Workshop with Grandmaster William C. C. Chen

The weekend of August (Friday the) 13th saw me in Davenport, Iowa attending Grandmaster Chen’s three day workshop. I arrived Friday night just as a monsoon level rain storm descended upon the Quad Cities. The workshop was held in a large “multi-purpose room” at the YMCA, which was reached by following strategically placed directional signs along a labyrinth path up stairs and through narrow corridors filled with the smell of chlorine and heavy with humidity. Luckily, the room was nicely air-conditioned, bright and even had some wall mirrors. About forty or fifty people were present, at times swinging swords but extremely friendly and welcoming to the three of us from Wisconsin.

Grandmaster Chen, now 75, was born in China and became the youngest student of Professor Cheng Man-Ching. He has taught in Asia and the US since 1952 and established his own school in New York City in 1965. He has many devotees and his certified instructors include my sword teacher, Jody Curley. His ease of movement through the form suggests a much younger man. It is easy to feel the inspiration he imparts to his followers.

“You do like this… not like this,” he says, demonstrating a turn or a move. The distinction between the ‘this” and the “not this” is so subtle that I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing. After a few more demos I begin to understand that this is an internal transfer of energy rather than one of muscle force. His descriptions are poetic: “like a bird about to take flight,”  ” go to sleep… wake up.” During a run through of the Short Form I am privileged to have a couple of corrections from the master.  I’ve brought the baggage of eight years of practice with a straight back and bent legs rather than a bend at the hips. “Not pushing from the legs… wake up!”  There is much to learn here.

He talks about connections between the fingers, the toes and the inside thigh muscles. The thighs don’t work alone during a turn: the fingers direct (index finger yang, pinky finger yin) and the toes implement. He shows us the design he has made for next year’s tee shirt. It includes a Tai Chi symbol (yin yang circle) with two foot prints superimposed. The feet illustrate the “three nails,” which are the contact points that root the body to the earth. They are the big toe, the ball and heel.  In his treatise, “The Mechanics of the Three Nails,” Master Chen says:

My studies of body mechanics indicate that the three active nails actually control the thigh, which controls the body. In the early 1960's, I sensed the turning of the waist was controlled by the thigh muscles. At that time, I thought the thigh was in command. As I practiced the slow movements, it appears that the thigh muscles helped make possible the turns and moves. Not until in middle 1980’s that I began to realize that the thigh itself has no ability to make any moves or turns without the help of the foot which is rooted firmly on the ground. Therefore, the rooted foot, and specifically the “three active nails” are in control and energized; the fingers to move palms and fists, and body follows.

How different to have instruction with analysis based in personal research! Most of us can only parrot what we have read or been taught to think. To feel what works and then to articulate it is a high form of learning we can only strive for. Like Jung’s “bringing the unconscious into the conscious,” it requires practice and awareness. To learn the form exactly as Cheng Man Ching did it, or as one of the fifty different versions taught by his many students, means nothing by itself. There must come a point when the student becomes the teacher for him/herself. But for now, I am the student and William C. C. Chen and his student, Jody Curley, are my teachers.

When he wants to make a point he stops us and goes to a student who has come close to performing some movement correctly. He puts the student through the movement, modifying the shifting of their weight or the turning of their foot. I am not receiving any corrections now that we are in the second half of the form. Obviously, I am not close enough to the correct form to offer him a chance to demonstrate with me. Later in the sword session I get a correction: I am not grasping the sword with my ring and pinky fingers at the second “three rings around the moon.” How he even sees this at fifteen feet away is amazing.

There is a session in Tai Chi Sword Fencing. This is my first experience with Tai Chi fencing. All the locals have put away their metal swords and are pulling out their wooden ones, putting on heavy gloves and safety glasses. Oops! Will they even let me participate with my carbon steel Adam Hsu Cas Hanwei? Jody and Mark and I are the other non-woodies. It goes well, though, and I even get to fence for a few minutes with Grandmaster Chen. Tai Chi fencing is sort of like push hands with swords. We try to “stick” to each other’s sword with wrist movements similar to “dragonfly strikes the water” in the Sword Form. The others are wearing gloves because in sparring, the goal is to make a strike at the sword hand.  Unlike European style foil fencing, there is not a lot of padding.

It has been quite an experience: one I will remember and absorb into my quest for the perfect form.

What the Wind Taught Me

We love the stories. Yang Jian-Hou (1842 – 1917) was said to be able to keep a sparrow from flying off his hand because he could feel the pressure of the bird’s feet as it tried to push off and then neutralize it so perfectly that the bird couldn’t leap into the air. Recently, in a Facebook group called Tai Chi Martial Artists, a discussion was started around the following:

Many years ago, I was training in the Carolina mountains and a most remarkable event occurred. I was standing in a low horse stance, throwing triple punch combinations in rapid succession. After about two hundred punches, upon completion of one of my strikes, I noticed a butterfly had landed on my fist. The butterfly remained there and was not disturbed. I wish to share you this message that this butterfly taught me: "The soft overcomes the hard. In your movements, rise and lower with unpredictable intention. Most importantly, leave no room for fear". My friends, no matter what style of Tai Chi you practice, I encourage you to follow the example of the butterfly. –Sifu Trick.

My own story took place when I was practicing the Long Form in the yard on a very windy day. At the first one footed stance the wind blew me over. I thought about this and realized I was not well “rooted” as I try to be during push hands. So I then began to sink as if my feet were indeed under ground like the roots of a tree while my spine remained as straight as possible and my head was elevated as if hung by a thread (as they say.) When I began the form again in a “rooted” posture, the wind could no longer interrupt my balance. My form improved immensely. Sometimes the best teachers are your experiences!

The story goes that Sun Lutang, founder of Sun style Tai Chi, went to study the martial art of Xing Yi Quan with master Li Kui Yuan. Li had him practice standing posture and wouldn’t teach him anything else. After a year of practice, Sun was good enough that when his master came behind him and struck him, he was unmoved. Li then taught him the rest of the form.

Most of us dislike standing. We complain: “I’ve been standing up all day and my feet hurt!” We don’t like standing in lines (which seems to be the way of life these days in grocery stores, airports, schools, etc.) We walk slumped over, staring at the ground (OK, so I do that not to trip!) Sun Luntang has a lot to say about standing.and Wu Ji:

Wu Ji is the natural state occurring before one begins to practice the martial arts. The mind is without thought; the intent is without motion; the eyes are without focus; the body makes no movement….

Master Sun says to stand as if on sand, without the toes griping or the heels pressing down. One of the most pleasurable times practicing the form for me was on the beach. I would practice on sand always if I could. On sand, “one stands and flows with what naturally occurs.” There is potential rather than movement. The “sinking the Qi to the Dan Tien” is done through intention rather than force.

Standing in stillness (li ding shi), says Yang Chenfu, is the taijiquan posture for preparing to move. While it may seem obvious that stillness comes before movement, the cultivation of correct stillness is crucial to the practice of Tai Chi. In most Tai Chi classes the beginning posture is explained as a period of relaxing the body but the mind must also be emptied. Concentration is on the Lower Dan Tien, the center of the body, its balance point. From the earliest writings of unknown masters called the Tai Chi Classics we find:

Relax the neck and suspend the head from the crown point.

The eyes should focus and concentrate on the direction in which the ch’I flows.

Relax the chest and arch the back.

Drop and relax the shoulders, drop and relax the elbows.

The wrist should be set comfortably while the finger tips stretch outward.

The entire body must be vertical and balanced.

The coccyx must be pulled forward and upward with the mind.

Relax the waist and the juncture of the thighs and pelvis.

The knees should stay between relaxed and non-relaxed.

The sole of the foot should sink and attack comfortably to the ground.

The real secret of Tai Chi lies in bringing the essentials of this stillness through into movement. To clearly separate the “substantial and the insubstantial” means to maintain balance in movement as if you are still.

If You Believe in Qi, Clap Your Hands!

Qi, or Chi (sometimes spelled Ch’i), is variously defined as internal energy, life force, intrinsic universal substance, eternal power, vibration, breath, blood and spirit. Although the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu does not refer to it as Qi, it speaks similarly of the Tao as:

It flows through all things
Inside and outside, and returns
To the origin of all things

Western science (particularly Western medicine) tends to be skeptical about the existence of Qi. As my ninth grade science teacher used to say, “If we can’t explain it, then it doesn’t exist.” Perhaps, but we can’t see the wind yet we can watch its movement through the trees. Many cultures (including Western ones) have concepts like Qi. Polynesian cultures have mana, a spiritual force existing in the universe, sometimes a vital life force flowing through the body. There is prana, related to breath in yoga and many other life/energy concepts such as awen (Welsh), asha (Iran), ka (Eqypt), ashe (Yoruba), orenda (Native American), ichor (Greek), and ki (Japan). Their commonality is in being an unseen, unknowable force underlying all things (even European Alchemists had the aether) which can be cultivated and used to obtain some goal, such as long life, spiritual awareness or cosmic balance. (Trust the Force, Luke!)

They say we are chock full of Qi as babies and begin to slowly lose it as we grow older. Qi isn’t static, it is always in motion, giving rise to the concepts of Yin and Yang (positive/negative, creative/destructive, etc.) According to Waysun Liao, writing in his chapter on Ch’i in his translation of the Tai Chi Classics, as Ch’i changes from one form to another it is called Yin Ch’i or Yang Ch’i. This constant balancing of Yin and Yang is the origin and nature of the universe.

We try to visualize Qi as a “thing” not blood nor breath, not electrical nerve energy nor kinetic muscle energy, but related to all these, which can be “moved” thereby balancing us in time and space. Qi is connected to the physical, but is set in motion by thought. Tai Chi masters talk about using intention rather than action. Again, from the Tao Te Ching:

The gentlest thing in the world
Overcomes the hardest thing in the world.
That which has no substance
Enters where there is no space.
This shows the value of non-action.

And from Waysun Liao:

Ch’i is not an element of any kind, but rather it is the origin of everything. Ch’I does not even create itself because, being immune to the laws of creation and destruction, it merely continues to exist.

Is Qi just another poetic Chinese metaphor? If we refuse to believe in it will it go away? Can we say that the health benefits from Tai Chi are do to muscle exercise and slow breath aerobics rather than the cultivation of Qi? Conversely, can we become so enamored with the mysticism of Qi that we indulge in false hopes that it is an elixir of life? Awareness of Qi and its cultivation through relaxation, breathing excercises. Qigong, Taijiquan, and meditation does seem to contribute to health and well being.

Studying Multiple Versions of The Form

There are five traditional forms of Tai Chi (Taijiquan): Chen, Yang, W’u, Wu and Sun. It is estimated that there are approximately 150 variations of these styles. The Tai Chi Snob is concerned with all these variations because he finds himself in the study of multiple forms. It is seductive to wonder which is the best, the most correct, the most authentic. It is also very difficult to move from one form to another without compounding bad habits. So it is a good thing to be examining why there are differences and what the consequences may be for the beginner or novice who is changing or adding styles. How Tai Chi came from 4th century BC Chinese origins to your local YMCA is beyond the scope of this discussion, but makes for fascinating reading (I’m peppering this piece with lots of names and dates for you to google.) Here is a quick summary of the five traditional forms to put them into historical perspective.

Chen Style (passed down within the Chen family until the 14th generation) was taught to two Chen family members, Chen Chang-Xing (1771-1853) and Chen You-Ben. Their styles were called Old Frame and New Frame respectively. From the Old Frame, Yang Lu-chan (1799-1872) developed what is now called Yang Style , while the New Frame evolved into W’u Style created by W’u Yi-Yu (1812-1880). Another form called Wu Style is derived not from W’u but from a Yang form called Small Frame Yang. It was developed by Wu Jian-Quan (1870-1942). The form called Sun Style was created by Sun Lu-Tang (1861-1932) and is a combination of W’u Style, and Ba Gua Zhang and Xing Yi Quan (two other martial arts.) 

In the 1950s a simplified version of Yang Style was developed called the 24 Postures. In the 1970s this was expanded into the 48 postures. The health aspects of Tai Chi were promoted by the Cultural Revolution in China. In the United States, the various styles of Yang are the most popular and a number of Chinese Masters came to teach here, resulting in more variations.

If you move around the country or just change Tai Chi schools you will most likely be exposed to different versions of the form. There are a couple of other people in my Short Form class who have studied another version of the form. Usually, as in my case, this is the Long Form. “Long Form” refers to a more or less standardized version of Yang style Tai Chi in the tradition of Yang Chenfu (1883-1936) while the “Short Form” refers to a modification of this form by Chen Man-ch’ing (1902-1975) in which many of the repetitions were dropped, the choreography was somewhat reorganized and the style itself was more contained.  Those who are interested in the specific differences may wish to look up an article by J. Justin Meehan entitled, “A Comparative Study between Traditional Yang Style Tai Chi of Yang Cheng Fu and Cheng Man Ching's Yang Style,” in a recent issues of The Journal of Qigong & Taiji Culture.

Fu Zhongwen Single Whip

The problem for those of us who studied an alternate version of the form with another teacher might be likened to trying to learn a second, and then a third language.  Some forms are so similar they might be considered dialects. As Jody (teacher #3) would say, Tai Chi is a living art form; each teacher in the lineage has modified it according to their own interests. Thus no one form is more correct then any other form. However, having studied and practiced one “dialect” for many years presents obstacles to learning a new one. Movements begin to be “hard wired” so that it seems unnatural to do them any other way. Something within you screams, “Wrong! Wrong!” You have to focus to overcome the fear that you will lose what you spent years trying to achieve. You feel you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  How different is different?

The beginning posture for both the Long and Short forms is essentially the same except that the Short Form starts with the feet together, heels touching and toes pointing out in a 90 degree angle “V” shape while the Long Form starts with the feet apart, slightly under shoulder width, with the toes pointing straight out. I’ve always found the “V” stance to be a bit awkward, but if you bend your knees and sink a little, you can be more relaxed in this position. The Short Form includes a step to the left and a turning to front of the right foot, ending in more or less the same stance as the Long Form.

In all the forms I’ve seen, the next movement is to allow the arms to move from the sides upward, extended (but relaxed), to about shoulder height. It is interesting to note that in one of the earliest descriptions we have of the Yang Form by Yang Chengfu, there is no mention of raising the hands. It is thought that this may have been added later. Both Short and Long bring the arms up and then pull the hands back toward the chest, bending the elbows. In the Long form, there is a sinking as this happens. In the Short Form there is also a sinking, but then a slight rising as the hands bend up at the wrists. The Short Form continues then to lower the arms back to the sides with another slight sinking of the body while in the Long Form, they remain at chest level. The application for this movement is to deflect an opponent who is pushing toward your chest.  Bringing the arms back down is a downward push against your opponent.

Ward off, roll back, press and push have subtle differences but it is single whip that I had the most difficulty with in moving from the Long to the Short Form. The right hand forms a “hook” in both forms and the left swings out into a chop. The Short Form holds the right hook low while the Long Form holds it high. Turning the body and stepping while chopping is common to both, but the Long Form barely turns 180 degrees while the Short Form uses a left step to the rear in order to turn about 270 degrees.

 Yang Chenfu Single Whip

You can look at the lineages of the two Yang styles I am studying and see that they come from the same source. (Lineage is important because the early practitioners of Tai Chi kept their teaching strictly within their own families. Tai Chi only began to be taught openly about the time of Yang Lu-chan.)

My Lineage for Yang Short Form:
Yang Lu-chan (1799-1872) founder of Yang Style
Yang Chien-hou (1839-1917) youngest son of Luchan
Yang Cheng-fu (1883-1936) the son of Chien-hou, brother of Yang Shaohou
Chen Man-ch’ing (1902-1975)
W. C. C. Chen (b. 1935)
Jody Curley
Me

My Lineage for Yang Long Form:
Yang Lu-chan (1799-1872) founder of Yang Style
Yang Jianhou (Chien-Hou) (1839-1917) 3rd son of Luchan
Yang Shaohou (1862-1930) 1st son of Jianhou
Hu Puan (1878~1947)
Xiong Yangho (1886-1984)
Yang Qingyu (1915-2002)
Michael DeMarco
Me

Yang Lu-chan Single Whip

You would say that THE FORM is the style practiced and handed down by Yang Lu-chan. Even though we have written explanations by people like Yang Chenfu and Fu Zhongwen, it was through personal contact with the teacher that the form is passed down. Many things have affected subtle changes in the styles; desiring to practice in a shorter time or a smaller space may even have helped to modify the form. Contrasting views of the applications of each movement may have served to “tweek” the postures.

In actual combat, how you apply the form to meeting your opponent’s advances will vary with the circumstances. Height and weight, distance and direction, speed and angle of attack will all change your response. In Tai Chi you follow your opponent, using their energy to defeat them. The form is studied by imitating the movements of the teacher, who may be shorter, taller, heavier, lighter or more flexible than you. Studying multiple versions of the form is a good way to learn how to adapt the Tai Chi essentials to any situation.

More Tai Chi sculptures

Some sculptures made for the China Olympics.

 Not sure where this one is.

This guy seems a little stiff... relax!!

And more...

The Use of Silence in Learning Tai Chi

There is a western prejudice against silence. Even in the days of early cinema “silent” movies were accompanied by music from a single piano or a full orchestra. Music set the mood and glossed over the embarrassing sniffling and shuffling of the audience. Music supplied the rhythm that might otherwise be absent in the movie editor’s continuity. When I see Tai Chi demonstrations presented on youtube or on DVDs where the “master” is filmed at the beach or in the mountains with a sound track of Chinese music (usually not in synch with the movement) I think of this strange tendency we have not to trust visual images to stand alone. When I am in a class following along in the “Chinese dance” of Tai Chi to the boom box beat of a new age melody I wonder why my internal rhythms are not sufficient for orchestrating my form. Indeed, I have a difficult time visualizing the early masters of the Yang family practicing Tai Chi attended by players of the Pipa, the Guqin, the Qinqin and the Bamboo Flute!

Harken back with me (again) to the idea rich 1960s to meet two unique individuals, a filmmaker and a composer, who will help me make my point. There was this fellow, Stan Brakhage, who lived in the Colorado mountains making what some called “experimental films” (rather, we like to use the term “personal films”). A kind of cult grew up around him, sometimes including myself, of filmmakers who rejected the sound track, or at least the use of music in film, as an intrusion of over-powering and counter-productive mood and rhythm. Brakhage made a film called “Mothlight” by sandwiching the wings of moths between strips of clear editing tape and running this through a motion picture printer. He was on a quest to create “Visual Music.” Although silent, you can hear and feel the music of this film. It is rhythmic and melodic. I believe Tai Chi practiced in silence can achieve a similar kind of internal musicality.

The experimental composer, John Cage, felt that all sounds were music. Silence, he said, does not exist. There is a wonderful story about him entering a sound proof room in search of silence, but realizing his own body generated pulses and rhythms and tones. The following is from his book, “Silence: Lectures and Writings.”

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. For certain engineering purposes, it is desirable to have as silent a situation as possible. Such a room is called an anechole chamber, its six walls made of special material, a room without echoes. I entered one at Harvard University several years ago and heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he imformed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation.

Your heart beat and your breathing supply two significant rhythms which are always with you. What is the sound of Qi? A Zen master might say it is the soundless sound. I don’t mean to imply that Tai Chi is like a dance to the rhythms of your biological system. It is more complicated than that. Consider what the movements represent (techniques of martial art) and why the pace is so slow (possibly because Yang Lu-chang, founder of the Yang family style, wanted to disguise the form and hide its secrets from the emperor). Each individual movement, and I’m already committing an error since the form is one long continuous movement, has its own cadence and duration. To think of the form as sequence of equal “measures” is to impose western quantitative analysis on a natural, and therefore mostly indeterminate phenomenon. Pacing yourself to your breath and heart beat makes a great deal of sense to me. Breath! This will need be another blog entry. Now, however, we need to give equal time to the use of music in learning Tai Chi.

In Gordon Muir’s book, “Yang Style Traditional Long Form T’ai Chi Ch’uan,” there is a chapter written by his teacher, T. T. Liang, himself a student of Cheng Man Ching. In “Why We Should Practice T’ai Chi to Music,” Master Liang writes that practicing Tai Chi can be divided into 4 stages. First, you must memorize the number of beats for each posture, breathe naturally and not use music. Second, having mastered the guiding points, you will use beats, music and breathing. The third stage is to use only music for concentration. Of the fourth stage he says:

After practicing T’ai Chi with music for a sufficient time, you will forget the music, the movements, even yourself--- although you are proceeding as usual. At this stage you are in a trance…

Master Liang goes on to state that practicing without the use of music for concentration is the highest level of T’ai Chi we can attain, but that, after 35 years, being only human, he has not yet achieved this. The argument he makes which I like the most is that he likes music. I do too. In fact, I enjoy listening to music while I practice, but I do find it over-powering. The choice of exactly the right music is all important.

Gordon Muir has made T. T. Liang’s music available on his web site, http://www.chentaichi.org. I found it made me move a bit faster than I liked. I experimented with several new age pieces and some Chinese music and settled on Native American flute music, such as R. Carlos Nakai’s Canyon Trilogy. I found the soft flowing flute uplifting and helpful in creating my own flow of form, while its less rhythmic quality allowed me to follow my own natural pace. Lately, I have been experimenting with a piece of fractal music by Steven Berkowitz: “EC(s)TASIS” from his CD of the same name. Although intricate, it has a sort of drone quality and much like the flute music gives me a sense of timelessness. There is an underlying rhythm which is too fast to follow so you can adapt any number of beats to your own personal rhythm for syncopation.

So if I advocate the use of silence for learning Tai Chi, why am I listening to music? In my present world it is sometimes impossible to actually find silence, or at least enough quietude to enable my inner rhythms to guide me in my practice. An extreme example is the day I had to share the workout room at the health center with a person whose trainer was using rap music to instruct them in jump rope. So like T. T. Liang I would like to reach that ultimate level of Tai Chi practice without music: the Qi of silence.

Advance Like A Hamster

The one thing that frustrates beginning Tai Chi students (and advanced ones too) is not being “given” the next movement when you’re sure you know the one you’ve just learned. Why do I have to keep going over and over stuff I know? Why won’t you show me the next move? At this rate it will take me years to get through the form. Yes. It will. There is an underlying Taiji-ness that you may not “get” for years. You learn by observing and following, and certainly, if you’re good at this you can be led through the whole form in no time at all. But consider how much you will then have to “unlearn” and correct later.

There is an old radio announcer’s test called “One Hen, Two Ducks.” It can be used as a memory test as well as a tongue twister. First you repeat, “one hen.” Then you repeat, “one hen, two ducks.” Then you get the next phrase, which is “three squaking geese,” added to the end of the first two. This continues through a list of ten phrases which gets longer and more complicated as it evolves. In case you are interested, here is the whole test:

* One hen
* Two ducks
* Three squawking geese
* Four limerick oysters
* Five corpulent porpoises
* Six pair of Don Alverzo's tweezers
* Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array
* Eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt
* Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic, old men on roller
skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth
* Ten lyrical, spherical diabolical denizens of the deep who
hall and stall around the corner of the quo of the quay of the quivery,
all at the same time.

Learning Tai Chi is something like learning "One Hen, Two Ducks." Suppose you get all the way to "five corpulent porpoises" but you have forgotten or mislearned "two ducks." Thus, it is important to advance like a hamster: gradually and precisely. And don't count your hens before they are hatched!