng 13 postures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mafTd7h9auo&feature=player_embedded#at=63. It is a beautiful, sweeping form that reminds one of Chen, Yang and Wu all at the same time. The form of Wudang Taiji that we have now was developed by a Hong Kong based master named Cheng Tinhung and is being taught in Great Britain by two of his students, Dan Docherty and Ian Cameron.

Some of this is touched on in the documentary but hard core Taiji enthusiasts may be frustrated by the lack of detail given there. Of course, it a film about the mountain, and covers many of its aspects. Scenes of Taoist artifacts, the temple architecture, the approach to the mountain (walk up the hundreds of feet of stairs, be carried up in a litter, or maybe you could take the cable car) are fascinating.

You get just enough information to make you want to research it further. It was a little disheartening to hear the terms, Kung Fu, Qi Gong and Taiji used interchangeably. And the constant cutting away from performances of various forms was annoying. But staying with it rewards you with a display of a variety of forms: Kung Fu, Taiji, Qi Gong, Sword, Tassel, some Push Hands and what appeared to be Ba Qua but might have been a dance. At one point the narrator suggested that Buddhism was believed by some to have been developed from Taoism. I think I read that somewhere else once. Chinese history is nothing if not reversionary and fraught with multiple mythology. So get the movie from Netflix and enjoy the production. My thoughts were, “I want to live there.”

Waving Tassels in the Wind

Paul Chen tassel for double edged sword

Waving Tassels in the Air

When I got my extendable practice sword it came with a tassel. My other swords hadn’t. The tassel is traditional and decorative looking, but I immediately put it aside thinking it would just get in the way. Nobody in sword class used a tassel. I had read somewhere that the tassel was useful for practice, so the first warm-enough day (in Wisconsin that means it is above 30) I looped the tassel through the pommel of my Paul Chen sword and took to the backyard. Yes, I did find I had to pay attention so the tassel didn’t wind itself around my hand. No, it didn’t unbalance the sword, but I also didn’t see how to let it “lead the sword” or to keep the flow consistent. Clearly, I need to figure this tassel business out!

Wikipedia wasn’t much help but I got on several sword forums, including Kunfu Magazine’s and one called “Sword Arts Talk.” Mixed in with historical concerns, glib speculation and occasional silliness were some interesting ideas about tassels. First let me give you a link here to a nice youtube video of Jonathan Russell performing T. T. Liang’s version of Yang style sword with long tassel attached. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z573zimpP_s  This is a wonderful demonstration of the Long Tassel Sword form and you can see how he uses the tassel as a key element. The theory that the tassel was used to distract the enemy seems valid although I also could subscribe to the notion that it was flung into the opponent’s face and might have contained wires or barbs. At any rate, here are some excerpts from those forums:

The official reason is distraction    ...more for aesthetics

poison was someimes used on the blades of the swords and the tassel was used to conceal a small vile tht held antidotes

The tassel could be weighted with brass or lead and used to whip at an opponent, or entangle his weapon. I believe it might also contain small hooks or blades that could cut as well as impact an opponent

they look ridiculous   ...unless your wearing them silk pajamas

they're for grip when the handles are covered in blood.

the tassels were weighted to act as a counterbalance for the sword   the tassel (by not becoming tangled) ensures that the sword is being used in the correct manner

it's something that should be avoided until a certain level of skill is acquired

Here is a quote from "The Art of Chinese Swordsmanship" by Zhang Yun. "There are two kinds of tassels; changsui which is as long as the body of the jian and duansui which is half the length of the jian. Originally made of rope that connected the jian to the practitioners wrist, the tassels of contemporary jians are always made of beautiful materials. Historically , the jianpao allowed the jian to be thrown outward by the practitioner and then pulled back into his grasp. Today, jianpao are used primarily for show , not combat".

long tassle sword /chang sui jian ... the tassel in this style should be long as sword or longer... first of all is to distract enemy  ... this technique is called: "huang"   ...the other important technique is called "shuai"  ...it is using the tassle to hit the oponent and believe me, it hurts a lot, also the tassel can be thrown to the oponent eyes and distract his view

It is also a training tool. If the sword is flowing smoothly and in correct lines, the tassel won't readily wrap around your arm....it will also flow with the sword.

It's also been postulated that it started out as a lanyard ie a thing you tie around the wrist so you don't lose your sword in battle.

As well as something you can tug on to pull the sword out of your enemy if it gets stuck.

Some practical uses of sword-tassels are as a means of leading the sword and distracting the enemy. The sword, following the tassel in a strike can confuse the opponent.

Besides that, it can be a means of balance when using the sword and can help you depending on the style you are practicing. For the internal styles, when you do horizontal strikes, meaning the sword is parallel to the ground, generating the strikes from your mid-section can encourage the tassel to swing circularly below the sword itself.

the tassel is a training tool. The sword is Yang, and the tassel is Yin. The power of the sword is generated by the Yin. During training, the RED colour of the tassel helps in focusing the intention. In a real fight, the tassel may or may not be there (real fights are ugly and chaotic and never ideal and you may not have all the right equipment at that moment!) but the power is generated the same way even if the tassel is not there.

I’ve mentioned before my old high school science teacher who was fond of saying, “If you can’t explain it, then you don’t know it.” There is a lot about Tai Chi I can’t explain but feel that I know. There are days when it just feels right. And of course, many days when it doesn’t. But too much thinking can be a dangerous thing:

A centipede was happy quite,
Until a toad in fun
To Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch
Considering how to run.
-- Anonymous

Although there is nothing Chinese about that poem, I first came across it in Alan Watt’s book, The Way of Zen.  It seems appropriate to the study of Tai Chi Cuan.

My new toy is a collapsible (extendable) sword. Hmmm, that sounds like the glass half full/empty syndrome. The sword does kind of look like a toy but is pretty well made from hollow stainless steel sections that telescope like a nested Russian doll down to a convenient eight or nine inches. It has solved my self-conscious phobia about carrying my wooden sword in its case into the health center. One guy in the locker room asked me if I had brought my pool cue with me. It’s heavier than my wooden sword but lighter than my steel one and seems just about right for practice. Plus, it’s fun to flick it open like a light saber.

Other toys are ordered. I have a pair of rave gloves, complete with lighted finger tips, in the mail as well as two extra LED lights that can be attached to my shoes (I hope). I keep visualizing my fingers being able to leave a trail of light (visible Chi?) as I practice. It has made me quite conscious of the path my hands follow during the form and this may be bad or good, who knows.  Soon I will experiment with time exposures and hopefully have something interesting to post on this blog.

Meanwhile, I’m trying not to be like the centipede and just let it happen. Tai Chi is supposed to be good for meditation if you can empty your mind. These days, that’s pretty difficult.

Tai Chi Virtual Volumes

Norman McClaren --- Pas De Deax

In 1967, Norman McClaren, a Canadian animator and filmmaker, directed a film called Pas De Deax in which dancers were optically overprinted with progressive frames creating a "virtual volume." This technique had been done in still photography as early as 1882 by E’tienne-Jules Marey using a special camera he developed which recorded successive high-speed photos overlapped on one plate.

Marey Chromophotographs

His images were to influence many 20th century artists including Marcel Duchamp, who produced his famous Nude Descending a Staircase in 1911, and Giacomo Balla who painted Dynamics of a Dog on a Leash in 1912.

Duchamp --- Nude Descending a Staircase

Balla -- Dog on a Leash

The virtual volume created by overlapping stages of movement becomes a unique form illuminating time and space. A more contemporary version of this technique can be found in the use of motion capture suits to record three-dimensional forms in motion for computer games and motion pictures featuring CG characters.

motion capture suit and digital rendering

Motion capture trace of dancer Gretchen Schiller, AMUC project by David Green, Culture Lab, Newcastle University.

Back in the day, when I taught film and animation, I used to show Norman McClaren’s Pas De Deax in class. I always felt it provided an insight into the process of film animation and the understanding of motion as a form that could be visualized. Lately, as I’ve practiced Tai Chi in the mirrored room at the Health Center, I’ve imagined points of light at the tips of my fingers and toes and watched these imaginary virtual volumes drawn in the air. I think of using a light saber for sword practice, darkening the room and opening the shutter on my old Heiland Pentax 35mm camera to record the hidden form inside The Form. Perhaps I will eventually do this. Until I can put together a pair of black gloves laced with LEDS and a room I can plunge into darkness (or perhaps travel back to New Mexico for the solid blackness of that night) I will have to be satisfied with imaginary virtual volumes (if I can be forgiven for the oxymoron).

Picasso --- Light Drawing

After I posted this I googled "LED glove" and lo and behold, they make stuff like that the people use at Raves (not that I even know what that is). I think I have to get a pair!

Photographic Motion Analysis in Tai Chi and Animation

 Cheng Man Ching Single Whip

I read several facebook groups on Tai Chi Cuan and have noticed a recent trend toward analyzing photographs of past Tai Chi masters. This sometimes entails the drawing of lines over the photos to show alignments and to determine weight distribution. I am obsessed as much as the next person with “doing it right” but I have to question the process of ferreting out the “rightness’ of a three (four?) dimensional event using two dimensional tools.

Photography has a history of being used to analyze position and motion that is as old as photography itself. The classic example is Eadweard Muybridge  (1830 - 1904) who was an English photographer working in the American West. He is most famous for producing numerous studies of people and animals in motion using a series of cameras to capture successive stages of the body in motion through space.

Muybridge Sequential Photo Panel

In 1981 I wrote a book on animation called The Shoestring Animator, in which I used one of Muybridge’s motion studies, one called “Man Walking at Normal Speed,” as an aid to developing a hand-drawn animated “walk cycle.” It is thought that several early animation artists studied Muybridge to originate their own techniques. I pointed out that Thomas Eakins, a painter contemporary to Muybridge who used photographic studies in his own work, felt Muybridge’s panels were flawed since each successive camera viewed the action from slightly different position. I went on to say that the photos were close enough (for government work).

Animation is not Tai Chi, although there is a relationship in that both involve bodies in space and motion. The facebook posts analyzing Tai Chi reminded me of my own use of photos to create animated films. I often utilized a technique called “rotoscoping” in which live action cinema frames are traced and then rephotographed. To paraphrase one of my fellow filmmakers, Mary Beams, you can learn a lot about the universe by tracing live action. One thing you learn is that motion picture film doesn’t accurately reproduce motion. Here is why.

Because film is a series of still pictures taken one at a time, there is movement in between each exposure that is not recorded. Also, the frame rate of motion picture photography is 24 frames per second allowing a certain amount of blurring of the moving subject. Animators know this and exaggerate key positions of their drawings to make them more “life like.”

I think I blogged previously about the difficulty in using videos to learn Tai Chi. I remarked that the camera angle often hides or distorts some of the action. Since videos are not the best way to study motion, how can it make sense to use a still picture to learn Tai Chi? Photos of Cheng Man Ching and others were not taken as they moved. They were posed. Perhaps they were posed to display an emphasis on weight distribution or alignment at a particular time during the form, but I suspect these illustrations have to be taken as instances of the spirit of the movement and not written-in-concrete icons of the art. Can you photograph Chi? Can you diagram it? I think exploring the examples of the great masters through photographs is rewarding and enlightening but should be approached cautiously. I think of the book, The Da Vinci Code, and how searching for hidden code in the painting of the last supper really distracts from the ascetic enjoyment of a great work of art. I hope we don’t over analyze Tai Chi in the same way.

The Tai Chi Snob Drops Out

Picture me not in WI

Well, it’s winter. I live in Wisconsin. I have to drive for an hour to get to class. Need I say more? That’s my excuse for not going to Tai Chi class right now. I’ve probably learned nearly all I can about Sword Form, although there is always more to learn. Practice is always better when you are in a group of like-minded people, but I can do it on my own. Corrections from a good teacher are crucial to advancing in your art, but I give it a lot of thought. Did I say I’d be OK on my own? Well, I go to the Health Center probably five times a week and practice my form(s). I read a lot and watch Youtube videos of the masters. I think. I write. So why shouldn’t I drop out for now?

This is an opportunity to concentrate on MY form. I’ve had four teachers, studied three forms, (Wu, Yang and Sun) and Sword Form and Push Hands. From each teacher I’ve gained some knowledge and insight into a traditional, yet live and changing Martial Art/Health/Philosophy/Art form called Tai Chi Cuan (Taiji Quan). I’ve dealt with the conflict between what I think I know and what I’m being told. I’ve dealt with it by adopting what FEELS right, what MAKES sense, what WORKS. I’m not rejecting the bits and pieces that I don’t absorb. I merely keep them in mind as I go through my form, comparing, contrasting, considering….

After all, the REAL Tai Chi form is unknown. There is a mystique about the origin and evolution of Tai Chi as it came down from probably mythical Taoist monks and was held secretly within a few families and villages. The story goes that Yang Luchan, when called upon to teach Tai Chi to government officials, modified the form to protect its secrets. The Communist Chinese government almost banned Tai Chi but instead decided to promote it as a healthful exercise form, showing the outer world how strong the Chinese people were. And it changed again.

A few masters migrated to the US and Europe. A few Anglos traveled to China and Taiwan. What was a verbal tradition began to be documented. The five family forms became hundreds. Each master changed it a little according to their own interests. How confusing! Yet what a wealth of thought and practice. What a rich cross cultural experience. How easy to become a snob (all forms are equal, but my form is more equal than your form.)

If you are a beginner, find a teacher. Make sure that teacher has some lineage that fixes them firmly within the evolution of REAL Tai Chi Cuan. They can be health oriented or Martial Art oriented or both, as long as they know something about the history and development of the art. Read. Look at videos, but not to the extent that you become overwhelmed with too many choices. Learn the movements, then be willing to work on the details.

And don’t be afraid to drive through the snow storms to get to class.

Why We Fight

There is a wonderful scene in the movie, “A Christmas Story,” where Ralphie, having been beleaguered by the yellow-eyed bully of the neighborhood for just too long, finally gets pissed off enough to charge him, knock him down and thrash the bastard into a bloodied disbelief. The fear turning to anger and adrenalin rush are contagious. They evoke a common experience in a movie already  briming with nostalgia. I’ve been there. That was me being chased by a bully, turning suddenly manic and acquiring a supernatural strength and fearlessness.

It must have been about 4th grade at Washington School when Buzzy and Mert and a few others began to delight in pelting the wimpiest of us with rocks. If you were stupid enough to get anywhere near them at recess you might get pushed down and pounded. These were our formative years. Buzzy seemed unbelievably large and Mert, well, she could strike terror into anyone (could scare the pink off a pig). Mert may have weighed three hundred pounds and came from a poor family of equally obese parents and siblings. I once tried to appease her by going to her birthday party but nobody else came. That reminds me of the time I gave a Halloween party and nobody came. But I digress unpardonably.

Anyway, I did a “Ralphie” one recess and jumped on a kid who was taunting me, nearly putting him in the hospital. An onslaught of adrenalin doesn’t give you any common sense. It’s probably scarier than worrying about the Buzzys of the world. So what has this to do with Tai Chi Cuan?

Back in New Mexico, a Tai Chi class mate told the story of his encounter with a would be robber. He was practicing his form in a park one evening and a youth (read punk) accosted him with a knife demanding all his money. Now, you’re not the smartest person in the world to try to rob someone who going through a  martial arts routine. Brian probably could have broken the kid’s arm but he calmly stood still and said, “Gee, sorry, I don’t have any money,” pointing to his backpack. The punk rifled through it and left with a scowl. That was Tai Chi.

I often wonder if I could prevail against an assailant  should the need arise. Of course you could ask him to punch you very very slowly. But could I step aside to avoid the punch, meet it, stick and redirect his energy to send him flying? Or her? Having at least some knowledge of self defense and a smidgen of practice might give one a dangerous overconfidence but at least the fear (fear of fear itself?) can no longer propel you into rage and thus into unwise violence.

Hopefully I will never know. And hopefully, I’ll never meet Mert in a dark alley!