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ROGUE BOXER by William Beattie
Infatuations can sometimes lead to infidelity, as it is in the case of boxing. The most valuable lessons we learn in life often stem from our own follies and miscalculations. What some have still not learned in the martial peanut gallery is that a fine tuned mind and spirit will always prevail over adrenaline boasting machismo. This age old argument of hard versus soft will never cease as long as both schools of thought continue to produce outstanding fighters. One looks at the likes of a chiseled Kimbo Slice and cant imagine a frail bodied Cheng Manching being able to dismantle him. The famous martial arts author Robert W. Smith had similar notions of the internal while studying in Taiwan until the old man unraveled him with shocking hands on more that one occasion. Mr. Smith was a CIA employee and an outstanding practitioner of Judo and western style boxing but finally converted to the internal after meeting such men as Hong Yimian, Wang shujin, and Cheng Mancheng. Robert's accounts of internal boxing mastery are undoubtedly the most reliable historical sources that we can use to draw comparisons from in the hard versus soft debate.
If you are still a doubter than find a good reputable taiji master for a chance to behold the fluent wizardry first hand. For many this enough to spawn interest in the internal, but still have a hard time conjoining that what their hearts feel and that what their minds understand. The difference for instance between a western style boxing punch and a graceful Xingyi punch is that the first transmits the force in a single locale ,statically, while the second in transferred as flowing energy, penetrating deep to the core, disrupting total body equilibrium. One must feel it to believe it and believe me when i tell you that many have converted.
I'm currently instructing some colleagues of mine here in Cairo Egypt and when I showed them the flowery Yang style taiji movements they stood in confusion as to how this could translate into an effective combative tool. In order to proceed their needed be an inkling of belief so I interrupted our first lesson for a demonstration with my new student Husam. Before I had a chance to extend the ever anticipated all out attack invitation, he began vocally brainstorming style's he thought were effective in fighting such as: Taikwando, Judo, and Kungfu ( Wushu ). Finally I was able to persuade him to attack me foot and fist and not to hold back. Throwing a few feinting jabs he eventually rushed in displaying the works in hard style fist combinations. I timed him correctly as I shot to his right using a basic Bagua step sweeping to his side in a crouched position. As I decompressed and shot upward, I crossed my hands and used Peng (ward off taiji method) rooting deeply as I exhaled from foot to hand. I still remember the ghastly expression on his face as he ricocheted of my living room wall. The loud thud was indicative of the whip lash like effect his body endured as he struggled to stay on his feet. Holding his throat he looked at me with big eyes and said, " I think you broke my neck." After a few apologies and an extensive massage he regained his breath and our lesson commenced. At this point I tried to show him the difference between static and flowing energy. As the cloud of confusion overtook him I decided to strike his shoulder with a hard boxing style punch. He observed hesitantly. Then I stepped and rooted deep into a Beng Quan punch from XIngyi. Both punches I executed at about half power but he began to understand after feeling the effect of the second punch as it propelled his whole body backwards.
His curiosity was fully aroused but he was still not clear on how it is done or how it works. Next I had him stand still with his feet about shoulder width apart. I placed my hand on his chest and gave him a soft rooted push. He stepped back after being knocked off balance. Then I had him stand the same way again but this time I told him to relax all his body from shoulders to feet. "Put your mind in your feet," I explained. "Do you feel the weight in your feet?" I asked. As soon as he nodded yes, I quickly pushed him again with the same soft rooted technique. This time his body absorbed the push and he remained relatively balanced. "Now I understand," he exclaimed. This was his first brush of enlightenment with the internal arts. After two weeks of extensive lessons he still hasn't gleaned into the essence of the internal, but his balance and root have improved tremendously.
In my first book UNDEFEATABLE I went into great detail about the Central Unified Weight Theory that explains poignantly the secret of the internal schools. I will do a slight recapping in this book because no book on the internal should mislead or conceal the methods to fajing mastery. Although I feel I make the concepts of fajing easy to grasp, the applications take time and faith. Why do I say faith? Because to relax in the face of a threat is rarely a natural ability. Chen manching told Mr. Smith, as we all know, that 4 ounces can overcome 1000lbs. This is true but the heart of the matter is that you must first be inside their center of gravity zone. Another words if you bend or stretch outside of your center of gravity zone you will not be using full body energy, rather you will be issuing static segmented energy. What is a mans center of gravity zone? This is the area outside of his collective weight that extends as far as he can reach with out breaking his own center of balance. Positioning is the key to unloading the 4 ounce bullet, and few in this art will show you how this is accomplishable. This may at first glance seem to be confusing but is actually elementary when approached from a scientific viewpoint.
I will be illustrating this in the first chapter in order to drive home this Golden Philosophy that has been kept guarded from eager students for way to many years. People seem to have an innate tendency to protect powerful trade secrets with deception and diluted vagueness. How have the eagles of this art been misleading the ducks you may ask? Simple. They tell you the correct ways of improving, but in such a vague manner that illumination into the art is highly improbable. Coined phrases like, " Relax and push gently," or " loosen up and use technique" or " move easy and push with the mind," are just a few examples of teachers subtly mocking their students while concealing the trade secrets for prolonged tuition fees. I'm not suggesting that there exist some secret taiji cabal or underground society but in china "family secrets" are not easily extracted by indigenous friends let alone foreign prodders. No, there is no secret pill to take or hidden tonic to cure the wavering unbalanced dispositions of the vast amount of taiji players. I have witnessed a few western masters fresh off the boat from china displaying "silk reeling" techniques in taiji and claim that this is the highest inner guarded techniques of the Yang family lineage. If their training was compared to a deck of cards then they were promised "The Aces," but handed the "Jokers." These techniques are actually the hard interpretations of fajing, and are clearly static energy skill based. They are not as static as say a karate or western boxing punch but are still lagging slightly behind Xingyi punching.
To be fair, no style can be labeled as an absolute representative of hard or soft and you will see thousands of different gradations being displayed in the boxing world. Muhammad Ali was a western boxer, but developed such a relaxed punching style that it could be likened to xingyi quans methodology. To the surveyor it would seem less powerful than the bulldozer shoulder and back punch, but in actuality it was connected from his legs to hands and probably felt like a sledgehammer.
I don't wont to name any names but I have seen self proclaimed taiji masters displaying "silk reeling" techniques that look like an insane man with turrets syndrome having an epileptic fit. The explanation that this is the "inside house" or highest level of procedure to produce fajing is bogus. Some of the titles that make your eyes pop out are, " Hard in the Internal." Excuse me, if I may take this chance to lament, if what I have mentioned above is indeed your case then you have been dreadfully hoodwinked and your sponsors probably snickered their way to the bank. "Hard in the Internal Arts," is the most oxymoron cop out phrase ever put to paper; and they would have you believe that this notion of the internal personifies true mastery? Indeed their are different levels of "Softness" and one may ask at what level would someone label a technique a hard method? In all fairness even the Hard School styles can be performed or translated by the practitioner as "soft." This is such the case in Shaolin. At a young age the students start of with somewhat of a rigid translation of the forms, then as they grown older you will see the older monks with a more fluid -softer style translation of the forms. The same holds true with Karate and other standardized schools of fighting. A little hard work and focus comes with the territory in this art.
The confusion sets in with new students between the hands and feet. Footwork or weighted stepping should be of the highest order and come early in your training, or your master is in hopes of taking you on a long wild ride! There will be a lot of laughing and grins along the way while he tosses and throws you around. I promise you that your face will not express such joyous sentiments as the confusion, frustration, and humiliation test your inner most patience. Keeping you in the dark is part of the fun as those "in the know" have a hooting laugh at your apparent inadequacies. Oh no! - you will tell me, I'm just here for the health benefits and the social interactions. That's great! - but without understanding "movement in repose" practitioners would be better of doing Yoga, Pilates, or picking up a "Dancing to the oldies" workout tape with richard simmons. Before I digress and this turns into a comedic book on boxing I will put on the breaks for a bit. Footwork and weighted stepping are the cornerstones of all marital arts.
My theory of using Central Unified Weight is a scientific way of expressing the importance of movements being whole body coordinated. This is not merely attained by relaxing alone, rather there must be a conscientious downward awareness into the feet that is dictated by the will power of the mind. Yang Chengfu admits this briefly in his writings but chooses not to expand upon this. His reasons for doing this are acceptable to me, but are hardly admirable from a students perspective. Rooting is also directly connected to breathing, although a high level of rooting mastery can be obtained in its absence. When we inhale we expand and become "light", and when we exhale we contract and become " heavy." This breathing in is an expansion of energy intake that increases consciousness and awareness. Yang Chengfu talked about letting the minds consciousness expand to the outer reaches of the universe. I will explain in this book the importance of this expansion that directly correlates to fajing potentiality. Don't let any teacher tell you that breathing is not important. If they do tell you this, then it probably means they have you on the 20 year program. Find the nearest exist and tell him, "another day and a better way my friend."
Learning to become "light" and "heavy" instantaneously is the hallmark of an accomplished master. This doesn't mean we have to enlist in some new age Doaist sect to become proficient in deep breathing. Inhaling deep into the stomach and expanding the diaphragm is quintessential if one wishes to expand energy and conscious awareness. To avoid any suspicions of me spoon feeding you quackery, I will just say that "oxygen" equals "energy." First we learn to consciously relax and drop our weight into our feet via "gravity", then we learn to move in this relaxed weighted state. Once we reach this level we can start to incorporate our breathing into our movements. At this stage in our development we will breath out to push, strike, or defend and arrive at the peek of weightiness "or our root" when we reach the end of our exhalation. When we breath in we become " light" and are able to move more briskly, but we are still relaxed and weighted, just to a slightly different degree.
The next stage is learning to take the awareness from your feet to your hands upon strike or discharge "fajing." Most will tell you that it comes from the Dan tien and one should focus there instead. This is another blatant misguide although this region is important in the manipulation and issuing of electrical energy or jin. It is true that this pool of energy does derive from the region around the sexual organs. Once this region is stimulated , the mind can draw this energy up the spine into the pineal gland region. This technique is mostly referred to as Kundalini meditation. Don't get overly wrapped up in the esoteric stories surrounding Kundalini meditations. They would so have it that you travel to India and spend your days and nights in unrelenting meditation to reach some unknown summit of enlightenment. This is an illusionary quest that has suckered many into the fox hole in search of self esteem and glory. An easy way to explain this is that when a person makes love and reaches the state of climax an unbelievable feeling overtakes him that starts in his loins and reaches his brain. This same energy can be directed via the mind through the spinal column into the brain, or third eye, and then redirected to other regions of the body upon thought. This energy can create great warmth and sense of well being in the body. If you sink your weight correctly in the feet and focus on this region as a starting point and then move the energy to the hands on transmission you will see great effects, but the height of excellence comes from transference from below the foot "floor or earth" through the hands during discharge. As we breath outward and discharge this electrical force or jin, will automatically be transferred via mind/consciousness. This happens in a split second and happens almost as a involuntary reaction when you gain this level of conscious sensitivity. At this plateau you can use any technique and apply it using this methodology. Punches, Palms, Finger strikes, Throws, Pushes etc. will have profound devastating effects on the surveyor.
To some this might all sound like mystical mumbo jumbo but when observed from a scientific viewpoint it makes great sense. The body is bio-electric and "will power" can control electric pulses voluntarily once breath, sexual energy, and (mind/spirit) are projected in unison. I explained this to some degree in UNDEFEATABLE and tried to convey the key points so that any logical person or simpleton could grasp it.
One of the gemstones lays in single weighted postures. Or transferring all the weight unto a single leg and emptying the other. This is referred to many times in the Taiji classics as Substantial and Unsubstantial. When the body's weight is one hundred percent rooted in one foot and the arms and legs are within ones center of gravity zone (the space around you that you can shift your body with out disrupting your foots root) a simple connected movement will easily disrupt an opponents balance. Once you are in the position that you can push or punch your opponent with out disrupting your own root during the striking effort, only then will you get results. I feel the easiest way to explain this is through illustration. Once these concepts I have stated are actualized and put into practice there will be no end to your progress in the internal martial arts sector.
I have not forgotten about those hard style boxers that still believe muscle and static power can over come all adversaries. For this reason I have called this book Rogue Boxer, ( Four Square Boxing) The four squares of my boxing methods are such, Western Boxing ( 52 boxing) Shaolin, Xingyi Quan, Baguazhang, and Taiji. In my opinion these are the four building blocks and progressive steps to becoming an achieved boxer. This treatise would not be complete without combat tactics to elucidate the usage of these arts. Due to time and space constrictions this book will not cover my philosophies and practices concerning health, medicine, qigong, calisthenics, and isometrics. This will be in an upcoming book entitled, " Longevity or Brevity." This book "Rogue Boxer" will include all the qigong and fighting drills pertaining to our current subject matter.
Though there be a tidalwave of information on the fighting arts and combat tactics, I feel this book separates the men from the boys on the basis of real-time usage and application. Weeding out disillusional techniques and fantasy tactics takes years of experience and sparring. I don't mean to discount some of the tricks of the trade that I will discuss that include techniques derived from Chang Noazhi's sunny and shady techniques. Misdirection and deceptive boxing skills are fair play and can prove to be most useful in catching those so called guru's off guard. In Chinese boxing high/low cadence , left/right variations and blocks that morph into punches are all apart of dexterous fighting schematics. Put on your seatbelt my friends and get ready for a ride! UPDATE - This book has been transfered to the new working title, "Combat Geometrics" Thanks for your support! Combat Geometric
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