A New Book

I'm excited to announce a new book is available for order, and a revised version of an older book.

The Kunlun Green Dragon Form book is available in trade paperback format.

The Indoor Yang Wise Hammers Form is now available in trade paperback as well as workbook format.



Links have been added to the right.

Quote

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Spinal Awakening Sequence

I have been getting a lot of questions about the spine, and how to prepare it for Daoist martial arts training.

Here is a video clip of the general sequence Master Baaht used to use to warm up the spine at the beginning of class. I've found that it is a good all-around conditioning exercise for the spine. Practice it consistently, every day.

I will probably put together a short instruction document and put it on the website shortly.

Daoist Naming Conventions: Hidden Meaning in Movement Names, Part 3

Section III:
Internal Medicine

    One of the main areas of study in Daoism is health and longevity. The Daoists have developed quite a collection of tools in this area.



  Above is a picture of the Neijingtu, or “Internal Classic Diagram.” On the surface, we see a stylized map of a mountain range. If you look closely, you will see a map of the human body (the mountains represent the spine). This diagram very cleverly hides the secrets of Daoist internal practices.

    The general imagery you should be thinking of is simply of a mountain with a moon above it. The mountain represents the spine, and the moon represents the head.
    So, movements with names like “Moon Knocking on Mountain Gate” might have new meaning for you. “Ride Tiger, Push Mountain” or “Ride Tiger Back to Mountain” might now mean taking advantage of your opponent’s aggressive attack to attack the spine. Hold Moon to Chest might involve holding your opponent’s head to your core and breaking the neck or choking the opponent out.

    Other more cryptic names may be referring to the classical names of acupuncture points or channels.

    It’s important to remember that to a Daoist, it would be wasteful and poor Dé (efficient use of power) not to merge your healing work with your fighting work.

Daoist Naming Conventions: Hidden Meaning in Movement Names, Part 2

Section II:
Animal Styles

     Just like Shàolín, the Daoist martial arts have animal styles. They tend to be much less imitative than Shàolín arts, and these days you won’t see many specific animal forms. You will find many movements with animals in them; especially white animals. The white animals seem to originate in the Kunlun? mountains, between China and Tibet.
    The two main animals you will see are Dragon and Tiger. These represent the two main fighting strategies of the arts. Often a third animal, usually a bird, will represent the third strategy of escape.
    Dragon is counteroffensive and clever. This is your first strategy; to neutralize your opponent’s attack and then respond.
    Tiger is preemptive and dominating. It starts the fight and keeps the opponent one step behind.

    These two animals tend to create each other: Counteroffensive turns into offensive, for example, and when Tiger fails to keep the initiative, she falls back on Dragon.

    The Daoist arts usually generate their power from the ground, but there are times when this is not a good option; you have to pick up your feet and move, or you just don’t have a good foundation. This is where the footwork of the bird styles come in.

    White Crane’s lower body skills  teach how to fight from one leg, a situation which may come up every time you take a step. Its upper body skills are perhaps the most sophisticated in the Daoist martial arts, which is why you will see so many movements in Tàijíquán with White Crane names.

    Phoenix teaches fast, moving footwork rather like Bāguàzhăng (Not a coincidence), and fast targeted jabs.

    Other animals you may come across are:

    White Ape, which teaches stamping power and “loose arm” skills. This animal is the main reason the Daoist martial arts look like they have Xíngyìquán mixed in.

    White Snake, which teaches throwing techniques and grinding entries. (Think of White Snake Creeps Down.)

    Dragon Horse, which teaches trampling techniques.

    Keep all this in mind when you look at a movement named “Dragon Wanders, Tiger Sits,” for example. The movements might not look much like the animals, but the names have meaning.

Daoist Naming Conventions: Hidden Meaning in Movement Names, Part 1

Daoist Naming Conventions:
Hidden Meaning in Movement Names
by
Jonty Kershaw
www.brokencircle.org

Introduction

There is a lot of lost information in the world of the martial arts. Those of us who study it face the prospect of having to gather as much knowledge as we can from the meager sources available and sift through it, trying to find the secrets that even our own teachers might never have learned. This article is intended to help the searchers in their search.

One area that should be explored is the meanings of movement names. There is a rich hidden language here that can hint at or even fully explain the intention of the movements.

I have divided this article into three sections, based on the sources of the names. They are:

Proverbs and Sayings

Animal Styles

Internal Medicine

These naming conventions are specifically for the “Daoist Martial Arts” family. Other traditions such as Shàolín have their own naming secrets. I hope this article will inspire you to look a little more deeply in all of them.


Section I:
Daoist Proverbs and Sayings

The Chinese are famous for their proverbs and sayings, and the Daoists are no different. Here are some examples of movements named after Daoist sayings.

调花接干
Diào Huā Diē Gān
“Move Aside the Flowers to Reach the Trunk”

The Daoists have a number of expressions that refer to the structure of a tree, especially how much more important the trunk and the roots are than the branches and leaves.
This expression refers to brushing aside unnecessary details in order to focus on the truly important core of the issue. In the martial arts, this usually refers to a move that quickly dispenses with the opponent’s defenses to reach the torso.
(This phrase has often been mistranslated as something like “Transfer Flower, Connect to Wood.”)

揽牛尾
Lăn Niú Wĕi
“Grasp the Ox’s Tail”

In Daoist parable, there are stories describing how an experienced herder can steer a massive ox by simply controlling its tail. This is a beautiful example of Dé in action.
Movements with names like “Grasp the Ox’s Tail” or “Move a Thousand Head of Oxen With Only Four Tails” refer to moving your opponent’s entire body using the small joints. (The four tails would be your opponent’s fingers.)
Yáng Lùchán, the founder of Yáng Tàijíquán named his small-joint manipulations sequence 揽雀尾, “Grasp the Sparrow’s Tail,” probably to express how much more difficult the art of yielding is.

Stop the Cart at the Edge of Cliff

There are a number of proverbs and metaphors in China that describe your life as the path of a cart. Phrases such as “Following the path of the overturned cart” describe repeating someone else’s mistake.
Movements with names like these will usually involve changing direction or intention before failing.

Stir Clouds to Pass Through Fog

“Clouds” and “Fog”, like the flowers of our tree, are distractions or obstacles to be dealt with. (Think “Cloud Hands”)

Use of Imagery in the Martial Arts

This is something that modern martial artists struggle with when it comes to the traditional martial arts:

Often the terminology in the traditional martial arts is flowery and quite physically impossible. The reason for this is that when communicating with the body (in other words, the part of the subconscious that deals with the body), telling it exactly what to do produces the wrong result. Here's a classic example:

"Straighten your spine."

The result will be that the student will tighten the muscles of the back, leading to a spine that is inflexible and, yes, bent.

"Imagine that your body is relaxed, and that it is hanging from a rope attached to the crown of the head."

The result will be that the spine will naturally straighten without losing its natural flexibility. The head will be slightly bent forward, which is necessary for a straight spine.

The second choice is actually quite impossible, but the body responds correctly.

Introducing the "?" Project.

I'm excited to announce that Steven Vance and I have joined together to form a sort of martial arts preservation society.

The blog can be found here. It's still in its infancy, but we should have it relatively functional this weekend.

We haven't worked out the exact details of the project yet. We haven't even decided on a name. To start with, we will be publicly sharing and discussing our research into the Chinese martial arts associated with the Kunlun mountains. We also both share an interest in the Indonesian arts, so that is a likely area of research.

This may turn into a larger organization with the focus of preserving, documenting, researching and restoring the traditional martial arts.

Steven and I first made contact shortly after I released my website mentioning the Kunlun Mountain Fist. Steven had an interest in Kunlunquan, a related style, and we shared notes. We also learned that we both shared a love of the Indonesian arts.

We also share a belief that the martial arts have suffered due to issues of personal ego and politics. We have both separated ourselves from certain styles because of this.

Steven is brilliant. I have spent almost a decade looking for teachers of Kunlunquan in the U.S. About 2 weeks after we discussed this, he called me up with the name of a teacher born into the family. His blog can be found here.

Breaking the Circle, Part 2: Circling the Break

This is where the 7 Stars 8 Steps system (the foundation of Baguazhang) comes in.

When your opponent has successfuly broken your circle, you may have to walk their circle, essentially circling the break.

(Pictures to come)

Breaking the Circle, Part 1

I have been getting a lot of questions about the name of the school and how it applies to the martial arts.

The name has a number of different meanings for me, but in the Daoist Martial Arts, it has a particular meaning. I'll outline it in a general sense here.

Part 1: The Circle

In the Daoist Martial Arts, we view defense as a personal defnsive circle.

When we attack, we are attempting to attack out opponent's centerline (basically the spine), which we call "Duan Huan" or "Breaking the Circle".

Our goal in defense is to redirect their attack around the outside of the circle.