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Taking good advice to heart: ‘You will know when you practice.’
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FOR this special issue, Shanghai Daily interviewed a dozen Chinese martial artists, who all said something to the effect that “you will know when you practice.”
As a reporter not schooled in martial arts, I didn’t have any particular knowledge about kung fu. I found the concepts hard to grasp and much of the jargon hard to understand.
Taking the advice of the masters, I decided to practice so that I would know. I chose as my mentor a man who has been practicing kung fu for several decades.
With his help, I practiced tai chi and Xin Yi Liu He, or “heart consciousness in six harmonious styles.” I did two hours every morning for three weeks, and an hour every other day for another two weeks.
At the beginning, it’s easy to be overwhelmed and filled with curiosity. Can one really cultivate neigong (内功), the mysterious internal force? How does one effectively fight with such structured, strange moves? Can one really take on an opponent who is stronger? Why are there so many variations of the same moves?
Many martial arts novels and movies promote the idea that neigong is to help one exert more external power, and to benefit one’s health. Grandmasters in novels and movies often die when their internal power is reduced to zero.
My “master,” who is now in his mid-60s, doesn’t strike much of a heroic pose. He is not athletically built and has a slightly large belly.
“Do you have neigong?” I asked him.
“Let me show you,” he replied. “I won’t hit you hard.”
He lightly punched my right arm like a boxer might do. It did hurt, but not much.
“This time, I will not make the same move, but I will apply about the same amount of force,” he said, laying his palm on my other arm.
I felt a bursting pain in my chest, which pushed me back for two steps before I could rebalance myself, but I felt nothing on my arm.
“That’s what I call the internal force, be it neigong or not,” he said. “You will feel it if you are smart and practice enough.”
So, I diligently practiced. From day one, I never felt so clumsy or stupid. My body didn’t listen to my brain, and my brain didn’t understand what my body was doing. “Shoulders down, head straight, and relax,” my mentor said.
Then he pushed me backward a bit. “You have no strength,” he complained. “Relax, but don’t be at complete ease. You must not be pushed back by me.”
I tried again but failed. It doesn’t make sense, I told myself, to apply strength and relax at the same time.
“Don’t think about it,” my mentor said, sensing my rising frustration. “You get stiff when you try to apply force, and that hinders your strength. Just relax!”
He adjusted my shoulder and head. I felt no strength anymore. Then he pushed me again. This time, I stood my ground. Small victory at last!
“Your entire body is like an inflated balloon when you fulfill the key requirements,” he explained. “When I push you, your body is naturally coordinated with the anti-force.”
Everyone is different, he said, and that has to be taken into consideration in movements. Maybe that helps explain why the legendary masters of the art modified the moves to suit their own physiques and why martial arts developed into so many different schools.
You are an inflated balloon, I kept telling myself as my training progressed. When I practiced tai chi moves, my teacher made sure no part of my body was strictly straight. There is always a curve or a circle that is required.
Then, he taught me a move, “the snake crawling out of its cave.” It requires a strange pose by which I hold out my right hand to match with the left protruding knee and foot, my waist turning left. Then I need to switch to the other side and move forward in a straight line.
“The snake twists its body, but then it forwards in a straight line,” my mentor said.
He explained the protruding hand is to protect myself from any attack, when the other hidden one hits the opponent on just above his waist, a weak spot at the ribs. Alternatively, you can push with your shoulder.
“Stop thinking about it too much,” he said. “Just practice and make sure your hand and the other foot, elbow and the other knee, shoulder and the other hip are always on the same vertical plane.”
In three days, I seemed to master the move, at least for a novice. I finally got a smile out of my mentor.
I don’t pretend that I have neigong, and I don’t know if I will ever acquire the mysterious energy, but it all started to make some sense to me. A straight line is always easy to break, which is probably why so many bridges contain arches.
When I shared these thoughts with my master, he didn’t reply but to say: “Practice!”
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