One of the most persistent myths that we in the CMAs have to deal with is this idea that someone should only hold one stance or do one technique for years before they learn anything else.
Give me a break.
If you’re doing that as a teacher then the truth needs to be told: you aren’t teaching anything, let alone teaching martial arts.
And yet, we’ve all heard it before: the shaolin guy has to hold horse stance for three years before he’s allowed to learn anything else, the xingyi guy has to hold santishi for years, the bagua guy has to do nothing but walk the circle for years before learning a single palm change, etc.
I don’t buy any of it.
Probably the best refutation of this idea comes from Gao Yi-sheng himself, a legend in the baguazhang field:
When he was 26 years old, Kao began his study of Pa Kua Chang with Tung Hai-Ch’uan’s student Sung Chang-Jung. After three years of study with Sung, Kao had only learned the single palm change. He begged his teacher to teach him more deeply. Sung said that he was not ready, telling Kao that one can’t learn too much at a time and expect to achieve a high level of skill. Kao was greatly disappointed and left Sung to find another teacher. (PaKuaChang Journal 2.3)
Gao was smart enough to see when he was being strung along, but most people aren’t.
One of the most important considerations to keep in mind when reading stories about “the old days” is to consider the age of the person at the supposed time of the training. In other words, most of this extreme training was given to kids to keep them busy and out of the teacher’s hair. Notice that Gao was 26 years old in the example above.
This is something that I’ve never seen discussed in MA: how the training that you give to kids is different from what you give to adults. Instead, we have this persistent myth that anyone that doesn’t want to hold horse stance for three years is lazy and doesn’t want to train seriously.
Why isn’t this myth more widely questioned?
22 responses so far ↓
1 cmc // Feb 8, 2008 at 11:37 am
Because this is no longer a requirement. No modern kung fu club asks students to do this, although many teachers avoid teaching fighting skills using the same kind of arguments.
2 Kenneth Fish // Feb 8, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Three years is nuts. That having been said, three or six months is not. My shaolin teacher would not teach me until I had practiced standing in horse, bow, hanging stance, and du li shi for almost 3 months. I think it was good training - he was very exacting about each posture and the need for mechanical integrity in each. Only when I could hold the postures correctly and for a fair amount of time did he take me further. WHen I did learn more, the stances (and the correct mechanics) were ingrained, and learning was fairly quick from there on.
3 AnYuan // Feb 8, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Perhaps the quantity regarded as “3 years” is just a figure of speech.
4 wayne hansen // Feb 8, 2008 at 2:02 pm
did any of you hold the stance for 3 years, if not you are not qualified to speak.
before you ask neither did i,but that proves nothing.
it is like taking lsd,if you have not taken acid you cannot comment on how it changes your mind.
but if you have taken acid you cannot comment because your mind has been altered.
i dont think in this day anyone will suffer by taking the harder road but the art is suffering because of those experts who take the easy road.
long live those who are still willing to eat the bitter.
my 58 year old teacher still trains an hour and a half daily followed by two hours of swimming.he does not calculate teaching or pushing in his daily workout.
5 Hermann // Feb 8, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Ya, some basic standing, walking, steps and Chinese streches etc. should be taught 2 or 3 months, but not 3 years.
Dave, one of my teacher teaches more moves (from his junior waijia-days) to kids to channel their energy. Would they stand still? I doubt it!
6 Ed // Feb 8, 2008 at 5:44 pm
3 years may be too long, but some people may have done it (and for the better); unfortunately, some people spend even more time than that and still do not “get it” - and so they do not get allowed to learn anything more. This is not a very “nice” way to teach people, but…
Some teachers still teach like this in China, though. (Not many anymore…) In other countries, you won’t make much of a living teaching like this.
7 Dave Chesser // Feb 8, 2008 at 6:03 pm
So no one is surprised by the quote about Gao Yi-sheng?
8 Graham // Feb 8, 2008 at 8:48 pm
I’m surprised it took him (Gao) that long to work out he was getting ripped off! 3 years!
At 26 years old he was not a kid.
b.t.w. completely agree with your post. Nice one.
9 Manuel // Feb 8, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Students trying to be smartter than the master?
One person should be certain of the true value of his master. If he is a real one, the student must be humble and respect him. If he says you are not ready, than you aren`t.
Three years probably is a not-much-modern-time to follow… but that`s teachers`s decision.
I do think, if trained correctly, a person that trains mabu for 3 years will a attain a much higher level than one who trains only 2 months and is good source for the master evaluate the student`s commitment.
Hope my english is good enough
Best wishes
10 Doctor Jay // Feb 8, 2008 at 11:12 pm
My take on these stories is that teachers might do this to certain students because they didn’t like them or trust them, and were hoping that they could make them go away. Or change their attitude about something. Or to test their loyalty and dedication.
As for standing post three years, well, you can do that AND learn other things at the same time. No one is arguing against a curriculum that progresses.
By the way, my experience, and that of my teacher, suggests that you can get children, at least teenagers, to do standing, at least for perhaps 5-10 minutes at a time. And they quite often find that they like the sense of peacefulness it gives them.
11 Kenneth Fish // Feb 8, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Not terribly surprised, no. First, in those days one did not train with a teacher every day - if one lived any distance at all, one saw ones teacher once a week or once a month, learned what one could, and practiced as much as possible by oneself.
Also, having been with teachers whom I knew had a good level of skill (but were not really passing it on) I know what it is like to show up in the hopes that maybe this time the teacher will really teach some more in depth. You wonder if you are being tested, or if it is just a waste of time, and you keep on going until you either give up or it becomes clear that there is no more teaching coming your way or the teacher opens up.
Henry Leung, my wing chun teacher, was very clear about the need to practice the foundation skills for one years time before going on to other material (like the wooden dummy). There was plenty to work on though, even at the first form level. The devil was in the details, and it changed your body structure over time.
12 Yimi // Feb 9, 2008 at 1:14 am
Ah - eating bitter! Even the phrase itself tastes bitter! It’s often used to mean hardship in training, but in my experience means some other things more - the bitterness of the path itself, the sacrifice, the times of boredom, the other parts of your life that you couldn’t build because of your dedication to training. And in the end, your path still leads no where, just like everyone’s! And the only point to be a wushu expert is because that’s what had some heart for you.
I don’t think it is right to say that a person must have tried every useless way before they can comment. Some ways may seem wrong but have hidden benefits, that’s true - but many ways are wrong and clearly so simply by the fact that those who follow them have little to show for them. And some just don’t make sense.
Which is which is sometimes hard to say. Not everything is about training though - or rather, not everything is abvout improvement. Those who make a living teaching wushu sometimes find financial pressure on them to water down the art to appeal to wider ranges of people, including many that aren’t really truly comitted - don’t truly, irrationally, want it more than anything else - the true “bitter eaters!”
Wushu is a professional art, hence, those training on an amatuer basis can only hope to go so far. The whole art itself then appears worse than it is, because it is represented by amatuers who call themselves professionals, taking titles for themselves.
If a teacher who truly has attained highest levels may not want to pass on the art to just anyone - and wasting time on half hearted students is just more eating bitter, after a lifetime of it. They may be jealous of wushu, because they love it. Don’t blame them for that. So they may test you. Maybe they don’t want to know until you can tree hug for half an hour? Or do horse stance for fifteen minutes?
Maybe they want to see just how comitted you are?
And yet, those of lower or little skill who have set themselves up as teachers may pimp off that! They might pretend that your slow progression is “true training”, rather than their lack of knowledge.
It’s a difficult path. In the end, it’s your choice who you train with, and they are each there, in my view, to help you access your own skill - so learn off each teacher accordingly, whether it’s to absorb their method or understand why they were wrong - each is just as valuable. In my path I would never criticise anyone who has taught me either - it was my decision to train with everyone I trained with, and even knowledge of wrong ways is a precious gift and time saved int he long run.
A profound idea that I heard once is to find the teacher who wants to turn you in to his next teacher. Imagine that - he wants to teach you to be so much better than him that he can then become your student! You’re just another training method for him to get better!
Peace,
Y
13 William // Feb 9, 2008 at 5:54 am
Dave totally agree, I have been a sucker few times with guys from the LYQ lineage, many of them believe that Baji is only for disciples, so I went to China and interviewed prof. Ma and Wu Lianzhi to know more about the style. Prof. Ma starts with Baji due to its simplicity and then teaches his students other styles. There are many ppl who still think that to learn applications and so on one have to just do stance training for years!
Hsing I was used to train military personnel in the 30s, they did not have 3 years to spend on stances, they needed to know how to fight in 3 months! in the west we have been sold the idea of the “ancient” style, so secret, so lethal that one have to go through lots of stance training to reach higher levels. How many of this teachers’s students do we see competing, if their methods are soo good how come the never fight? Martial studies are first and foremost MARTIAL, if we only do forms and qigong then is gymnastics and that is what lot of these so call teachers are doing. Anyway I just had to get it off my chest.
Cheers
14 wayne hansen // Feb 9, 2008 at 6:03 am
my teacher often comments that he wonders how the art can progress when none of his students train harder than he does.
back in the 70,s we trained so hard because chinese arts were so hard to find here in australia.
now evertime you kick over a rock a master appears.it is no wonder that a number of practicioners think that they dont have to work as hard.
in every part of life someone is telling us to just buy the latest gadget,do the latest course and the treasures of the universe will be ours.if it was only that easy.
remember proffesor chengs 3 esentials.
right method[the teacher]
natural talent[the student]
persaverence[the ability to capatalise on the previous two.]
15 Edward // Feb 9, 2008 at 9:56 pm
One man’s treasure might be the first thing in the curriculum in another man’s school. The first baguazhang school I found required students to first learn taijiquan for a year, and then xingyiquan for a year, and THEN they might invite you to the baguazhang class (maybe).
The school I chose taught baguazhang from the beginning instead… and there is tons of material to learn.
16 Yimi // Feb 9, 2008 at 11:36 pm
The interesting thing is that all we ever really have is our own intuition - we have to decide if it’s the right way for us or not.
Interesting, because my theory is that we start only with that as a beginner, and the journey leads right back to that at the end… only, in the beginning we don’t trust it, and in the end we do!
17 neijia // Feb 9, 2008 at 11:54 pm
My kids do standing. I’m not trying to trick or test them. Well, I am tricking them in a sense in that they get a benefit I am not explaining to them now. It does “quiet their minds” quickly. It may be coincidence but they may do “standing” for over 3 years before ever learning anything else. I wouldn’t think most adults would go through this 3 year period, but I have experimented with a 2-3 week stretch of zhan zhuang only, and my movement seemed to paradoxically improve. I also wonder what Gao would say (or said) at a little more mature age about this question.
18 Yimi // Feb 10, 2008 at 6:02 am
Interesting point - because any of us could be quoted from any point in our life, forgetting that we mature and learn more.
Although, that would contradict the advice of not trusting anyone who teaches later in life! Personally, I think trust their last words the most.
19 wayne hansen // Feb 10, 2008 at 6:42 am
i trick my students by making the standing interesting.
tien kan,master huangs sung ging ,the wu 12 internal and 12 external exercises and the chen silk reeling exercises are no more than stance training with the mind preoccupied with upper body dynamics.
tai chi walking,ba qua circling and hsing i 7 star stepping are no more than fluid stance training.
i remember reading an artical by a japanese chen stylist years ago.
he stated there are two types of kung fu.
that which is easy at the beginning and that which is hard at the beginning.
the easy start becomes more difficult later on.
the hard beginning gets easier and easier as time goes on.
this is due to solid basics laying down a firm base to learn from.
remember the square for development,
the circle for intensity.
20 Morgan Buchanan // Feb 10, 2008 at 11:11 am
have to agree with wayne hansen. here in australia we say “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it”. i recently spend 2 years in upstate new york without a nearby teacher and spent most of that time practicing double leg standing. it turned out to be a very valuable process that helped with cultivating a still mind, root to the ground and the integrity of the centreline of the body. now i’m spending the next few years working with simple tai chi moving postures to transfer the standing skills over to moving practice. i sometimes hold the opening posture for an hour if i want to clear my system, it’s very beneficial as a chi kung exercise but mostly no longer that 20 mins. the tai chi horse stance is a foundation exercise and worth putting time into cultivating. for an art that takes a lifetime 3 years is not a long period of time. many of the internal arts are based on profound principles that can only be got at through digging deeply into the basic concepts of the art and not taking on too many forms/techniques/ideas, etc…
21 RobT // Feb 11, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Funny one this. I had 20 years experience in other things before starting bagua with my current teacher (judo, western fencing etc.). In the first 2 years I learnt standing, first palm change of bagua, teacups, and pi quan. Thereafter the rest came quickly.
The funny thing is it was me that was deliberately slowing down the rate at which I was shown stuff. My teacher tends to show form and variations as a way to get to principles … so much so that as a beginner what one wants is a set form/ exercises that one can practice, and the variations/ too much content often confuses things. Once having gone through the basic training, developed the right body method, and “got” the standard single palm change, it is now easy to understand where the variations come from (you need something fixed around which to vary in order to see the commonality/ principle within).
I teach a little on the side and follow a similar process: standing, basic jibengung, first palm change … and plenty of two man practice from the beginning.
22 Buddy // Feb 12, 2008 at 5:16 am
Not horse stance and not three years, but when I was first learning xingyi it 9 breath piquan for one year–only.
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