This is kung fu

Amorphous thoughts swirl,  

Each infinitesimal, profound, 

A grain of sand trapped, 

In a summer dust devil,

Purveyor of nature's casual malevolence. 

Stings come thick and fast,

From without and within.

In a maelstrom of confusion, chaos rules, 

Listless guilt feeds impotent rage.

The narcissistic pulls of a million dipoles,

Do paralyze the iron's will.

Mad energy SCREAMS for a method!

Somewhere in the darkness, a spark,

A notion of a beginning,

The beginning of a notion.

A concert of digits, of body and mind,

Stars and bones align,

Simplicity is expressed in earnest.

The first wave breaks against the rocks.

Then another, and another,

Relentless rhythm distills intent,

The spark is an inferno.

Rock must wither, its faults revealed,

Darkness must recede.

The storm's violence belies

The stillness of its core.

Peace and perspicuity abide

At the point of the closed fist.

And this is its way,

The way of time, and mindful effort.

This is kung fu.

Kung fu forms as moving meditation

I've always been aware that kung fu forms are very complex and dense in content and not just in terms of the variety and sequence of moves. In performing these forms, one works on breathing, strength, coordination, mental focus, balance, footwork, power…  As a beginner, I was overwhelmed just thinking about all this. So I took my teacher's advice and began to practice the forms over and over again, but focusing on a different aspect each time. And, that approach helped me make significant progress. But now I understand how interdependent these aspects of kung fu are… for example, power cannot be expressed without good balance and footing, nor can it be used effectively without fluidity and good structure. So, clearly, at some point, it's necessary to synthesize all the different lessons.

How can I practice my forms with speed, power, coordination, fluidity, balance etc all at once? I know what doesn't work… I cannot hope to achieve any success by using a linear, checklist-like thought process.  Tried it, found out just how miserably it fails. Rather than improving my kung fu, it left me scatterbrained and made my movement chaotic. And then it hit me that I should have seen it coming… I'd tried the checklist approach elsewhere and learned just how badly it fails. It had happened while sparring… I'd gotten so focused listing possibilities in my mind, I got clobbered.

Thinking about sparring, I realized I also already knew the right answer. On just a few occasions, I'd managed to be fully alert without being tense. I wasn't actually thinking at all in the usual way… I would simply observe my opponent and respond. When I say observe, I don't just mean visually either… it was an odd synthesis of sensory information. Did I know about the incoming punch because I saw the arm move or because I heard my opponent's foot shift or because his facial expression changed? I couldn't tell you. I just knew the punch was happening. And my response happened similarly too… I didn't really consider a number of options before selecting and employing one… my arms just sort of went where they needed to go. I should try to achieve the same mindset while practicing my forms. Attain a state of calm alertness where I'd be able to identify and correct my technique on the fly without getting bogged down. In fact, one could argue that a major objective of practicing forms is really to achieve such a mindset which can then be applied elsewhere whether it is combat or some other situation. In fact, done this way, even a pre-defined form would transcend to honest self-expression. In this sense, the practice of forms could very well be thought of as a moving meditation where one trains to settle the mind.

At the minimum, such practice of forms should be effective training for martial applications but going beyond that, such training obviates the need for physical conflict as a means of gaining insights.

Wu Wei: As Applied to Breathing

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from gung fu (and subsequently tai chi and yoga) is how to breathe effectively. I’ve learned that, for an effective inhalation, I must use my abdominal and intercostal muscles in sequence to expand the abdomen and the chest while maintaining a steady, even flow of air – like sipping tea as one of my teachers put it. And to exhale, the sequence is simply reversed, slowly and steadily collapsing first the chest and then the abdomen. This way, every breath is both effective and efficient.

Over the past year or so, a major focus of my gung fu practice has been to coordinate my breathing with my movements. I started out with the simple view that one exhales when exerting force. The first challenge to this view came during tai chi – I was simply told to breathe naturally and not worry about holding to one inhalation / exhalation per move. And yoga added to my confusion… suddenly I was learning to inhale while exerting force. This seemed to immensely benefit my flexibility and looseness. And, when I thought about it, it made sense too… one could inhale to expand and exhale to contract. So, now I thought there were two ‘right’ ways to breathe. I figured, to focus on power, which is hard, exhale when exerting force and to focus on flexibility, which is soft, inhale while expanding or exerting. But then I began to wonder how I might find both hard and soft within each move. If, say Hung Gar, as a style, combined both hard and soft, I reasoned that at some level, each technique had to have some components of both hard and soft as well. Indeed, when I attended a tai chi seminar in Salt Lake a few months ago, the teacher said as much and encouraged participants to work on finding various combinations of breath and action that flowed together. Then it began to dawn on me that there wasn’t going to be one or two simple correlations between breath and movement. For instance, how I breathe while using an overhead tigerclaw block would depend on how hard or soft I want the contact to be, how I want to bridge with the incoming strike. While this helped me understand the overall concept, it left me with one huge question. How exactly do I apply this in practice? And then, a few weeks ago, I started learning Wing Chun. While I’ve barely gotten started with the style, I nonetheless noticed immediately the emphasis on breathing naturally. 

This morning, as I was practicing my tai chi, I was focused on keeping my movements slow and smooth and forgot about my breathing. Part way through the form I noticed that I was breathing slow, deep and steady but not holding to any set pattern such as one breath per movement. Whatever I was doing, seemed to help me move better but I still don’t understand exactly what I was doing. So, now I have to try and repeat this in order to figure it out a bit better. But such is the way of gung fu I guess… I’ve found next question and once I have some sort of handle on this, I’ll have more questions still. It’s never going to get boring.

Simple ≠ Easy

Keep it simple, one is often told. Sound advice, even sounds like it ought to be easy to practice. But, what is simplicity? Is it the absence of complexity? Or is it economy of effort? I find my practice of gung fu and my recent efforts to learn to swim driving me to reexamine my understanding of the nature of simplicity. I recently watched an interview with origami grandmaster, Sensei Yoshizawa Akira where he talked about simplicity. Paraphrasing his words, there is a simplicity to the efforts of the novice, but it is dictated by his/her limited knowledge/skill. The efforts of a more skilled practitioner are characterized by complexity and variety of technique. But as one progresses further in one's practice of the art one develops fluency in the technique and the ability to truly and honestly express oneself. And, in so doing, one returns to simplicity. Only this simplicity arises out of skill and understanding, rather than being imposed by the inadequacy of either. He could have been talking about gung fu or cooking or any practice for that matter. Well, that's what gung fu is, the dedication of one's time and efforts to the pursuit of ideals in one's practice, whatever that practice might be. And, simplicity is an ideal well worth pursuing.

Some thoughts from Aikido practice

During Aikido practice the other night, Sensei spoke of separating the opponent’s mind and body. As I reflected upon this concept, my mind returned to the gung fu principle of wu wei. I realized that separating the opponent’s mind and body can be a practical realization of wu wei as applied to combat. This is how I understand this idea:

Fundamentally, one must act naturally or spontaneously. With respect to combat, this means that one’s actions are simply a natural response to the opponent’s actions. When an opponent chooses to act, he skews the distribution of his attention, strength and balance in the direction of his intent. Thus, unilateral action compromises the opponent’s grasp over the situation – this is not to be misunderstood to mean that the control has by default passed to the other party, i.e. oneself. Rather the opponent has simply allowed one an opportunity to alter the situation. It is this capacity that one acts – simply doing what the situation necessitates rather than trying to force the situation to fit the mold created by one’s sense of self. In practical terms, one can achieve this by taking advantage of the skew in the opponent’s attention, strength and balance.

Movement relative to the opponent can realign one away from the opponent’s strength and balance. Thinking about how such movement can be achieved leads me to the concept of fluidity and back to the notion of wu wei. The goal of one’s movement must be to complement and complete the opponent’s structure and force. One’s actions must be a spontaneous response to the situation created by the opponent’s intent, or in other words one must be like a fluid and take the shape that is dictated by the vessel that is the opponent’s rigid intent.

Once in appropriate position, one can neutralize the opponent’s intent by applying a force to complementary that generated by the opponent thereby separating his strength from his balance rather than by simply trying to overwhelm it.

Aikido aims to achieve this goal in its most philosophically and practically pure form, disrupting the opponent’s balance and thereby breaking his control over his own strength. This is achieved by connecting with the opponent either physically (joint locking etc) or mentally (for instance, by inducing a sense of impending physical contact). Disruption of balance leads to loss of positional and kinesthetic awareness, allowing one an opportunity to apply a small force to complement the opponent’s force and direct the opponent’s center of mass in a safe direction.

Hung Gar offers the possibility of achieving a similar outcome through striking with the intent of disrupting balance, disrupting the mind through pain or by directly disrupting strength by causing damage to the body.

While some of these approaches may lack somewhat in elegance and refinement compared to others, they also offer viable alternatives which may be necessitated given the limitations of one’s skill. Also, with the same limitations of skill in mind, I do think that a fundamental intent is still necessary to the extent of deciding the level of violence necessary – in other words, the response must be proportional to the threat.

Regardless of the specific approach one takes, it is important to extend one’s thinking beyond unilateral action, beyond victory and defeat and to endeavor simply to respond to a situation and prevail through it.

Wei Wu Wei - Action without action

‘Wu wei’, which roughly translates to ‘spontaneous/natural action’, is a Taoist concept applicable to the martial arts. The idea is for the martial artist to neither act nor remain passive, for these are both unilateral; both are states of inertia. He remains free from inertia in his interaction with the universe – which is represented by the opponent – and restores balance with minimal expenditure of energy. He forces neither action nor inaction, he neither attacks nor defends, he is neither protagonist nor antagonist. He rises above and beyond being a party to any conflict, and simply prevails through them. The opponent’s force which disturbs balance/oneness is countered with a smaller force that complements, rather than opposes it.

To achieve ‘wu wei’, the martial artist must first look inward and quell the fluctuations within. He must achieve a state of calm hyper-awareness where he is keenly attuned to all his senses. In this state of mind, he is also able to rapidly process sensory information and make decisions. The key to speeding up the thought process is to adopt a non-linear approach that utilizes the pattern recognition and predictive functions of the neocortex. The subjective experience of such a mental state may be perceived as a slowing down of time and it is absolutely vital to ‘wu wei’. In short, he must be like still water, reflecting his opponent’s weaknesses and letting him defeat himself.

His attacks find his opponent’s vulnerabilities because they are simply a response to the existence of an opening. This is what Bruce Lee referred to when he talked about his ‘fist striking on its own’ and what Miyamoto Musashi called the ‘strike of non-thought’. Likewise, wu wei allows the martial artist to avoid and deflect his opponent’s attacks and frustrate him at every turn. Thereby, he is able to turn his opponent against himself in both mind and body and ultimately dissipate his very will to fight. At this level, the martial arts become, to use Bruce Lee’s words, a means of ‘honest self-expression’ and transcend from a fighting art to a path to self-realization.

However, honestly expression requires intense introspection and deep knowledge of the self. He must shed all that is unnecessary – reducing himself, body and mind, in the crucible of training to the solid core of his being. While he must constantly strive for improvement, he must do so without being at conflict with himself – in short, he must accept his nature and his humanity. He must be comfortable in the knowledge that the ideal will always remain beyond his grasp. Such realization will bring lasting peace. And, it is this inner calm, rather than aggression, that brings clarity of expression and the ability to prevail.

In achieving such growth, the martial artist surpasses action and reaction, attack and defense, indeed, all limitations. And he no longer limits himself to a style or even to action that is only physical. He applies himself as necessary to the situation at hand, be it through thought, word or deed. His goal is beyond even victory. In a way, he becomes the eternal, the intangible, his ‘self’ no longer a party to any conflict. The opponent is then reduced to a helpless hand swatting at thin air. Such is the method of ‘wei wu wei’.

A Question of Balance

What follows is an attempt to crystallize some thoughts I’ve had with regard to my pursuit of gung fu. The words gung fu translate to ‘time and hard work’ and it is my understanding that the development of martial skill happens as much in the mind as in the body, if not more so. Developing skill demands not just constant training but constantly evolving training.

In martial arts, as in all things, one must strive constantly for balance. The first step in seeking balance is identifying the antagonistic elements that compose the equation. In doing this one is forced to examine oneself in the blinding light of honest introspection.

In order to be effective, training must hone one’s body and mind into an effective tool. One must train the body to maximize agility, speed, balance and efficiency of motion and the mind to develop sharper perception, thorough situational awareness and stillness of thought. The key is to balance the hard elements within gung fu forms with the soft, the external with the internal.

In a sense, one could think of the body as a tool to develop and transmit force, into the earth for movement or into the opponent. Hence, training must be balanced between developing form and fitness. In fitness training one must balance strength and power with speed and flexibility. While working on form one must balance the various elements: stability, balance, breathing, power, speed, fluidity. Even within the context of a single move, one must balance tension and relaxation just as one must balance following the traditional form with improvisation.

The true martial artist does not start fights but finishes them. While he must avoid being the instigator/aggressor, he must possess the fortitude to prevail should conflict be forced upon him. Even so, the martial artist must measure his response, balancing concern for his own well being with concern for his opponent’s well being. Where he must be gentle in dealing with an errant act of rowdiness, he must be able to act with unbridled violence when such action is called for.

Although the martial artist must possess the capacity for violence, it is vital that he use the right motivations to propel him in a conflict. Aggression, while untamed, must be free of anger and malice and should be expressed through one’s instincts and reasoning skills rather than as an emotional outburst. In this way, one remains in control of oneself and is best able to avoid unintended damage to all parties involved in the conflict as well as to bystanders.