POST #10: FOUR GREAT WEAPONS

THIS PIECE IS A BRIEF INTERLUDE FROM THE THREE PART SERIES THAT BEGAN WITH POST#8 AND CONTINUED WITH #9. THE CONCLUSION TO THAT TRILOGY WILL BE SEEN IN POST#11.

Traditional Weapons Training

Very often people are attracted to Chinese Martial Arts because of the absolute array of weapons present in the system. No other ethnic combat system can boast such a plethora of sharp and shiney, blunt and edged, long and stout tools of defense and war. However, aside from being a “marketing” ploy, many others ask, "what is the use of training in such archaic tools for combat?" In this temporary interlude before finishing up the trilogy that started with POST #8 and #9, I will introduce a classification of weapons called the Four Great Weapons. I will then explain why I believe it important to continue training in these weapons despite the fact that the carrying of such items would either be considered illegal or simply a societal oddity.

Four Great Weapons:

In Chinese Martial Arts, weapons are usually broken down into three categories. The first category is the Four Great Weapons. The second is what is commonly called the Eighteen Classical Weapons though, oddly enough, there is some wiggle room depending on who you ask as to what constitutes as part of this family. Examples include the Guan Dao and the Double Sabres. Despite some variation though, the concept remains fairly constant throughout the majority of schools. The final category encompasses Specialty Weapons, weapons that are style specific or unique to an individual but later made standard. Examples would be the Deer Antler Knives or the Butterfly knives (not those flippy knives kids play with… these are about the length of your forearm). The latter two categories are not for discussion this time. We will be focusing on what may be called the Four Great Weapons/Four Ancestral Weapons/Four Basic Weapons etc.

The Four Great Weapons refers to the Staff, the Spear, the Broadsword (though I refer to it as a Sabre) and the Straight Sword. The staff is called the Grandfather of all weapons, the spear is called the King of all weapons, the sabre is called the General/Marshal of all weapons, and the straight sword is called the Gentleman/Scholar of all weapons. It must be noted now that I do not plan to go even into moderate depths as to the usage and techniques of said weapons. That article will come later as it is a very comprehensive topic that requires separate time and consideration.

The staff is called the Grandfather of all weapons because it is the first of all weapons. From the moment that man conceived a stick could increase range of motion for swinging and striking, the staff, as a weapon, was born. Obviously one could argue that the cudgel, a stout piece of wood no longer than the length of your arm, is the original weapon, but we won’t get into that discussion either. The power of the staff is produced by the arms. The shoulder and the wrist are the primary generators of the force involved with staff strikes. This weapon is intended for wide sweeping motions and an overall defensive/offensive position granted by reach advantage and sturdiness of equipment. The combat range of a staff is second largest, with the maximum effective range ideally being one foot distance between your opponent and the tip of your staff with whatever ready position that you choose. Obviously there are exceptions and such things will be discussed in a different piece focusing on methodologies of combat. The length and thickness of the staff is dictated by whatever school and style one may practice. It is ideal for those that wish to defend themselves while stubbornly adhering to a policy of no intentional bloodletting.

If the staff is called the Grandfather of all weapons, what, then, is the spear? From a rather pedestrian stance the spear is nothing more than a staff with a spike, often of metal, but can crudely pass with a wooden point. But let us briefly engage in a metaphorical break down.

From a slightly more metaphorical standpoint, the staff, which is the grandfather, symbolizes elders and advisors of the court. Though commanding in their own right, they lack the charisma and visible authority allotted to a king. Though powerful as an entity, in a monarchical society, the primary purpose of the advising court would be to rally and give their support to a distinguished head who wields ‘visible power’, that being the spearhead or, in accordance with the metaphor, the ruler of a country. Thus the spear is the King of all weapons. It rules the battlefield with uncompromising authority and enforces its presence with a keen, unforgiving edge. It can be used as a staff to command and solidify a position, but it can also effectively advance through the ranks by way of thrusting and cutting with the head. The power of the spear comes from a pliable waist and powerful, stable arms to guide the point of the spear true and through a target. It can be utilized as a staff, but the true power comes from the point. It has the longest range out of the Four Great Weapons as it can be swung like a staff, but it has the lethality of a bladed weapon, due to the presence of the tip. Truly the King of All Weapons on the ancient battle field.

Next comes the broadsword. Those that know me should know that I shun using the term ‘sword’ for this weapon. That is because for Chinese people, the word ‘sword’ specifically labels something which is double edged, whereas the term ‘knife’ denotes all things with a single edge. Therefore the Chinese ‘broadsword’, being endowed with only a single edge, falls categorically under the label knife; those that have looked at the Chinese character for the Chinese ‘broadsword’ will be astounded to realize that it IS actually simply the character ‘knife’. That is why I insist on using the word sabre since sabre, in the western world, refers to a curved single edged weapon with a guard over the hand. Digression aside, the Sabre is the Marshal/General of all weapons. The translation varies but I work under the assumption that the Chinese meant to say that the Sabre has full command of the battlefield after the King so, with that assumption in mind, Marshal is a higher rank than General so the weapon will be henceforth termed Marshal of all weapons. Where the staff is support and the spearhead the authority, the dirty work of taking life belongs to the subordinate warriors of the king. Though lacking in reach, the sabre borrows the authority from the ruler and swiftly dispenses punishment on the battlefield. The sabre is a hack and slash weapon. It requires powerful arms and a coordinated body to allow the full weight of a person to chop through a target. Elegance is an unnecessary luxury which has no place for the average soldier on the battlefield. Thus the standoffishness of a staff, or the regal bearing of a spear, are best left to the side in favour of a more direct and maneuverable weapon, that being the sabre. It was easy to mass produce and easy to train for practical combat on the field. It was therefore the weapon of choice for all soldiers of the imperial army and, consequently, one of the most widely used by martial artists in ancient China.

The last of the Four Great Weapons is the Chinese straight sword. This is called the Scholar of all weapons. Originally a standard weapon during war, it was largely abandoned early on in favour of the sabre due to the sturdier nature of the latter weapon which allowed for a heavier chopping action. Though carried by generals of the army, it was largely a symbol of class rather than an oft used weapon though, if it was the only weapon on hand, it still functioned as such. The straight sword is more ideal for single confrontation rather than multiple individuals brawling due mostly to the construction of the weapon. Compared to the other three weapons, the straight sword is relatively frail and possesses a rather high learning curve, [one of my primary suspicious as to why it was relegated to a ‘scholarly’ position; the parallel being that scholars are not truly fighters and are therefore frail in body but strong of mind]. If you see the bias, then kudos to you. If not, then let me spell it out specifically: I am not a fan of the straight sword. Though useful in certain situations, I think the sabre can perform just as well in most situations. For the niche situations that only a straight sword would do compellingly well in, just count yourself unlucky and hope your training in an overall better weapon can pull you through the debacle. That or you can strap yourself down with one of each weapon and walk around with your personal armory at all times. The straight sword, even before the creation of flimsy performance blades, has always been the flimsiest of the four weapons. What chance did it have? Two of them are a body of wood. One of them was created primarily to hack a person in two while derivatives of that one became weapons to chop off the legs of horses. The straight sword had no chance in a competition amongst such a robust group.

Why We Train in Weapons:

Often times people see the many weapons of Chinese martial arts and pass them off as either marketing ploys, or as outdated, superfluous practices that have no place in modern day. In all honesty, for some schools, low quali McDojos as we call them, the weapons truly are a marketing ploy. They are placed for display purposes only or, given the low quality of the instructor, the instructor might be a forms collector and might have picked up a form or two with a weapon for the sole purpose of selling sub par information to justify the fees charged. There is no defense for this type of practice. However, the second category, that of being a superfluous practice that is anachronistic, I can, and will, defend against.

There are three main reasons why TCMA continues to teach weapons. Note that I said ‘main reasons’. I am positive there are several peripheral reasons, but those are subjective in nature, differing amongst schools and practitioners. The three reasons which I believe can be unanimously agreed upon are 1) preservation and dissemination of an art 2) force training and 3) improvisation training.

As stated, one of the reasons why learning traditional weapons is important is because it preserves and allows the further dissemination of that style. Why is that important? What is a style? A style of fighting is essentially the crystallization of a philosophy for movement; a way in which the progenitor of said style thought it best for the body to move in such a way, in such a situation in order to maintain the best advantage. They are evidences of a certain type of thought process conceived, codified, and believed valid for relevant situations during the period of their creation. On a rather shallow level, it can be learned for the simple appreciation of preservation, just as how art pieces, classical literatures and ancient philosophies are considered important and preservation worthy. On a slightly higher level, the style can be learned to know what is already available with regards to a specific fighting philosophy. Doing so will allow one of three things: It will humble you to know that someone before you has conceived of an idea, it will provide a head start should you wish to develop a certain tactic more fully or seek to branch from an already established template, or it will tell you of glaring mistakes which do not stand the test of time and, therefore, should be avoided in future advancements and practices. However, regardless of the motivation for wanting to preserve a particular form of combat, the first reason is almost a purely academic reason; the same reason one would want to preserve anything old and interesting… not a truly compelling reason all on its own for the mass dissemination of a particular art form. After all, though the Ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round before people started to chart the oceans, they arrived at the correct conclusion in the wrong fashion. We don’t teach the Greek Theory to EVERYONE because it’s not worth preserving on a MASS scale… just for the specialists in the field i.e. Philosophy Students, World History Students etc.

The second, and more pertinent reason, is force training. What do I mean by force training? A powerful strike requires proper generation and termination of force. If I want to strike with my fist as the primary weapon, then at the last moment, all the force my body generates during a strike should ideally go to my fist and exit into my target from that location. Same thing can be said if I wish to throw a block with my forearm or wish to strike with my shoulder. The force generated would ideally flow and exit from my chosen striking tool and terminate completely into the target. If, however, I have bad habits and keep shoulders tensed or forearms flexed or fingers clutched too tightly, or body angled oddly, or an assortment of other physical complications, then the generation and termination of force is tainted with bad union. A good empty hand strike, therefore, requires a good unification and synchronization of joints, muscles, posture, breathing etc. A weapon does two things. Firstly, it adds a certain type of resistance training, not unlike weights but less “weightier” than the usual amount when applied for purely lifting exercises. Secondly, it teaches the wielder to direct power through a larger, slightly more disconnected object. The former goal is obvious, resistance training and what not. The latter however, is not so obvious. To put it simply, if I can exercise control and swing an 8ft pole while generating powerful strikes from anywhere between the middle of the staff to the very tip of the staff successfully, then generating that type of force will be that much easier when I have no external, disconnected, unwieldy implement in my hands but, rather, just simply waving around my arms or hands. Training to send my power or, as Cantonese people say, “faat ging lik”, through a staff will make it that much easier, and that much more powerful, when I use purely empty hands. The same goes for other types of weapons as well. In one more short example, take the sabre. Though sometimes used in conjunction with a shield or, even more uncommonly, with another sabre, it is usually a single weapon in a single hand. Wielding a sabre causes the body to be imbalanced since the weapon is in one hand while the other hand is empty. The format in which a sabre is used requires literally a compromising of weight distribution and balance. Training with the sabre then forces increased attention on establishing a strong root to offset the weight distribution discrepancy, and forces the wielder to train a union of torso, waist, and lower body to maintain balance during the broad, quick chopping motions that require whole-body union and balance.

The final reason why training in classical weapons, especially the Four Great Weapons, is an essential part to TCMA, is because it allows for improvisation. What do I mean by improvisation? Obviously, in most parts of the world, they will not allow you to strap a spear to your back or walk around town with a sword at your side or an 8ft long ‘walking stick’ [I did while I was at school though. University police gave me such awkward stares]. However, there will always be a need to defend yourself regardless of how benign a situation may seem; a 0.5% chance of being mugged is still more than a 0% chance… and we do not live in a world of absolutes… just ‘as close as possible to absolutes’.

In such situations of necessary defense, there may be benign objects which you can use immediately during a confrontation: a briefcase, an umbrella or a hat. At worst you need to look around the area, or perhaps escape to an area, to procure items for self-defense. Thus we require improvisation.

A person skilled at using a staff will undoubtedly wield a discarded broom, laundry dowel, mop etc far more proficiently against assailants then an individual desperately scrounging for an item, unsure as to how they can best use it, and relying on intuitive, but otherwise random, flailing. There just isn’t any competition as to who has a better chance of emerging from the confrontation victorious.

A person trained in using a sabre can easily pick up a discarded rod, perhaps a conveniently thrown away meat cleaver [you ran into the alley of a Chinese Restaurant] or, in a desperate move, a heavy article of clothing which might have buttons and zippers. If you’ve ever seen a Chinese sabre/broad sword demonstration, you will understand why a heavy coat with buttons and zippers might prove effective in an absolutely desperate situation [I speak hypothetically about the coat… I have never seen nor done this myself… always at least a rod in my situation].

If you have an umbrella or a cane and you know straight sword, you immediately have a way of defending yourself. With regards to an umbrella, it is very unwise to actually swing it like a club, as seen on cartoons, as the metal ribbings are quite fragile and not made for constant impact (unless you get that $100+ self defense umbrella that functions perfectly as an umbrella even after breaking watermelons and getting run over by a car). Trust me, in those situations, best to use it as a straight sword. Unless, of course, you are using those small compact, point-less umbrellas that look more like clubs. That being the case, I hope you know how to use butterfly knives (STILL not referring to those tiny flipping blades). The point is, classical weapons training is transferable to everyday objects that can be improvised to serve in the stead of actual weapons.

Train Hard. Talk Less.
~Thunder Palms

POST #9: PART 2 GUNG FU v TECHNIQUES [B]

This is an addendum, and the finale, to the previous post. Here are a few videos, none of which are mine and, therefore, none of which I take any credit for, to further illustrate the difference between Gung Fu training and Techniques training, as outlined by the previous post [POST #8 where I discussed Lien Gung and Saan Sik].

This is true Gung Fu training, or "Lien Gung", as stated in the previous post. These are the monotonous exercises which are at the heart of a true Gung Fu person. No glamour. No magic. No real secret. Just boring, tedious, strenuous, repetitive, gradual, methodical conditioning to specifically make a portion of your body into a feasible weapon:

[Sifu (Master) Tak Wah Eng of the Tiger Claw Style, "Fu Jow Pai", talking about several methods of conditioning the hand for that special tear and gripping power characteristic of the style.]


[Sifu Parrella instructing in Iron Palm conditioning. This is a generic conditioning exercise done by most martial arts to gradually strengthen the hands for impact. This is usually the skill employed for brick breaking demonstrations etc]

The fruits of Gung Fu labour:

[Sifu Tak Wah Eng breaking two non-spaced bricks. Spacers, for those unaware, make breaks easier. Still impressive to an extent, but noticeably easier.]


[Master Parrella having several of his students demonstrate brick breaking. There are several students who have a noticeable tremor in their hand, or who actually shake their hands afterward in a characteristic 'ow' fashion. This is a good example of having too much power for the weapon you wield. They clearly have the strength to break the brick. However, the reaction of pain shows the lack of conditioning in their hands. This illustrates the Boxer scenario detailed in the previous post]



This is a Saan Sik session:

[Master Parrella demonstrates and drills a particular technique over and over again in order to develop muscle memory. Though Saan Sik is important to martial arts, it is not the most integral aspect. First and foremost will always be Lien Gung. Those slaps and palms would only be efficacious after conditioning them to be hard and heavy. Unlike a lot of "BELT FACTORIES" or "McDOJOS" (these are derogatory terms for schools focused on pumping out lots of poor quality students for commercal reasons e.g. six year old black belts, gaurantees of after X amount of time you will have X colour belt, ridiculous NUMBER of belts in order to maximize money made etc) true application drills during any given session concentrates on one, possibly two different techniques. NEVER the quantity... ALWAYS the quality.]


I hope the above clips helped better illustrate some of the points I made in the previous post. Remember that I did not make these video clips, did not physically record these video clips, nor do I have any legal rights to these video clips. They were online for viewing and I simply decided to utilize them in a strictly non-commercial fashion to help readers better understand a point.

Train Hard. Talk Less
~Thunder Palms

POST #8: PART 2 GUNG FU v TECHNIQUES [A]

This is the second part of my three part series which began, in the previous post, with a discussion of the Gung Fu Form and its purpose in the art, despite criticisms of its uselessness.

Our second pairing will be that of Gung Fu and Technique. First and foremost, these two are NOT the same. Let me repeat that by saying that they are NOT THE SAME. They are not synonymous save by the most extreme and tenuous stretch of the imagination. The character “Gung” literally translates to “merits and achievements” with the implied undertone of [through hard work]. The character “Fu” literally refers to a male person/figure. So literally the phrase would translate to “A man who has achieved merits through hard work”. More colloquially, Gung Fu would simply be “a hard working man”. The phrase is appropriately used for all skills which require a level of diligence and ability to become adept i.e. cooking, cleaning, building/fixing things, gardening, writing, fighting etc. Thus a person who does Gung Fu does not train in techniques, but simply the skills required to make their techniques viable.

Let me now introduce three phrases that used to be separate in meaning for Chinese Martial Arts curriculum. The first is ‘“Lien Gung”’, the second is ‘Lien Kuen’, the third is ‘Saan Sik’.

For the first phrase, the word ‘lien’ means ‘to train or practice’. The ‘gung’ character still refers to the merits and achievements mentioned. Thus to ‘“Lien Gung”’ means ‘to practice and train the meritous skills’. In the context of TCMA, it refers to fortifying the body, training in the tools and skills to make techniques efficacious when used.

The second phrase, ‘Lien Kuen’, is what most people think gung fu is all about. ‘Lien’ is still the same as the previous statement and ‘Kuen’ refers to fists; in TCMA though, Kuen is sometimes used, as in this scenario, as an umbrella term for a form/kata. So, as popularly understood, the phrase ‘Lien Kuen’ refers to forms training.

The final phrase, ‘Saan Sik’, refers to techniques. The character ‘Saan’ translates roughly as ‘scattered’ or ‘dispersed‘. The character ‘Sik’, translates to ‘formulae’ or ‘style’. So if we translate literally, ‘Saan Sik’ means ‘scattered formulae’. However, colloquially, it refers to the training of the individual techniques found within a gung fu form.

For better or for worse, these three quite distinct categories of training are now lumped under the umbrella term of Gung Fu. Some blame Bruce Lee for using the term Gung Fu quite candidly and, due to his popularity, people took to it and refused to give it up. Some blame the times, seeing the necessity to have some sort of cohesive label for things to appeal to a more disparate audience. I blame both, but I waffle on which gets the most blame. That is why when strangers or interested individuals ask me what I do, what would normally be a 10-15 second interchange with a native Cantonese-Chinese speaker becomes a several minutes long explanation to a non-native/total stranger to the subject.

For our purposes, ‘Lien Kuen’ has already been discussed in the previous section which detailed, in a nutshell, the “Gung Fu Form”. We will be discussing “Lien Gung” and “Saan Sik”.

There is no mysticism about the power behind real Gung Fu people. There is no magic technique, no ultimate punch or kick, no extraordinary strength or speed. It all comes from ordinary, rigorous, time consuming training. You see a martial artist punch through boards, bricks, concrete and, if you are a lay person, you might be inclined toward slight mysticism. You may be properly convinced of esoteric meditations and arcane movements and dietary regiments that might produce such epic powers. But in all honesty, to attribute such brilliant displays of martial prowess to such nonsense is doing TCMA a severe injustice. Granted there is a certain level of mystique about the Asian Martial Arts but, to be quite honest, the mystique stems more from the ambience of where training used to commence (temples, mountain tops, secluded forests etc), than the actual training itself. There is nothing mystical about slowly pounding away at stones and wooden training dummies to gradually make your bones denser. There is nothing very mystical or mind boggling about rubbing liniment oils onto your bruises to decrease the swelling and to promote blood circulation after all that physical abuse. There is nothing properly magical about rising early in the day, taking in the fresh air, doing gentle, but effective, and time consuming stretches and breathing exercises to limber up, freshen up, and encourage circulation and muscular toning day in and day out.

“Lien Gung” is fortifying the body.

“Lien Gung” is the heart of TCMA.

It is the process of strengthening all of your body so that the punches and kicks and grabs and throws you learn from forms and drills can actually be used. Allow me, if you will, an example to illustrate the reality of “Lien Gung”. Boxers are notorious for superior punching skills, and rightly so. If a discipline centered on primarily one type of hitting, that being a punch, it better be bloody magnificent in that category. And boxing genuinely is. Time and time again, when taking the average practitioner (average, not individual, as there are some shit boxers and some marvelous gung fu/muay thai/judo/karate etc punchers) the boxer reigns supreme in the punching category. However, the mainstream boxer wears gloves; All that power… through a gloved hand. I promise you that if you take off the gloves of the average boxer, and told them to punch as hard as they would normally with the gloves on, most of them would find themselves unable to perform close to their gloved-potential; they have powerful punches, but relatively soft hands. Their hands cannot handle the strength of their own punches. No doubt a punch from a professional boxer, without gloves, should knock out the average individual. At the same time though, chances are that the boxer will also split their hand or break a knuckle on impact. The Gung Fu person, though, seems to punch through wood, bricks, concrete etc barehanded with none of the injuries that would be sustained by a bare handed boxer. Are they stronger? Perhaps… but, on average, not likely in the punching category. What makes the fist of the Gung Fu person not split open and spill blood? The “Lien Gung” aspect prevents this. Over years of gradual, constant, static and dynamic pressures applied to the striking surfaces (palms, forearms, knuckles etc), the bones harden and skin toughens up. Though their peak power upon impact might be less than the boxer, their toughened bones and skin can withstand the impact with little to no injury. This allows the Gung Fu person to consistently throw out powerful punches, time and time again, with little time for recovery. If that picture wasn’t vivid enough for you, try this. Boxers are equal to the world’s most magnificent and powerful Glass Cannon. Glass is easy to manufacture; it’s just melted sand. It’s a bit time consuming to melt and mold so much glass, but once it’s done you have one quickly made cannon. One shot and BOOM, chances are that the bridge will collapse. A shame about the cannon though, because that also goes BOOM and can’t be used anymore until proper repairs are made. The Gung Fu person might simply be a regular cannon. It needs the wooden frame and the iron casting and the ceramic bits and steel whatsits. It’s more expensive to make and has a longer production time. But it fires more regularly and can be used quite consistently… and it’s still a cannon.

“Lien Gung”, by itself, is quite non-spectacular in appearance. It consists of standing in stances, walking in stances, slapping materials of varying densities and hardness, running laps, jumping, stretching, exaggerated breathing, segmented muscular tensions and, to a certain degree, weight/resistance training. Inherently, there are no techniques in these exercises. But it doesn’t matter how many techniques you know. A weak hand cannot punch. Flimsy legs cannot stand. Fragile fingers cannot grab. Stiff muscles cannot move well. You may know every single tiger claw technique known to man, but if the fingers are weak and the stance is shaky, there will be an absence of the power to grip and the foundation to sink and pull. No longer can it be called a tiger claw but more aptly titled a pussy cat claw. Even pussy cat claws are probably better than the “lack-of-lien-gung” claws, because at least cats have sharp nails. It used to be that learning Chinese Martial Arts was nearly ALL ABOUT “LIEN GUNG”. However, certain changes in the times required for a refocusing of the curriculum. The major one is that it was no longer financially viable for CMA Masters to teach as they used to and, in order to make money, they had to make the training less harsh to generate a more reasonable cash flow. Thus they flooded the curriculum with drilling techniques with a severe de-emphasis on training Gung. Ask yourself honestly this question: “If you went to a martial arts teacher, paying for instruction in the initial stages, and all you learned for the first two to three years was standing in various stances, slapping various objects of increasing density and hardness, and bludgeoning tree trunks and bamboo poles with your forearms etc… would you seriously consider staying at the school?” Most likely no… no one in the modern era would acquiesce to this type of training due to lack of time and general unwillingness for such physical abuse. However, if you saw a school that taught lots of quick punches and kicks and pine board breaking within the first year… that would draw your attention immediately. Even as spectators, the latter is far more appealing to watch then sweating, shaky limbed individuals trying to hold horse stance for an indeterminate period of time. Thus “Lien Gung”, what should be 85% of Chinese Martial Arts training, is something more along the lines of 30% in most schools. Insurance is another big issue… can’t have children smacking hard surfaces without taking into account sue happy parents.

“Saan Sik” refers to the individual techniques. This phrase includes the ‘Wood Punch’, the ‘Double Tiger Claws’, the ‘Reincarnated/Revived Crane’ and the like. “Saan Siks” are the separated units of a formal Gung Fu Form. Just because they are codified and practiced in a particular sequence DOES NOT MEAN that in an actual physical confrontation that they are to be used IN THAT ORDER. It may seem like common sense to many of you that the form itself does not signify an actual battle strategy, but it is surprising how many people watch a form and go “that would never work in a fight” with the idea that the form is teaching you how to fight. That notion is, by nearly every stretch of the imagination, INCORRECT. Think of the Gung Fu Form as the ABCs of your respective system. In the forms are the collected movements which are relevant to a particular combat philosophy. It is your job, as a diligent practitioner, to recognize the individual techniques that are strung together, detach them from the set, and reassemble them as you see fit (and by that I mean ‘as you find them to be actually efficacious in combat), and drill those combinations. This is the portion of Gung Fu where “dead movements” are given life and the art is allowed to continue changing and evolving to fit the body structure and needs of the individual practitioner. Everyone learns the form one way. Everyone does the same conditioning and body fortifying exercises in one way. But when it comes to the expression of individual techniques, different people will choose to use different techniques. Different people may also find a way to utilize the same technique in different ways. Let me give you an example. There is a sequence in the Hung Gar system, found most noticeably in one of the Pillar Forms known as “Gung Ji Fook Fu” which translates roughly as “Taming the Tiger Along the Gung Character (the Gung character in this case is shaped like the letter I [aye] so it is often translated as –Taming the Tiger Along the I Pattern—). In this sequence, we have what is called a Gwa Choi followed by a Pao Choi (a hanging back fist followed by an upward rising strike with the opposite arm). I understand it is hard to imagine, but bear with the poor illustration. Some interpret this sequence as the Gwa Choi blocking an attack and, followed by a side step, the Pao Choi attacking upwards to the face. That is one possible interpretation, though somewhat awkward. Another interpretation is that this sequence trains the force of downward strike and upward strike to ward off blows coming from respective directions… another possible interpretation. Yet still there are some who maintain that this sequence should not be taken literally together but are, in fact, simply two techniques strung conveniently together which should be taken apart and treated as unique entities… yet an additional acceptable interpretation. And there are those, and I am among them, who believe this sequence can both be taken apart to be two separate techniques (a hanging back fist as well as a rising forearm/fist strike)… AS WELL AS training a type of scissor technique. It doesn’t matter if you can’t imagine it… just realize what I have just done. I took a pair of movements in a popular form, and everyone essentially trains the form in a similar manner, and introduced to you four possible ways/interpretations of what that one pair is meant to do. There is a saying which roughly translates to “One Thousand Transformations, Ten Thousand Expressions”. This refers to, among other things, the notion that one idea can be expressed in so many different ways and, from these different expressions, so many more differences and flavours arise.

“Saan Sik” speaks directly to the heart of Gung Fu evolution. If people simply practiced the forms and did the lien gung, the art form would be preserved quite nicely in whatever present state it was transferred. It is by the exploration of the many permutations of these individual techniques, combining and reinterpreting and experimenting with what works for the individual, that the art is allowed to breathe and survive. However, it must be made abundantly clear that knowledge of “Saan Sik” alone does not a good Gung Fu practitioner make. All the techniques in the world don’t amount to a whit if the body is too weak to use. For those that like fantasy video games, “I don’t care how powerful your spells are, if you don’t have the magic points to cast then it’s as good as not having the spell.” If we had to pick from the three categories of “Lien Gung”, “Lien Kuen” and “Saan Sik”, Lien Gung would prove to be the most important of the three. Lien Gung, all by itself, makes a powerful individual who, by default, would be a formidable adversary, or a splendidly healthy individual. Forms collectors may look impressive, but they are weak and empty, what we call “fah kuen sau teui” or “flowery fists and embroidered kicks”. That means it is all for show and nothing is substantive in the way of application or practicality. Saan Sik aficionados are equally weak, but stand a slightly better chance in that if you know a plethora of techniques and fight very smart and conservatively, there may be a chance of victory. But the most sure fire way of success in TCMA, in any form of martial arts for that matter, is the Lien Gung aspect, the fortifying of the body. Absent techniques and form, a strong clumsy swing is still a strong swing… despite being clumsy.

Train Hard. Talk Less.
~Thunder Palms

POST #7: PART 1 “The Gung Fu Form”

This post is taking the place of the original filler post which detailed my next three posts. They will simply be entitled PART 1, PART2, and PART 3 with a more specific heading next to it. We will be working from largest group to smallest. This first post will be devoted to the Gung Fu Form.

At the very heart of Gung Fu are the forms, the intricate movements and postures and patterns and shapes which make Gung Fu such a character within the classification of fighting arts. Though most of the classical arts have forms or patterns or katas (the terminology shifts with the system but they point to a general notion), the reasoning behind the actual practicing of forms takes on different meanings for different people. A study of the Gung Fu form might seem a bit redundant to the ardent practitioner. But to NOT at least briefly analyze this integral part of the system would do the art form as a whole an extreme injustice. Many of the criticisms leveled at TCMA (substitute any classical art for TCMA) seems to revolve around the extreme focus on learning forms. They even have a derogatory label for individuals who seem primarily keen on learning forms: Forms Collector. It sounds exactly like what it denotes; an individual who never actually studies the forms, but simply learns enough to copy the general shape, leaving at that, then quickly moving onto the next one to copy. There is no rhyme or reason to this want, save a pathological need to know as many as possible and perhaps inflate their self-worth with shallow demonstrations. But more on that later. Now allow me to progress into the analysis of the Gung Fu forms.

(There are many ways which I can approach this. The way I will choose to analyze the Gung Fu form is by no means a codified and exact approach. It is purely an independent preference and exercise)

There are many reasons and purposes for the Gung Fu Form:

FIRST AND FOREMOST is the functional purpose it played in its historical settings. Despite the romanticized stories and the novels and the movies and the television shows, Gung Fu was a thing of the masses… and the masses were illiterate. Even though there were manuals with hand drawn diagrams and descriptions of certain motions, these things would be next to useless for the average hooligan, farmer, coolie, butcher etc that decided to learn Gung Fu simply because they lacked the ability to read. Thus the Gung Fu Form was developed in such a way as to have postures flow beautifully from one motion to the next, in a methodical manner, while punctuating these motions with poetic names; names like “Mai Yun Jiu Geng” (Beauty Reflects Upon the Mirror) and “Ngo Fu Kam Yeung” (Hungry Tiger Catches the Goat). The names themselves obviously could mean many things. But if one learned the names and saw the motion associated, a mental connection would be established and even the most illiterate individual would have an intimate grasp of the ordering of shapes, the basic applications, and a rudimentary methodology for dissemination.

THE SECOND PURPOSE of the Gung Fu Form is to establish a baseline of purpose and intent regarding the system being practiced. Anyone who has even limited observational skills will realize that, barring some grotesque deviance or some anatomical evolutionary pioneering, people have a set number of arms, legs, fingers, extremities etc. You can only punch in so many ways, block in so many ways, step in so many ways and angle in so many ways before you simply RUN OUT OF WAYS due to physiological barriers. Thus movements found in one style can very likely be found either exactly, OR SIMILARLY, in a completely different system. The reason is simple: Human physiology provides a closed set of possibilities.

A particular Gung Fu Form is, therefore, a re-sequencing and a re-emphasizing of particular elements that a particular school wishes to devote attention.

This is done to better express unique fight philosophies pioneered by the masters of distinct schools and systems. Every system has threading techniques and simultaneous strikes and simultaneous block strikes etc. But the frequency of occurrences, and the variety of certain strikes compared to others, is meant to emphasize particular skill-sets that the system wishes to specialize. For example, and forgive the shallowness of the examples, Tai Chi emphasizes a lot of threading techniques because it is a “soft” and “internal” style, whereas Hung Gar has a lot of direct “hard” techniques because there is a stronger focus on power, while Wing Chun has “hard” techniques, but also many angle/ structure manipulation techniques because it is meant for the small to sort out the large in a scrap. But within Tai Chi there are also explosive punches, within Hung Gar there are threading techniques, and within Wing Chun you have direct contact blocks. Each art is known for something because each progenitor of the style thought a particular approach to fighting was superior for a situation/individual. It is therefore understandable and expected that each art has more types of a particular technique to emphasize that ideology.

THE THIRD PURPOSE of a Gung Fu Form is to train both body and mind. The body training is self explanatory, but will be addressed tangentially in a different paragraph. Right now, however, I wish to focus on the mind. When people say martial arts teaches discipline, respect, loyalty, patience etc… that might be construed as a training of the mind. I’m not going to poo-poo on this notion entirely, but I’m going to say that I disagree with those things as being the mental training that TCMA wishes to provide. They are by-products of culture and personality, BUT THIS WILL BE A SEPARATE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION ON A LATER DATE. The mental training I believe TCMA to possess is one of personal discovery.

Sounds very deep, but really it is quite simple.

The mystique of TCMA was generated not only by secrecy to outsiders, but also secrecy within the school itself. People could be training side by side, almost at the very same time, for the same amount of time, but somehow come out with minor or drastic interpretation differences. Why is that? There are many reasons as to the WHY… but I will only focus on ONE PARTICULAR REASON for the purpose of this piece. The Master, back in the day, was supposed to be a second father figure to the student. Advice and commands dispensed would be acknowledged and acted out unquestioningly… unless it violated some deep seated moral code. But for all things legal and reasonable, the student obeyed the Master, and in exchange the Master became a source of INSIGHT. Note that I say INSIGHT rather than INSTRUCTION. INSTRUCTION would be the very basic level of commitment, where a student came in knowing nothing and, therefore, the Master would have to provide instructional foundation for progress to even begin (how to throw a punch, how to stand, where to move, how to breathe etc). AFTER INITIAL INSTRUCTION, the Master would simply be an observer. The student would then come in to practice, practice, practice, and practice some more the same movements, forms, and fundamental exercises until they felt too fatigued to go on. The education would then end there unless the student began to exercise their mental faculties. It was up to the student to ask questions of the Master. Questions were either Good or Bad. Bad questions were simply answered with no revelations while Good questions were rewarded with an answer, and a little extra something else. Allow me to provide a very rough example.

Bad Question: You throw a punch and ask “where am I aiming for?” The Master comes over and shows you the punch is leveled at the face, but can also be aimed at the stomach. You nod, leaving it at that, and continue punching, varying between face level and stomach level.

Good Question: You throw a punch and say “when I throw this punch, the power comes from X, and I feel off balanced/exposed at Y and Z. Won’t it be better to do [insert technique] instead?” This question shows contemplation and active listening to your body. The Master would then come over and proceed to explain, through movement and demonstration, why the opening might be necessary, how the opening might be a false opening, or why the sacrifice is small in comparison to the advantage gained in certain situations etc.

The Good Question allows for growth in understanding the art and the unveiling of movement and technique potential. It provides fertile soil for growth of the art passed the Master’s generation, into the student’s generation.

The Bad Question simply explains a dead movement, and leaves the movement dead.

You might ask why the Master simply does not explain everything. There are two reasons. THE FIRST is the whole “give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime” adage. Simply giving away secrets and know-how will do more bad than good. The small good would obviously be that the student gains brief understanding at a quicker pace. The Bad, however, is two-fold. The first would be that telling him the answer solves THAT initial problem, but it does not train him to confront the many different problems that will arise during training. Thus he will only ‘eat for a day’ rather than a lifetime. The second would be that the act of telling the student resulted in very little effort on the student’s part. Things gained through effort are more readily retained. Thus if there was little work involved in acquiring, then there is little value in the thing attained. Making the student ask the right questions over a period of time to learn the answer is a feat of accomplishment that they will remember for a longer period of time; the answers received by that process will be harder to forget. THE SECOND BAD REASON regarding simply telling a student how to do something is that the teacher TELLING the student what to think about a situation makes the student NO BETTER than the teacher. In rare circumstances, a student surpasses the teacher. But if the student only listens to teacher and does not learn to exercise his mental faculties to discover potential on his own, then the student will NEVER become better than teacher. The best that will happen is Teacher-Light. The art will become stagnant. Each successive generation of teachers and pupils will only become worse than the previous, barring some lucky strike… but lucky strikes happen too rarely to preserve and advance the integrity of the art form. The absolute best case scenario would be that the lucky strike will branch off and become a separate family of the same style. The worst case, and most likely scenario, is that the large amount of sub-par teachers become the orthodox way of doing things, since they are the majority within that school, and the singular good teacher gets drowned out by the sheer volume of the majority.

The Final purpose of the Gung Fu Form which I will be mentioning is the fact that it provides a skeleton of a training schedule. Forms are set up such that each one attempts to develop a particular skill set. People use words like “beginner” and “intermediate” and “advance” to describe the forms they learn. I call that NONSENSE. Certain forms focus on certain things, and each theme is as important to the whole of the art as any other associated theme. Let me give you a rough example of my point by using the Wing Chun system as my illustrative tool.

(Note that I am primarily a Hung Gar practitioner and have been for nearly 14 years. However I use Wing Chun because it seems to be the most clear cut regarding the point I wish to make… Hung Gar is a close second, but due to controversy surrounding the actual number of forms that constitute Hung Gar, I choose Wing Chun which has a rather solid agreed upon number). <<<<< I will not entertain the small controversy revolving around the number of forms which constitute true Hung Gar. This has been addressed unsuccessfully before by many individuals of both high and low skill and, though a general consensus has been reached by many, there is still much room for contention.

Wing Chun has three empty hand forms. They are the “Siu Lum Tao”, “Chum Kiu” and “Biu Ji”

(forgive the Romanization… I work instinctively rather than based on whatever rules Yale or Jyutping etc may have attempted to establish as orthodox)

The Siu Lum Tao is always taught first. It is translated as the “Little Idea”. The primary purpose of training this form is to establish the ideal posture and positioning of limbs and joints during the fundamental motions at the heart of Wing Chun. That means Siu Lum Tao teaches you the correct way to stand and direct linear force in the most ideal way, even if you are moving. It stresses that even if you side step, back pedal, move forward etc… the structure taught in Siu Lum Tao is the most ideal and should be compromised as little as possible. The next form taught is Chum Kiu, translated as “Seeking Bridge”. This form adds a few additional hand motions, as well as slightly more mobile footwork, to teach the individual basic skills on how to close a gap and create a connection with opponents. It also trains pliability of the waist for pivots and incorporates the basic kicks. This may sound more advanced, but bear in mind that the Chum Kiu form is practically meaningless without first learning the proper structure present in the Siu Lum Tao. Without the structure of Siu Lum Tao, Chum Kiu becomes a mess of disordered, improperly focused limbs, sloppy footing, and even sloppier rooting. The final form is Biu Ji, translated as “Thrusting Fingers” or “Dart Fingers”. This is the last empty hand form taught in Wing Chun, and it emphasizes the use of finger jabs and violent thrusts, along with more rapid pivots and foot work to generate the power necessary for the speed and power of finger strikes. But… and here’s the kicker… Biu Ji may be the last form, but it is not the most advanced. The next point I am about to make MIGHT BE CONTROVERSIAL as I have only heard it expressed by the Wong Shun Leung branch of Yip Man Wing Chun and never any other lineage. I have, however, heard many individual practitioners say things to the contrary of what I am about to say… hence my disclaimer at controversy.

::AHEM:: It is commonly believed that Biu Ji form trains deadly secret finger strikes that are the most powerful tools within the Wing Chun system. So advanced and powerful are these techniques that the Wing Chun clan kept it closed to all but the most inner disciples, and even they could only learn after many years of sequestered training of the Siu Lum Tao and the Chum Kiu. However, and here comes the claim…

the Biu Ji form, by itself, is more useless than the Chum Kiu or the Siu Lum Tao form.

The late Master Wong Shun Leung stated that the Siu Lum Tao and the Chum Kiu formed the very essence of Wing Chun. If you walked away with just those two forms THOROUGHLY under your belt, you could properly represent Wing Chun in most situations. However, sometimes the odds are turned against you, either by sheer numbers, the size of your opponent, or the fact that you miscalculated during a fight, and placed yourself in a threatening dilemma. That is where Biu Ji comes in. The Biu Ji form is sometimes referred to as an Emergency Form, because it embodies a collection of techniques which should be used when the application of Siu Lum Tao/Chum Kiu principles fail to beat the odds. By itself it is an average set with none-too-spectacular movements. However, the point is that Biu ji was to be applied in very specific, unfavourable situations; times where one lost the centerline, if the opponent is too overbearing, if you slipped up on a technique and lost your advantage etc. In the following way, perhaps, Biu Ji could be said to be an advanced form: Biu Ji shows the potential weaknesses within the core of Wing Chun and, therefore, is a contingency plan created to dam up the cracks and holes that might be exploited. [END OF CONTROVERSIAL DIALOGUE]

Minus the controversy though, one can plainly see how the Gung Fu Form serves as a very organized system of training very specific elements within a style. No one form is better than the other. Each form is simply focused on a particular skill set. In this way the body is slowly built up, from the foundation up, to be fully engaged within a particular art form.

I will end with this summary. The take home message of this piece regarding the Gung Fu Form is simply this: It is an archaic practice which has more purpose than what the modern times gives credit. Whether or not it is essential is another story. However, it cannot be denied that forms are a unique experience within the Fighting Arts and, though it runs the risk of creating form-factories for those that simply do not wish to put in the hard work to delve deeply and learn, let me tell you a rough translation of a saying from the Mainland (that being China).

“Anyone can learn to punch and kick. However, if you put in the time to learn something more advanced, then the opponents you meet will have to put in just as much time in order to figure out and defeat your efforts. 1 year of training to beat 1 year of skill. 10 years of training to beat 10 years of skill.”

Train Hard. Talk Less.

~Thunder Palms