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3.
Praying Mantis Boxing is more than Praying Mantis Boxing:
"
To sit and think cannot compare to getting up
to move."
Let’s delve into the real practice of Praying Mantis
Boxing !
When practicing Praying Mantis, what are you chasing after ? Is it
speed, or is it perfection ?
There’s an important
point to keep in mind when practicing Praying Mantis. When many
people practice
Praying Mantis they chase after the idea of " speed " — they
practice their forms very quickly,
but unfortunately, with their arms not fully extending, just
whirling and twirling in front of their own chests.
Similarly, in the pursuit
of speed, it’s not uncommon to simply drop part of a move or an
entire move altogether.
The pursuit of "
fast " can result instead in " wild, " which loses the real
purpose of Praying Mantis. In the pursuit
of so-called " perfection," people often end up paying attention to
too many superficial aspects of how their
form looks, falling into the realm of flowery, entertaining forms
that lose their functionality as self-defense art.
The pursuit of this type
of " perfection " can ironically result in an
imperfection. This is what is meant by the phrase
" pros look at the substance, amateurs look at the flash "
Do you want to practice Praying Mantis with "
substance "
or " flash " ? Before answering, let’s first consider what
the substance of Chinese martial arts really is,
before getting down to the substance of Praying Mantis.
Whether you think of the substance of Chinese martial arts as the
most philosophical of martial arts,
as the floweriest and most beautiful of martial arts or as the
martial arts that combine health and self-defense,
never forget that in the end, they are all martial arts. This
aspect of them is unchangeable and irreplaceable.
" Martial arts " are
skills used to kill people — this definition is one you can
never fully overturn.
Nevertheless, after
five-thousand years of refinement and countless hundreds of
thousands of battles,
Chinese martial arts practitioners " awakened." This " awakening
" to certain higher principles allowed
Chinese martial arts to begin kind of metamorphosis — one that took
place from the inside-out,
with principles and theory as its starting point. This
outward-blooming metamorphosis allowed
Chinese martial arts to develop into something new, imbuing them
with new life.
If we peel back the surface of combat training, we find that "
forms " are a key element of
Chinese martial arts training. And, in fact, if
we look at the martial arts of the world,
Chinese martial arts are, in fact, the only group with such a
strong emphasis. A training method to weaken
the killing aspects of Chinese martial arts and convert them into a
kind of beautiful art — this was
the beginning of that awakening, the budding of the " way of
forgiveness." From this point, the skills of
martial arts began to be mixed with other personal qualities. The
initial emphasis on killing led to an increased
respect for life, the original violent surface-appearance was
smoothed over with a literati aesthetic.
This forever expanded the
world of Chinese martial arts into something more than just
martial arts.
Technique and theory
exist side-by-side. " Side-by-side " implies that the two
aspects supported
and informed one another, not that one was primary and the other
secondary. Nevertheless,
over the years, Chinese martial arts could not avoid losing the
balance between these two.
Unfortunately, the loss of balance was not just a shift towards
technique or theory,
but rather a complete loss of theory and all emphasis on technique.
This created a narrowness — an emphasis on fooling people with
flowery gestures
that hid the original function and appearance of Chinese martial
arts.
Chinese martial arts have theoretical components. Not only do we
need to keep these in mind
as we go along, but we should also absorb them even as we begin to
study.
This is why we ask
everyone to remember: don’t forget to bring your head along
when you practice martial arts—in the end it’s all about what goes
on in your head,
not your hands and feet ! The essence of
form training doesn’t lie in the flowery outer appearance
of the form but in how many aspects of its moves you’ve unlocked
from its code.
How many methods of
reacting to or countering the enemy’s moves can you read into it
?
Is it simple attack and defense or does it meld the two together in
a variable counter-attack reaction ?
Chinese martial arts are for smart people. Precisely because
they’re for smart people,
there is an expectation that you won’t treat the forms as sacred
edicts and become restricted by them.
Only by using your head can you take basic understanding and
transform into a deep level of mastery.
But if you take a look around nowadays, it will seem as if the
number of stupid people is ever fewer,
smart people ever more — to the point we’ve gotten too smart for
our own good !
Precisely because of this being a little too clever, the forms of
Chinese martial arts have undergone
all sorts of unusual changes — many of them not progress; in fact
you might even call some of these
changes " mutations." The pose-striking which was originally found
in Peking Opera found its way
into martial arts, for example — and though you can’t deny it may
look cool, and while there is
nothing wrong with a bit of beautification, taken too far this sort
of trend inevitably causes a loss
in the original martial value of the forms. Similarly, the clever
and nimble body mechanics
of Chinese martial arts have gotten exaggerated out to the point
that they are nothing but
a performance and of no practical use, as with the " swiveling
waist " motion. Not being
restricted by the forms and knowing how to vary them is good, but
you have to be moving
in the right direction ! What
are martial arts, after all ? They are a set of techniques used
to
defeat an enemy ! What
is a form ? It is an encoded record of these techniques ! If
you absorb
yourself wholly in the beautification of the form
then the expertise is wholly lost in a fancy show.
The
pendulum always swings the other way. As
a result of too much artistic embellishment,
the natural
reaction was growth of a strongly anti-form camp; their
motto:
" we don’t talk about
martial 'art,' just how to fight,"
thereby throwing away all the value of forms training to focus
solely
on sparring techniques. With two people plunged into the
ring, fists and feet flying,
grappling and throwing each other
to the ground, how could you say these aren’t " martial "?
This
kind of martial art has a very long history — even longer than the
long history of
Chinese martial arts we like to pride ourselves
on. In
fact, ever since humans first came into
being — from the stone age
to the space age, this kind of fighting has always existed under
the name
of " martial arts," and will continue to exist. After
all, so long as that little bit of animal nature is
not
extinguished from the deepest recesses of the human heart and
mind, this kind of fighting is bound
to exist. But
if you just charge right ahead to fight then where is the
technique, where is the strategy,
where is the theory ? All
you have to do is watch a lion hunting a gazelle on Animal
Planet and you’ll be
amazed at the perfection of its skill and
technique — when even animals have to use finesse,
how much more
so should humans — we who think ourselves above animals !
Both
going too far and not far enough are mistakes. Chinese
martial arts does emphasize beauty.
If it doesn’t look good it
isn’t Chinese martial arts. But,
the beauty isn’t to be found in that exaggerated
waist-swaying
or dance-like movements, but rather in the exquisite
coordination of hand, eye, body,
foot and method, resulting in
the movements we call " dodging, turning, leaping and
contracting,"
all of which link together beautifully. Beauty
is not to be found in that moment of " striking a pose,"
but
rather in the ceaseless flow from one move to another that
creates. Beauty
isn’t in the floweriness
of the flying leaps and kicks but in
the intensity of that poetry which the inner strength of the
performer
creates. This
kind of poetic beauty almost entrances the viewer. Looking
at it is leaves a dream-like
impression from which people are
reluctant to tear themselves away — almost to the point that
people
forget that this is a killing art.
Confucianism
emphasizes the " doctrine of the mean,"
while Daoism emphasizes
" ruling with non-action."
These
concepts have continually influenced Chinese martial arts,
resulting in a strong emphasis on
" personal " cultivation. This
kind of practice, however, has also become a point of criticism
for
Chinese martial arts. This
bias of Confucianism, or perhaps a misunderstanding of it, led
to a similar
bias in martial arts; Self-cultivation
is a kind of enjoyment and a kind of affirmation,
but not
something to be flaunted. Too
much flaunting of one’s own level of achievement not only leads
to a biased view existing among different martial arts styles,
but even between different students studying
the same style at
the same school. Unfortunately, this attitude toward
" self-cultivation " has had a strong
influence on Chinese martial
arts, creating a loss of the original meaning and strongly
divergent views
on all topics.
However,
in today’s individualistic society, it’s not uncommon for
" self-cultivation " to become " solipsism."
Self-cultivation means
enjoying the fruits of your own labor, but it doesn’t mean
forcing what’s good for
yourself on others. Only
you know your own accomplishments and only you can truly
appreciate them.
These
biases and misunderstandings can easily transform into arrogance
and discrimination.
This
results in a situation whereby each martial arts school feels
that if it isn’t done exactly as they do it,
exactly as their
great ancestor supposedly did it, then it can’t be right.
Only
a "self " which accords with the "doctrine of the mean" can be
truly tolerant. Rivers all flow to the sea
because the sea does
not incline away from itself, birds all flock to tree branches
because tree branches
support them without asking anything. It
is only because of these that we are able to see the
aforementioned
beauty like a painting, like poetry.
To
"govern with non-action" does not mean to do nothing, but rather
to set a goal and proceed towards
it slowly but surely, without
debate, struggle, resistance or submission; when the "governing"
has been
achieved then action may be taken. Why then bother with
any debate or resistance in the process ?
The
one which causes people the most disappointment is that point
about "not submitting."
" Convert without preaching " has always
been the philosophy of Chinese martial arts — it’s not that
we
don’t understand the value of advertising. But,
we know that though advertising produces quick results,
those
results are also fleeting; conversion is slow but sure. After
all, advertisement always results in exaggeration;
when faced
with the great and vast content of Chinese martial arts, I can
only say I have this little bit,
which feels insufficient to me.
I don’t even dare say I “understand” all of this little bit I’ve
studied,
so how much more should I be unwilling to engage in
exaggerated advertisement?
Let’s
practice Praying Mantis! All I can tell you is that it’s a good
martial art.
All you need to do is give it a try and you’ll see
its beauty, be pulled in by its depth;
You
only need to give Praying Mantis a try and you’ll not only be
surprised at the depth of its attack
and defense techniques, its
strategies, but also realize that those same techniques and
strategies contain lessons
about life and even philosophy. Only
by getting in and experiencing it for yourself with your own
body can you
gain a firm grasp of what Praying Mantis can do for
you. Only
then can you realize the depth of its understanding
of the human
body and its physics, of the human mind and its reactions, of
combat tactics and strategies,
of its potential as artistic
expression. Again
and again they will enchant you, make you unwilling to leave
them alone.
Praying
Mantis Boxing is more than just boxing — it’s the accumulation of
5,000 years of experience,
the crystallization of thousands of
battles, a beautiful symphony played with those tunes.
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