Tai Chi Light Show --- Photographing Chi!

To see the inspiration for these shots look at my blog entry, "Virtual Volumes." I'm slowly learning the technicalities of the process... been using a digital point and shoot for so long now I've forgotten much of the discipline of good (analogue) photography. I blew the whole first role by not checking the shutter speed and the second roll, as you see here, suffers from not having cleaned the lens (see the spots and the centralized glow from reflections inside the lens.) However, I am happy as a clam with these first efforts.

These multi-colored images are made using a pair of "rave gloves" set to cycle through red, green and blue. The gloves have LEDs mounted at the finger tips and thumb tip. I am doing partial sections of Yang style Tai Chi with the camera in a fixed position.

I think the above shows from Raising Hands through Brush Knee and probably a Push. Next time I will keep some records of which movements are in which shots.

In the shot above I have added a single LED to the toe of each shoe. The sequence includes Waving Hands Like Clouds and Repulse Monkey (I think).

 The above is Sword Form using a single LED at the tip of the sword.

And here I added a second LED on the pommel. I should add that these show the complete Sword Form.

I have to thank my good buddy, Bill Mego for his help in scanning the negatives. I had no luck at Walgreens getting them to figure out how to print the roll and it's just as well. There will be more to come in the future, so 'til then, Buenos Noches and be careful doing Tai Chi out there in the dark!

Taoism, Buddhism and Tai Chi Cuan

Last time I wrote on this blog I alluded to the idea that Taoism is supposed by some to have influenced Buddhism. I was not actually thinking of Chinese Buddhist traditions here, but Indian. I was skeptical that Taoists in the first century BC had traveled to India and pow-wowed with the Buddha or his followers, but I had a strong recollection of having read this somewhere “authoritative.” A careful exploration of my bookshelf did indeed yield a little scholarly treasure: Chinese Thought From Confucius to Mao Tse-Tung, by H. G. Creel, written in 1953 (my paperback copy is from 1960.) H. G. Creel was a Professor of Chinese Literature and Institutions at the University of Chicago and worked for Military Intelligence as an expert on the Far East. In it, Creel often relates that this work or that work may be a forgery or may have been revised by some later Chinese scholar, however, he strives to reflect the nature of the truth behind the influence Chinese thought/philosophy/religion  has had on its culture throughout its long history. He says of Taoism and Buddhism:

Taoism and Buddhism were commonly associated in the Chinese mind. Many Taoist terms were used in translating Buddhist scriptures, and many Chinese studied Taoism and Buddhism together. The Buddhist were often quite tolerant of Taoism and sometimes even included Taoist deities in their temples. Taoism… copied Buddhism by establishing temples, monks, nuns, scriptures and doctrines which in many respects are astonishingly similar. The Taoists, however, were not so tolerant of the Buddhists as the Buddhists were of them;  perhaps their extensive borrowing from Buddhism left them with a bad conscience. The Taoists said the Lao Tzu had gone to India and taught the Buddha, so that Buddhism was nothing more than an offshoot of Taoism.

I was glad my memory was good enough to pull this out of the cobwebs, as it isn’t my normal reading matter. So problem solved, right? Those naughty Taoists were telling tales again. But questions of Taoist and Buddhist influences on the development of Tai Chi Cuan still were rattling around my brain. A more contemporary scholarly effort is found at http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-BJ001/93608.htm in the manuscript called  The Taoist Influence on Hua-yen Buddhism: A Case of the Sinicization of Buddhism in China, by Kang-nam Oh, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Regina (May 2000). Hua-yen was one of the earliest schools of Buddhism to be developed in China. The schools reinterpreted Indian Buddhism to fit the Chinese way of thinking and its social order and the paper points out many instances where Taoism, or more properly, Neo-Taoism, had inspired its development. For example, the “Manifold Mysteries” of the Taoists relates to the “Ultimate” truth of the Buddhists. Both share the dual concept of Substance and Function which can be traced to the Tao Te Ching.

Enter Bodhidharma. In the 5th or 6th century, Bodhidharma, who was probably Persian but hailed from Southern India where he was a Buddhist Monk, migrated to Northern China bringing with him the first, or at least the most, influential concepts of Zen Buddhism. He became a patron Saint of the Shaolin Monastery and is attributed with having created the beginnings of Kung Fu there. He is supposed to have sat facing a wall for nine years without speaking. Bodhidharma is said to have been a disciple of the Buddha who later traveled extensively and developed many exercises to strengthen his body. He taught these as part of the discipline of Zen and they most likely merged with existent boxing styles known to the Shaolin monks.  However, some historians maintain that the story of Bodhidharma at Shaolin Monastery is based a forged qigong manual written in the 17th century, interestingly, by a Taoist with the pen name of Purple Coagulation Man of the Way. Oh well.

So we have a semi-mythical Taoist deity, Lao Tzu, riding off on his blue water buffalo to instruct Siddhartha Gautama, who would later be the Buddha, in concepts of wu wei, (being and non-being), which would later become Taoism, and a semi-mythical Buddhist Saint from Iran staring at a wall and creating Kung Fu. Not to mention Zhang Sanfeng, who lived to be 600 years old, could fly, and invented Tai Chi on Wudang Mountain. Before we logical, science-based Westerners scoff we would be best to remember that Moses parted the waters, Jesus walked on them and Muhammad traveled to heaven on a winged horse.

And, you might well ask, where does the I Ching come in to all this? After all, it comes to us from the 1st century BCE and embodies the concepts of Yin and Yang and the Trigram diagrams which the Taoists later adopted into their philosophy.  Its commentaries may or may not have been written by Confucius, who is said to have advocated the practice of martial arts, but at least not to have invented it. So closes our can of Chinese worms. I’m off to read something I can be sure isn’t fiction. Like the political history of the United States.

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.