2nd eBook From Cook Ding's Kitchen

I mentioned this in Cook Ding's Kitchen 8th Anniversary Post. I have added a new item to the carryout menu, the second eBook from Cook Ding's Kitchen.

The book is titled, "The Phoenix Tastes a Lot Like Chicken." It is about the Yin aspects of our training. 

The Yang aspects, the forms and drills, repetitions and hours we put in are easy to grasp. The subtle unseen aspects of our training are just as important and my go unnoticed. I thought it was time to give them their due.

The Phoenix Tastes a Lot Like Chicken is available on Amazon for the Kindle. 

If you don't have a Kindle, you can download the free Kindle reading app here.

Below is a chapter from the book, on the value of being on the receiving end of technique practice. Enjoy. If you read the book, please leave a review. It will help me out.

Falling Down

‘Tis Better to Receive Than to Give.

When we watch an aikido demonstration, what catches our attention the most is the performance of the Shite (sh-tay), the “doer” (aka Tori (tor-ree), “controller”; Nage (nah-gay) “thrower” or whatever term your school uses). We pay less attention to the Uke  (oo-kay) the “receiver” unless he performs some spectacular break fall. We tend not to give the role of Uke much thought.

In the style of aikido I trained in when I was a young man, we practiced our aikido with a “compliant” uke as opposed to one who “resisted.” Different schools have differing philosophies on training and the use of a compliant uke was our way of doing the techniques for both parties in our budo practice.

When we practice in class, we would take turns playing the role of Shite and Uke. We patiently grind through doing our service as the Uke so that we can once again take the seemingly more interesting role of Shite where we think we’ll develop our “real” aikido skills.

The role of Shite is the Yang aspect of learning aikido, and volumes have been written on how to perform countless techniques. It’s high time we discussed the role of Uke and how that half of our budo practice contributes to the whole.

The Yin aspect of learning aikido is developed by taking the role of Uke. As the Uke, you develop all the fundamental characteristics that are necessary to become a credible Shite.

Just as the Shite measures the distance/relationship between himself and Uke prior to execution of the technique, so must the Uke. The term used is “ma-ai” which means interval. In the simplest terms, this means the distance between the Shite and Uke. To go a little deeper, this is more than just the physical distance between the two participants in the technique, but also denotes a relationship between them.

From the Shites’ perspective, there is an ideal distance between himself and Uke where the latter is too far away to attack him as is, and must move towards Shite in order to make the attack. Shite reveals an opening enticing Uke to attack. By having moved, the Uke leaves an opening for Shite and is now so close that whatever Shite does in response to that attack, Uke has little time to adjust.

Standing on Uke’s side of the interval, we see that he wants to be close enough to do the one thing that will make an aikido technique “work;” to make this repetition right here, now, a learning experience worthy of the two participants:  a sincere and committed attack. Anything less and this whole practice of an aikido technique becomes an empty dance where both parties have largely wasted their time.

A sincere and committed attack doesn’t mean however, that the Uke is about to try annihilate the Shite. If you are the Uke in a demonstration with a Master, you have got to give it all you have; but in a class setting with a peer or a junior, your attack must not only be sincere and committed, but appropriate for the type of practice you are undertaking and the relative skill of Shite. Uke must give Shite a sincere attack that he can handle. This develops sensitivity and discernment.

Sincerity, commitment, discernment and sensitivity;  now what?  What comes next is perhaps the most difficult thing asked of anyone studying a martial art. Most fail in their ability to do this to any great extent. The Uke must set aside his ego and fully submit to Shites’ response to the attack. The Uke must empty his cup.

 

A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

To empty one’s cup is probably the first real test in anyone’s martial arts training. It can take many forms: following Shite, setting aside any previous knowledge when joining a dojo to train the way the current instructor says, or any number of things which requires that you set your own ego aside.

If you can’t pass this first test, you probably won’t accomplish much else in your training either.

Wherever Shite leads, Uke sticks, follows and yields. Whatever changes the Shite presents to Uke, he adapts and continues. Uke can’t do just anything “he wants” either. What “he wants” doesn’t matter in the performance of the technique. If he gives up his ego, Uke doesn’t “want” anything other than to flow appropriately with the rest of the technique and be in harmony with Shite, who is leading the way.

Uke must empty himself to respond quickly and appropriately to Shite. This is the very characteristic that one who is playing the role of Shite requires the ability to respond to any attack from any direction and number of opponents. The role of Uke is the most immediate training ground for cultivating this type of mind because he must do it again and again in real time. Trying to think and anticipate will only open the door to falling behind. The only way to keep time is cultivate a calm, clear mind; to be like the proverbial water reflecting the moon with “no gap.”

The harmony between Shite and Uke is where aikido happens; where Budo is practiced. The Yin Yang symbol  is complete.

We sometimes hear that “Master X was uchideshi (inside student) to Master Y for n years.” The uchideshi is a special student, an inside student. The uchideshi  is typically a live-in student so that he may observe the master throughout the day and absorb lessons from his daily life. The uchideshi is the master’s personal grunt in order to knock down the ego a bit. Most importantly, the uchideshi serves as the master’s personal uke during this period of his training.

Teaching and learning an internal martial art is an intensely personal matter and as you can see the “correct transmission” is literally handed off by touch as one candle is used to light another.

Uke and Shite. Yin and Yang. The practice of Budo. In our daily lives, by learning to stick follow and adapt, to be a good Uke; we develop the qualities that allow us to take positive action like a good Shite when the  opportunity is ripe.

The combination of the skill and understanding of both roles, Shite and Uke helps to make us complete.

Happy Fourth of July!

 

Marathon Monks

I posted before about the Marathon Monks of Mt. Hiei. They are members of the Tendai branch of Buddhism that have a particular and arduous form of practice.

I came across a short documentary about them on YouTube. Enjoy

English Translations of Chinese Martial Arts Manuals

At Brennan Translation blog, the author translates classic Chinese martial arts manuals and posts the results. The long and short of it is that there is a lot of valuable information there which may be had for FREE.

Below is an excerpt from Boxing Concepts Explained Authentically by Sun Lu Tang. The whole translation may be read here.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

夫道者。陰陽之根。萬物之體也。其道未發。懸於太虛之內。其道已發。流行於萬物之中。 夫道一而已矣。在天曰命。在人曰性。在物曰理。在拳術曰內勁。所以內家拳術。有形意。八卦。太極。三派。形式不同。其極還虛之道則一也。易曰。一陰一陽之 謂道。若偏陰偏陽皆謂之病。夫人之一生。飲食之不調。氣血之不和。精神之不振。皆陰陽不和之故也。故古人。創內家拳術。使人潜心玩味。以思其理。身體力 行。以合其道。則能復其本來之性體。然吾國拳術。門派頗多。形式不一。運用亦異。畢生不能窮其數。歷世不能盡其法。余自幼年好習拳術。性與形意。八卦。太 極。三派之拳術相近。研究五十餘年。得其槪要。曾著形意八卦太極拳學已刊行世。今又以昔年所聞先輩之言。述之於書。俾學者得知其真意焉。三派拳術。形式不 同。其理則同。用法不一。其制人之中心。而取勝於人者則一也。按一派拳術之中。諸位先生之言論形式。亦有不同者。蓋其運用。或有異耳。三派拳術之道。始於 一理。中分為三派。末復合為一理。其一理者。三派亦各有所得也。形意拳之誠一也。八卦拳之萬法歸一也。太極拳之抱元守一也。古人云。天得一以清。地得一以 寧。人得一以靈。得其一而萬事畢也。三派之理。皆是以虛無而始。以虛無而終。所以三派諸位先生所練拳術之道。能與釋儒道三家。誠中。虛中。空中之妙理。合 而為一者也。余深恐諸位先生之苦心精詣。久而淹没。故述之以公同好。惟自愧學術譾陋。無文。或未能發揮諸位先生之妙旨。望諸同志。隨時增補之。以發明其道 可也。
民國十二年歲次癸亥直隸完縣孫福全序
 

The Way is the root source of the passive and active aspects, and is the essence of all things. When the Way was not yet expressed, it was suspended in the Void, and since the Way was expressed, it has been flowing within all things. [from Mengzi, chapter 3a:] “The Way is One, and that is all.” In Nature it is called fate. In people is called nature. In things it is called principle. In boxing arts it is called internal power, hence the “internal” schools of boxing arts, in which there are the three systems of Xingyi, Bagua, and Taiji.
 

     Their postures are different, but at their limit is the Way of returning to emptiness, and in this way they are the same. The Book of Changes says: “The Way is the passive AND the active.” To incline toward the passive OR the active is wrong. Throughout your life, if your eating and drinking are not regulated, your energy and blood not harmonized, or your essence and spirit not roused, all these will put your passive and active aspects out of balance as a result. Therefore people long ago created the internal schools of boxing arts to get you to concentrate and ponder upon the theory and to get your body’s movements to conform with the Way, thus enabling you to return to your original essence.
 

     In our nation’s boxing arts, there are so many schools, and their postures and applications are so varied. In a whole lifetime, you would not be able to even count them all, and even if given all the time in the world, we would not be able to exhaustively examine their methodologies. When I was young, I was fond of practicing boxing arts, and my disposition is toward the three systems of Xingyi, Bagua, and Taiji. I have studied for more than fifty years and have obtained their essentials. I have written books for each, which have already been published. Now I am also taking what I have been told over the years by previous generations of teachers and putting it all into a book so that students may obtain their authentic ideas.
 

     The postures of the three boxing arts are different, but their theory is the same. Their applications may be different, yet they have controlling the opponent as their core, and so they defeat opponents in the same way. Within a single system of boxing, everyone’s explanations and postures are not identical, owing either to how they use them or just to differences from one person to another.
 

     The methods of these three boxing systems begin with the principle of oneness, divide from there into the three distinct branches, then end up united again in the principle of oneness. Each of the three systems has its own way of oneness: Xingyi Boxing’s sincerity is a pure oneness, Bagua Boxing’s infinity of techniques is a returning to oneness, and Taiji Boxing’s embracing of original nature is a maintaining of oneness. It was said by men long ago [Laozi – Daodejing, chapter 39 / Zhuangzi, chapter 12]: “The sky obtains oneness by being clear. The ground obtains oneness by being firm. Man obtains oneness by being smart.” / “Obtaining the One, all things are accomplished.” The principle of the three systems is always to begin in emptiness and to end in emptiness. Therefore the way the teachers of the three boxing arts practiced can be equivalent to the three schools of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism – with their special theories of sincerity, undifferentiation, and non-identity – merging to become one.
 

     I deeply fear that all the effort those teachers put into perfecting these things will be wasted with the passing of time. Thus I transmit it to share with those who will appreciate it. However, I am ashamed of my own learning, how shallow, ignorant, and illiterate I am, and that I cannot give full expression to their wonderful ideas. It would be good if their methods can be further elaborated upon, and so I hope my comrades will make more information available as it comes to light.
 

    – written by Sun Fuquan of Wan county, Hebei, 1923

8th Anniversary of Cook Ding's Kitchen

Today is the 8th anniversary of Cook Ding's Kitchen.

I began this blog in 2005 and it is still going strong. The most popular post, The Pugilist at Rest, has been viewed almost 3800 times.



For myself, my mind is clear, my health is good and my practice is stong.



Before writing about Cook Ding's Kitchen, I wanted to bring to your attention a brief post at Tai Chi Nomad. The original post may be read here. As it is brief, I will also post the whole thing below.

Training days are sacred days

It took a few days of haze to let the mind know how sacred a training day can be. It’s true what they say:

you don’t know it till you lose it.

The weather has been plagued by a deep shroud of ash, making breathing difficult, not to mention training. Any rigorous activities outdoors are highly inadvisable. Yet, it is during these days that I realize how sacred it is to be able to train on any single day.

The excuse of “there is always tomorrow” or “I will train more tomorrow” does not hold water anymore. If today is a good day, you train. In fact, the haze suddenly makes me realize that everyday is a good day.

Treasure your training days. You may not have a choice of when is a good day, so make everyday a good day.

Our training days are indeed sacred. There is a saying that goes something like this: the years of training are made up of days. If we lose the days, we lose the years. It is so difficult cultivate a good habit, like training regularly; and so easy to lose the habit.

On the one hand, there are times when you simply can't train. Just set your training aside for a while and don't torture yourself about it. Maybe your work has seasonal peaks which just require your full attention, like tax season for an accountant. For myself, between focusing on my family, aging parents and a career, I set my training aside for over a decade and don't regret one minute of it.

On the other, when you do have more time don't be lazy and waste your opportunities. They may not come your way again.

Zen Master Dogen said something like "that time is so fleeting should be motivation enough to practice as though your hair were on fire."

Some days, you just have to take off. You certainly don't want your training to overshadow your "regular" life (the tail wagging the dog), but you also don't want to look back at a long string of missed opportunities to have trained.

Every day, do something to move the ball forward, even if only an inch.

Recent readers may not be familiar with the name Cook Ding. Cook Ding was the name of a character is a famous story from the Inner Chapters of Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu). To me, he is the epitome of someone practicing Daoism in everyday life, someone we can aspire to be like.

  His cook was cutting up an ox for the ruler Wen Hui. Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed the pressure of his knee, in the audible ripping off of the skin, and slicing operation of the knife, the sounds were all in regular cadence. 
Movements and sounds proceeded as in the dance of 'the Mulberry Forest' and the blended notes of the King Shou.'

The ruler said, 'Ah! Admirable! That your art should have become so perfect!'

(Having finished his operation), the cook laid down his knife, and replied to the remark, 'What your servant loves is the method of the Dao, something in advance of any art.

When I first began to cut up an ox, I saw nothing but the (entire) carcass. After three years I ceased to see it as a whole. Now I deal with it in a spirit-like manner, and do not look at it with my eyes. The use of my senses is discarded, and my spirit acts as it wills. Observing the natural lines, (my knife) slips through the great crevices and slides through the great cavities, taking advantage of the facilities thus presented. My art avoids the membranous ligatures, and much more the great bones.

A good cook changes his knife every year; (it may have been injured) in cutting - an ordinary cook changes his every month - (it may have been) broken. Now my knife has been in use for nineteen years; it has cut up several thousand oxen, and yet its edge is as sharp as if it had newly come from the whetstone.

There are the interstices of the joints, and the edge of the knife has no (appreciable) thickness; when that which is so thin enters where the interstice is, how easily it moves along! The blade has more than room enough. Nevertheless, whenever I come to a complicated joint, and see that there will be some difficulty, I proceed anxiously and with caution, not allowing my eyes to wander from the place, and moving my hand slowly. Then by a very slight movement of the knife, the part is quickly separated, and drops like (a clod of) earth to the ground. Then standing up with the knife in my hand, I look all round, and in a leisurely manner, with an air of satisfaction, wipe it clean, and put it in its sheath.'

The ruler Wen Hui said, 'Excellent! I have heard the words of my cook, and learned from them the nourishment of (our) life.'
-    Zhuang Zi, The Inner Chapters
-    Trans. James Legge     

Below is an excerpt from my first eBook, A Kung Fu Carry Out. I had hoped to be able to annouce the second eBook today, but that egg is just not quite ready to hatch.

To celebrate Cook Ding's anniversary, I am making A Kung Fu Carry Out FREE for five days (maxium allowed by Amazon). If you don't have a Kindle, you can also download the FREE Kindle Reading App.



Chapter 4 – The Master Mover

The practical Daoism of Cook Ding is found in the everyday things. Heavy things. Heavy things like pianos.

Have you ever moved a piano? It’s awful.

The late Edward Gong moved pianos. By his estimation, he moved over 7000 of them. He moved them with the ease that Cook Ding butchered oxen. In his own way, Edward Gong was a modern Daoist master.

Below is an excerpt from an article about Edward Gong. The full article may be read here.

Edward Gong, who moved 7,000 pianos, dies
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, November 6, 2011

Legendary for his moving piano technique, Edward Gong of Berkeley was admired not for how he interpreted Mozart or played a concerto, but for how he moved pianos. Literally.

He did it single-handedly, although he sometimes called upon his astonished clients to roll a dolly or grip a corner.

"Almost everyone I know in Berkeley has used him or knows about him," wrote "Rinky N." on Yelp's urban legends section. "Years ago he moved a roommate's piano using the three of us weaklings as pivot points. It's like watching Superman or an optical illusion!"

"It's physics," Mr. Gong, who had a degree in that subject from UC Berkeley, would explain.

Mr. Gong died at 85 at the Veterans Home of Yountville, where he'd gone to live last year. He moved pianos until age 80 - more than 7,000 of them over 45 years - said his niece Miko Lee.

"He was the epitome of the word eccentric," she said, fondly recalling the man with the "serious giggle" she called Unc.

On the Berkeley Parents Network site, "Nicole" wrote: "He arrives with a little pickup truck and an amazing stair contraption, and uses brains and leverage to move these amazingly heavy and awkward objects. He's goofy as heck, and he chats a mile a minute ... but always manages to get the piano where it needs to go."

His piano-moving outfit consisted of checkered polyester shorts, gum-sole shoes and the bulging muscles he'd hone for hours, bench-pressing at the gym. When not working, Mr. Gong favored bedroom slippers, once showing up in snowy Munich carrying luggage filled with books but no shoes besides the pantofles on his feet.

He had gone to Europe for the World's Fair because he adored fairs, often hanging out for hours to watch a calf being born. He also danced ballet, sang opera, played instruments and studied Mandarin and drawing, making up in enthusiasm what he lacked in skill, Lee said with a laugh.

And despite limited funds, Mr. Gong attended stellar performances - often inviting his young relatives - by serving as an usher at the ballet, opera and Cal Performances.

Born Aug. 9, 1926, Mr. Gong was one of 11 children whose parents ran a laundry in Madera. An Army private in World War II, he served as a medical aide and chauffeur at Presidio Hospital in San Francisco.

Mr. Gong joined his family in Berkeley in 1947, where they opened the Victory Market at 1443 San Pablo Ave. to pay tuition at Cal for Mr. Gong and his siblings. His brothers and sisters raised families, went into business or became professors, scientists or teachers.

Mr. Gong did his own version of those things, too.

In 1988, The Chronicle followed Mr. Gong, then 62, as he maneuvered - in five minutes - a 400-pound upright piano from the rear room of a house into his pickup using a dolly, a wood box wrapped in an old rug, and an iron tube he'd laid across the truck bed.

For his second move, the story said Mr. Gong "stood on a stone step with 500 pounds of piano in his thick arms while three men half his age tried clumsily to wedge the dolly under the other end" as he schooled them in tilt and torque.

"He lived a remarkable life," said Harry Yoon, a Los Angeles film editor who shot an 11-minute short, "7,000 Pianos," about Mr. Gong at 75 in 2002.

Yiquan

Several years ago, I co authored an article at Jade Dragon magazine, which was introduction to the martial art of Yiquan.

Below is an excerpt. My partner on this project has recently updated the article andd reposted it here. Please pay a visit.

In China during the 1920s Wang Xiang Zhai, an internal martial art master of XingYiquan, became dissatisfied with the state of martial arts that was being practiced around him.

He felt that martial arts teachers and students, even his own, were more concerned with the performance of forms and development of techniques than with the emphasis of "developing one's intent."

Dispensing with the distracting forms and techniques, Wang Xiang Zhai developed an internal training system that worked directly at strengthening the student's intention and ability to respond to that intention as the decisive characteristic of a martial art.

Wang Xiang Zhai taught a handful of exercises and a different way to thinking about them. The generation of teachers who followed Wang put their own emphasis on different aspects of the practice they had learned, as their disposition suited them and as their students responded. Some teachers today, for example, teach a small set of exercises and expect the student to develop and explore the variations on their own. Other teachers explicitly teach a large number of variations to deliberately lead the student through certain experiences in body movement.

Wang Xiang Zhai also taught each of his students how to discover their own unique art.

...

The first fundamental YiQuan training exercise is stake standing or "zhan zhuang." The principal focus of this practice is learning how to relax to promote both good health and martial ability. After a good understanding of "relax" is reached, then you can work with visualizations. Learning "how to relax" is the common first step in all internal martial arts. Once this level of relaxation has been reached, the next step is to proceed toward advanced exercises.

During this standing practice, wherever tension is felt, just let it go. It'll probably come right back in a microsecond, but that's okay. The tension will be noticed and you will counter by just releasing it. Let it go again and again. Eventually that tension will subside and you'll notice tension somewhere else.

Repeat the process. As long as you are alive, it will never end.

The more you train and learn to relax, the more sensitive you'll become to noticing tension. You'll find that you notice how poorly other people are standing. They are reflections of you, past and present. Pay attention and let the tension go throughout the day. Constantly relax and let go.

As you progress, you will be able to feel any specific tension in you body with finer resolution. You will be able to identify individual muscles. The more relaxed you become, the more you can feel and become more relaxed. It's positive feedback. Relaxing the tension is similar to that of the action of peeling the layers of an onion.

The interesting thing about concentration on relaxation is that once you get into a very relaxed state, your structure becomes very sound. It must be sound in order you to be relaxed.  When you are truly relaxed, you'll feel as though you were expanding in all directions.

Being relaxed, balanced, and so on, isn't some fixed point. It's a dynamic point that's always moving.

When you stand, you're basically physically still, but because this point is always moving around, you are intent with it and you always have the possibility of movement. You could support a mountain, but if a fly landed on you, you'd be in instant motion. You have the potential to be still or move.

How you train is a strategy. Think about what you are doing, how you are approaching it, and why. If you are not getting results, you are doing something wrong. Back up and examine your methods; then try again.

As mentioned previously, the basic purpose of standing was to learn to relax. That is the gateway to learning how to use the visualizations.

YiQuan uses vivid imagery to train the body to respond to the mind's intention. Once the novice practitioners have learned how to relax, they will begin to focus on specific visualizations. With each incremental sequence of specific visualization, the muscles of the body will begin to respond in the development of a coordinated frame of whole-body strength.

The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems, #49: A Lute Song

The Tang Dynasty was a high point of culture in ancient China. Especially esteemed were poems. 


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.

Li Qi

A LUTE SONG

Our host, providing abundant wine to make the night mellow,
Asks his guest from Yangzhou to play for us on the lute.
Toward the moon that whitens the city-wall, black crows are flying,
Frost is on ten thousand trees, and the wind blows through our clothes;
But a copper stove has added its light to that of flowery candles,
And the lute plays The Green Water, and then The Queen of Chu.
Once it has begun to play, there is no other sound:
A spell is on the banquet, while the stars grow thin....
But three hundred miles from here, in Huai, official duties await him,
And so it's farewell, and the road again, under cloudy mountains.

Happy Father's Day