Formosa Neijia

We do ourselves a great disservice when we decide to train like we’re in our 80’s. Unless, of course, we are. But I’m assuming most of us aren’t.

Many people believe that older practitioners are good models because they are more efficient than the young, therefore we all should move as they do. But this is false thinking because efficiency isn’t even close to being everything.

Basically speaking, efficiency is all that most older practitioners have. At the later stage of life, it’s far too late to cultivate power, let alone martial power. It’s like the ant that spends all summer preparing for winter, while the rabbit plays. If a man or woman doesn’t spend their younger years cultivating the body, then they will have less to work with later in life. By the time they wake up to reality, it may be too late.

For example, one of my qigong teachers had an elderly gentlemen approach him for training. After extensive testing, the qigong teacher said there was little he could do for the man, so classes would be pointless. He had wasted all his kidney qi and his body was too out-of-shape to assist him in making more. Too little, too late.

Another example comes from a book I read on yoga. In this book, a young man traveled to India to study yoga with a teacher was who was famous for his strength. When they met, this young guy then went on and on about his great vegetarian lifestyle and all the benefits he was supposedly getting from it. Perhaps he thought the teacher would be impressed by his dedication. The teacher listened for a while, but then interrupted him and said that this young man knew nothing. The teacher said that the young guy was following a method intended for sick or weak people. Then the teacher shocked the guy by telling him that not only should he be eating meat, he should be eating as much of it raw or rare as he could to train his body while he was still young. Rare advice.

One of my best friends in Taiwan came here to study with an elderly, famous taiji teacher. This guy was in his early 20’s and did the 37 the way the teacher taught for hours every day. He practiced their stuff, including push hands, really intensively so you’d expect that he would have been quite good. But the group only emphasized relaxation, listening energy, and the mental components of training.

One foreigner in that class had been there for 15 years and he had NOTHING in the way of martial development to show for it, despite being obsessed with doing what he was told. Of course, no matter how relaxed he was or how much listening energy he developed, it was “still not enough.”

To make things worse, my friend started copying the habits of the teacher in an effort to gain his abilities. This young man started wearing his taiji shoes everywhere and even started shuffling his feet like old men do when they walk. It annoyed the piss out of me. Because of all the “cave in the chest” movements, he started developing a slightly bowed back. The final straw was when he started carrying an umbrella with him all the time that he appeared to be using as a cane. At that point, I told him he’d better stop, but he wouldn’t listen to me.

We went to see Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and I enjoyed watching Yoda get off his philosophical butt and actually do some kungfu for once. But my friend chastised me by saying that a true master would have only used his mind to defeat others. This was too much. I lost it and told him his whole system and way of thinking was BS. I offered to show him in the park the error of his ways.

One day, we put on the gloves and the helmets and I showed him that after all those years, he hadn’t developed anything in the way of martial power. I had to smack him around, but it finally started to sink in so it was worth it.

The teacher got too sick to teach eventually, and my friend had to find another. He found a younger teacher that did the large Yang frame. But the first thing this teacher taught my friend was long pole, which he was instructed to do many times every single day.

After one single year of doing correct large frame and long pole, and giving up the “do it the old man way” that he had adopted before, my friend had at least doubled his power. He was connected and able to issue energy in a relaxed way. The bow in his back was gone and he started moving like a vigorous young man again.

How many of you are being told that you need to train and do your forms like you’re 80 years old? How many years of your life and how much of your money are you willing to waste on training that, in the end, will not only not get you where you want to go, but will actually PREVENT you from getting there?

Learn from my friend’s mistake and give up the “old man” way of training before it’s too late.