personal experiences with the spectrum
Hello. I just joined the forum and this is my first post. My personal experience with this topic is that I have experienced both ends of the spectrum in martial arts training. My Tai Chi master was literally a master of the Five Excellences- calligraphy, poetry, painting, philosophy, and Tai Chi Chuan. I met my Tai Chi master when he was 82 years old. He could not fight his way out of a paper bag. The way I met him was when he came into my office one day, did a full shovel, and said, “It hurts right here (pointing to the inside of his knee) when I do this.” I was impressed. The second visit to my office, he said he had heard I know Tai Chi and would like to see some. Right there in my waiting room, I performed first section Yang style for him. After my performance, I received the usual amenities “Ah yes, form very correct, you have trained hard. You must come and practice with me.” I was at his house the next day, then the next day. He said, "Ok, ok. You come to my house every Tuesday and Thursday and I teach you Tai Chi. About two weeks into training, I was thinking that I have never seen Tai Chi like this before and then it dawned on me. He was teaching me Chang Chuan Yang Tai Chi Chuan! I had heard about it for years and never thought I would see it performed let alone learn it. Several years later, after his first stroke, my master said, “Ah! I can no longer remember Tai Chi. You are sifu now.” (I almost cry when I think about that moment.) After I moved from the area, I later heard he had a second stroke and died. He was a small man, old and frail, but to me he was a giant. He was a martial intellectual giant in his own way. Bertrand Russell said, “A civilized Chinese man is the most civilized man in the world.” I had the honor of training with such a man.
My Gung Fu master was highly intellectual as well as powerful. He was a fighting and acupuncture master. His school consisted of a run down building on Geary Avenue in San Francisco which always smelled of dust, sweat, and iron palm medicine. He only taught four Gum Gong, or fighting forms, based upon the fists and footwork of his school, and two weapons- knife and staff. The rest of training was composed of fists and footwork in high repetitions and fighting; always fighting. The students were like chess players trying to figure out how to hit each other without getting hit. At that time, I did not do much sparring. I went away to college and when I came back to the school, it was fighting, always fighting. I was bruised on my entire body all the time. Gum Gong training at that time was brutal, bordering on dangerous. When I opened my own school after about 22 years of training, I followed the training patterns of my master (albeit using safety measures to prevent severe injury) and found that the system he had developed was transmitted to my students with similar results. One of the mottos of my school was, “Fight the way you train.” My fighting master is also passed away.
In summary, I feel incredibly fortunate to have experienced the full spectrum of martial and healing arts within the Chinese martial culture and have observed no disconnect between the aesthetic and martial content of the arts. Please excuse me if this post has seemed arduously long. Please consider it an introduction of sorts and I look forward to talking with all of you in the future.
SKM