Three Treasures and Six Harmonies

In 2004, after I received my final teaching license in modern goshin-jutsu, I visited a koryū enbu, a demonstration of classical Japanese martial arts, at the St. Louis Botanical Garden. Schools such as Tenshinsho-den Katori Shinto-ryū, Shindo Muso-ryū, Araki-ryū, Toda-ha Buko-ryū, and Yagyu Shinkage-ryū were represented. Each of these seemed to have a more subtle and refined method of weapons practice than the rough and tumble practice I had been taught along side our modern jujutsu.

There, while talking with Ellis Amdur, he asked me what was next for me, since I had recently been awarded the highest rank in my current style of modern jujutsu. I told him about my desire to learn Baguazhang, and he told me he knew of teachers in Maryland – in fact, he had practiced Xingyiquan while in Japan under Su Dongchen, and was interested in its sister art of Gao Lineage Baguazhang.

Ellis introduced me to Bob Galeone, a Karate and Aikido teacher who had learned Gao Bagua from Allen Pittman and Paul Cote in the lineage of Hung Yimien, a student of Zhang Junfeng. I began training in Gao Bagua with Bob in 2004. I subsequently received feedback on my training from Paul Cote and also Su Dongchen during his Essence of Evolution seminars in Minneapolis.

Bob was a senior Aikido disciple of Kanai and Saotome and working with him has been a very important gift in two parts:

1. His own efforts to understand the implications of Bagua on his Aikido practice has helped me first understand my aiki-jujutsu was actually Aikido (conversations with Clyde Takeguchi helped inform me of the provenance of many of the techniques I knew – variants of Aikido techniques practiced by Tohei Koichi and at Iwama, dating my teacher's teacher's training to 1950's era Aikido and not a separate surviving line of aiki-jujutsu from Tanomo Saigo and others) and then allow me to begin to refine the practice into something more realistic and effective.
2. Bob also introduced me to Paul Cote's Wu Taijiquan class he was attending as well as the kenjutsu group practicing at Capital. I began learning Wu Taijiquan and the Yin and Liu Baguazhang Paul was teaching in Damascus and New Market, and eventually started going to Pittsburgh to learn Xingyiquan from Paul's teacher Zhang Yun.

I've since been working daily on the five elemental fists (wu xing quan) and three treasures (san ti shi) of Hebei xinqyiquan as taught by Shifu Zhang Yun.

San ti is the basic fighting posture of xingyi; one practice is to hold that posture for extended periods of time, taking care to set up contradictory intentions in the body – forward/back, up/down, and left/right. From my previous Gao lineage baguazhang practice, I had been exposed to a little bit about san ti. Su Dong Chen's EOE uses it as well. I had been attempting to incorporate directional training in my standing practice, but some of the internal windings I was visualizing in the body were not as efficient as what Shifu Zhang showed me.

A simple thing I noticed this morning is how easy it is to begin to lean backward as one puts more weight on the rear leg of a stance. This causes the body to naturally uproot itself. In contrast, by dropping the weight of the body, I have slowly been able to begin keeping my spine more erect as I shift my weight forward and backward in a fixed stance. This may not seem like much of an accomplishment – and in many ways it is not – but it was a big revelation for me considering I had been playing with these ideas for some time.

I've been doing a good amount of Gao bagua lately – linear (post-heaven) tactics while walking the circle, interspersed with the associated (pre-heaven) mother palm. The Gao bagua then takes on a form more similar in structure to the Yin bagua I am learning – namely, 64 changes done on the circle instead of 8 (or 10, depending on how you count) changes on the circle and 64 linear techniques. I've taken to doing one of the eight houses of Gao bagua in this fashion, and then one of the houses of Yin bagua, as part of my morning training. This way I hope to work both approaches to bagua in a balanced manner.

I enjoy the Gao bagua much more on the circle than when done linearly. One aspect of the art I continue to be troubled by is the heel-turn on the first mother palm. It is hard for me to do repeatably and reliably, without straining my joints. While it does allow for a rapid change of orientation, I wonder if I were to attempt to do so in an unscripted environment, whether I would be able to keep my balance during the maneuver. So, there still is a lot for me to work on, even after several years of practice.

Most of the locks and throws I knew from my jujutsu practice were done either in a self-defense scripted scenario against a particular grab at close range, or from a defensive block-and-counter maneuver at medium range. The self-defense escapes against various body grabs are effective and work well but I have abandoned the kempo body mechanics behind the punch responses. My reasons in doing so have to do with finding there to be numerous pauses in the applications where an opponent can change or continue to react. The assumption in our jujutsu practice was that when we would block and punch, it would stun the opponent, allowing us to follow up with a lock or throw. However, against an un-cooperating opponent, this is often difficult to manage. The good news is I have found many analogous throwing movements in the three bagua styles I practice. So, lately I have been going back to my old jujutsu practice to see how I can re-organize the curriculum of locking and throwing and hang it off of the bagua I know, instead of the kempo or karate it was originally presented as part of.

For example, consider the finishing movement from Gao's single palm change, where both arms are upraised and you step out to walk the circle again (cf. this clip of Luo De Xiu, at 0:12, 0:25, 0:42). This sequence can be used to throw an opponent back and down. It is a much more efficient application against a hook punch than what I had been shown in modern goshin-jutsu, where we would parry and then disconnect to strike in towards the chest or throat with a very strong elbow strike with the same hand, finally unfolding the forearm outwards and turning the hips to throw the opponent down. The finish was very effective, as well as the strike, but there is a large gap between the parry and strike during which an opponent remains able to change.

The more curving entry from Gao bagua looks less clear at first glance, but happens much quicker than the staccato blocking and striking movements I describe above. Even though in Gao bagua the final action is not (at least by me, at my current novice level of development) done with the same amount of momentum, it is more effective because it disorients the opponent to a greater degree. The opponent still believes he is successful in his attack, so does not think to begin to change his action until it too late. When he does, it only feeds into the technique. The curving entry itself protects you from the hook punch as you engage the opponent.

In my earlier goshin-jutsu, we had a direct version of the throw which bypassed the block – simply enter deeply with the elbow strike – but it had very little margain for error. Also, we sometimes would block, then manipulate the attacking arm around before attempting the throw – this felt more secure, but took a lot of time, and assumed the opponent would not move once engaged. The good news for me is that baguazhang winds up expressing much more smooth and direct entries into many of the finishing techniques I had been drilling for years. So, in many ways, it does not completely replace but rather amplifies and extends my previous Aikido and Kenpo practice. My skill at the jujutsu locks and throws was good enough that I do not have to go back and learn a new set of locks and throws – just work on more efficient entries to them, and continue to refine my understanding of when they are appropriate to apply and when they are not. For example, against a skilled taijiquan exponent there is nary a chance they will succeed. But that is another story.

The above technical scenario depicts a common problem in practicing martial arts. When we are simply drilling a technique, over and over again, to gain a fundamental level of skill at the approach it is teaching, by definition our partner in the exercise is allowing us to practice the technique. Otherwise we cannot learn. However, once we become facile at the technique, and can do it in that environment to great effect, it becomes important to either work the technique in a non-scripted environment (like sparring or grappling), or really vary the parameters (i.e. context) of the practice, to get a sound understanding of when the technique is valid and when it is not. As students in a particular school, we are often not allowed to vary the base parameters of our practice that define our style (e.g. in aikido, that our attacker is using shomenuchi, or that we use a sliding step on an entry, or in kempo, that we follow a particular set block and parry response). This makes it difficult to be sure that those parameters are valid assumptions. We might find a quite different reality upon assuming them in random conflict. This is a difficult issue, affecting styles with old provenance and recently-invented amalgamations alike – a subject worthy of its own post (or several): to what extent do you need to break the form in order to make what it is you are doing work? This begs another question: how well do you actually understand the form you are professing to practice?

I continued to work on refining the modern goshin-jutsu 護身術 methods I had first learned with my colleague Ben Lawner. Ben had first trained under my sempai in Florida before moving to Baltimore for his medical residency and was a rigorous training partner who had a strong distaste for what a friend calls "aiki accomodation syndrome" — training outdoors on a variety of surfaces, including Pennsylvania bluestone, did not lead us to simply take ukemi as we might have done on smooth tatami. As I introduced him to the more sophisticated tactics and body mechanics of Bagua, we pared down the curriculum we had first practiced and revised its body mechanics. The result we called Gassankan Jujutsu ( 月山館 柔術 ) — its practice was focused on grappling and goshin-jutsu. Because of its integration with and influence from Bagua, it wound up being a very fluid and spontaneous approach that preserved posture, balance, and alignment of forces inside the body. Whether striking, deflecting, locking or throwing, we strove to retain the ability to feel, move, and change.

Back to bagua. Gao bagua's 64 linear tactics themselves are a synthesis (developed in Tianjian) of bagua, xingyi, and taiji. So, in my personal practice lately I have been playing around with the idea of more directly exhibiting the xingyi and taiji I know within them. For example, when beginning in san ti, or finishing with benquan or paoquan, I have been practicing the Hebei Xingyiquan movement. I've also played with drilling the taijiquan heel kick at the end of each Gao kicking sequence before the final paoquan movement. Since I am not teaching these arts, only practicing them, I want to somehow meld a firm presentation of their skills in my body so that if I were to use them in an unscripted environment, I would have a cohesive presentation of these arts in my body. This is not entirely novel of an idea, in that the kicking series (usually the sixth house) for different lines of Gao bagua are different. In a while, I will go back to the original way I was taught of doing the sixth house of the Gao linear tactics to see if I notice any different sensations when doing them.

I continue to work on my breath and posture as part of my martial arts practice, to help develop connection between the different parts of my body. In yoga, I continue regular breathing practice to purify and energize the body – helping prepare it for meditation. I view my hatha yoga practice as a spiritual pursuit: I engage in asana (yoga posture) practice to balance out the body and bring my awareness to the way in which my breath can unify body and mind. Doing so, I am aiding the development of my Buddhist practice.

Regarding martial arts, one common refrain seen in practitioners is a quest for greater amounts of power – by this I mean psycho-spiritual willpower or strength of personality but also the more prosaic ability to move fast, be strong, and resist damage and pain. Maybe a place to begin in discussing this general topic is to consider what working definitions of strength, energy, and power are.

We notice energy not always by feeling it directly, but often visually by watching its effect and inferring its source. Often, that inference is mistaken. For example, we see someone throw someone, and when there is a big movement resulting, we instinctively believe there was a great amount of power exhibited by the thrower. Wanting to be able to do the same, we might try to get stronger by lifting weights or working on our technique. However, some displays of skill are so profound (e.g., the clips of Shioda Gozo or Wang Peisheng I have linked to before) we begin to wonder if, in a superstitious way, there is not something more involved. Having been trained in physics, I am here to tell you there is not – but that does not mean our skill at martial arts cannot further be improved.

While qi or prana figure importantly as an organizing metaphor in both Taoist ideas of transformation and healing, as well as Tantric practices of transformation and self-realization, one does not in any of these traditions look upon the ability to use prana or qi in external ways as the beginning motivation for or end goal of one's practice. When we practice breath work, we develop certain internal sensations of energy moving through our bodies. If we assume that energy can manifest itself external to our selves – rather than just being our own physical sensations of cultivating circulation of the blood, enervation of the nerves, and pressure and stretching and conditioning of the body – we will direct our focus and intention outward instead of developing an inner awareness of force and structure. We need to develop an ability to listen to our bodies so we may improve our ability to experience those sensations. In doing so, we can make our body more and more integrated and connected. We are then able to exhibit more efficient posture, relaxed movement, and skillful absorption and discharge of force. But that force is entirely physical – the product of an increased integration of body and mind.

The required method of development in this area is quite foreign to many martial artists. It involves an inner awareness and slow and steady training of the body to perceive the forces acting on it. One hopes to gain the ability to convey forces through the body's structure in a very efficient manner. To do so, we must also define and improve this structure. This is far from blind extension or contraction of a single muscle or muscle group. It is also far from simply coordinated movement of the body, although a great deal of coordination is required. Merely recruiting more joints and muscles into a movement does not allow one to reproduce the higher levels of internal skill in martial arts. That is the start, not the finish. Rather, we need to replace our original instincts about how we stabilize the body, how we respond to, and how we generate, force. A great deal of the effort involved is dealing with the nervous system – how the reflexes of the body work when the body is enervated and when relaxed. Qi, if energy, is potential energy – the ability to do work, not mass or kinetic energy in and of itself.

At first, when we engage in breathing practice and do a moving meditation, we cultivate sensations in our bodies and can make our martial arts practice feel much more vibrant and alive. But without knowledge of how to apply the force of the ground through our bodies in a relaxed manner – the simple normal force in response to a push against a fixed structure like the ground in the sense of static analysis – we can feel enervated by our breathing or qigong all we like, but it will do us little benefit in a martial encounter. In essence, if we do not know the path we are attempting to walk, and are not being properly guided, we can delude ourselves into thinking that we are more "powerful" because of our breathing or stance-training or meditative practice, but we cannot put that "power" to use. Not knowing any better, some people rationalize these internal sensations as a presence external to their own body. They then don't have a mechanism by which to apply the little sensation they do feel in a constructive manner.

There can be energy or stress/strain within the body as well as potential energy from the weight of the body. There is also the normal force of the ground acting back on the body's structure or form. Force issued or momentum imparted in an opponent, when a product of these three ideas, can be said to be "internal". Proper application of internal force is not felt by the issuer – it is transmitted completely into the target of a push or strike. Any force felt by the issuer is force that was not conveyed along a pure path into the other person – inefficiencies in direction or guidance caused, like friction, the force to act on ourselves instead of the other person. The most profound applications of correct technique I have to date succeeded in (limited and as rare as they were), during execution I have always felt absolutely nothing. In the most profound applications of correct technique I have ever felt – the forces involved have been an order of magnitude more powerful than what I could imagine possible. This points not to some other-worldly development but rather to an integrated use of the body in a very specific and refined manner.

In that neijia such as bagua, xingyi, taiji develop the body in specific ways, and thus the body's ability to manifest qi, they are said to be a form of qigong. Conversely, some forms of qigong are actually standing martial arts practices in disguise – yiquan is a good example, as well as people who practice taiji exclusively for health. So, qijong and neijia are related. There are also Taoist religious practices, called Taogong or Neigong, which are physical-spiritual efforts to transform the body into an immortal state. Qigong is a fundamental part of these practices as well, but they go far beyond the ideas I describe above in the context of martial arts, and are a path into themselves.