1. Comportment

Respect yourself, your teacher and your fellow students. Avoid excessive talk. Know
when to keep silent. Show reverence for the unknown.

2. Commitment

Honour and keep your word. Set a goal and stick to it until the end. Acknowledge and strive to repay debts with gratitude. Avoid slackness.

3. Constancy
Be regular in attending class and practise daily at home or elsewhere in spare time,
even if only a few minutes. Progress is gradual but unending.

4. Caution

Be careful not to injure yourself or others in training. Only use martial arts in fighting
for defence and only when absolutely necessary. Cultivate patience and well-being.

5. Cooperation

Work to assist others and if possible help and try to rescue those in trouble or danger.

Smile.

………………………

MSJW Croydon Dynamic Taiji

August 12th 2010

1. Martial – to practise:

*Self-defence as a daily regime of self-strenghening against disease and ageing

*Stance, warm-ups, solo and two-person forms, including tuishôu, dàlyû, and sànshôu for relaxation, posture, whole-body breathing and cardio-vascular exercise

2. Music – to enjoy:

*Musical sound as the embodiment of the timbres of natural noise and harmonic pitch

*percussion as a key to tonal expression and delineation of rhythmic structure

*the universality of music as a cross-cultural language throughout history

*the contrasts of civil (wén) and martial (wû) flavours, words and music, metre and melody

3. Painting -to revive:

*the style of the lost Táng dynasty murals of Wú Dàozî ‘painting’s sage’ (huàshèng)

*his fusion of dynamic line with the illusion of motion in three-dimensional space

*the integration of figure and landscape painting, calligraphy and colour

4. Philosophy – to explore:

*the dialectical interpenetration of opposites; the dynamics of potential and science of necessity; contradiction and change

*mind and matter; religion and warfare; east and west; individual morality and political power; Way and Law (Dàofâ)

Marnix St.J. Wells, PhD SOAS

August 2 2010

These models demonstrate, according to Mòzî, Heaven’s ‘total love’ (jian’ài) for all people, embodying unity and impartiality, from which the first kings instituted their laws. In the fourth to third centuries B.C. Confucians Mèngzî and Xúnzî reacted against the influence of Mòzî, but in doing so showed his influence on them.

Contents

1.     Human-nature as Good

2.     Quietism

3.     Right as External

4.     Hedonism

5.     Human-nature as Evil

6.     Human Emotions and Actuality

7.     Right as Logical Discrimination

8.     Rightness and Beneficial Profit

9.     Dynamics as External Forces

10.  Dynamic Contradictions

11.   Winning by Averages

12.   Man-made Dynamics

13.   Conclusion: a Lesson from History

1.     Human-nature as Good

Mencius (Mèngzî) c. BC 300 is famous for his doctrine of human-nature being good. (xìngshàn). Confucius (Kôngzî) c. BC 500 had declared: “to be human is to be humane” (rén-zhê rén-yê.) Mencius elaborated this by saying that man is born with sprouts of goodness that  must be nourished like a plant or they will wither away. Thus morality is innate and guided internally by a good conscience (liángxin).

Mencius’ optimistc view of human-nature eventually became state orthodoxy and conflicted with the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of the Fall whereby human nature is corrupt.

2.     Quietism

Quietism c. BC 400 preaches ‘non-contrivance’ (wúwéi) and ‘calming the mind’ (jingxin) by the ‘mind within the mind’ (Xin-zhi zhong yôu xin-yan). It taught emptying the mind (xuxin), discarding desires (yu) and memories (cang).

This quietism is associated with the Zengzî branch of Confucianism, which was criticised by Mohists for fatalistic passivity. Some of these aspects of quietism were advocated by Lâozî, whose identity and dates remain obscure, though Lâozî’s writings have been associated with of Machiavellian realpolitik. Indeed the earliest commentary on Lâozî is attributed to Hán Feizî of the Legalist ex-Confucian.

Three essays of Quietism (36-37 Xinshù, 38 Báixin, 49 Nèiyè) are preserved anonymously within the compendium under the name of Guânzî, the renowned 7^th century BC premier of Qí. The identity of the author ‘Lâozî’ who went further in criticising external ‘virtue’ and the establishment remains hidden.

3.     Right as External

Gàozî, acknowledged by Mencius as preceding him in acquiring an ‘immoveable mind’ (bù-dòngxin), was evidently a Quietist.

Gàozî, in accord with the early Quietist text, argued that while benevolent humanity was internal, right (yì) was external. In other words, the sense of right and wrong is something which has to be learned, and is not innate.

All our information about Gàozî is derived from Mencius with whom he appears to be a contemporary. The Admonitions (Jiè) chapter of Guanzî (26) and a newly excavated Guodian text.Xing -zi Ming chu appear to accept the idea of Right as external.

Mencius’ proposition that the sense of right is internal recalls the Socratic method of interrogation in an attempt to prove that knowledge of Idaeas is innate and can be recalled from everyman’s memory with a little prodding. The problem with this argument is that this prodding of the memory is external. Indeed without it the function of a teacher might prove redundant.

4.     Hedonism

Gàozî’s definition of human-nature as desire for ‘food and sex’ (Shísè xìng-yê) appear to place him alsongside Yáng Zhu, ancient China’s Epicurus. It has found acceptance as a traditional popular proverb.

Xúnzî, was dean of Jìxià Academy of Qi in the mid- 3^rd century BC. Unlike Confucius and Mencius whose dialogues only survive, Xúnzî was a prolific essayist and poet whose work survives intact. His ex-disciples Hán Feizî and Lî Si, who became premier of Qín which unified China in 221 BC, defected to Legalism.

5.     Human-nature as Evil

Confucian Xúnzî attacked Mencius for abandoning the Laws of the sagely First Kings (xianwáng). He argued that human-nature is evil (xìng’è) and so requires education. “What is absent internally is sought externally.”

Like Lâozî, Xúnzî saw morality as artificially ‘contrived’ (wèi). But unlike Lâozî, Xúnzî lauds such contrivance as socially necessary and indeed the mark of civilization itself.

Xúnzî’s learning was encyclopaedic and he gives the first critique of the ‘Hundred Schools’ (baijia) of philosophy, which for him was not a symbol of creative diversity, but a symptom of lamentable anarchy. Xúnzî was later criticised by Mencian Confucians as a crypto-Legalist but he denounced Qín for its reliance on compulsion rather than education.

6.     Human Emotions and Actuality

Xúnzî praises the emotions (qíng) as the raw material which can be worked up into a tool to reform character and nature. It is the substance on which ritual and music act to educate. Emotions are also termed ‘energies qì, and ‘desires’ yù.

The ancient Chinese term ‘emotion’ is in apposition to ‘human-nature’, and thus external in relation to the internal nature. It also covers the meanings of objective fact and truth. It appears etymologically cognate with ‘essence’ (jing) and ‘purity’ (qing). They respond to the sensory perception of external reality.

Xúnzî saw himself as upholding the authentic tradition of the first kings. Like Mencius, he attacked Mòzî, although more on grounds of impracticality than principle..Confucius appears as a great teacher in the lineage of the first kings, not the predominant figure he is in Mencius.

7.     Right as Logical Discrimination

Xúnzî, like Mòzî, applies categories (lèi) in a proto-scientific manner, akin to Aristotle.

Inanimate objects just have ‘energy’ (qì), vegetables in addition have ‘life’ (sheng), animals in addition have ‘knowing’ (zhi), while mankind in addition has the faculty of ‘right’, the capacity to divide or discriminate (fen) things into ‘sets’ (qún).

Thus, for Xúnzî, an intellectual sense of Right, not ‘humaneness’ (benevolence), is the essential human quality. Presumably he would agree with Mencius that Right is internal and innate in humans, but disagree that this is enough to make them intrinsically good. Contact with the sensory world is indicated by the word ‘contact’ jie. The sensory organs are the ‘heavenly offices’ (tianguan).

8.     Rightness and Beneficial Profit

For Mòzî, Rightness with which he equates Profit or benefit (lì) and love are internal. Those loved and benefitted are external. Humane benevolence and Rightness are both expressions of Heaven’s love for human beings and its intention to benefit them.

Mencius (I.) vigorously contests the pursuit of beneficial Profit, rather than Rightness alone. Yet this is a debating ploy used to deflect the King Huì from selfish pleasure and towards the general welfare of his people. The Confucian Great Learning concludes with identification of Rightness and Beneficial Profit, Right being the cuase and Profit the result..

9.     Dynamics as External Forces

Dynamics (shì), like Aristtole’s dynamis, represent the force of causation in the outer world of contradictions. Mòzî like Aristotle holds that in the physical world the form of the circle (as expressed for example in a wooden pillar) is corruptible from its ideal.

Yet Mòzî is not discouraged by failure due to external dynamics. The subjective intention is his chief concern. Thus, a son’s filialty is not diminished if his efforts are stymied by a bad harvest due to factors of weather outside his control.

Similarly, Xúnzî distingusihes ‘Right’s triumph or disgrace’ from ‘Dynamic triumph or disgrace’. This demonstrates the opposition between right and might. However like Profit, Dynamics may result from Right.

10.  Dynamic Contradictions

Faced by contradictory ‘necessities’ in the world, Mòzî applies the utilitarian quantitive rule to weigh relative profit and harm. Thus a doctor who cures five out of a thousand cannot be considered a reliable doctor. ( Mòzî: ‘Against War’; cf. J.S. Mill’s ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number)

Hán Feizî similalry argues from history for a form of government that will produce the greater number of well governed generations. He uses this device to solve the paradox of the invincible virtue of the legendary Sage King set against the irreversible Dynamic of Law. He illustrates this by his famous metaphor of the salesman selling an ‘all-piercing spear’ with an ‘all-stopping shield’ (máodùn, a self ‘contradicition’).

11.   Winning by Averages

Hán Feizî’s answer to the dilemma: Sage Kings are in scarce and uncertain supply, but Law is regularly available. Hán Feizî’s concern is not with extreme fluctuations but with the steady inner ‘centre’ (zhong), the mean average.

Thus in his brief historical survey, he estimated that if Sages (Shèngrén) appear once in a thousand years, there will be only one century of good rule out of ten. On the other hand, rule of Law once established should guarantee nine centuries of good rule out of ten, allowing for the emergence of one Arch-villain ruler in the same millennium.

12.   Man-made Dynamics

Hán Feizî, like Legalist Shang Yang, sees Law as a man-made Dynamic to reform society by fixed rewards and punishments and so achieve wealth and strength, the pre-occupations of China today.

His interest is not on the spontaneous Dynamics of nature (zìrán), which he cannot control, but those man himself is able to ‘establish’ (shè, verbal form of Shì cf. Qiú Xigui on Guodiàn mss.)

13.   Conclusion: a Lesson from History

In BC 221 the Qín kingdom conquered the last of the remaining Six Kingdoms and unified China in an empire spanning their known world or Under-Heaven (Tianxià). Qín’s triumph was attributable to their implementation of a written system of Law, a strong centralised administration and a utilitarian policy aimed at fostering economic and military power.

Ironically its early downfall was due not only to the excessive severity and inflexibility of its legal system, and to the simmering discontent of the newly conquered kingdoms, their hereditaty aristocracies displaced by bureaucrats and the persecution of Confucian scholars and learning. The decisive factor was, despite its vaunted system objective Law,  an excessive reliance on the one person of Shîhuáng, the Initiator Emperor, on whose unexpectedly sudden demise while on tour, Zhào Gao a corrupt eunuch usurped power, encompassing the death of the groomed heir apparent on frontier duty at the Great Wall.

Nonetheless, Hàn and subsequent dynasties over two millennia essentially ruled by the centralised bureaucratic and legal system founded by Qín. The more successful emperors also endeavoured to be both outwardly ‘kings’ (wáng) while inwardly ‘sages’, like Plato’s ideal philosopher king. Ultimately systems are dependent on the quality and morals of the persons who operate them. It turned out that Hán Feizî’s projection of one sage ruler per millennium was erred on the pessimistic side, while conversely that of one villain ruler in a thousand years was perhaps too optimistic.

References.

Mòzî: Jing, Dàqû, Xiâoqû: the logic chapters.

A.C. Graham 1978: Later Mohist Logic, Chinese University, Hong Kong; 1989 Disputers of the Tao, Open Court, La Salle, Il.

Han Fei Zi 40: Nan Shi: A salesman advertised an all-piercing spear and an all-resisting shield, but was at a loss when asked to apply his own spear to his own shield.

Julien, Francois 1993: La Propension des Choses.

Thompson, Paul 1979: The Shen Tzu Fragments, Oxford.

Marnix Wells (PhD SOAS 2001)   Croydon  2010, July 20

(after powerpoint presentation to ICSP conference at Wûhàn Univsersity 2007, 25-27 June)

Dan Docherty has written here a no-nonsense, hands-on, bare-knuckled interpretation of the core writings of tàijíquán, as transmitted by Lî Yìyú of southern Hébêi province in the late nineteenth century. Dan has done more than this. He relates these classics to their conceptual parents in Zhou Dunyí (1017-1073)’s Tàijí Diagram on the cultural side, and to General Qi Jìguang’s Boxing Classic on the martial side, translating both seminal texts with copies of their original illustrations. Clear colour photographs with analyses eludcidate demonstrations by Dan’s students of tàijí’s core martial techniques.

We are introduced to the yin-yáng cosmology of Chinese philosophy, extrapolated over centuries from the mysterious Book of Change. Dan makes the tàijíquán connection to Daoism through “philosophical, alchemical, meditative and martial practices and not religious practices such as exorcism and prayer.” It is clear Dan speaks from personal experience as an ‘in-door’ adept of late Master Cheng Tin-hung in Hong Kong.  He trained not only in standard tàijí forms and exercises, but also in the esoteric ‘internal alchemy’ or yogic nèigong under personal supervision of his master.

On the origins of the art, Dan expresses scepticism of many current claims, but adheres to his own school’s veneration for Daoist saint Zhang Sanfeng of Mt Wûdâng as “founder” of tàijíquán. (28) Dan admits similarities between the writings of ‘scholar boxer’ Cháng Nâizhou (1724-1783), who lived across the Yellow River from Chénjiagou, earliest certified home of tàijíquán as we know it. He points to Buddhist and Shàolín elements in Cháng’s art, as well as postural differences from tàijí such as “head tilted up and raised shoulders.” (37-38) Yet Chénjiagou itself bears signs of Shàolín influences, most obviously in its opening ‘Vajrapâni Pounds Mortar’ sequence.

As to the postural dogmas of received tàijíquán wisdom, Dan narrows the gap between the sacred cows of ‘orthodoxy’ and some apparently wrongly proscribed ‘heresies’. In this light, tàijíquán seems less far removed from other ‘internal’ and even ‘external’ martial arts. For example, there is the so-called ban on ‘double weighting’. Dan informs us: “Double-weightedness is often misinterpreted as having an even amount of weight on each foot.”  Rather, he says, it is “an absence of Yin and Yang.” For example, Dan explains that “in a horse-riding stance”, often cited as the stock example of Shàolín double-weightedness, “the void and insubstantiality exists in so far as the lower body is full, or Yin, while the upper body is Yang as it has the potential for movement by inclining and turning to shift the weight in another direction…” So in this sense it does not offend against double-weightedness. (55-56, 77-79)

As a practical instance, Dan cites Jack Dempsey’s drop step, used to get our hero out of a tight spot, “stepping in with the front foot to jab with the front hand.” This Dempsey drop step, as I understand it, is a spring or virtual hop. Some tàijí practitioners teach “never move a foot when it is full of weight.” Dan answers: “It is suicidal to shift the weight back before stepping in with the front foot…”  He goes on: “In my own form sometimes the one foot is both full and empty…” (79) As for the principle of softness, Dan concludes: “Strength is necessary, but trained strength, not brute strength…” (76)

It seems discussions of tàijíquán outside mainland China still cannot avoid mention of one name, that of Cheng Man-ching (Zhèng Mànqing), idolised in the pioneering books of American Robert Smith. Dan traces what he considers a common misinterpretation of the classics to Cheng’s followers  “insisting that the body should be upright and erect at all times…”  Yet the Wú style puts “more than 90 per cent of the weight on the front foot when in a front stance,” requiring the torso to incline forward. Even pictures of Yáng Chéngfû and Cheng himself show a forward lean. (95-96)

A practical demonstration of the value of bending the neck in real life occurred to Dan inadvertently one day in 1982 on Nathan Road in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong, near where his master taught. In Dan’s words: “I felt.. something wrong and moved my head to one side: a fist came whizzing past from behind – and missed…”  Thus, “in fighting… it is not only permissible, but advisable to move the head independently…  ” (74) I would suggest at a higher level of practice such movements, as a sort of bobbing and weaving involving also the torso, are covered by the classic lines: “Moving back and forth there must be turning and folding up.” from Practice of the Thirteen Tactics. (88)

In conclusion, we must be grateful to Dan for frankly sharing with us these deep insights and insider stories of his own training and street level experiences. It is a refreshing change to read first-hand accounts rather than legends of hoary feats transmitted as hearsay of hearsay. Dan has no need to exaggerate. He served in the Hong Kong police and won a contact championship in Malaysia in 1980. Since returning to U.K., he helped found the Tai Chi Union of Great Britain, which he heads, and runs the annual British Open Tai Chi Championships at Oxford.

Faced with the current boom in ‘emasculated’ tàijí which tends to deny its martial essence, Dan’s book is a valuable antidote. Dan’s Oxford tournament provides a level playing field for young and old, female and male to compete in forms and ‘pushing’ with minimal risk of injury. I would like to add one Daoist tale from my own store. An immortal said: I can’t teach you how to always win, but I can tell you how never to be defeated. Yes? Don’t fight. But then competing is not fighting. There everyone is a winner. “He who conquers himself is strong.” (Lâo Zî)

A number of stone engravings from temple murals are claimed to represent Wú Dàozî originals. Of these one of the most striking is the Flying God or demon from the Northern Mountain Range Temple (Bêiyuè Miào) in Qûyáng, Hébêi. The stone tablets from which rubbings were taken, one from late Míng and another from Qing, have been mounted in an outbuilding wall. Yet amazingly the painted walls with the image from which the engraving was copied still survive. These are the east and west walls of the great Virtuous Tranquility Hall at the back of the huge shrine compound. Each measures about thirty by sixty feet.

I have been in continuous contact with the Chinese authorities over the past few years to reproduce these images (partly obscured by dust) photographically and digitally for full publication. Tantalisingly, this still remains to be accomplished.

Wú Dào Zî and Bêiyuè Miào

Everywhere along the highways we saw evidence of impressive development, agriculture, reforestation, and electric generation from exploitation of vast coal reserves. We witnessed restoration of a cultural street with its old multi-story wooden gate towers in Yúlín, functioning Daoist and Buddhist temples, open-air performances by Shânbêi folk singers, local opera performances at temple festivals and a riverside funeral. There were glimpses from our air-conditioned coach among roadside foliage of the hoopoe (dàishèng niâo), a bird painted on the walls of a imperial Táng tomb.

At the concluding conference in Yúlín, Chinese participants endorsed the goals of cultural conservation, while some ‘post-modernist’ Europeans argued that such preservation was a form of colonialism and impediment to progress.Traditional forms can continue to thrive, Hâihâi remarked by updating content, as in old songs with new words.

Such adaptations have been successful in political propaganda, like the anthem “The East is Red (Dongfang Hóng)”, sung to a traditional a Shânbêi folk tune. This method, greatly developed during the communist anti-Japanese resistance of the 1930s, was discredited by the excesses of the late 1960s ‘Cultural Revolution’. Yet its contributions to revitalising traditional folk forms, instrumental and vocal, offer lessons for today. Past cultural forms, if conserved and re-interpreted, may provide a virtual gene pool for future generations to tap and develop. .

Northern Shânxi bears witness to the interaction of at least five main different cultures:

a) Mongolian nomadic culture is based on sheep-herding, Bactrian camels in the desert areas, and horses. Its influence is seen north of the Míng Great Wall in place names such as the Hàn village of Dong Húlúsù, where folksong containing Mongolian phrases, and a shaman frame-drum ritual dance, was performed.

b) The military culture of a long demobilised frontier survives in the traces of the mud-brick cored Great Wall, with its fortresses and beacon towers, first built here in 1472 to protect against Mongol cavalry raids. Yúlín was a major base behind the Wall, with its triple tiered fortress guarding a gateway in it through which horse trading with Mongols was conducted. At Fûgû a map showed the intersection there of the Qín north-south Wall with the Míng east-west wall.

Yangge dances, with their great suônà reed-trumpets and big drum percussion bands, follow complex manoeuvres in single files, of both sexes, holding umbrellas and fans, seem to recall military drills of past peasant armies (like the Trojan game in Virgil’s Aeneid).

At Jiaxiàn one night we found ourselves dancing to the tune of the old Maoist favourite ‘Sailing the Great Sea depends on the Helmsman’ (Hángxíng Dàhâi kào Duóshôu). It turned out to be one of the simpler patterns, ‘Eight Horse Paired Rings’ (Ba-mâ Duìhuán), interweaving turns of ‘clockwise, clockwise, anti-clockwise’ when passing a member of the opposite sex.

c) Hàn peasant culture grows maize and sorghum, but just jujube dates in the barren hills of Jiaxiàn. Reforestation planting has been vigorously implemented in recent years. A new economy, centred on Shénmù, is exploiting huge coal reserves for electric power generation and conveyance by pylon cables to the southeast litoral.

Cave houses, hollowed from the loess cliffs are still inhabited, but appear to be generally in the process of replacement by less picturesque conventional housing. Traditional houses maintain old brick beds, heated by hot-air flues, and wood lattice windows, originally pasted with translucent paper on which women displayed skill at scissor-cutting intricate red paper figures.

Courtship is the main theme of North Shânxi’s xìntianyóu (‘trust heaven roving’) folksong, often frankly physical in uncensored duets, such as the Eighteen Touches (Shíbamo) and its result in Song of Pregnancy (Huáitaiqû),which we heard in a temple courtyard in Mâzhèn and above the Yellow River by the Confucius temple at Fûgû. It thus relates to the mountain song (shan’ge) genre of spring outdoor romantic festivals. Revolutionary songs during the ‘Cultural Revlution’ readily channelled these feelings into love for the political leader.

d) Daoist and Buddhist temples operate mostly on hill or cliff tops. The most dramatic of these are Báiyúnguan ‘White Cloud Hermitage’ in Jiaxiàn, and Èrlángshan at Shénmù. Daoism predominates but coexists with Buddhism, often sharing adjoining shrines. Martial deities like Guan’gong and Zhenwû, with shrines to mother goddesses on the side, tend to be the main focus. Impressive Qing dynasty wall paintings survive in many temples, though the images appear to be new.

At Báiyúnguan, a Daoist reed (sheng, guan, suônà) and percussion (drum and cymbals) played as two acolytes waved red scarves in an attempted ritual dance revival, while the head priest made circling gestures with empty hands as if holding cymbals.

Many temples had covered stages, on their south facing the shrine, and the audience in the courtyard, which included a few white-hatted Moslems, watched operas and story telling performed at festivals. Temporary stages were erected for operas at a major funeral by the Yellow River at Fûgû. At Mâzhèn we witnessed a brief rain praying ceremony with leafy boughs in the courtyard.

e) Confucian relics survive in the restored Wénmiào, ‘Temple of Literature’ to Confucius, with its deserted school, at the top of the town of Fûgû. A small private archaeological museum at Shénmù holds the remains of a 2000 year old wooden instrument, thought to be a seven string Hàn dynasty qín.

Yúlín’s ‘Folk Museum’, an old courtyard home off Culture Street, has few exhibits but provides an elegant venue for performance of Yúlín Xiâoqû, the southern-style string ensemble (with Jiangnán Sizhú affinities) to which literary lyrics (qûpái) are sung. Just outside the city on the cliffs of Red Rock Gully (Hóngshíxiá), beside ravaged cave temples, is a fine display of engraved calligraphy by Qing scholar officials.

Blue Snake Books 2009

Reviewed by Marnix Wells, September 2009

This sleek volume, so ably translated and re-packaged here by Kent and Hsiao-Yen, with additional explanations and pictures for an English-speaking audience, is both aesthetically pleasing and most informative. Kent Howard makes clear Wáng’s pairing of the eight trigrams with each change in turn, as well as the linked eight actions of “pushing, lifting, carrying, leading, move about, hooking, splitting and entering.” The logic of these correlations is a little hard to follow, but then Wáng rarely explained anything. He showed you a move just once or twice and then it was time to go and practise it on your own.

It was on 29^th June 1979 that my late teacher, Wáng Shùjin, presented me at his home in Táizhong with a signed and chopped copy of his book Baguà Linked Palms. He then shocked me by silently handing me a copy of his medical report dated 6^th April. Its contents were alarming. At the time I could not understand why he had shown me this. I later concluded it was his way of preparing me for the inevitable. Though Wáng had a second baguà Swimming Body form book published before his death two years later, it seems to me that he intended the present volume, at last available in English, to be his main memorial.

As a disciple of Wáng, I would have wished that Wáng had been more forthcoming on baguà’s defense applications, and how to practise them with a partner. Kent here hints at these, and has developed this side further on his web-site.  I still find it strange and frustrating that Wáng tells stories in his preface about Dông Hâichuan’s learning from his teacher over a hundred years previously, but none of his own teachers and experiences.

Dông  Hâichuan (c.1813-1882) is officially hailed as the one-man founder of baguà zhâng, which Kent accepts, yet there seem to be even greater disparities between baguà schools than among most tàijí and xíngyì schools which are believed to be older. Xiao Hâibo (c. 1863-1954), Zhang Zhàodong’s successor and Wáng’s last teacher on the mainland was reportedly a practitioner not of baguà, but of bapán zhâng, a parallel off-shoot, claiming independence of Dông.

Baguà, unlike Xíngyì and Tàijí boxing, does not have a generally recognised canonical text or ‘classic’ handed down from Dông or other teachers of the nineteenth century or earlier. This absence makes it more difficult than other arts to pinpoint historically. Many of its basic principles such as the ‘six unities’ (liùhé) and especially the ‘Eight Secrets of Bagua Zhang’ (Kent’s Chapter 2) are evidently borrowed from Xíngyì. Incidentally baguà teachers I have known, including Wáng Shùjin, venerated a portrait of Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, as their patriarch. Wáng was not a ‘Daoist’ and his Yiguàn Dào is a synthesis of all three Chinese belief systems.

In 2004 I visited Dông’s indirect family descendants who still live in Zhújiawu hamlet among the fields outside Wén’an, just south of Bêijing. That Dông was a eunuch is generally accepted and he certainly left no blood lineage. Yet being a eunuch was not, as some suppose, incompatible with martial attainment. Witness the great eunuch Admiral Zhèng Hè (1371-1433) who beginning in 1405 fought and sailed seven times across the Indian ocean with his fleet of ‘treasure ships’ as far as Africa and back.

Kent is right to cast doubt on the tale Wáng tells of Dông learning baguà from two Daoists on Mt Éméi in Sìchuan. On the other hand, Kent repeats researcher Kang Géwû’s theory (without attribution) that Dông was a Quánzhen Daoist as if this were historical fact. So far as I know, it has yet to be substantiated. A foot-note reference would have been useful at this point.  (see: Miller 1993 May-June vol. 3-4, “The Origins of Pa Kua Chang, Part 3” 27). Incidentally, records indicate that Dông taught in the palace of a Manchu prince (‘king’), rather than in the “imperial palace” which is the rendering Kent gives for Wáng’s less specific term “Qing palace” (Qinggong).

As for Wáng’s senior, Chinese martial arts doyen Chén Pànlîng (1892-1967), it is surely presumptious of Wáng to claim in his preface that he helped Chén Pànlîng formulate Chén’s unique tàijíquán form. Wáng admitted to me that he learnt his tàijíquán from Chén Pànlîng, though he insisted that he taught Chén his baguà. Chén’s sons claimed the opposite and held that Wáng had once worked as assistant instructor for their father who helped him get to Japan. It was not easy in those days of martial law for Chinese to get permission to leave Táiwan. Indeed Wáng appears standing respectfully behind Chén who is seated at front centre in Chén’s Nine Nine Physical Fitness Society photograph of 1957. (Reproduced from Léi Xiàotian 1979: Xíngyìquán Shí’èr-xíng.) Wáng does not appear in its fifth meeting picture of 1962.

Wáng’s Connected Palm form is virtually identical to Chén’s Swimming Body Dragon form. This can hardly be coincidence.  Most notably, they share the special feature, absent from Jiang Róngqiáo’s publication of Zhang Zhàodong’s baguà form, of lifting the legs high in the style of bapán zhâng. It is possible that Chén modified his forms somewhat in the light of Wáng’s practical experience but hardly that he learned any forms from Wáng. I consider it probable that Wáng adopted Chén’s baguà form as his own, as he would have had to do if he once taught for Chén, changing its name to Linked Rings to distinguish it from his own distinctive Swimming Body form that he had learned on the mainland.

Unfortunately the translator’s introduction misleads the reader when it says this is a “complete translation”, so it cannot be said to be entirely “faithful” in this respect: important sections have been omitted.

For example, under palms, the back of the palm strike is missing. In Chapter 7 – Basic Principles, most of Wáng’s explanations of Coccyx and spine, Breathing, and Yi (ideation), showing influence of Tàijíquán, and of Yìquán which Wáng learnt from Wáng Xiangzhai, have been cut. A slight mistranslation is “keep the foot close to the ground” for “do not raise the foot high.” Pictures show Wáng raised his foot about a foot from the ground when walking the circle unlike the fashionable wûshù baguà foot-sliding. Wáng’s crucial words on mud walking (tángní) have likewise been curtailed. Gone is Wáng’s ending: “as it touches the ground the foot turns slightly inward.” In my experience this turning inwards is a key ingredient of  baguà circle walking.

Another significant omission from Kent’s translation is Wáng’s discussion of ‘ideation’ (yì) in regard to baguà’s fighting applications, and of our need to use mind and intelligence to adapt to the universe, just as to identify the direction of an opponent’s attack in order to dodge, and mount a counter attack accordingly. Wáng concludes with the memorable saying (slightly garbled in the Chinese original on Wáng’s page 25): “Tàijí is humanity, Xíngyì is courage, Baguà is wisdom (intelligence)”, after the three Confucian virtues, Humanity or benevolence (rén), Courage (yông) and Wisdom (zhì). (Doctrine of the Mean). I hope Kent will consider incorporating this and other omitted vital passages in his next edition, doubtless soon to be printed.

Overall, Kent and Xiao-Yan are to be congratulated on a highly successful accomplishment of a very difficult task. They have made Wáng’s text readily accessible and enjoyable. Their well-written book deserves to be a classic in any Chinese martial arts library. With the caveat that certain errors and omissions detailed above remain to be rectified, I recommend it as a guide for beginners and a thoughtful souvenir to those more experienced.

Imported music, originally tied to ‘barbarian’ tongues, inevitably created conflicts in musical styles, to be resolved assimilation in varying degree. In the Maoist era this process was termed ‘foreign adapted to Chinese use’ (wài wéi Zhong yòng), analogous to ‘ancient adapted to modern use’ (gû wéi jin yòng). In fact every past dynasty had promulgated their own new musical norms, adapting and remoulding music to new tunings and titles. The Míng, heirs of Mongol Yuán, even officially imposed the five-note scale to distance itself from the foreign heptatonic tunes that had long dominated the country.

Yet Míng could not deny Mongol dynasty itself, which, though non-Hàn, ruled all China for almost a century (1280-1368), and unprecedentedly expanded its sphere of influence. But what of the dynasties who had shared power with the Sòng: the Khitan Liáo, Tangut Xixià, and Jurchen Jin? They have become for the most part culturally both invisible and inaudible. There could only be one Son of Heaven at a time, and that remained the Sòng (960-1278). Yet north China’s central plain was ruled by Jin (1125-1234) over a hundred years. Jurchen emperors Shìzong (r. 1161-1189), and especially his successor the cultured Zhangzong (r. 1190-1208), were musical. Yet while the influence of Indian music is too well attested to deny, the important musical contributions of the Jurchen (like that of their Manchu successors) are all but forgotten. In this paper I will examine the Jurchen musical profile still traceable in Chinese operatic song and dance.

(Abstract from paper given at CHIME 2007 – I Sing Who I Am – Identity, Ethnicity and Individuality)

In Taipei, Marnix learnt tàijí two-man practice of push-hands, dàlyû and sànshôu with Gan Xiàozhou, a leading disciple of Zhèng Mànqing and like him a native of Zhèjiang with a strong accent. He continued study under Zhang Yìzhong (‘Chô sensei’, originally from Shànghâi) in Shibuya, Tokyo where he became a friend of Bruce Frantzis and Barry Wicksman from New York, and Danny Connor from Manchester. Zhang had been chief instructor of Wáng Shùjin in Japan and had also studied with Chén Pànlîng (of Hénán). Zhang taught the two-man drills and defence applications with great precision but seemed to lack what Bruce called ‘the juice’.

On the 1969 summer break, Bruce was away in India training at a yoga ashram. Marnix returned to Taipei, where Gan Xiàozhou took Marnix to the general push-hands Saturday morning meet in the government Legislative Yuàn. There leading luminaries, mostly followers of Zhèng Mànqing, Wáng Yánnián and others engaged in informal push-hands. A young man named Liào Wèishan, a student at the Political University in Mùzhá, drew Marnix aside and told him to resist, rather than just to yield when pushed, as he had been taught to do. Armed with this new insight, the scales fell from his eyes and much of the magic of the push-hands masters vanished into thin air. Liào told him that Zhèng Mànqing had an in-door teaching which was ‘hard’, unlike the ‘soft’ tàijí he used to con the uninitiated (piàn wàiháng) and foreigners in America.

The next summer (1970) Marnix returned to Taiwan and met Liào again. He learnt that Liào was a native Taiwanese, an outsider among an ex-mainlander elite, a country boy from Xiluô in the south, where he grew learning the south Fújiàn style of Springing Crane (Zonghè) taught by Lín Guózhòng (see Robert Smith: Chinese Boxing, Masters and Methods, Tuttle), which also had a form of pushing- or sticking-hands. These stylists threw their arms out like a crane (cf. White Crane Spreads Wings in taiji) to strike with the whole arm. Liao took Marnix on a tour visiting masters in Taiwan. At Táizhong, they looked up Wáng Shùjin (passing a pair of giant size bloomers on the washing-line) who took us by taxi to a farmhouse in Câotún where his leading disciple Wáng Fúlái had his students parade their forms of baguà and xíngyì while the teachers watched fanning themselves. Marnix pushed hands competitively with his students but found to his surprise they seemd unable to deliver. Liào faulted Wáng for reliance on superior body weight and lack of application training in his students.

Liào pointed out to Marnix the thirty-four powers or energies (jìng/jìn) described in Chén Yánlín’s 1936 Tàijíquán True Transmission. Liào was to translate these in Tai Chi Classics (1977, reprinted by Shambala). They are transmitted from teacher to student by practice of contact-sticking (zhannián) in the process of ‘feeding power’ (wèijìng). The teacher as it were ‘magnetises’ a students by joined rotation of forearms, sticking with strong resistance and unbroken contact. Liào called this the transfer of ‘current-like’ power, or ‘charging up chi [qì]’ (2005 Chi, how to feel the life energy). Yang Jwingming’s 1996 Tai Chi Theory & Martial Power goes on to expound no less than fifty-three types of power.

For one hundred dollars (U.S.), Liào undertook to train Marnix intensively every day for one month, until he had ‘entered the gate’ (rùmén). Liào’s training consisted in toughening the arms, using the whole arm and body to strike. The sticking arms was used to find a weakness or faulty connection and immediately exploit it in an attack. Marnix became sore from being repeatedly bounced off walls in ‘eat bitter’ (chikû) training. In particular, Liào introduced me to the reality of fajìng ‘projecting’ or releasing power as in shooting an arrow from a bow, and dôujìng ‘vibration’ or shaking power.

At this juncture Bruce happened to phone from Tokyo and, hearing of Liào, took the next plane down to Taipei. Bruce and friends then helped Liào get a visa and air-ticket to Tokyo, where we continued the training for a few months, and then on to the USA where Liào went his own way. He eventually set up a Taichi Center in Illinois under the name Master Waysun Liao. Liao’s recent publications speak only of health and the Tao. This is after all what Liào (1977 I-20) called mere ‘public Taichi’, just an exercise or dance, because before 1911 under the Manchus its martial nature had to be kept hidden. Since the opening up of China from the 1990s, fajìng has become more widely known, and taught by masters from Chénjiagou (in Hénán) such as Chén Xiâowàng and others.

Bruce refers to Liào as “a ‘young master’ of Yang style tai chi” in his 1998 The Power of the Internal Martial Arts (North Atlantic Books 47ff, 97ff) but concludes his ‘secrets’ of fajìng came from White Crane boxing. One U.S. student recently emailed me to suggest there actually are two Waysun Liao, one a master of springing crane and another of tàijí boxing. David (June-Chian) Dai, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor in Canada and author The Science of Taichi Dynamic (Tàijíquán Dònglì d’ Kexué, Wûzhou Publishing Co.) wrote to me as follows:

“Recently, I was taking some Zong-He (Springing Crane) at my hometown, Chia-Yi. Also, I happened to have the chance to discuss Taichi taught by Master Waysun Liao. Since all these people including me have the same background of indoor students of Master Cheng Chuquan (student of Wu Guozong who is the student of Cheng Man-ching), I am very curious about the dynamics of Liao’s style. Accordingly, Master Liao said to his students here (Chia-i schools established about 2 years ago) that he is the true indoor student of Cheng Man-ching. Also,he had his advanced instruction from masters at Beijing. However, to my understanding, Master Cheng Man-ching’s dynamics is mainly based on iso-metric way, which characterized with movement on the same horizontal level. Master Liao’s style is more iso-tonic that move up and down and look similar to those of the Crane. Since he never mentioned any background of Zong-He Crane for his style, I could not conclude whether Liao’s Taichi dynamics is more Crane instead of Cheng Man-ching’s Taichi. Also, lots visualization look similar to those of Yi Chuan (Mind boxing by Wang Xiang Zhai). “

There are indeed strong similarities between martial push-hands in Tàijíquán, and Springing Crane cross-hands, Wingchun chisau training, and others. Significantly, the classic Tàijíquán ‘Push Hands Song’ never mentions pushing, and translates literally as ‘Hitting Hands Song’ (dâshôu ge). It explicitly describes defence against a hit or strike (dâ), countered by contact-stick-connect-follow, so as to “draw out his force to fall into a void.” This aspect of Tàijíquán requires greater attention and development if it is to reclaim its old, fabled martial status.

It is not every day you meet someone who can launch himself effortlessly into the air. Yet Hé Jînghàn, master of the vertical take-off, visiting London to promote his new book, is just such an one. Bubbling over with genuine enthusiasm, Master Hé is a truly unassuming Daoist individualist with the complexion and slightly chubby form of a boy blessed with eternal youth. Hé hails from that verdant semi-tropical isle of friendly free expression which historical accident has made a haven of pre-revolutionary Chinese humanism. It was there in Táibêi that Alex Kozma ‘discovered’ him. (see: Beyond the Mysterious Gate, 2004)

Gong Bâozhai, of Shandong, followed Chiang Kaishek’s nationalist army to Táiwan in 1949 and settled in Gaoxióng. There he was to teach Master Hé his baguàzhâng, ‘eight trigram palms’ of the Yînfú lineage which Gong in turn had learned from Gong Bâotián, a retired imperial bodyguard and family relative.

Shortly after we met in a sitting room at his publisher’s offices, Master Hé placed himself in a low horse-stance, leaning forward while keeping his knees back for support and thrusting out his two fists. This position dramatically illustrated baguà’s evolutionary links to Shàolín’s luóhàn (arhat) boxing. Master Hé s philosophy is centred on internal stretches which allow energy to flow through the joints.

Pulling forward from the hands and pushing back with the body, joint by joint is unlocked. Such stretches also give stimulation to the internal organs, such as heart and lungs, which Hé describes as ‘hanging’ within the body. Thus each of baguà’s eight mother palm postures have their health benefits by ‘drawing out’ (dâoyîn) specific organs.

Stepping is done from the body centre, by opening from the crotch (kua). Master Hé appears to place more stress on linear than circle walking. He does not do the so-called ‘mud-walking’ slide step now prevalent in Bêijing wûshù circles. Asked about the direction of circle walking, Hé acknowledged the need to face the opponent, with feet pointing towards him as centre.

This leaves unresolved the endemic baguà contradiction of how to walk the solo circle strongly if hands but not feet point to the centre, or alternatively if hands and feet both align with the circumference.

Contrary to many internal martial artists, Hé does not advocate remaining perfectly upright at all times. While maintaining strong head and torso alignments, Hé seeks balance in off-balance, deliberately leaning one way to generate a force by simultaneously pulling back in the opposite direction. His dynamic imbalance of yin and yang is constantly changing counter balances, heaven as the head against earth as belly. Force is generated by the twisting together in opposite directions of these two primordial forces, which thereby produced the explosion of the big bang. Hé sees martial and health aspects of the art as inseparably one.

Hé Jînghàn’s informative and fascinating book, Bagua Daoyin, published by Singing Dragon 2008, is copiously illustrated with remarkable photographs of the master performing the eight mother palms.