Taijiquan

Off the Road and into the Arena

/ bymichael2012 / Leave a comment

We’re taking a little detour from our Dharma Bums journey to explore Taiji competition – how the ancient Chinese martial arts have been organized as modern sport in the United States. No, this isn’t “push hands,” the play form of Taiji fighting we’ve explored on this blog previously. I’m talking about the mastery and presentation of martial arts forms, on stage with other competitors, going for the gold.

Internal martial arts are now mixing it up alongside external forms like Karate and Tae Kwon Do in these tournaments, with help from competitors like Dr. Melody Lee and her son Mickey, both originally Tae Kwon Do performers who became champions working with Chen Taiji forms. They have created a unique teaching program, Sun & Moon Taiji One, that reflects their global experiences and interest in competition, and for the past two years have organized the China Open Internal Martial Arts Championships, part of the U.S. Capitol Classics, founded by their original Yang-style Taiji teacher, Grand Master Dennis Brown.

While these competitions may not be a regular Dharma Bum’s cup of tea, they do serve to popularize the martial arts, particularly among students looking for alternative sports activity. It was a natural for Mickey but a complete makeover for Melody, who is a physician and research scientist by training. How they got to this stage is a remarkable tale of trial and error, like the scientific method, with ultimate discovery.

Chen reunion

Mickey and Melody Lee are front and center at Sun & Moon Taiji One with visiting Chen-style Grand Master Zhu Tiancai.

A brilliant student in Korea, Melody’s immunology research in the late 1970s led her to laboratory jobs at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the National Institutes of Health in suburban DC, as well as a PhD in molecular biology from Cornell. But while she was working long hours in the lab studying retroviruses in the fight against HIV, “so focused on one little thing at a time,” she was missing the big picture, she said.

“Over the years I came to realize I was going about it all wrong. I was wasting time,” Melody remembers. Her epiphany came on vacation at the beach, when she finally took time to relax. “It was an enlightening moment, when I realized my entire hypothesis was wrong. When I returned to work, I knew I needed to make changes, to start all over.” That resulted in a new discovery,”  a previously unidentified host protein that protects retroviral DNA from autointegration.

Melody also was discovering the natural power of relaxation and exercise, beginning the work of transforming a bookish, non-athletic academic into a champion martial artist. Tae Kwon Do was a good way to relieve stress and reconnect with her Korean heritage, and teaching martial arts became a rewarding new outlet, she said, a way to “grow young” while helping others to good health.

In the meantime, Melody had married and given birth to Mickey, who was uprooted a few times in his early years, moving from Manhattan to Virginia and Maryland. With Melody’s encouragement, he had turned to martial arts to gain self-confidence and defend himself against bullying – as an 11-year-old new kid in a Maryland middle school picked on because he was obese and shy. Over the next few years, working through the rigors of Tae Kwon Do and regular swimming routines, Mickey lost weight and became a skilled martial artist. “It was the perfect sport for me,” he said. “I was uncoordinated with the ball sports, but I had a natural aptitude for martial arts.”

As a student at Georgetown University, where he founded the Tae Kwon Do Club, Mickey began studying other martial arts forms, including Hung Fut, a southern China style of traditional Kung Fu, and Yang-style Taijiquan. Eventually, he settled on the style he adapted for winning forms titles in the years ahead – Chen-style Taiji. Mickey and Melody both trained with Dr. CP Ong, who also hosted Chen Grand Masters Chen Xiaowang, Zhu Tiancai and Chen Zhenglei for hands-on training in the United States. Later they joined a pilgrimage to China’s Chen Village, considered by many to be the birthplace of Taijiquan, training at Grand Master Zhu’s school. Mickey competed in a nearby international tournament, winning silver medals in Taiji form and straight sword (Taijijian) divisions.

Mickey and Melody both stepped up the competitions and performances as they learned, traveling across the country for tournaments. They performed together with a synchronized Taiji form at the U.S. Capitol Classic in 2004, impressing the judges, and each has won national championships in forms competition, with and without weapons, listed here and here. Mickey’s Chen Taiji routines have won world titles from the North American Sports Karate Association. In this video, Mickey and Melody perform the Chen form together at an event honoring Dr. Ong:

For their performances, Mickey and Melody choreograph routines to music, using the basic Chen form, with and without weapons. Forms judging is by its nature highly subjective and open to bias, but Mickey and Melody consistently score high marks for their steady performances, and for their steady hands in organizing events. The China Open Internal Martial Arts Championship scoring is like gymnastics, rating performances based on three components – basic/technical, overall and degree of difficulty, sometimes with room for “charisma.”  Mickey says he may add push-hands competition to the tournament next year, although that will present a new set of challenges to implement a clear and fair evaluation.

Garden Foodie

Melody and Mickey pose at a favorite restaurant in Falls Church, Va.

Besides Taiji performance competition, Mickey and Melody are keenly interested in food – nutritious and flavorful eating – so much so that they have adopted “Martial Foodie” as a social media identity, adding healthful eating to their martial arts training program. For Mickey, who not only battled childhood obesity but also a bout of food poisoning and subsequent severe allergic reactions, balance in eating goes hand in hand with balance in Taiji. “Learn to listen to your body,” he said. “Sometimes you get the wrong signals from the brain, feeding impulses instead of a healthy body. If you make the right choices, your body will be healthy and happy.”

The Martial Foodie advice boils down to this: Eat less quantity and more quality.  This means organic, free-range, grass-fed meats, dairy and eggs when possible; seafood that is from clean sources, and produce that is organic, pesticide-free when possible. Enjoy full-fat milk and butter, meat and fish with fat, vegetables with fat, such as avocados. The key, as they always say, is portions. Melody and Mickey eat one meal in the middle of the day and otherwise may eat a quick snack, fruit or maybe a poached organic egg. “You should have discipline and a sense of self-defense with eating,” Mickey said. “Eat in moderation, and smaller amounts, and also eat not to get sick, as self-defense. Raw garlic, for example, is a natural antibiotic.”

Eat consciously, our Martial Foodie advises. “Like in meditation, be in the present moment.”

That’s sound advice for any foodie, martial or not.

One final look at Mickey’s winning Chen-style Taiji form, in a video from a 2012 tournament in Chicago:

Taiji Transformation

/ bymichael2012 / 4 Comments

Four days of intense training with Adam Mizner gives new meaning to the idea of building a “taiji body,” my goal since a seven-state 2016 tour studying the internal martial art. The teachers I met along the way, whom I’ve likened to New Dharma Bums after the Jack Kerouac classic, showed me that, to fully realize the potential of taiji, I must first transform my body. I drew up an exercise regimen based on their advice, but I see now it was not nearly sufficient to the task.

That’s the first thing I learned from Shifu Mizner, who emphasizes rigorous training to open the joints, tendons and fascia of the body, to make room for the qi that can energize you. For several hours each day, we worked to open our bodies, one joint or region at a time. Beginning with the hips and kwa (the inside of the hip socket that folds between the thigh and the groin), then the waist and lower back (the yao, which Mizner calls “the commander”), we left no joint or muscle unstretched.  We’re also pushed by our shifu (the Chinese honorific for teacher) to “eat bitter” in standing exercises, including interminable one-legged postures, enduring any pain or discomfort, willing it to dissolve. Observe, release.

37703392_2087217848162996_5293906724032348160_o

Adam Mizner provides hands-on instruction as he circles the floor with a portable microphone that allows him to broadcast the lesson room-wide.

Strict discipline is required if we are to take the full step into taijiquan, Adam tells us. No half-measures will work. “The path lies in sincerity alone,” he says repeatedly, reflecting his own sincere approach to the internal arts he teaches. The website for Heaven Man Earth, which Mizner founded in 2004, is open and transparent about the method and goals of the program. Adam’s personal journey began as a spiritual quest – studying Buddhism and Taoism in and out of monasteries, and even in caves in Thailand and Burma, where as a young man he would isolate himself to meditate and practice qigong. Today, he also teaches meditation and Dhamma, the universal law of Buddhism, as a “senior lay disciple of Ajahn Jumnien in the Thai Forest tradition of Theravada Buddhism.”

In our workshop in Washington, DC., Shifu Mizner’s final stop in a whirlwind tour through Europe and the United States, the focus was almost entirely on body transformation. Even the afternoon partner push-hands drills pointed to the body work we needed to play at a high level. Many were like me, looking for opportunities to touch hands with Adam, to see how quickly he took control of our bodies with his gentle touch. I was helpless against his fingertips, feeling but not yet understanding the power of the soft yin release in the body. “There are three reasons to practice taiji,” he tells us, “for fighting, for health and for the cultivation of the Tao. I think this cultivation is a worthy goal in and of itself.”

“Taiji is yin–yang together, the harmony of the duality within nature,” Adam says, instructing us to harmonize shen (spirit) with yi (mind/intention), yi with qi (energy), and qi with li (force). Using these three internal harmonies in conjunction with the three external harmonies (feet with hands, hips with shoulders and knees with elbows), we are able to create jin (power), if we work hard enough. Mizner insists on using the Chinese words for the concepts in taijiquan, noting that they originated thousands of years ago within the Chinese culture and don’t have ready English-language equivalents.

“The dantien, where we sink the qi, is not a physical organ in the body,” Shifu Mizner said. “It must be developed from where you center and mobilize qi.” He uses metaphors to describe the terms and processes, referring to qi as a fluid and the body becoming “hydraulic” if we work at it. Unless we are able to clear blockages within the body through rigorous training, we will not be able to sink the qi and create internal power, he said. “Calm the mind, sink the qi and release with song. Then you can do taiji.”

Adam teaches a Yang-style taijiquan that can be traced to the grandson of Yang Lu Chan, the father of the most popular style of taiji. More directly, the Mizner method is related to Grandmaster Huang Sheng Hsien, a Chinese White Crane kungfu champion who “converted” to the internal martial arts after seeing a demonstration of its power. Huang studied with Cheng Man-Ch’ing in Taiwan, then spent decades in Malaysia perfecting the art that Adam cultivates today at Heaven Man Earth, using Huang’s short form and sincere focus on preparing the body. He demonstrates Huang’s “5 Loosening Exercises” (Song Shen Wu Fa) in this video:

At about 3:10 on the video, Adam begins a series of movements that made me sweat profusely during the workshop, with three repetitions each, first slowly harmonizing shen and yi and qi and li down to the feet and slowly drawing long jin up, then bending down for three individual movements loosening the kwa, the “belt” around the waist, and the space between the ribs, one side then the other. “One part moves, all parts move,” he repeats, getting us to focus on the single movements. I don’t remember working so hard in a five-minute exercise.

Through this “eating bitter” process I also learned, despite my convictions to the contrary, that I am capable of doing the “Asian squat,” a phenomenon that once amazed me along the streets of Saigon, Taipei and Bangkok. How do they squat with their haunches just above their heels, flat-footed, balanced between their legs? Was it a cultural or physical anomaly? Why do I fall on my butt when I try it? The answer, it turns out, is that I haven’t tried hard enough. If I turn my feet out at 45 degrees and slowly sit down toward my heels, hands between my legs for balance, I accomplish the squat, not yet comfortably but I’ll persist.

I also participated in “bone-setting” treatment, getting stretched and aligned by Adam’s senior student and assistant, Curtis Brough of Australia. I continue to work through structural issues with my computer neck and separated shoulder, and had hoped for Tui Na treatment, having read about Adam’s study and practice as a healer. Tui Na is an acupressure massage treatment that helps to clear blockages and open channels within the body. It is offered at some Heaven Man Earth workshops.

The participants in the DC workshop, pictured below, are among the fortunate ones who got to train with Shifu Mizner before he goes on retreat for a minimum year and a half. Battling illness and exhaustion at the end of his tour, he was ready to retreat and recharge. Heaven Man Earth students won’t miss a beat, however, since Mizner has created an online video training program called Discover Taiji. “Solo training is the most important,” he said.

37610765_2086212171596897_5325572706156937216_o

Adam Mizner with students at the Heaven Man Earth workshop in Washington, DC

Besides this step-by-step video series for online, Adam has built a network of Heaven Man Earth affiliates in Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia, where hands-on training is available from qualified teachers. Sometime soon, the U.S. workshops will be run by Brough, who is Adam’s most senior student. Also assisting in the Washington, DC., workshop was Ben Sanchez, from Los Angeles, and Patrick Reece, who offers Heaven Man Earth training in Philadelphia, with monthly visits to Washington.

Mizner’s success in creating his global taiji presence so quickly is made more remarkable by the fact that he’s only 39 years old. He has students and acolytes nearly twice his age, many of whom are teachers themselves. Adam said he promised himself he would take a break when he turns 40, which happens in November. He’s off the fast track, but he’ll be back.

 

 

Back to Real Life

/ bymichael2012 / Leave a comment

Since our last discursion, practicing with a real-life master of Chen-style taiji, I’ve been having fun with the novel I envisioned at the outset of the New Dharma Bums project, and the evolving form of it. Discovering a world turning as I go is the most enjoyable part of writing, the invention of imagined story, time and characters. It’s not like the news and exposition writing that paid my salary over the years, but a creative adventure in literature that is a reward itself. Or so it goes.

I’ll enjoy this writing adventure a while longer as I absorb new information and experience into it, and will share. Most immediately, I will take you on an excursion into the mind-body rap of Adam Mizner, a modern master of Yang-style taiji and of marketing the martial art. His Heaven-Man-Earth international training corps is growing into many U.S. communities, and in cities around the world.

AdamMizner

Shifu Adam Mizner sends a student flying during a taiji demonstration.

Adam’s visit to the Washington, DC, metro area in July is part of a global tour through Europe and across the United States. Originally from Australia, he trained in Thailand and throughout Asia, and now spends most of his time in southern Europe, creating an online training program that further expands his global reach. He promises to follow this globetrot with a long retreat, so I am pleased to be among the lucky ones to experience his touch.

Shifu Mizner’s touch is renowned for its internal power – being so soft and “empty” that it can send you flying across the room. If that seems counter-intuitive, imagine how it feels to push someone who deflects and absorbs your pressure and sends it back a thousand-fold. This is the internal power of taijiquan, which is expressed in the ancient classics as “Four ounces repel one thousand pounds.” Adam explains and demonstrates in this video:

 

The key is to relax your body so completely that you are sung (soong), a Chinese term explaining a level of relaxation that is largely unknown in western cultures. You don’t just lie back and relax into sung, you have to work at it. As a reward, in the martial art, you have the ability to “stick” and control an opponent, as Adam demonstrates.

This same sung that allows remarkable martial feats also is responsible for the health benefits that many seek through taiji. As we’ve explored in previous blogs, you achieve this heightened sense of relaxation with mindful breathing exercises, whether moving (qigong) or standing (zhan-zhuang). Adam promises to teach other methods to heighten the empty, yielding yin energy and combine it with the forceful yang energy to produce a “supreme ultimate” force. At the heart of the internal martial arts is qi, energy you sink into your center (dantien) and then mindfully flow through your body to repel an opponent.

But you really don’t know what it is until you practice with others in push-hands exercises. I have felt the sensation in others, in workshops or individually working with teachers across the country – including with another Australian, Mark Rasmus, a martial artist who taught meditation to the young Adam Mizner. But my push-hands experience is limited. I hope to work with Adam and other workshop participants to feel that sensation for myself, to be able to truly relax into sung, sink the qi and to feel the generation of internal power as a result.

In this, my 29th year of practicing taiji, I have much to learn. Stay tuned.