The Journey Within

I don’t remember having a class outdoors where we consciously observe a moving animal and learn from it. It seems like a story from the “olden days” where the Master will teach the Student to observe the Grasshopper. Wait, that’s also from TV. Today, my training ended up with watching the ultimate Tai Chi master – the Snail.

It’s becoming less common to see animals in the city, so spotting a snail after a rainy day is quite refreshing, until I start to notice how the snail is moving. It is so slow as though it is not moving at all. And yet, the movement is concerted. It moved “as a whole” rather than bit by bit.

I was doing push hands with my teacher previously, and seeing how the snail moved just nailed the lesson for me. Moving together is so difficult, it’s amazing how the conductor of an orchestra can move all the musicians to play together. I’m the conductor for my own body, and they still don’t listen to me. Actually, it is I who don’t listen to them. They told me that they can’t go further, but I didn’t care. I pushed my legs further. They retaliated. I sweat. None of us is getting anywhere.

The trick is to treat them like children. Let them find out the joy of relaxing into the posture. Let them find out the ease of moving together. Then, we will move like the snail. Time for me to speak to them again, I mean treat them to an ice-cream.

My journey within has brought me to understand more deeply about the economics of teaching and learning. Our current economic structure requires payment in monetary terms in exchange for teaching. This solution is actually quite elegant, as it avoids the uncertain non-monetary payments e.g. do I take the teacher out for dinner or get him a gift etc to show my appreciation? Money seems to be easier. Yet, in exchange of that, I witnessed a student who required a high “return on investment”.

I believe there is an expectation to learn something once you have paid for something. That is how a school does it. That is how a university does it. That is why an MBA course can charge so much for it. Unfortunately, whether you actually learn something is another matter. So what do you do in such an instance? What do you do to prove that you have actually learnt something? Exams is an obvious answer. A form of test. What I don’t see often, is a form of test to check whether a student is ready to learn, i.e. has the student earn the right to learn?

To put this into context, let me explain what I witnessed.

A student was at every instant asking the teacher to point out his errors. To this student, the teacher must always be giving tips. This method is rather unfair in a group setting but the teacher always obliges. It is only later that I understood why. In a group setting, whenever you’re teaching one, it’s never for that one. It’s for everyone.

Unfortunately, after a few weeks of such “taunting”, the teacher did crack. The student has not progressed from previous weeks’ pointers but wanted more. From my point of view, the student has not earned the right to learn anything, as his cup is overflowing with his ego. In his mind, he thinks he can absorb anything the teacher throws at him, and that was what made the teacher ignored him eventually.

To let you know how strong his ego is, after one lesson with the teacher in push hands, he started “guiding” other students, saying how relaxed he is and how stiff the others were and they should relax like him. He is no where near relaxed…

I guess the point is this. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. They are rarely equal. Once you have paid your price, you can never change the price that you paid. But you can change the value that you can receive. If you are not prepared to receive any value, you will not get any, no matter how high a price you have paid. If you paid me $1 million dollars, I might fake it and say you have learnt something, but you will know the real deal. Come to think of it, maybe not. With a full cup, it’s hard that you will ever know the real deal.

Drop the ego. Smash the cup. Or pay the price.

This is Part 4 of the translation and my interpretation of the text written by Sun Zhonghua. He is the 19^th generation master of Chen Style Taijiquan and a 2^nd generation master of Hunyuan Tai Ji. You can find the full text here if you can read Chinese. Just in case you missed previous parts, here they are: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

A little story

Before I compare the different Tai Ji systems to understand CZH and his practical method better, let me tell you a little story.

In 2001, at Canada Edmonton’s Huan Yuan Tai Ji academy, a car drove by and parked by the roadside. A man walked straight into the main hall of the academy and asked the first person he saw “Excuse me, I would like to meet Mr Chen”.

“That’s me. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I am Trevor Jelic. My friend Wei Ping, who’s also a teacher, insisted that I should come and meet you.” And while Trevor was speaking, he was already checking out CZH, trying to hide his curiosity and his feeling of superiority.

“I know Wei Ping, why do you want to meet me?” CZH feels that Trevor has a sharp eye, a good physique, a strong stance and a general strong aura, expecting him to be a martial artist.

Trevor said “Mr Wei Ping thinks highly of your Tai Ji, and emphasized that I should experience it myself.”

CZH understood and just said “I’m happy to be able to practise with you. What kind of martial art do you train in?”

Trevor happily tells him “I trained with Mr Chen for 3 years, Mr Xu for 5 years, and Mr Zhang for 1 year.” These are all famous teachers.

“Do we begin now?” asked CZH.

Trevor replied “That would be best.”, and stepped forward.

As their hands meet, Trevor used both his hands to control CZH’s wrist and elbow, while using the contact on these joints to push CZH. He must have figured that CZH is but 1.6m tall and can’t be more than 60kg. With his strength and skill, his force must be able to push him far right?

Trevor did not expect his hands to be twisted into a spiraling motion and redirected back to his own throat, yet he could not exert any strength in both his hands. But this is not Trevor’s first fight, so he knows immediately that he had to change his tactic. CZH is just one step ahead of him. He sunk his hands and we just hear 2 thuds – Trevor was on his knees.

CZH just said “I’m sorry. My bad.” And immediately lent his hand to pick him up. The people around him is already used to this sight, so no one actually said anything and made any gestures.

Trevor however remained kneeled. CZH wasn’t sure what’s going on, just to see that this large man was suddenly crying. CZH was going to tell him that winning or losing is just normal in life, but Trevor was half choking while muttering “have I just wasted 9 years of my life?”

This is Part 3 of the translation and my interpretation of the text written by Sun Zhonghua. He is the 19^th generation master of Chen Style Taijiquan and a 2^nd generation master of Hunyuan Tai Ji. You can find the full text here if you can read Chinese. Here are the links to the other parts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

To be a top Tai Ji master, you need to have the following five conditions.

1. Love the art
2. Have the time
3. Have moral and ethics
4. Able to learn and comprehend
5. Have a good teacher

I won’t go into further details about 1 to 4, as the majority of us will find that we cannot fulfill condition number 5, i.e. it is difficult to look for a good teacher.

Tai Ji is a martial art that places great emphasis on both theory and practice. It is difficult enough for an accomplished teacher to perform a proper excution of Tai Ji as martial art, it will be more difficult without a teacher. A teacher will determine the success or failure of a student, hence the strong emphasis on finding a good teacher. A good teacher needs to fulfill a lot of criteria. What the previous masters find most important is only 2: The teacher has to “have the goods” and “can teach”.

Have the goods

“Having the goods” means having the real thing (even better if the teacher expanded on what he learnt). You can’t listen to whoever who brands himself well, or have a large student following. You can’t even say that the person has the goods just because he is famous. To know whether a person has the goods, you need to understand the person from various sources and consciously observe the teacher.  You first have to look at the lineage of teachers before him, but again, just because he’s on some famous lineage does not mean he has the goods. You still have to consciously observe. As choosing the right teacher is that important, you cannot take this exercise lightly. If not, you might end up learning all the wrong things again.

Can teach

“Can teach” means the teacher is able to pass on his knowledge effectively to the students. This is a bit more than willing to teach, although willing to teach is a key criteria. Some who has the goods are unwilling to teach, hence misleading his students, and concurrently destroying his name and lineage. There are others who doesn’t have the goods, and yet imitate the masters as though he has the goods. He doesn’t even have the fake goods…

Having said all these, you must be wondering, where are all these teachers who “have the goods” and “can teach”?

Yes, these teachers do not come by often, but I manage to chance upon one. His name is Chen Zhong Hua. He is the student of 2 teachers, Hong Jun Sheng and Feng Zhi Qiang, both are 18^th generation master of Chen Style Tai Ji. Chen Zhong Hua (CZH) is now the international standard bearer of the Chen Style Practical Method Tai Ji. People who witness his skills are just astounded.

A little story

Before I compare the different Tai Ji systems to understand CZH and his practical method better, let me tell you a little story.

(to be continued…)