I’ll be teaching at a BJJ camp in North Wales this November — come roll with me in the scenic land of sheep, hills, and armbars! It’s basically a wellness retreat… if your idea of wellness includes being choked by strangers. Book your spot before someone heel-hooks it out from under you!
One of the things that martial arts training should give you, over the years, is better self control. At least in theory. You see some higher ranked people and it’s clear that it doesn’t always work out that way, but that’s the plan, at least in theory.
I’m a bit fan of Japanese martial arts expert Ellis Amdur who wrote the excellent book Hidden in Plain Sight about Aikido. That’s not the only book he’s written of course, and I really should try to read some of his others, but he’s done a lot of work in the fields of mental health and dealing with conflict resolution in a professional capacity. He made a recent short video, on the use of the word “triggered”, his point is that how we define or label something becomes your reality. If you define yourself as triggered by something, then you are saying that you have no control over the situation. You are, in effect, helpless. But if you redefine how something makes you feel, using a different word then you can define yourself as having agency, and that is the kind of training that martial arts can give you. I kind of agree, but not entirely*.
As Viktor E. Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” I think martial arts training should be a way to get used to stressful situations so you can more easily inhabit that space.
Of course, you need to be engaging in practices that take you out of your comfort zone to get these benefits. Most of the time being outside your comfort zone is not where you want to be but with repeated exposure to the discomfort of being pinned, attacked, thrown, etc, you can start to take these things less heavily, and you can learn to play within the spaces that appear once you stop panicking.
*I’d counter argue the point that Ellis is making – just because you say you are triggered by something that doesn’t necessarily imply action. Ellis equates the word trigger to imply a gun, and once a gun has been shot it can’t be un-fired. Well, maybe, but “triggered” could also just mean the state of readiness you are in to fire a gun – you still have that moment to take your finger off the trigger.
There’s a risk of being lost in semantics here, so let’s not lose sight of the whole thing – the point is, finding that moment of freedom and growth between stimulus and response and learning to live in it. Now that is one of the real benefits of martial arts.
I’m thinking again about my theme for the last couple of posts, the subject of myth busting and how it can lead to disillusionment in martial arts.
Essentially the question I grapple with is: How do we make martial arts better without all the bullshit?
One guy who is doing a lot to change things in martial arts – specifically in his area, which is BJJ, but I don’t think it takes much to apply it to a wider context – is Priit Mihkelson. In this lecture he gives one possible version of what this “how to make martial arts better without the bullshit” might look like.
Perhaps the specific things he’s talking about don’t relate to your particular martial art, but it’s the thinking behind it I like. It feels progressive, scientific, hopeful and perhaps a glimpse of a better future for martial arts: training methods based on progressive resistance, feedback and success, rather than failure.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
My post the other day about sinking in Taijiquan seems to have hit the right note, judging by how many shares it got on Facebook, so I thought I should also talk about its opposite – lightness.
Lightness is an equally important quality in Taijiquan. The Yang to the Yin of sinking.
One of the contradictions of Tai Chi is that you are required to sink and be light at the same time. It’s not meant to be some sort of Zen Koan, like “imagine the sound of one hand clapping”. Instead, it’s meant to be the way you carry yourself in the form, in push hands and in sparring. These two qualities are a pair that work together, mutually supporting each other.
If you look at the classics of Tai Chi there are frequent references to being light, nimble and agile.
For example,
The Tai Chi Classic:
“In motion the whole body should be light and agile,
with all parts of the body linked
as if threaded together.”
The Treatise on Tai Chi:
“A feather cannot be placed,
and a fly cannot alight
on any part of the body.”
From The Exposition of Insights:
“When the ching shen is raised,
there is no fault of stagnancy and heaviness.
This is called suspending the headtop.”
and
“Walk like a cat.”
From Song of the 13 postures:
“To make the whole body light and agile suspend the headtop.”
Yang Cheng Fu – light and nimble, even for a big man.
There are various clues here as to how lightness is performed in Tai Chi Chuan. The first thing to note is that there’s a lot of reference to ‘suspending the headtop’. Here the classics are referring to keeping your head upright and not leaning, and the feeling of being suspended from the crown point at all times.
The crown point is where the fingertips of your index fingers meet if you put your thumbs on top of your ears and try and touch your index fingers together over the top of your head.
Your body should be organised as if it is suspended from this point. It’s the point that medical skeletons are suspended from, which indicates how it aligns the spine nicely. E.g.
The crown point is actually a lot further back on the head than most people think it is. When you try and suspend the head from a point further forward on the skull (as most people instinctively do) then you end up lifting the face, shortening the neck and making the chin jut forward. This is wrong and will make your movement worse.
Done correctly, ‘suspended the head’ should result in the chin being tucking in slightly, and the neck lengthening. But again, don’t use force to achieve this. Find your balance in nature. If you hit on the correct point to suspend from, then everything will just slot into place and feel good.
The correct alignment of the head will free up the spine to move, and hey, guess what – your movements can be lighter and more agile.
Combined with the previous advice on sinking, the upward pull on the spine that correct head position will create acts as a counterpoint to the relaxing downwards and your connection to the earth. The feeling is that you’re being lifted slightly and pulled down slightly simultaneously as you perform the form.
Another thing to note is your stepping. There are various exercises in Chinese martial arts for making your stepping light and agile – some people practice on wooden poles raised above the ground, others stepping between terracotta plant pots. All these exercises are designed to make your stepping light.
My own teacher recommended the use of ankle weights. You alternated between periods of wearing the ankle weights during the form only, and taking them off to do the form, so you wore them at all other times of the day.
This required a big commitment, and I used to get some funny looks at work(!) but the resultant lightness of stepping made a difference to my movement and my form.
It should also be noted that lightness refers also to your attitude to practice. Tai Chi shouldn’t feel like drudgery. When you go outside to practice put a spring in your step. You’re spending time in nature doing something you enjoy. There’s no need to drag your feet.
Look at animals in nature for inspiration.
Walk lightly, smile brightly.
Photo by Spencer Selover on Pexels.com
There’s always that moment after we bow out. After we shake hands. After the sparring where we’ve played at killing each other until one of us taps. After we’ve collapsed exhausted at the merciful interjection of the buzzer. When we’re letting the body catch up with itself. Stream rising and puddles of sweat appearing. Hard stares into the blue vinyl, waiting for the breath to return.
I look around the emptying mats, still glistening with sweat. I see the people getting changed, leaving, ready to get on with their day.
But some remain. Now the work is done the defences can come down. The body relaxes and we can reflect. People get philosophical and start asking the big questions. Questions like, ‘Why do you do this?’
“I see it as a form of self defence,” says Mike. “I don’t want to miss a single class because I might miss that one technique that saves me in a real fight”. He goes on to talk about all the ways that self defence is important to him and how it could save his life. Or maybe the life of his wife and child. How it could be the most important thing he ever learns.
Mike looks at me, wordlessly, expecting me to contribute my own details and honorable reasons for studying the noble art for so long. For so many years. Pushing myself. Accumulating techniques and polishing them until they work under the worst sort of pressure. Finally earning a black belt, yet not stopping there. Still continuing.
I stand up and head to the changing room.
“I just like to fight”.
The question above is my one-line distillation of the abstract provided by Douglas Farrier for his article called “Captivation, false connection and secret societies in Singapore“, which appears in the journal Martial Arts Studies. You can download the PDF of the article from that link.
The simple question, “are forms any use for fighting?” is one that will plague Chinese Martial Arts until the end of time. In true academic style, this article “adds to the conversation”, plus it’s got some great stories in there of traditional Choy Lee Fut training. In fact, the one time I met D. Farrier he was telling the exact story that is in this article. I asked him at the time what “the face” was. He gave me a serious look and said “I’ll have to show you later”. Our group split in different directions and he didn’t in the end. After reading the article I’m kind of glad about that…
(Don’t be put off that it’s in an academic journal as it’s not written in academic language, and is quite readable 🙂 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrAJfwzGqOY
As Winter draws to a close here’s a little clip I recorded as the UK was getting battered by storms – some branches had come down in the garden so I used them as improv training tools! Clip is a mix of Choy Lee Fut, Tai Chi and a splash of XingYi.
Hope you enjoy – let me know in the comments!
The Tai Chi Notebook 