The Tang Dynasty Poems, #73: The Han Monument

The Tang Dynasty was a high point of culture in ancient China. Especially esteemed were poems. There was no home coming or leave taking; no event too small to not be commemorated with a poem.

Some of the best poems of that period have been collected into an anthology known as The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems. A online version of the anthology may be found here. Today we have #73: The Han Monument.


THE HAN MONUMENT

The Son of Heaven in Yuanhe times was martial as a god
And might be likened only to the Emperors Xuan and Xi.
He took an oath to reassert the glory of the empire,
And tribute was brought to his palace from all four quarters.
Western Huai for fifty years had been a bandit country,
Wolves becoming lynxes, lynxes becoming bears.
They assailed the mountains and rivers, rising from the plains,
With their long spears and sharp lances aimed at the Sun.
But the Emperor had a wise premier, by the name of Du,
Who, guarded by spirits against assassination,
Hong at his girdle the seal of state, and accepted chief command,
While these savage winds were harrying the flags of the Ruler of Heaven.
Generals Suo, Wu, Gu, and Tong became his paws and claws;
Civil and military experts brought their writingbrushes,
And his recording adviser was wise and resolute.
A hundred and forty thousand soldiers, fighting like lions and tigers,
Captured the bandit chieftains for the Imperial Temple.
So complete a victory was a supreme event;
And the Emperor said: "To you, Du, should go the highest honour,
And your secretary, Yu, should write a record of it."
When Yu had bowed his head, he leapt and danced, saying:
"Historical writings on stone and metal are my especial art;
And, since I know the finest brush-work of the old masters,
My duty in this instance is more than merely official,
And I should be at fault if I modestly declined."
The Emperor, on hearing this, nodded many times.
And Yu retired and fasted and, in a narrow workroom,
His great brush thick with ink as with drops of rain,
Chose characters like those in the Canons of Yao and Xun,
And a style as in the ancient poems Qingmiao and Shengmin.
And soon the description was ready, on a sheet of paper.
In the morning he laid it, with a bow, on the purple stairs.
He memorialized the throne: "I, unworthy,
Have dared to record this exploit, for a monument."
The tablet was thirty feet high, the characters large as dippers;
It was set on a sacred tortoise, its columns flanked with ragons....
The phrases were strange with deep words that few could understand;
And jealousy entered and malice and reached the Emperor --
So that a rope a hundred feet long pulled the tablet down
And coarse sand and small stones ground away its face.
But literature endures, like the universal spirit,
And its breath becomes a part of the vitals of all men.
The Tang plate, the Confucian tripod, are eternal things,
Not because of their forms, but because of their inscriptions....
Sagacious is our sovereign and wise his minister,
And high their successes and prosperous their reign;
But unless it be recorded by a writing such as this,
How may they hope to rival the three and five good rulers?
I wish I could write ten thousand copies to read ten thousand times,
Till spittle ran from my lips and calluses hardened my fingers,
And still could hand them down, through seventy-two generations,
As corner-stones for Rooms of Great Deeds on the Sacred Mountains.

Birthday Post

Months pass, days pile up

like one intoxicating dream

an old man sighs.

- Ryokan

 
Today is my birthday. Won’t you help me celebrate?



Today I am celebrating another successful trip around the sun. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for all of my loved ones. 2019 has been a rough year on the family.

We lost my father in law and a brother in law due to old and and extended illnesses. There were a couple of distant relatives who passed as well.

What was harder to take was the passing of my sister in law whom I wrote about last year. She had Glioblastoma, the brain cancer that afflicted Sen McCain. She passed 14 months after her diagnosis, which is about average for the general population.

Her life was never the same since the day she felt that she needed to see a doctor. I’m sure that she had her private moments, but we never saw her complain. We never saw her ask “why me?”

Instead she was thankful for the time she could spend with her family and friends. She only showed endless gratitude.

The day that will stick with me the most was Opening Day for the 2019 Detroit Tigers baseball season. She was a great baseball fan.

My wife and I stopped over to see her. It was a beautiful day. She was watching the game with her husband. The window was open and it was as pleasant as it could be.

Unplanned, several of her closest friends stopped over as well. Her husband and I retreated to the garage to sit outside, enjoy a beer and listen to the happy chatter and laughter coming from her bedroom. She had a great day.



A few years ago, the company I worked for decided to close the division that employed me and I ended up with a job at a small trade association. We had a staff of four and a board of directors made up of members to provide oversight.

I leaned that November that the board of directors wanted to “shake things up.” When you have a staff of only four people, any shaking resembles an earthquake. I knew that I needed to begin looking for another job.

It’s not easy looking for another job when you’re in your 60’s. At least doing a job search while I had one helped, but it was tough going. I had plenty of interviews and a few offers, but I typically low-balled. It was discouraging.

I finally began talking to two companies in particular in Spring. I had worked for one of them before, about 10 years ago. I knew them. They knew me. It would be easy to slide right in there. The office was actually closer to home than the trade association.

The other was a European based company with a small staff in the US. I’d work from home. I’d have to prove myself all over again, but there was the allure of going to Europe a couple of times a year.

Around the fourth of July, the board of directors eliminated the position of one of my colleagues. I knew that I was next, so I needed to close the deal with one of these two companies, but which one?

My Dad once told me that in a situation like this, I should flip a coin and see how I felt about it. I decided to do Dad a few times better and throw three coins, six times. This seemed to be a perfect question for the I Ching. Whatever came up would have to be interpreted by me, which would help me to clarify my thoughts and feelings.

The hexagram I threw was #24, Return, with all the broken lines moving. This resulted in the final hexagram #1, Creative.


I chose the company that I used to work for. I began my new position as a field application engineer around the end of July. I am enjoying myself a great deal. They didn’t have this position before and I am having an impact. All the signs say that this was a good move.

 


I wrote a year ago that I had reconnected with my original taijiquan teacher who was a student of Cheng Man Ching in New York, back in the 70’s, Carol Yamasaki. I showed up just in the nick of time. Due to some health issues, Carol has recently turned teaching over to one of her senior students, who is well regarded teacher in his own right, Bret Hall. Unfortunately, I only seem to be able to make it out to class is once or twice a month.

For the last year, I’ve also been supplementing my practice with exercises and drills from another branch of the CMC lineage which can be found at Adam Mizner’s Youtube channel, along with renewed focus on the standing practice, or zhan zhuang. Mizner also has a distance learning course that is well thought out and presented.

Practice continues to go well. I’ve found that life just works better when I’m practicing regularly.

I would normally wake up an hour before I really needed to get ready for work to drink my coffee at a leisurely pace, watch the news, catch up on social media, etc. For the past several years I have been getting up an extra hour early to either run (which I since dropped but may return to) or practice taijiquan.

I’ve recently begun making that an extra 90 minutes early to make certain that I can consistently work on all of that material I want to practice.

I mentioned that I had dropped running. At my previous job, I didn’t have either short or long term disability insurance. I began to worry about doing damage to my joints that would require some sort of medical intervention after messing up my feet the previous year. Fine, I stopped running but put my focus into taijiquan.

Recently the Mrs has been wanting to find a health club with a real track that we could both go to for the winter. She likes to walk, and I could begin running again on a surface that would be much better for my joint health than the streets and sidewalks. So far, we haven’t turned anything up, but will keep looking.



Writing of the Mrs, this month we are going to celebrate our 36th wedding anniversary. Somehow, I think that we must be doing something right.

I have come to the conclusion that the secret of a long, happy marriage is this: Every morning I look my wife in the eye and tell her: “I’m sorry, I was wrong and it will never happen again.” Then I leave the house for the day.

My two daughters are healthy, happy and prosperous. As I write this, the younger one is a few days away from running a half marathon with a broken little toe.

Judo Book Review

Below is an excerpt from a book review by Dr AnnaMaria De Mars, 7th Dan, PhD.

Dr De Mars won a world's championship as a judo competitor in the 80's. She's also the mother of Ronda Roussey.

The full review may be read here.

I can think of four types of people who would like this book a lot.

First, coaches who have a more analytical approach to judo. I don't coach competitors any more, but when I did, this was totally me. When I saw everyone losing to a specific technique, say, sankaku jime, I would go home and work until I came up with a counter to it and my players wouldn't lose the same way again. I never could understand why other coaches didn't do this and their players lost the same way over and over.  This isn't to say the book is all discussion. I loved the section in Chapter 8 on using the head as a third arm and the section on combinations in Chapter 6.

Second, the competitor who has an intellectual approach to judo. That doesn't mean necessarily the player with the most education or highest IQ and it doesn't mean  that those competitors don't work out hard physically. Again, this was me when I was competing. I was always watching my own matches (once videotape became available), planning matches, analyzing why people won and lost. This doesn't mean I wasn't training my ass off, because I was, but the thinking about judo part and looking at it from every angle was yet one more tool to help me win. At the same time, I knew some highly educated people that just went into the dojo and did 1,000 uchikomis and ten rounds of randori and never got any smarter about why they were not able to throw their opponents.

Third, the older adult judo players - and by this I don't mean only senior citizens, but really, anyone who qualifies for masters divisions. These are people who have to show up at work on Monday and aren't doing the competitive circuit but they are interested in judo as an intellectual challenge as well as a physical one.There are a ton of people who love to talk about their ideas about judo. This book is for you, not only to give you more fodder for those discussions, but to enjoy when your friends aren't available and you still have judo on the brain.

If you are one of those people who talk about judo with your friends all the time - why person A is going to beat person B, what happened in the tournament last week and why the same team is going to win again - this is your book. 

So, am I saying  that this is "just a book for brainiacs"?  Well, no, I am saying, those people will LOVE The Judo Advantage.

Who Needs Fiction: The Worst Martial Arts Instructors

If you type "Worst Martial Arts Instructors" into the search box on YouTube, you'll find a lot of entertainment.

There is nothing I can add to the spectacle.

A sample of the genre is below. Enjoy your browsing!

The Way of Karate

Below is an  excerpt from a post at Okinawan Karate on the meaning of "Karate Do. The full post may be read here.

Yep, you got it, another inspiration to write an article on my favorite subject, martial arts and in particular karate for self-protection. This time, as you can imagine, it's about the proverbial belief that one who practices karate, or any martial art for that matter, as a way of life. 

First, karate-do (空手道) as defined at tangorin.com is translated into an English definition of, "the way of karate; karate." What is, exactly, the WAY of KARATE? For every karate-ka in the martial arts communities there are as many different definitions and philosophies as to what the way of karate means. 

What does the "Way of Karate" mean, simple - it depends. Like all philosophical beliefs that philosophy depends on a slew of factors to each individual. It is something you already thought of but there are a slew of factors each of us will use to decide what it all means. 

To start, here is a link to a vBlog by Iain Abernethy Sensei on this very subject. It is short and to the point. And with everything Abernethy Sensei does, it is done well… you might say it is done with flair, personality and dedication and a love for the art and way that is karate, a martial art. 

Now, back to MEEEE, hehehe, I take a literal look at the phrase and ideograms/characters in that the way, the path of karate if you will is literally about the study, practice, training and application of karate or empty hand. There are no real philosophical concepts to the root practice because it is a physical endeavor that people involve themselves in for a variety of reasons with one that stands out. The ‘one’ is learning how to fight, how to defend and protect against an aggressive adversary bent on doing you harm, grave harm. 

It wasn’t till the time of Funakoshi Sensei and his compatriots in the world of Okinawan karate that a more philosophical aspect was born, i.e., late 1800’s maybe and surely the early 1900’s along with the educational versions being implemented for social and political reasons in a time of war or near war. 

All martial arts originally were simply a means to do harm to others before they did harm to you and add in all the ancient political and social reasons you can readily visualize the brutality and deadly need for such systems of martial skill and prowess. 

So, if that and other concepts are acceptable then we must ask the question as it relates not to ancient times but to modern times, times that began with Funakoshi Sensei and his morphing of Okinawan karate to Japanese karate. 

Funakoshi Sensei kept it pretty simple, “The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory or defeat but in the perfection of character of its participants.” Quoted in Abernethy Sensei’s Facebook vBlog presentation. 

British Bare Knuckled Boxing

There was a series of photos published in the British publication The Sun, from a bare knuckled boxing tournament held in Manchester, in March 2019.

The article may be found here. It's not for the faint of heart.

Wu/Hao Style Taijiquan Documentary

There are two styles of taijiquan that goe by the name "Wu." There is the Wu family style that comes from Wu QuanYou and Wu Jianquan, and the Wu/Hao style that comes form Wu YuXiang and Hao Weizhen.

The Wu family style is very well known. The Wu/Hao styles, less so.

It is from the Wu/Hao style that Sun Lu Tang developed the Sun style of taijiquan.

Below is a documentary on the Wu/Hao style of taijiquan.

Taijiquan Free Style Push Hands

Below is an excerpt from a post that appeared at Thoughts on Tai Chi on five elements to excelling at free push hands practice. The full post may be read here.

These five points on how to master tai chi free push hands is nothing I myself have seen written down in any book or in any article. The real Masters should know them very well, but sometimes it’s not something they will describe or teach. Often, you need to discover the tactics and strategy by yourself, by understanding what your teacher does when he practice with you or demonstrates his skills. Some people will get it, some people won’t. Anyway, if you understand these five points, you will have a great advantage against any opponent, and not only in push hands. Here are also valuable things to learn for sparring and combat.

But first, remember the basics and fundaments of any tai chi, what always should be remembered at all the time: Be relaxed and always relax more. Never tense your breath and focus all your strength and movements from the dantian. Rely on tingjin, let your touch decide what to do. Always keep the integrity of your tai chi shenfa: i.e. never at any cost compromise your balance and structure. All of these points here and the five important points below, are meant to be turned into practical practice.

Thinking will be of no use. You need to do it practically.

1. Always do two things at the same time.

Whenever you do something in free push hands, whatever it might be, don’t think one dimensional, or that “two” comes after “one”. Instead, blend your movements together, always do two or three things at the same time. When you defend, attack at the same time. If one part of your opponent’s body moves forward, another part will go backwards. This means that at the same time you defend, as evading from an incoming push, you should follow and fill in the gaps. When you fill in the gaps, never let your opponent escape. Keep on following and fill in. In stationary push hands, if he continue to move, he will fall by himself. In moving push hands, you can add a third aspect as by slipping your foot behind his, or trap his body in a compromised structure, to make him fall.

Budo and Natural Movement

Over at The Budo Bum, there was an interesting post that posited the idea that martial arts practice doesn't promote natural movement, but helps us to overcome our natural tendencies to achieve a mode that is better than our natural movement.

I think that a counter argument could be made that we are conditioned since birth to move in an unnatural way and that our martial arts practice helps us to peel away the layers of baggage so that we can return to a state of naturalness.

Below is an excerpt. The full post may be read here.

I’ve heard proponents of various martial arts talk about how “natural” their art is. They proclaim that whatever they are doing is based on natural movements. Some are said to be based on the movements of animals. Others claim to be based on the natural movement of the human body.

I was working with one of my students this morning on some kata from Shinto Hatakage Ryu. His movement is getting good and solid. It struck me that his strong, smooth movement was efficient, effective and elegant, but not at all natural. When I began to think about it, I realized I could not think of any martial art where the movements are natural to human beings. By “natural” I mean that the movements are ones that people make without having to be trained for endless hours.

Along with Shinto Hatakage Ryu Iai Heiho I teach Shinto Muso Ryu Jo and Kodokan Judo. Among the movements and principles taught in those three arts, I cannot think of a movement or technique that I would call natural.  In truth, the hallmark of good, effective budo seems to be how unnatural it is. Developing proficiency in any budo movement requires years of practice with a good teacher. It never just happens. Even with students who have a natural affinity for an art, it takes years, perhaps half as many as a natural klutz like me, but years.

I’ve written before that all I teach is how to walk and how to breath. I was exaggerating a little there, and Ellis Amdur was generous enough to call me out on that point and several others. However, walking and breathing are examples of unnatural budo movement.  There isn’t much that is more natural than walking, and breathing might be the most natural thing we do. Nonetheless, as budoka, we spend years learning to breathe properly from our guts and to stay balanced and stable when we walk.

Why does it take so much effort to learn to do something that we were born doing? Breathing is the first thing we do for ourselves when we are born. We take a breath and let the world know how unhappy we are to have been kicked out of the wonderful home where we’ve spent the last nine months. Once we do that, we never stop breathing. What else about breathing could there possibly be to learn. 

A great deal when you dig into it. Our natural instincts aren’t very good when it comes to breathing.  Even before we get to all the inefficient ways people have of breathing, for all that it is a natural, automatic act, put people under just a little bit of stress and they will actually forget to breathe! I spend too much of my teaching time reminding students to breathe for the first couple of years they are training.

When they do remember to breathe, they usually are doing it poorly; breathing with their shoulders or taking shallow breaths or finding some other way to do the most natural act in the world wrongly. Proper breathing must be taught and practiced until it is an unconscious act. When sparring, you don’t have sufficient mental capacity to think about breathing correctly. If your breathing skills aren’t honed so that proper breathing happens even when you’re not thinking about it, you won’t breathe well under stress.

Walking feels nearly as natural as breathing. No one had to teach you how to walk. You figured it out for yourself, and you’ve been doing it for longer than you can remember. What could there be to learn about walking? From the condition of the students who come to the dojo, or just doing some casual people watching, we can see that most people haven’t learned very much about how to walk properly.  They roll their hips. They slouch their shoulders. They slap their feet on the ground. They lean forward past the point of balance. They stand on their heels. New students spend hours hearing me correct their way of walking. 

Because of all the bad habits people pick up over the course of their lives, learning to walk in a solid, stable, balanced manner takes a long time to learn to do consciously. Learning to do it unconsciously when under stress takes even longer. Good walking isn’t natural at all.

When you consider the discrete movements and actions that make up any budo art, things become even more unnatural. Just about the first thing we teach in judo, and the technique that prevents more people from getting hurt outside the dojo than any other, is how to fall safely. Two year-olds fall pretty well. They are relaxed and comfortable with falling down, perhaps because they do so much of it. By the time we start school though, falling is met with stiffness and fear. There is no technique in judo that we practice as much as falling. Falling well requires coordination of the entire body and I’ve never met anyone besides trained gymnasts who took to it without hours of accumulated practice. It’s an entirely unnatural act: we don’t like to fall.