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Video Clips: People & styles
Internal Martial Arts (IMA) is a fascinating realm,
culturally and intellectually, as well as physically. Besides my formal teachers, I've been
influenced by occasional workshops with other teachers; by fellow students in
those many classes and workshops; by the martial arts media and literature;
and more recently by the Internet, which has opened up a new world of diverse
styles and innovative experimentation.
Here are some clips that cover a few of my interests in internal
and/or transformative martial arts.
Click
on the pictures and text links below for the clips.
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Chung-Liang Al Huang
 Even
before I was able to join a tai chi club, the discovery of the book Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain was
a revelation. It was basically just
the transcript of some of Al's workshops at Esalen
Institute, but it opened many doors of perception for me about what "the
internal" is. Al represents the
best of New Age tai chi—focused on personal and consciousness development,
teaching how to attune our bodies and minds to the flow of life. My only chance to experience him in person
was, while injured and on crutches, sitting in on a one-day workshop at
Vancouver's Cold Mountain Institute back in 1976, and attending his free-form
tai chi performance at the QE Theatre with flutist Paul Horn the next year. Some Tai Chi Chuan
traditionalists and martial types may turn up their noses at Al's 'essence
tai chi', but watching this clip verifies that he can reel silk with the best of
them. While by no means preoccupied with
self-defence, he does teach how to deal with conflict of all sorts—in ways
far more imaginative and effective than simply inflicting damage. His
artistic and philosophical distillation of Taoism also resonates with social and environmental changes we need
to make today in our communities and across the planet. Al is founder of the Living Tao Foundation.
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Robert Smith and Cheng
Man-Ching
 As
with so many North American internal martial artists, my introduction to
the IMAs in the seventies came via the books of Robert Smith, like Asian Fighting Arts, Chinese Boxing, and his books on Tai
Chi (taiji), Pa Kua (bagua) and Hsing-I (xingyi), the three main internal systems of kung-fu. A
recurring giant figure in Smith's writing was "The
Professor"—Master Cheng Man-Ching (Zheng Manqing),
who was one of the first Tai Chi masters to teach in North America. Not incidentally, he was also one of the
primary teachers of my teacher Tchoung Ta-Tchen when they were both in Taiwan. This fascinating
clip features both Smith and Cheng
Man-Ching in an excerpt from an interesting but uneven A&E documentary on
the martial arts.
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The Essence of Bagua
 Good
simple clips that convey the basic principles in clear ways are hard to
find. This one features
martial arts superstar Jet Li, excerpting segments from one of the only
movies that features Bagua, The One. It also integrates clips from The Avatar
animated series which modeled some characters on bagua. There's not much internal content here, and
the choreography combines gymnastic Wushu bagua with Hollywood Shaolin. But however exaggerated, it does convey the
spiral flows that Bagua works with—similar to, but
different from tai chi's circularity.
If tai chi is the bouncing ball, bagua is
the spinning ball. If tai chi is the
cloud, bagua is the tornado. If tai chi is based in its stillness of stance,
bagua expresses stillness in stepping.
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Dr. John Painter: Doing it from Inside
 Energetic
forms are great, but the 'swimming body' of traditional baguazhang
is known mainly for a more subtle grace and effortless power. Power in internal martial arts tends to be
expressed in waves and pulses—initiated in the mind, rippling through the
body, but tuned in to (and drawing energy from) flows in the surrounding
environment. Visualization is a useful
tool in developing sensitivity to, and harmonization with, all these
flows. Dr. Painter's workshops are
packed with hints on how to do amazing things without physical effort simply
by combining intention, attention, relaxation and alignment. Jiulong
Bagua focuses just as much on exercising the
mind—to create patterns in the brain and nervous system called 'engrams'—as
training the body.
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Pride's Deadly Fury
 An icon of
the North American bagua subculture is the Chinese
chop-socky flick Pride's Deadly Fury (aka: The Honor of Dongfang Xu), mainly because it's one of the only films to
feature bagua.
It has circulated in both dubbed and subtitled versions, but few
western bagua players who have seen or heard about
the film know much about its background or cast. In China it was known as Wu Lin Zhi and was one of
the most  popular films of mid-80s China, receiving a
Chinese National Award for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading
Role" while being selected as the "Motion Picture of the Year"
by the Chinese Ministry of Culture in 1983.
It's male lead was Li Jun Feng (left), a real-life
teacher of the adolescent Jet Li.
Master Li was Head Coach of the famous Beijing Martial Arts Team and
then of China's National Martial Arts Team.
Many of China's most outstanding and influential martial artists also
had roles in the film. As with most
chop-socky movies, the fighting is hardly
realistic. But some of the
demonstrations and fight scenes do feature the coiling evasive bagua moves, and it's great fun to see dramatic
representation of some of bagua's training methods like circle-walking and post
training. The film’s nationalistic
plot was reprised in the later Jet Li film, Fearless.
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Ge Chunyan
 One of
the outstanding martial artists in Pride's Deadly Fury (PDF) was Ge Chun Yan,
who has been referred to as the female Jet Li.  Like Jet
(then Li Lianjie), she trained with the Beijing Wushu Team, and along with Jet, represented China as part
of the wushu squad that made cultural and diplomatic
history by visiting the US in 1974.
The Chinese Wushu team's tour of four US
cities was a followup to the 'ping-pong diplomacy'
that broke the long (mainly) Cold War between China and the US. Chunyan
eventually became a multiple national women's wushu
and bagua champion, eventually becoming Coach of
the national team. She now teaches in
Singapore. Here's another clip from Prides
Deadly Fury with Ge Chunyan in the grey jacket. Also click on the pictures above.
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Morihei Ueshiba
The writings and teachings
of Aikido have been powerful influences on many of us in  internal
martial arts. It’s not a system of
Chinese boxing, but a subtle Japanese art of grappling, throws and
locks. Its founder Morihei Ueshiba is a modern figure who distilled
traditional wisdom into a radically nonaggressive but fantastically skilled
martial art. Its non-egoistic
philosophy of harmony has influenced many outside the martial arts—e.g. green
energy analyst Amory Lovins who has called for an
“aikido strategy” of social and economic change: gentle redirection of the
system's momentum in a constructive way.
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Yiquan
and Standing Meditation
 Internal
Stillness is the core of any IMA, and no style of Chinese kung-fu is more
known for its uncompromising pursuit of stillness than Yiquan
(or I Chuan), meaning ‘Mind Fist’ or Mind
Boxing. It is a radically mental form
of Xingyi (or Hsing-I,
‘Form of Mind’ fist—one of the three main internal styles, along with Tai Chi
and Bagua). Yiquan’s founder Wang Xiangzhai made students spend most of their training time
standing still in one place. As
fighters, he and his students were unbeatable for a long stretch of the 30s
in Shanghai and later in Beijing.
After the revolution of 1949, standing meditation, or Zhan Zhuang,
became an increasingly respected  form of healing and health
building. It has long been employed in
many internal systems, but Yiquan catalyzed a
renaissance of the internal—reminding many martial arts of some of their most
powerful sources and potentials. One
only needs to experiment with standing for a few weeks to verify the powerful
effects it can have on body and mind.
It encourages the use of ‘whole body power’ and tuning into subtle
flows one might never otherwise notice.
Despite the simplicity and apparent passivity of its practices, it
opens up new worlds of intention and awareness—which are eventually expressed
in movement. Today Yiquan
and zhan zhang are
growing rapidly in popularity—as forms of both qigong (chi kung) and self-defence. Many
tai chi and bagua practitioners are also
spearheading a revival of standing meditation within their own disciplines
for martial, health and spiritual purposes.
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Circle-Walking
 While
the Long Form is the central training practice of tai chi, ‘walking the
circle’ is the core of baguazhang, the Eight
Trigrams Palm—reputedly the martial art most based on the I Ching (Yijing), the Taoist Book of Changes. As a fighting art, this is because bagua focuses on constant and surprising changes in
direction and  on
getting around behind opponents.
Energetically, it cultivates a certain kind of sensing and attunement to natural flows. While bagua is
known for its practicality, especially for bodyguards who often encounter
multiple opponents, some feel bagua's ultimate
roots are in the meditative circle-walking of Taoist monks. Many bagua
systems utilize standing meditation, but circle-walking in fixed postures is
in itself a powerful form of zhan zhuang with many martial, health and spiritual
benefits. Such walking can tap into
similar energies as those of the Whirling Dervishes of
Rumi's Mevlevi Sufi order.
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Push Hands
 Most
of the internal styles of Chinese boxing have their versions of Push Hands, a partner exercise geared to developing
sensitivity and flow in relationship.
Often observers or new students see only the defensive or
competitive side of this relationship.
But such partner work in training is more often utilized as
cooperative learning, with the each player acting as a form of biofeedback
for the other. One creates just enough
pressure or weight for the partner to feel how to best channel or redirect
this pressure with a relaxed whole body unity. Until one develops some skill in doing
this, competition is usually an impediment to learning. Push hands can be a standing or moving
exercise, choreographed or improvisational.
Besides clicking on the pictures, check out these varieties of push
hands in tai chi, bagua
and yiquan.
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George Leonard: Mastery
in an Age of Transformation
 In
1974, I stumbled onto Leonard's 1972 book, The Transformation: A Guide to the Inevitable
Changes in Humankind, and was stunned with its visionary
articulation of the relationship of evolutionary, political-economic and
personal change. Since then, his  books—including
The Silent Pulse, Education and Ecstasy, The Ultimate Athlete, The End of Sex, The Way
of Aikido and Mastery—have
been very influential on my thinking—even when I didn't completely agree with
him. He was rare in combining the
macro and micro in a strikingly clear yet subtle way—a way that was also
quite lyrical. Far more than an astute observer of our times, he provided
practical principles and techniques (many derived from Aikido) for real
change. He was President Emeritus of Esalen
Institute and a founder of Aikido of
Tamalpais. Leonard, who passed
away in January 2010, was a true renaissance man. His writings, among other things, leaves a
legacy that will continue to inspire many who seek to explore the
transformative potential of the martial arts.
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The
Essence of Martial Arts in the Tao of History
The martial arts need to
change—just like so many other disciplines, professions, philosophies,
priorities and pastimes in this time of social and environmental crisis. Every kind of human activity must reconsider
its purpose. On one hand, we live in a
possibly terminal era of ecocide and deadly social conflict.  On
the other hand, the positive side, we have entered a new “axial” age based in
emerging human capacities that can (and must) become even more transformative
of human consciousness and organization than past axial revolutions (e.g. 6th
century BC). Patriarchal civilization
itself is in question. Over its
(relatively brief, several thousand year) existence, civilization made its
contributions to human development—including material accumulation, rational
science, historical consciousness, (certain kinds of) technology,
bureaucracy, and new forms of individuality and collectivity. But at its
core, civilization has been an infrastructure of domination—social,
economic, political, ecological—that has not only
reinforced elite privilege but also institutionalized a central role for
conflict in and between societies. The
martial arts have played a big role in this.
Not only have they had obvious roles in class society’s military and
police apparatus, but they’ve also been a means of reproducing civilization’s
narrow male mindsets—generating human robots conditioned for work and war in
what Mumford called the Megamachine. Sometimes,
however, the martial arts have been means of resisting domination (e.g.
Okinawan karate and the Boxer Rebellion), as well as pioneering a deeper
non-egoistic understanding of conflict, the Self and life itself.
 Today,
this deeper understanding must become a more central focus of the martial
arts if they are to avoid total decadence. The old forms of conflict and
domination are incompatible with species survival. Even the most respected
martial arts must self-reflect, distill their higher priorities, and weed out
egoistic elements—all while preserving the best of tradition, careful not to
throw out the baby with the bathwater. Over the past 7000 years, many realms
of human development in the civilized era could coexist or even grow
alongside patriarchy’s institutional violence and exploitation. But that is no longer possible. The possibility
of nuclear annihilation and ecosystem collapse demonstrate the historical
limits of domination of either people or nature. And relationships of domination are absolutely
antithetical to postindustrial productive forces
based in human and ecosystem regeneration.
The new situation in the
martial arts does not mean that the “health” dimension now takes precedence
over the “martial” dimension. But it
highlights the true higher purpose of martial arts: how to (harmoniously) deal
with conflict. Institutionalized domination must be abolished asap,
but conflict on some level will always be around. We need to know how to
accept, manage and sometimes transmute it. This is “health” in the most
holistic sense, one that doesn’t compromise the essential dimension of relationship
so central to the martial arts—something that yoga or qigong, e.g., do not
generally provide. Even the most New Agey martial arts should therefore embrace and redefine
the “martial”. What has to go is the preoccupation with dominating others or
reproducing (typically male) mentalities and identities obsessed with
competition, subservient to authority not based in understanding. The  goon
mentality of cage-fighting stands in radical contrast to what Rumi called the
“internal jihad” of self-mastery, service and holistic individuation—realms
that are (almost) intrinsic to the internal martial arts. Many martial arts, including “external”
systems, are potentially transformative in this way, so long as they are
shaped by people’s diverse needs for empowerment—which can be very different
for women, youth, different cultures, etc.
That said, the internal martial arts of China have much to offer
transformative practice through their core emphasis on perception, intention,
internal strength and balance.
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Women's Martial Arts
In today's world the blocking
of human and ecological transformation relies as much on gender role brainwashing
as on class and race division. Back in
the seventies when the old John Wayne male identity  was taking a
beating in Vietnam and white male dominance in the workforce began to erode,
Macho culture was revitalized by its racialization: via black macho and the
kung-fu boom.
Despite some of its goofy, widely-spoofed expressions, the martial
arts craze of the 70s was probably as positive as crazes get. It definitely
seemed a step toward democratizing Super-Herodom. But
today’s cage-fighting and mixed-up martial arts are a more disturbing phenomenon. They go hand-in-hand with the goonish cannon fodder
mentality of neo-colonial resource wars, anti-environmentalism, and rising authoritarian
mentalities. No search for Truth or human development here. The new brutalism
(along with obsession with competition in everything from singing to baking) reflects
the rise of a new kind of neo-fascism based in toxic individualism and knee-jerk
hostility to the common good. Is this a last gasp of the old system
threatened by new potentials for sharing, collaboration, care and
self-actualization? Or is it the beginning of a far more dispiriting terminal
stage of human (d)evolution? For transformative
martial arts, a hopeful development is the rise of women's martial arts in the last couple
decades, offering glimpses of a new
warrior mentality committed to harmony and empowerment rather than
domination. Such a movement dovetails
with the rise of athlete activism and indigenous movements that are intent on
redefining, and not simply redistributing, personal and political power.
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Internal Arts and Youth Empowerment
The ecological crisis,
created by massive waste of the earth’s resources, is inextricably connected
to  social
crisis and a parallel waste of human potential. New urban activists like Van Jones insist that
solving our environmental problems necessitates solving our social equity
problems—by empowering disenfranchised youth with green job skills. But male violence based in macho values
remains one of the biggest impediments to true community spirit in the
cities. In this context, internal
martial arts hold great promise to complement green enterprise creation for youth
empowerment. They can not only provide
images of strength based in harmony rather than domination, but they can
provide actual skills to deal with conflict constructively. The diversity of martial arts is more than
matched by the diversity of people involved in these arts, and a new breed of
martial arts teacher seems to be emerging in many cities. These clips are of NYC’s Roberto Sharpe.
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Internal
Strength: Jin versus Li?
Internal Martial Arts are all about developing “jin”
(or internal strength) rather than “li” (physical or muscular strength). Super-slow movement or standing in place
are examples of strategies to cultivate the jin that is  sometimes referred to as Whole Body Power. But are li
and jin
at odds with each other? Lifting
weights is typically thought of as means for developing physical power, which
is healthy but tends to be more fragmented and localized than jin, and can
sometimes contribute to energy blockages.
In recent years, however, western health and fitness innovators have
increasingly recognized “high-intensity” exercise—including slow-motion weight training—as a “smart”  trigger for building and maintaining
human health. While debate continues
to rage about whether slow or fast lifting creates greater physical strength
and muscle mass, some internal artists have found ways that conscious relaxed
slow lifting can help build internal strength in ways similar to that of Zhan Zhuang standing meditation
or super-slow circle walking. The key
is that the stresses created by the weight are absorbed as much as possible
by the whole body simultaneously, not simply the arms or legs. This requires deep relaxed breathing (but
not overbreathing) and doing the movement evenly
with perfect form. This is coupled
with a bigger role for the mind and intention—aided, for example, through
visualizations like spheres, bows, centring, and “expansive
strength” used in the internal arts.
While this kind of weight-training cannot fully substitute for Zhan Zhuang,
it can, if done properly, be another tool to contribute to jin and li simultaneously.
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Links
Tai Chi Resources, Cecil C.C. Toronto
Jiulong Bagua Toronto
Nine Dragon Baguazhang,
Arlington Texas (Dr. John Painter)
Kam To Tai Chi Chuan
Assn., Vancouver
Wikipedia on Tchoung Ta-Tchen
Nova
Scotia Institute of Kung-fu and Tai Chi (Yau-Sun Tong)
Tai Chi &
Meditation Centre, Toronto (Andy James)
www.taiji-dao.com, Toronto (Donna
Oliver)
Sam Masich
Internal Arts
Xin Qi
Shen, Seattle (Andrew Dale)
SYL Wushu Taiji Qigong Institute,
Vancouver (Shou-yu Liang)
Pa Kua
Chang Journal
Living Tao Foundation
(Chung-Liang Al Huang)
Cheng Hsin
(Peter Ralston)
Energy Arts (Bruce ‘Kumar’ Frantzis)
Rising Sun School of Taiji, Toronto (Paul McCaughey)
Tai Chi Arts & Science (Robert Chuckrow)
Jarek's
Chinese Martial Arts Pages
Canadian Taijiquan Federation
The Pa Kua Chang of Lu Shui-Tien (Park
Bok Nam)
Consciousness
& the Martial Arts: In conversation with George Leonard
Karel Koskuba,
"Yiquan—the Power of Mind"
Karel Koskuba,
"Zhan Zhuang—the foundation of Internal Martial Arts"
 
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Morris,
Maria 
