Mokuren dojo has an excellent post on how aikido training doesn’t involve advanced moves. You apparently just get better and better at the standard moves as you continue the practice. He provides as excellent quote from Musashi that makes a very interesting contrast when compared to the CIMA like taiji, etc.
There is no “interior” nor “surface” in strategy.
The artistic accomplishments usually claim inner meaning and secret tradition, and “interior” and “gate”, but in combat there is no such thing as fighting on the surface, or cutting with the interior. When I teach my Way, I first teach by training in techniques which are easy for the pupil to understand, a doctrine which is easy to understand. I gradually endeavour to explain the deep principle, points which it is hardly possible to comprehend, according to the pupil’s progress. In any event, because the way to understanding is through experience, I do not speak of “interior” and “gate”.
In this world, if you go into the mountains, and decide to go deeper and yet deeper, instead you will emerge at the gate. Whatever is the Way, it has an interior, and it is sometimes a good thing to point out the gate. In strategy, we cannot say what is concealed and what is revealed.
Accordingly I dislike passing on my Way through written pledges and regulations. Perceiving the ability of my pupils, I teach the direct Way, remove the bad influence of other schools, and gradually introduce them to the true Way of the warrior.
The method of teaching my strategy is with a trustworthy spirit. You must train diligently.
This is one of the things that irks people about Chinese arts — keeping secrets and withholding things from outside the “gate.” Perhaps a standard set of moves that are common knowledge would be the way to go?
The emphasis on experience over secrets is re-assuring.
20 responses so far ↓
1 Morgan Buchanan // May 4, 2008 at 5:18 pm
“I gradually endeavour to explain the deep principle, points which it is hardly possible to comprehend, according to the pupil’s progress….The method of teaching my strategy is with a trustworthy spirit. You must train diligently.”
when i started tai chi my beginners mind told me that it was outrageous for old chinese masters to stand around holding secrets. some of them even take “the secrets” to their grave. why don’t they just give them out so that we can all get on practicing hard and make sure the best part of the systems don’t get lost?
now that i have some students of my own i realise that what is often perceived as “holding back” or “withholding secrets” are often ideas that are born in the minds of impatient students.
my teachers encouraged me to empty my cup when i came to learn from them, instead i came with a half full cup, happy to learn, but happy to hang onto my previous ideas and experience which i considered valuable. it’s taken me many years to start to let go and work on emptying that cup. strangely, the more i let go of my strongly held opinions on certain ideas, the more room there is for my teacher to fill me up with his ideas and body/form. his ideas/form has come from his teacher, and so on. this is the method of traditional transmission. we must always try to find a balance between tradition and innovation and there is no sense in innovating unless you have a good comprehension of tradition. there is no sense in the teacher giving the student food when his stomach is already full. so i think that if the student can really empty the cup, digest what the teacher gives him and maintain his own practice and not be greedy then “the secrets” will be revealed.
more often then not these arise out of self practice over time (gung fu), guided by the teacher who waits to see them flowering in the student as an indication that what has already been given has been absorbed.
having said that there are fraudulent teachers who will keep students hanging on for ever, wanting large cash payments for “secrets”, etc.. as with all things it’s about discernment and that isn’t always easy.
good luck with that.
i guess what i’m trying to say is that on one hand we have the idea of “withheld secrets” on the other “experience and dilligent students”, i think they are the same idea seen from different sides of the coin.
cheers
morgan
2 MarkC // May 4, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Morgan, I think your comments are accurate and explain many ’secrets’.
However, some teachers do really withhold information and knowledge has died with some teachers.
Dave, how do you envision a standard set of moves, given the huge number of styles in Chinese martial arts. Also, even if you had a standard set, the ’secrets’ could persist in the interpretation.
3 Morgan Buchanan // May 4, 2008 at 6:30 pm
hi mark,
“However, some teachers do really withhold information and knowledge has died with some teachers.”
true, but i don’t think that contradicts what i said above. there are ethically bad teachers no doubt, but in terms of dying with secrets, why would someone do that?
imagine picasso is about to die and no one has his painting technique. a young art student comes to him and says “tell me, don’t let your technique die, what do i have to do to preserve it?” i think he would shake his head sadly. you need the fifty years of experience in between to form the technique, to make the connection.
i’ve only been practicing tai chi 15 years, but when i think back to how i learnt something, or when i made a breakthrough, it’s not all that easy to convey with words. i think it would be much harder to do with a fifty years gap, let alone across the cultural void. the traditional method tries to compensate for this with set forms and songs/menemonic teachings. if you pass on the form and the idea, it might go missed for a few generations but then sprout again when it finds the right soil. in this sense the “secret” can resurface.
sometimes you can give out all the “secrets” but they go unheard because they’re not what people want to hear.
i was reading something about ancient roman history the other day. i think it was a senator who commented that “the genuine is often despised and ridiculed by men while the false is held high and celebrated”.
that empty cup issue again.
cheers
morgan
4 Edward // May 4, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Learning something like judo definitely can be reassuring in the fact that, at least in terms of judo, all the knowledge is available for the public and there is nothing preventing you from being the best - except for how much you practice and how much intrinsic talent you possess.
Regarding CMA, the many secrets that are NOT available to most people (and by most, I mean 99.9% of people) is fact and yes, kind of depressing. Yes, there are elements of practice that are discovered through practice itself, but these are by nature NOT secrets by definition. Still, these secrets are very attractive, and may be what attracts people to CMA in the first place.
5 Jay Gischer // May 4, 2008 at 10:37 pm
In the jujutsu style I study in addition to tai chi, there are secret lists. They are not permitted to be filmed, demonstrated, or taught to anyone below a certain rank.
As I’ve advanced to the point where I’ve now trained on one of these lists, I understand more about why this is. In the traditional way, it’s to preserve an edge in combat, to not give away all our tricks.
But its also because what we are doing would be misunderstood by students who aren’t ready for it. The techniques involved are the techniques we started teaching on day one, but in a more difficult context. And they are done with a different spirit and a different energy. Practicing them with people who are not ready would likely result in injury and bad feeling.
6 Dave Chesser // May 4, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Mark,
I kind of envision a standard set of applications to the Yang 37 postures I talked about recently. interpretation of the moves could come later after the standard 37 applications were mastered.
Ed,
Agreed on all points. Interesting the you speak Japanese and train CIMA in Japan.
I often wonder if some of this has to do with the way that Japan saw the Chinese culture that influenced it so greatly. It’s almost as if the Japanese calling the Chinese the “sick men of Asia” back then was a repudiation of the secrecy and other things that they saw as holding China back.
Did the development of judo and other budo purposely show a break with that type of secrecy? Were the Japanese making a statement like “we have the superior form of this culture” by breaking with the secrecy and then conquering China?
7 neijia // May 5, 2008 at 12:07 am
Great idea about the standard apps. I’ve argued the same point with friends.
Taijiquan is the most “popular” martial art if you can call it “martial” in the same breath as “popular” when popular means practiced by the most people. However, I’d consider judo the most “successful” (practiced by the most “average” people all over the world who are actually proficient in two ranges, and also spawning sambo and bjj) modern art due to throwing out “deadly” “secret” moves and standardizing on only 40 moves (later 67) that can easily be practiced and later interpreted by most average people. It succeeded over traditional jujutsu mostly due to training innovations, not technical differences.
I would love to see taijiquan succeed on a similar, broader scale, and having some standard apps would be a great start.
Btw, a “secret” of judo is that the “deadly” moves are actually not lost and there are many “secrets” senseis can teach you, whether tournament secrets or “dirty” “real life” jujutsu secrets.
8 neijia // May 5, 2008 at 12:10 am
>sometimes you can give out all the “secrets” but they go unheard because they’re not what people want to hear.
Heheh yeah. 20 years later after trying to start tjq, I realize I was told “secrets” as in training and principle keys. It’s much easier to absorb and diligently study those after some partner practice reveals the need.
But anyway, people aren’t looking for “secrets” - they’re looking for “magic”.
9 Christoffer Lernö // May 5, 2008 at 1:10 am
Morgan, you remind me of how many times it happened that my teacher would explain how to make a technique work and I felt like “this can’t be the answer, how could possibly only be enough?”
So after working for a long time with the technique and trying all sorts of ways to get it to work, eventually I would find some complicated way that would sort of work.
Slowly I would remove all unnecessary things I added to make it work, and guess what would remain in the end? It turns out that all that was needed was lowering the kua after all.
10 Christoffer Lernö // May 5, 2008 at 1:27 am
Speaking of Musashi, what I remember distictly even years after reading Gorin No Sho is how he would explain his techniques.
Each would be like this:
” You must train hard to understand this”
or
” You must research this well.”
Reading the book you constantly get reminded of that the techniques themselves are not complicated, but they cannot be understood or transfered intellectually, the understanding can only be acquired through training.
Just something’s essence can be described simply, does not mean it is easy to grasp.
11 meow // May 5, 2008 at 6:34 am
christopher, those sentence endings are quite typical to the time period.
musashi is the man, there are no secrets (edward, nature is the criteria we base m.a. on, not some magic secrets, if someone looks at how combat works etc, you can see how the more subtle aspects work too), whats more awesome is that supposedly musashi received very little formal instruction, yet is regarded as one of, if not the greatest swordsman in japan.
12 meow // May 5, 2008 at 6:37 am
the problem with chinese m.a. is that the emphasis has been taken off combat, people arent tested realistically, too much emphasis on form (for performance, not technical) and tradition vs logical application, no wonder the government here, and in other countries which outlaw the carrying of weapons dont mind people learning martial arts.
13 scott // May 5, 2008 at 10:30 am
Martial arts are for local militias that often fought the next village over. And for gangsters of various types. For sworn brotherhoods hoping to re-establish the old order with them at the top. For men of prowess, shaman, and performers, even magicians. All these sorts of people developed a culture of secrecy for good reasons.
And that secrecy persists, as tradition, as lineage.
Really, it is true that beginning students will be confused by knowledge in depth, carefully parsing it out is not the same as keeping a secret.
But then we can all lament that perhaps the old masters died with their secrets because they simply couldn’t find a worthy student.
Indolent princes make lousy gangsters.
14 scott // May 5, 2008 at 10:43 am
Musashi was arguing for the end of an era!
But he took strict hierarchy for granted in a way Americans, at least, will never appreciate.
Before Musashi men of honor met on the field of battle as well as in duels, and followed strict rules of combat. The entirety of the two opposing forces gathered in plain view and battled for One Day. They then counted the dead and settled their dispute.
Strategy, as he conceived it, was to obliterate the code of honor.
15 Edward // May 5, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Well, the thing is, Japanese budo doesn’t actually have correlates to the secrets (michuan) that CMA has (although they still have/use the word - michuan = hiden).
What budo does have is detailed curriculums that all students have access to (Japanese do like to categorize and organize), giving all students access to the same material (you can even review it all before learning it); however, it doesn’t mean that they necessarily have all of what CMA has (even if only -some- people have it and teach it to -some- of their students).
This is really the reason why CMA is still attractive, though - learning things that noone else has even heard of is pretty attractive.
In terms of secrecy, well - actually, in my opinion, Japan does have a tendency to be secretive in general (such as in corporations or politics or almost anything else), unlike the very open tendency of Westerners.
16 Morgan Buchanan // May 5, 2008 at 12:57 pm
there’s a personal taste issue as well - different cultures - different systems. if you like japanese systems then you should do that - judo is a good martial art. internal arts have their curriculum last time i looked, just not as strictly formalised as the japanese version. on reflection though, judo and karate are 20th century creations with intended curriculum emphasis. i wonder if you look at classical ju jitsu schools and different branches of okinawan kempo if you would also find the same kind of seperate style/less defined curriculum of the chinese styles?
sometimes rigid formulation stifles growth, sometimes no structure leads to stagnation.
perhaps the chinese are walking the middle path?
cheers
morgan
17 meow // May 5, 2008 at 4:24 pm
edward, there is secrecy in the japanese martial arts, the makimono etc arent given to everyone, try even gaining admittance to one of the koryu arts, not to mention there is only one! soke.
the japanese arts are just as in depth imo, bodymechs, strategy (ever wondered why they have the various kamae), its efficient (weaponry vs unarmed)
what attracted me to the chinese arts is simply a greater emphasis on unarmed combat, which is more relevant in this day and age (jujutsu is kool, but the atemi waza of most schools is relatively undeveloped due to the advantages of weaponry on a battlefield)
18 Joseph T. Oliva Arriola // May 5, 2008 at 9:18 pm
As told to the MTL, Chris,
Compliance in Throwing:
Ok…so yesterday we were using the cane, staff and the 3 sectional staff in joint locks and throws…
When you use a “weapon” the fulcrum and the level and the changes in weight distribution become “visually clear”. The “stick” shows you where to apply the lever and fulcrum. Best yet, it “multiplies” your force in applying the wrist technique or the arm bar, leg bar or neck bar.
Following with a change in the distribution of weight a “throw” occurs.
The issue for my students in this particular practice was the “fall”. Many attempted to avoid the “throw and the fall” by “resisting”. Since our environment is “mat” free we rarely take the technique to the actual “fall” to the ground. As such, they have naturally been trained to resist the throw and fall.
Falling–
However, I explained to them that in the “throwing arts” the first thing you learn to do is “fall”. As such, I would counter their counters and throw them to the ground none-the-less. They didn’t like it.
I explained that the reason falling was taught “first” in throwing arts was for purposes of self defense (how not to get hurt when thrown to a hard surface). Falling then becomes “compliance”. The more you resist, the greater the stored energy…the greater the impact when the resistence is released.
As such, you must learn “compliance” in falling as a matter of self protection.
Interestingly, we were in the plaza in Oakland with all the other tai chi and gung fu groups as the “lessons” unfolded. Just after our practice, a group of talented skate boarders arrived on the scene. They were performing jumps and stunts. The techniques did not always result with the perfection of re-landing on the board. I watched as they took “falls”.
I told my students to stop their “after practice” conversation and watch the skateboarders. I asked them “Who is the best? And why is he the best?”
“Now, watch what happens when they “fall to the ground”, I continued.
They could see readily that when the skate boarders fell to the hard concrete surfaces their bodies became soft and resilient. The skateboarders absorbed the concrete and rolled to their feet. It was the best exhibit of “falling” for self protection that I had seen in a long time. More boggling to my mind, was the fact that hey had all learned to fall naturally.
Sincerely
Joseph T. Oliva Arriola
19 Eric C // May 5, 2008 at 11:25 pm
All of the lineages I have studied of serious gongfu men demonstrate a common theme of multiple apprenticeships under different masters. It seems to me there is a specialized vocabulary, at least in the chinese language, that does represent a sort of corpus of knowledge for these guys that is difficult to access (not just for english speakers but for chinese laypeople as well).
20 wayne hansen // May 6, 2008 at 5:09 am
nothing wrong with multiple teachers./
as long as your base art is well established.
if you have not leartnt the first art well it just becomes numerous levels on a shakey foundation.
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