Sep 27 Stealing the Inches

“At this point in the technique use the opening of the back to knock your opponent out of his feet.  Then powered by the waist, you turn to hit with your head, then shoulder, the elbow and then the fist…” I explained demonstrating a sequence from the Yang Chen Fu long form called ‘yin yang fist’ for the first time to a group of students.

They tried faithfully to replicate the movement but ended waving their arms around in a vague, disconnected manner…

 “No, no, no… watch… first the back, then follow through with the head, shoulder, elbow and finally the fist!” I clarified going through the movement a second time.

Now they looked even more confused…

“Look.  Watch… “ I said whilst physically demonstrating the application on one of them, “… the back, head, shoulder, elbow and THEN the fist!  Don’t just go straight to the end of the movement because you’re all missing the ‘bits’ in between and that’s where the real ‘magic’ happens!”

Their minds had transcended confusion and moved on to a complete standstill. 

“You’re giving them too much information Gavin!”  Sifu said standing up from his chair in the corner of the hall where he’d been watching intently during one of his visits to my school.

“They just need the ‘outline’ of the sequence to start off with – you’re confusing them with too much detail!” he continued whilst walking over.  Immediately the students all relaxed, realising they weren’t just being ‘thick’.

“Ok, if we all go to ‘fan through back’ and we’ll go through the movements ‘point to point’”  Said Sifu starting from the part of the form just before ‘yin yang fist’.

“Sit into the rear leg and ‘open’ the back, using the waist to strike then bring it back to power the next movement!” Sifu demonstrated with the students following him.

“Good.  Now push out to the corner with the left hand, p’eng with the right, step back and strike…” he walked through the sequence again with the students keeping up.

‘Now we do a sequence you’ve already done… ‘parry down’ followed by a step through and ‘deflect and punch’”

“Again!”  He instructed.

Within ten minutes the students were comfortably running through the sequence under their own steam.

We finished the lesson with some push hands and Sifu shared some ‘closing thoughts’ which is something the whole class always enjoy during his visits because they usually receive some deeper teachings to take away and ponder…

“Taiji is learnt ‘progressively’.  The classics say that first you learn Taiji in feet, then inches, then hundredths of an inch, then thousandths of a hundredth and so on.  What this means is that you first learn it in ‘dots’ moving from sequence to sequence analagous to drawing by numbers.   As you progress we’ll gradually join up the ‘dots’. 

As Gavin rightly said the ‘magic’ happens in the bits between the dots, but without the dots you haven’t got anything to fill in.  Learn the sequence first and try not to get too hung up on the intricate details – when we start breaking the movement down you’ll be better prepared for it!”  He smiled and bowed.

Everyone walked out of the lesson buzzing and in the car park we could see them chatting amongst themselves whilst running through ‘yin yang fist’ again.

On the way home Sifu continued the lesson in the art of ‘sifuing’,

“Did you notice how they all left feeling that they’d learnt something?” Sifu asked.

‘Yeah, they all seemed to really enjoy it tonight!” I replied.

“They enjoyed it because they all learned something that they can take away and practice.  To start off with you gave them far too much information and just confused them, there was no way they could take it all in and remember it.  Giving them just enough detail without overwhelming them means that they have something they can do at home.  Next lesson you can bolt on the next sequence and more importantly they will come to the lesson hungry for more – if you over feed them…”

“…they’ll get fat and lazy? “ I laughed.

“… they’ll have too much and won’t digest the information meaning that you’ll have to give them the same lesson again next time. ” Sifu said as we pulled up outside my house.  “Remember, you don’t need to give them everything that’s in your head, just enough to point them in the right direction!”

“Thanks Sifu!”

That last comment had me thinking, “Just enough to point them in the right direction” and then I thought back to the book ‘Steal my Art’ about late Taiji Master T.T Liang.  The book is written by one of his students Stuart Alve Olson and as well imparting the lessons taught by Liang it also contains the rather amusing methods he had of transmitted to them.  Liang had another close student who Stuart had yet to meet and after what Liang had told him about the guy he was actually reluctant to do so – Liang had said that he was an awful student who was only looking to ‘steal his art’.  Eventually the two would meet and to Stuart’s horror Liang had told the other guy exactly the same thing about him!  Upon confronting Liang he simply joked that if the two ever joined forces they would most definitely ‘steal’ his art and cause him trouble.  The two went on to become life long friends despite Liang’s best efforts!

When Liang accused his students of ‘stealing’ he actually elaborates that this is exactly what a good student needs to do and in fact is the only way to actually acquire Taiji. Liang referred to Taiji as his ‘treasure’ and said that it was not something that he’d give up easily so a student needed to work hard and plot ways to steal it unnoticed.

Thinking back to Sifu’s closing comments and his advice in the car about ‘just giving enough’ this notion of ‘stealing’ Taiji started to make sense to me.  When we first start Taiji we are given the ‘dots’ for free – that is, we’re given the start and end points of each sequence.  There is very little subtlety needed we are simply required to move from point to point and remember the order.  Our Sifu’s give us landmarks in the form to stop us wandering off-piste which I feel is the first stage in learning Taiji in ‘feet’.   In Taiji I believe the ‘feet’ are given to you for nothing and that it is the ‘inches’ you have to take or ‘steal’ for yourself.

Immediately almost all students notice the intricacies that occur between the points as you demonstrate the form and will try to push for the specifics.  It’s here that the Sifu needs to actually dumb down their performance and ‘hide’ aspects of their Taiji, as the student will faithfully try to replicate everything they are shown.  A piece of wisdom handed down in the ‘Classics’ to Sifu’s is ‘when you can hide it, you can teach it’.  Standing by their guns and not giving too much away is an essential element in teaching the student to ‘steal’ Taiji for themselves rather than waiting to be given it on plate.  It is only through that hunger and ability to explore Taiji that they’ll ever ‘internalise’ its teachings themselves.  It’s very much akin to giving the fishing rod rather than the fish.

This concept of ‘pointing’ the way is actually encapsulated in the meaning of the word ‘sifu’ that roughly translates to ‘teacher-father’ and also in Japanese the term ‘Sensei’ meaning ‘one who has gone before’.  Both of these titles signify the teachers role in not in giving teaching, but giving direction in how to ‘discover’ it for yourself.  This is Liang’s concept, ‘stealing’ Taiji from your Sifu – all the teacher will do is show you to the door, you’ve got to ‘pick the lock’ on your own.

Again with most subjects in the Taiji world this idea of ‘stealing’ and purposefully holding back teaching seems ‘flowery’ and unnecessarily vague – where in truth it is entirely practical and actually vital to study Taiji in real depth.  If you think back to a time when you visited a new town and your surroundings were strange and unfamiliar and remember how difficult it was to actually navigate around you’ll begin to appreciate the wisdom in this form of transmission.  Walking to a shop or finding the location of a meeting meant burying your nose into map and occasionally looking up to make sure that you were on the right street.  Simply making it to your destination required so much effort that you probably didn’t even notice the houses, trees and cars on the way, let alone have time to study them in any great detail – to do so would meant that you would probably never have made it to where you were going.  The same is true in Taiji – first we to need memorise the route before we can appreciate the details.

Recently my father also started having lessons with Sifu he when was visiting.  Being new to our style of Taiji he started at the beginning of the form and quickly became concerned that I was going to get bored covering the ‘basics’ again.  Actually the reality of the situation was the exact opposite – covering a section I was familiar with I started to notice subtle little details in Sifu’s movements that I’d previously missed.  Sifu was giving my Dad the ‘dots’ at the same time as showing me how they join together – Dad was seeing Taiji in ‘feet’ and I was beginning to watch it in ‘inches’.  Once I started to see the smaller pieces I could start to ‘steal’ them and make them my own, but to do this I needed to have ‘cased the joint’ well enough to not have to worry about the larger details.

The following week before I even made it into class a couple of my students were asking details about things they’d discovered over the past couple of days from their practise at home.  To my astonishment they had already started to join the ‘dots’ together in a fairly fluid manner and rather than questioning, they were seeking clarification on the very aspects I was trying to teach in the previous class…

“So I turn and hit with every part of the body all the way through the movement?” asked one of the students showing me how he’d been practising ‘yin yang fist’.

“Almost, but you’re letting your arm collapse in too much and losing your ‘frame’,” I explained showing him how he could be taken off balance in the sequence.

“Great!  Cheers!” he said wandering happily off into class.  Could it really be that simple?

My journey into Taiji continues to amaze me on a daily basis and the process of ‘stealing’ a little piece of it every time you train ensures that is always fresh and new.  Many people in the Taiji world seem to have become extremely competent with the parts they get for free, the ‘feet’, but their art is lacking the ‘inches’ that need to be ‘stolen’.  The magic of Taiji is held in the seamless way in which all the ‘dots’ join together and a good Sifu will hide their treasure from you – make sure you become an expert thief! 

Gavin King

Gavin King is a Shiatsu practitioner, writer and Martial Arts instructor from Essex in the United Kingdom. He runs a full time Martial Arts centre in Hockley, Essex teaching Tai Chi and Kung Fu. You can contact him via Facebook or Twitter!

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