Body Mechanics

The other day I was in the gym and noticed someone walking very oddly.

Noticing this person got me to thinking about the basics in this art and how they have changed my body mechanics in what I do in the gym and in my everyday life.  Let me give you some examples.

Breathing:  Are my fellow gym denizens using all of their lung capacity or are they chest breathing?  With chest breathing one doesn’t exchange as much air as one can when compared to the way we are taught in this art.

Walking: I see a lot of people walking with their toes splayed in or out or moving forward by falling onto their front foot.  The way we’re taught to walk helps prevent injuries and produces power -- why walk any other way?

Structure: So many people have poor posture and I’m no exception.  Just as I was typing this, I corrected my sitting.  We’re lucky because we know the right way to sit and stand while so many people don’t.  We learn this very early in this art.

Intent: In working out, why do it half-assed?  Focus on the task at hand and give it all you’ve got.  Most of the regulars that I see do this.  The newbies will become regulars if their intent is solid and unwavering.  Again, we learn this in class.

Imaging: When lifting a weight, doing a sit-up or some other exercise, I see so many people wearing ear buds, watching the TV monitors, or talking with their friends.  In doing any of these, they cannot picture their body structure to see if they are in proper alignment or imagine their muscles in their mind’s eye growing and expanding.  Doing this takes concentration and focus and being mindful, which is hard but will give one a better workout than focusing on anything else.  We know this from our classes.

Sung: I’ve seen someone who blazes away on the treadmill with his shoulders a little below the level of his ears.  This person is not sung.  In fact, it takes effort to get and keep his shoulders so high that he’s expending a great deal of needless energy in that effort.  It’s so much easier to move when one is at his/her ease, using only those muscles that are needed.  How often have we practiced this in the Dragon Rolling the Pearl posture?

We learn so much in this art that makes us more efficient in our body mechanics, which helps us stay healthier and be more effective in any type of physical labor.  And we get this as an addition to the martial training.  I think that’s really neat.

By the way, I make every one of these mistakes and am always correcting myself.  But I know when something needs to be changed because these basics been taught to me.  I don’t have to learn it on my own like a non-JBZ person would.  That’s another added benefit to this art.

Visiting the Mother Ship

Road trip!!!

Encouraged by our teacher, Shizi Rick Krausman, to become instructors in this art, Coop, Andy, Christina, Shizi, and I set off for the Gompa in Arlington, Texas. It was there that we would complete the first phase of the process, becoming assistant instructors, by being certified in a part of Rolling the Pearl, the name of the beginning program for learning JBZ.

The Gompa is an oasis situated in a residential housing development in Arlington.  In fact, the facility is located behind Shifu Painter's house.  Compact in design, it accommodates a handful of students in a very intimate way that only a small space allows.  At all times you are in close proximity to your teacher and very close to other students.  Do not consider this to be a bad thing.  With this intimacy, you get a lot of attention, which makes you a better student.

The compound is isolated from the outside world by a high wooden fence.  Several trickling water fountains bubbling around the premises help block traffic noise. Towering pecan trees, bamboo, and other assorted plants give the place a natural look and add to the peaceful environment.

During my stay there, I met and had two lessons with Shifu Garza, the Gompa's Taijiquan instructor.  Not only was Shifu Garza welcoming to us JBZ students, but his students were helpful and very friendly.  Shifu Garza is an excellent instructor.  I was impressed by his ability to easily explain non-easy topics and friendly manner.

While having met Shifu Costaldo at this year's Gathering of the Circle, this was the first chance I had to work with him for any length of time.  His knowledge and ability to teach concepts of JBZ are amazing.  It was Shifu Castaldo who created the Rolling the Pearl curriculum.  Because he was instructing potential instructors (us) he also taught us how to teach.  The information that was freely imparted he had gained over thirty years of teaching and will help us immeasurably.

By going to the Gompa you have the added pleasure of seeing Shifu Painter often.  He would stop by during class, pop in for lunch, or simply sit with us for an hour before we retired for the evening.  Those of us who know Shifu Painter, if only slightly, understand what a pleasure these casual meetings are.  You can feel his care for the world, his strong sense of justice, and his immense knowledge of this art.

An added benefit to this trip was being able to go to lunch and dinner with the Shifus and talk about everyday events like sports, movie making, or what-have-you.  It was during one of our dinners that I got a call on my cell telling me that my wife broke her leg at the barn.  She rides horses.  I'm writing the first draft of this blog on the plane heading to CLE.  My trip was cut two days short so that I can be with Karen.  This small taste of the Gompa, though, makes me want to come back.  And I will!  As soon as my better half gets better; she's my first priority.

UPDATE: Karen is the proud owner of a new titanium rod and other assorted medical hardware, which were attached to her broken femur.  She is uncomfortable, as can be expected, but doing well.  Becoming independently mobile will take a little more time.

An Unexpected Side Benefit

JBZ is a physically exacting art. By that I mean that one must concentrate on one’s muscles and move them in a precisely prescribed way in order to properly perform a movement.

Let me give you an example by dissecting the ba turn. In this movement, you need to turn your outside foot by turning your leg at the hip’s ball and socket joint and not at the knee. The inside leg also must turn at the hip, point in the direction of the turn, receive your forward momentum, bend slightly to transfer the momentum down, and then spring up and out in the new direction transferring the momentum forward. It looks quite simple when seen done by someone who is proficient, but it’s not easy to do correctly. [The steps of the ba turn have been abbreviated for this example; there is more to successfully performing this turn than what is written here.]

Practicing this art requires this sort of physical concentration on all that we do from walking and breathing (yes, there’s a proper way to do both – most people do them inefficiently) to the most complex palm changes while turning. My point is that this concentration on your muscles, posture, feet and arm placement and angle, spine angle, etc. is constant. To have power with every step (to have a moving root), one cannot leak energy by having improper alignment and expect to connect with an opponent with full force. In order to make yourself always ready, you have to concentrate on your locomotion at three in the morning when you’ve just gotten out of bed to get a drink of water. You have to live, eat, and breathe the art’s principles twenty-four by seven so they’ll be there in the heat of an encounter; so that they’re hardwired. You don’t want to think about how to do a ba turn when someone is taking a swing at you.

Does this make sense? Our Shizi (our teacher) says that this art is something that you become, not something that you practice. He hit the nail on the head with that summary. Those of us who have gotten into JBZ and been bitten by the bug for this art know exactly what this means.

There’s a non-martial side benefit to all this mental concentration and practice, too. After you’ve been practicing for a while, you know your own body much more deeply. You can isolate muscles that you couldn't before and sense parts of yourself that you didn't know existed. How is that a benefit? Well, you can focus on and examine different areas of your body when something feels different. For example, is this harshness in my throat because of something that I ate, or am I getting a sore throat? If it’s the later, then I can take steps to mitigate the problem (gargling with an antiseptic mouthwash, taking aspirin, getting into bed). In the past I didn’t feel the sore throat coming on, I felt it only after it had already arrived.

If you add Quiet Sitting to this focused attention, you really can feel what's going on inside you. Shifu Painter in his Combat Baguazhang, Volume One says, "... sitting quietly is the easiest way to feel subtle internal sensations."

This deeper knowing of myself has helped me avoid illness for two years. Our Shizi has done so for ten, ever since he started this art. This side benefit alone is worth a million dollars!

But this new-found information can be abused if you don't have the mental discipline to put things in perspective.  For example, this crick in my ankle is probably nothing... probably.  The undisciplined mind might think that it's trichinosis or beriberi or some such thing.  So he'd most likely go to the emergency room where the attendants would say something like, "Hey, here comes Qui Chang Caine again!  What do you have this time?"  And I would... errr, I mean this other person would tell them and the attendants would laugh and laugh and laugh.  I never realized that emergency room attendants were such happy people... ummm, ahhh, not that's it's ever happened to me of course.

Sitting Quietly

Quite Sitting is one of my favorite parts in my morning workout. I have a meditation bench that I put on the back deck (or in front of the family room window now that the weather has turned here in Ohio) that overlooks the backyard flower garden. My wife loves birds, feeds them regularly, and there are always quite a few that come to the feeders. Earlier this fall, we had a flock of wild turkeys that came by to eat the seeds that dropped to the ground.

Once settled on my bench, I try to quiet my mind and take in what’s happening outside while trying not to analyze what I see. For me, this is very hard to do. My mind keeps wandering all over the place until I realize what’s happening and call it back. This is especially true when I close my eyes.

I have found that if I concentrate on the pauses between the inhale and exhale of breath, it’s easier to ‘not think.’ I can’t help but think that concentrating on not thinking is thinking, but I haven’t worked that out yet.

The meditation bench that I built is a sturdy and comfortable little thing that allows me to sit as prescribed in Shifu Painter’s book, Combat Baguazhang I. The seat slopes forward slightly so my hips are more elevated than my knees, which is the proper position for Quiet Sitting.

With a few hand tools, you can build such a bench. Mine is made out of pine that I purchased at the local big box hardware store. It was the prototype that I made before I used more expensive woods to build other benches for friends. Because it was the prototype, it has quite a few holes drilled into the seat where hinges connected the legs to the seat bottom. I had thought to make the bench more portable by making the legs foldable. While this worked well, meditation benches rarely move so I abandoned the idea on the later models that I built.

Although my bench is made out or cheap pine and has more holes in it than a stop sign on a country road, I am attached to it and would not trade it for a fancier model. On the bench is the spirit jian that we sometimes use in class. I sit with the jian and it, like the bench, is an old friend.

Would you like to make your own bench? It’s easy. Here’s what you need:

Seat: ¾” pine board, 9”x24” long – 1 piece
Legs: ¾” pine boards, one end is cut on the diagonal – 2 pieces
The legs measure 9”x8 ¾” in the front and 9”x9 ¼” in the back.
Braces: ¾” pine boards, 2”x24” – 2 pieces

The bottom of the legs need to taper so the bench tilts slightly forward. That’s why one side is slightly longer than the other. You can see the slight right tilt on the picture of the bench at left. If you’re lucky enough to have a table saw (or a friend with one), cut the leg bottoms at an 87° angle. The extra piece of wood at the bottom of the leg that's shaped like a wedge was used to get the angle of the seat just right. I experimented with other angels before settling on 87°.

The legs on my bench are attached to the seat with glue and pinned in place with ¼” dowel rod pieces to give it extra stability. Nails and screws are easier to use, but be sure to drill a pilot hole first so the wood doesn’t split.

Use the braces to keep the legs from breaking away from the seat once you start to use it. Attach one brace at the back and bottom of the legs and the other at the front and top. Don’t put the front brace on the bottom of the bench legs, because it’ll get in the way or your legs when you sit and fold them under you.

If you have the interest, try it and let me know how it goes.

Making Wooden Elbow Knives

   In the winter of 2008, Dr. Painter came to Ohio to teach a seminar in Rolling the Pearl and Baguazhang elbow knife techniques.  Elbow knives are a traditional weapon used by the Li family. Although called "knives," they're more like small swords.

   For this seminar, wooden replicas of elbow knives were used during practice so we would not hurt each other.  These wooden replicas then were offered for sale after the seminar.  Being a hobbyist woodworker, I decided to make a dozen wooden elbow knives and give them to the Cuyahoga Falls study group members.

   This picture was taken after the knives were stained and varnished and drying in my basement.  The photo looks like something out of a horror movie, which I thought was funny so I decided to share it with the rest of the world (which, in this case, turns out to be the one person that read this blog -- thanks, Mom!).

Quiet Sitting with Firepower

My wife loves birds so she feeds them winter and summer. Birds are messy eaters and the seeds that fall on the ground attract a variety of local wildlife including marmotini illiger, one of the most dangerous and deadly of species in North America. These little rodents with saber tooth tiger ferocity have become a menace to both beast and man.

Boo, our fearless canine, does not take kindly to interlopers so she has taken it upon herself to vanquish this menace from the yard. Chasing them does little good as they have the velocity of a speeding bullet and can easily escape. Being resourceful, she has taken to digging them out of their little burrows of iniquity. These vermin had dug tunnels that are the length of the New York City subway system, so poor Boo has been able only to unearth a tiny disco ball (several of the mirrored tiles were lost in the process) and two tiny half filled bottles of vermouth so far. No other trace of marmotini illiger has been unearthed.

The net result of this campaign of digging are hydrogen bomb explosion sized craters that have swallowed a yard tractor, a Mini Cooper, a VW Beetle (the classic, not the new one), and several in-laws. Boy, I really miss those vehicles!

As an aside, I want to stress that Mr. Walter Disney did the world little good by featuring these fierce and deadly rodents in a cartoon and calling them… Chip and Dale.

Enough being enough, as they say, I started a campaign to rid the yard of these critters and have done so with traps and a scoped Winchester .22 caliber rifle.

The other day while Quiet Sitting on the deck (where I have a direct line of sight to the fallen bird seed – the marmotini illiger feeding area), I laid the Winchester across my lap, waited for a 'monk or two to show up for their supper, and began to quiet my mind.

What was surprising was the quietness that I had for long periods in my Quiet Sitting that day. This is very unusual for me as my mind wanders badly every time I sit. I don’t know what to make of this. I know that I shouldn’t have sat with the .22 as Quiet Sitting is supposed to be just that and not waiting for a pest to show itself. I won’t sit with the .22 again, but only with the spirit Jian that Shi-ge Rick Krausman recommended we get.

Do any of you out there have any idea what happened? When I had a focus (waiting patiently for the 'monks), my mind was quiet, yet when my focus was simply to sit quietly, my mind meandered like a river.

Note: while I may have exaggerated the viciousness of the rodents just a bit, my experience in Quiet Sitting happened the way it’s recounted.

Go To The Source...

 Our Study Group Leader, Shi-ge Rick Krausman, always says, “Whenever you have a chance, go to the source for this material.” The Source, of course, is Dr. Painter. Well, the Ohio Study Group is lucky enough to bring Dr. Painter down here for a weekend seminar beginning Friday, August 14th, and ending Sunday, August 16th.

 The topics that Dr. Painter will present are:
  Friday evening:      Four virtues circling
  Saturday all day:   Dao Yin
  Sunday morning:    Five circles

 All of these are important basic concepts in Jiulong Baguazhang. And, as Shifu Garza says, “The basics are the advanced.”

 The Source is coming to the Cleveland area very soon. This is a great opportunity to meet Dr. Painter and see firsthand some of the concepts that make this art what it is. I strongly encourage you to come and join us. It’ll be well worth your time.

 More information can be found here: http://www.jiulongearthdragon.com/id5.html

We Are Family…

fam-i-ly [FAM-uh-lee] noun, plural -
     -Any group of persons closely related...
     -A group of people who are generally not blood relations but who share common attitudes, interests, or goals...

In June of this year at the annual Gathering in the Circle, a group of people got together to study Jiulong Baguazhang. From the first moment everyone assembled for dinner Sunday night, I knew this was not an ordinary event. The friendship and camaraderie was unbelievable. This warmth extended to new attendees, like me. The feeling of welcome and inclusion is hard to describe, but was as palpable as the first warm day of Spring. Just like the definition above, we became a family.

I spent my days studying Flying Dragon Qigong and Thunder Palm. There was enough material presented to keep me busy practicing for a year or more. Dr. Painter's depth and breadth of knowledge is incredible and his training method is excellent. We all worked hard in his classes as Dr. Painter is an ever-watching teacher and wants things done right. Nevertheless, we also had fun; the games we played on the last day of Thunder Palm were enjoyable and enlightening.

One of the highlights of the week was the Friday morning trip by the Qigong group to the waterfalls that is located on the property where the event took place. It was roaring from the recent rains and water was cascading down in a mad rush to get to the small stream that was its outlet. In the presence of this natural phenomenon, we performed the Flying Dragon Qigong that we had learned during the week. The power that was felt from this spot was amazing and wonderful.

I can’t thank enough my brothers and sisters in the art who attended. Thank you for your warmth and generosity. To Dr. Painter, thank you for sharing your knowledge and this amazing material. To those that did not or could not attend, please try next year. It will be worth it. JBG is amazing stuff; there’s no other way to describe it. The art has very powerful martial capabilities, calming and healing capabilities, and a built-in family when you join. Don’t get me wrong, though, there’s no Kool-Aid that you have to drink to become a member.

I would also like to extend a special thanks to all the Study Group Leaders for their patience and willingness to help and lend a hand when they saw me do something… less than correct.

Structure is King

 Well, if it isn’t king, then it’s right up there in the hierarchy. Structure is what gives one stability and ‘rootedness.’ And it is from this base, this root, that all movements derive their ability to strike with tremendous force. When the body is aligned properly, all action through it is braced by the ground, regardless of whether we are standing still or moving. Jiulong Baguazhang (JBG) is known for its ‘rolling root,’ in other words being able to carry structure while moving.

 This is especially important when facing multiple opponents because it’s not a good idea to stand still, root yourself, throw a punch or kick, and then look for another bad guy to hit. Chances are good that a bar stool will be broken over one’s head before a second (or first) punch is thrown. Being able to move and strike with authority, with ‘rootedness,’ is important in encounters because bad guys don’t travel solo.

 Structure is so important that it is one of the first things taught in this art. Quiet Sitting is another. Quiet Sitting is important because, among many other things, it gets one’s mind right so he doesn’t get himself in a situation where he’s facing multiple opponents in a bar somewhere…
 Structure is comprised of the right body alignment; hips tucked, head reaching to the sky, shoulder over hips, knees and toes facing the same direction, etc.

 Structure is comprised of proper movement; stepping (rolling step, immortal man step, etc.), turning (ba turn, night swallow turn, etc.), crossing the great river (the name of a concept where one does not become double-weighted and have all of one’s force applied to the hand, arm, elbow, etc. that’s on the same side as the supporting leg), breathing (proper breathing provides internal structure), and so on.

 Proper structure is a complex set of body mechanics that when properly configured and set in motion, provides the same body rigidity as standing still, bracing with the legs, and punching or kicking. It’s quite a sophisticated set of body mechanics and a foundation of the art. All other aspects of JBG build on these concepts, so they are taught right from the get-go.

 When the Akron, Ohio group first got together, we met in Coop’s basement. We did that for about a year before moving to our current location. After the first few classes in his house, Jean, Coop’s wife, asked him what was being taught. He answered something about standing, walking, and breathing. Jean then asked with an innocence that belies a certain impishness, “And what will you learn next week, how to roll over?”

When I First Noticed a Change

 One Thursday about nine months ago, I was driving my wife and her friend to the JBG class that I had been attending for about six months. My wife wanted to try the class and talked Cheryl, her friend from work, into going, too.

 I asked Karen, my wife, why she wanted to attend. I thought it was because Dr. Painter had appeared in her favorite movie, Midnight Cowboy, and that mystique was the draw.

 “No,” she said, “it’s because of the change in you.” She turned to Cheryl in the back seat and said, "Fabe's turned into a different person since he's started this class."

 I looked at her and said, "What?!"

 "Yeah. You're not as likely to explode when I say something that you don't want to hear. I’m not walking on eggshells like I used to."

 Karen's comment surprised me. I had not realized that I had changed. I thought that I was looking at things a little differently than before I started the class. I can’t exactly say what the change was, though, but I seemed to have achieved a calmness that I hadn’t known before. This felt like a very slight difference and only perceivable to me. But my wife, the closest person to me, and someone who knows me better than I know myself, had noticed the change in my behavior, too. This appeared to be more than a small change, and for the better, it seemed. Also, while I didn't think of myself as a saint, I certainly didn't think that I ‘exploded.’ Other people ‘exploded’ while I rationally debated. I was no Mahatma Gandhi, but maybe, oh, I don’t know, his cousin or something. Karen just rolled her eyes when I said this.

 When she had said that I had changed, I remembered the words of my SGL, Shi-ge Rick Krausman, saying, “This art will change you.” I had written off that comment as soon as he said it. What? Change? Nah!

 But something *did* happen, and I attributed the change mostly to quiet sitting and reciting the four virtues after each practice session. When I recite them, I don’t rattle them off like a machine gun going through bullets, but think about each one and how it could apply to me and my life. Other things contributed, I’m sure, but I don’t know what they might be.

 “Wow,” I thought. “I’m going to tell everyone about this!” And I did. I bragged, “I’m a better person!” to family and friends alike. I hit quiet sitting with a vengeance; “Watch out Mahatma, I’m coming!” Soon after, I lost the feeling that I had before and my wife started walking on eggshells again.  

 When I realized what had happened, I remember Shi-ge Krausman saying, “You can’t chase it or it’ll never come. All you can do is be receptive and let the feelings take their own course.” This paraphrase of Rick’s words is a good synopsis of the following lines in the first verse of Gia Fu Feng’s translation of the Dao De Jing,

      Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
      Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.

 Desiring, and the ambition that desire brings, prevented the attainment of my desire. This catch-22 was so obvious afterwards that I just had to shake my head at the attempt. So I stopped bragging, and started over with quiet sitting, expecting nothing and putting in my time.
 I feel calmer now; things don’t upset me when they don’t go the way I think they should go. I train daily with a happy heart, and try to remind myself to enjoy every minute that I’m alive.

 Did quiet sitting do this? I don’t know. It’s irrelevant, really, because I just do the work and calming things happen. I’ve learned not to expect, not to desire, to let what will happen to just happen. Will this work for others? The synapses that fire in my brain are twisted by my background and my personal experiences. What quiet sitting, or whatever, has done for me may not do the same thing for someone else. Rick likes to say, “Your mileage may vary,” and nowhere is this truer than in this art, this journey that we’re all taking.

 So, where is all this rambling going? I think I want to make a couple of points. First, this art is world-view altering. This is monumental; no other adjective can apply in my opinion. I do not know how I made such a profound change to my core in such a short amount of time. And a change for the better. I just followed the instructions of my Shi Ge, and here I am, different. Better. Second, I now listen a whole lot closer to whatever Rick says, and especially to Dr. Painter.

A Brief History of Jiulong Baguazhang

There are many styles of Baguazhang, and the particular style that I am learning had a circuitous route to the United States that has the same synchronicity as my coming to it (see my first post). Briefly, Jiulong Baguazhang is one of several martial arts that were handed down in the Li family from father to son in China. The Li’s were bodyguards and being able to protect your principal and the merchants who hired you to guard their caravan was of utmost importance. Before the Chinese revolution, there was no organized police force in the country and bandits roamed the trade routs that rich merchants used to get their goods to lucrative markets. Consequently, the Li’s became experts at various weapons and martial arts. The martial arts they incorporated into their family for their business were slowly modified to meet their particular needs and became their trade secret. They did not share this with others for this was their competitive advantage, or ‘secret sauce’ as Coop likes to say. So, while the essence of Baguazhang remains in the art, much of the peripheral manifestations are different. They were changed by the Li’s over the hundreds of years that they had to use it. If something in the art did not work efficiently and effectively, they did not hesitate to toss it out. If they found something new that worked, they were not afraid to incorporate it. Jiulong Baguazhang was a dynamic living art based on the necessity of staying alive and making a living. There could be no greater acid test than the environment in which Jiulong Baguazhang was born, nursed, and grown to maturity.

After the WW II, the Li family was hired to guard Chiang, Kai-shek and eventually ended up in Taiwan. From that country, Master Li, Long-dao, one of the last in the Li family who continued the bodyguard tradition, immigrated to the United States and ended as the neighbor to a sickly child namedJohn Painter. Taking this child under his wing, Master Li nursed him to health with traditional Chinese medicine and taught him Jiulong Baguazhang and the other arts in which the Li family specialized.

Dr. John Painter is now the head of the Jiulong Baguazhang family and teaches the art out of Arlington, Texas. There are several Study Group Leaders (SGLs) throughout the country, England, and Israel, who also are certified to teach the art. We are lucky to have Shi-ge Rick Krausman here in Ohio as our SGL as he has over forty years experience in martial arts and about ten in Jiulong Baguazhang.

Because of the route Jiulong Baguazhang took from a family’s private art to Dr. Painter, it is a little different from traditional martial arts. First, it does not have a belt system. They are not given to show your ranking because everyone is a student until he or she dies. There’s always something more to learn by combining core principles in different ways to come up with new techniques. Second, there are no forms to learn. Again, core principles are combined in different ways to create spontaneous forms that look one way today and may never be repeated. Third, there is no sparring. Sparring implies holding back so you don’t hurt your opponent. This form strives to react spontaneously and without thinking to disable your attacker. The thought is that one cannot perfect spontaneous reaction if one holds back. Fourth, this art did not become adapted for tournaments. There are no trophies in the schools where Jiulong Baguazhang is taught that were won using this art. Fifth, there are no punches in this art. All strikes are done with the whole body, torso, arms, legs, forearms, feet, or palms. Sixth, JBG has a moving root. By this I mean that one does not stand still while delivering a hit to an opponent. JBG was designed to strike on the move facing multiple opponents. Finally, there is a very large component of this art that is meditative in nature. What it tries to do is to get you into shape mentally in order to make you a better person, not just a better fighter but a better person.

Now some may take umbrage at the words that I’ve used in comparing JBG to traditional martial arts. Please don’t, as no offense was intended. These are simple comparisons and do not imply that one is better than another, only that there are large differences. Think of it as the preference people have for, say, Fords or Chevys; both are equally good car manufacturers.

How It Began

(ring) (ring)

“Yellows.”

“Fabe?”

“Yes.”

“Fabe, this is Cooper.”

“Coop! How are you? I can’t remember the last time we spoke. What’s new?” Cooper was a vendor’s technical representative that worked with me over twenty years ago. He supported the software for the computer hardware that we had purchased and installed. We had struck up a friendship and periodically kept in touch throughout the years.

“Well, I’m glad you asked. You see, I’ve been taking this martial arts class about two hours away, and if I get enough people interested I may be able to talk the instructor into teaching a class up here.”

My spider senses tingled at this last statement. What was Coop going to do, ask me to commit to taking the class? With my knees the way they are, well, there seemed little chance in that. Too much running in my youth rendered my knees less then optimal. Oh, I amble along well enough and people can’t tell that I have bad knees, but I can’t run. Or kick, for that mater. And I’m not young!

I started thinking of excuses so I would have them handy when Coop made “the ask.”

“So, uhh, tell me about this class you want to bring up here...” I said with some hesitation.

That’s when he started talking about internal versus external gung fu, meditation, walking circles, and on and on. His comments about structure negated my excuse of bad knees; “You're taught the proper way to walk.” And he’s just a little younger than I am, so that negated the age excuse. Besides, what he said really did sound intriguing.

Oh, what the heck, I thought. One night a week won’t be bad. It’ll get me out of the house. Karen, my wife, ias always at the barn riding horses and doing whatever else she does to keep those beasts healthy. She might have to change their oil and tune them up once in a while, I’m not sure.

From that inauspicious start where the stars just happened to be aligned (I had kept up a friendship with an old vendor contact, he and I had similar interests, I had the free time, was looking for something new, trusted Coop’s judgment, and had a nascent interest in the subject matter), I began my journey in Jiulong Baguazhang. I am now hooked, and hooked deep.