For almost twenty years, Qi Magazine featured original articles on kung fu, qigong, and other facets of Chinese culture, many written specifically by and for martial artists. (Qi Magazine is not to be confused with Qi Journal, which seems more targeted to the Goji berry set.)

Qi Magazine ceased production in early 2009, and publisher Michael Tse has since opened the archives. Each of the ninety issues is now available for free download in PDF format. Read two issues every week; that should keep you busy until next year.

From his recent interview with Lama Somananda Tantrapa…

“Between the ages of 9 and 12, I had almost no food. Taiwan was preparing for a war against mainland China. Most of us kids were starving.

There were nine children in my family, and at that time, feeding nine children was not easy. All our problems gave me an ulcer by the time I was 16 years old.

One day, I was sitting in the corner in a cold sweat. My White Crane Kung Fu master said I had a stomach problem. “What should I do?” I asked him. I had no medicine, and no money to see a doctor.

“At that time, in the early 1960s, you could not go learn another style without your master’s approval. It was not like today—people making ‘chop suey’ by mixing all these different styles.”

He said, “I’ve heard that Taiji can help you relax your internal organs.”

My master encouraged me to learn Tai Chi Chuan. That is the reason I started at the early age of 16. My motivation was not fighting; it was to ease the pain of my ulcer, and hopefully to heal myself.

Did it work? It surprised me. Six months later, the painful episodes had been reduced. After most of a year, they disappeared.

So that is why I started practicing Tai Chi Chuan. It is not because I liked it…I hated it, but it helped me to calm down.

Listen to the entire MP3 interview with Dr. Jwing-Ming Yang at Secrets of the Qigong Masters.

According to one classical perspective, no student should be given sword instruction until they have first qualified themselves to learn, by demonstrating mastery of barehanded technique. In some styles of martial arts, this might require thousands of hours of study.

Narrowing the focus during these initial months, or years of training might seem to benefit everyone involved. It can, and frequently it does. However, in some cases, it will actually hinder the student’s overall progress. The sword itself is an excellent instructor, to those who will heed its lessons.

What is Biofeedback?

Biofeedback is a method of expanding conscious awareness into realms that are typically governed by the unconscious mind. The subject of biofeedback training is instrumented with equipment that amplifies, records and displays biometric data, such as body temperature, heart rate, and skin conductivity. Experiments have shown that, if a subject is made aware of small fluctuations in these ostensibly involuntary processes (i.e. with the help of biofeedback equipment), that subject can more easily bring these processes under their conscious control.

Biofeedback machines, such as an electroencephalograph (EEG) or digital thermometer, can be expensive and complex. They can also be simple and cheap. Bicycle training wheels, which allow a rider to tip over slightly without immediately falling down, provide a useful form of biometric feedback. In fact, an intelligent person can press nearly any tool into service as a biofeedback device—including their sword.

The Sword as Biofeedback Device

A sword is a natural amplifier, which consistently and impartially reflects the mistakes of its user. If the swordsman’s grip and cut are incorrect, his sword may wobble, or even ring. When the position of his wrist is wrong by one inch, the tip of the blade may be wrong by one foot. If his body movement is slightly convoluted or imprecise, a good sword helps to make that obvious; with a tassel, even more so.

According to an old Chinese proverb, “A one-inch error at the start becomes a thousand-mile error by the end.” A sword can help prevent small errors from escaping its user’s attention, and thereby train the hand that holds it, and the mind which directs it.

Chen Style Taiji: 38-posture form

Chen Bing explains push hands
“What if your opponent will not use force? Use it yourself.”

Chen Bing demonstrates Taiji throwing methods at a Miami seminar

In practice, no two practice partners are ever equal, and the partner in control usually sets the pace and the tone of a practice session—if not intentionally, then haphazardly.

As I am often the senior Taiji practitioner in attendance—or in other words, the unpaid and under-appreciated Taiji instructor in attendance—it seems appropriate to briefly discuss my personal guidelines and preferences for tui shou (pushing hands) practice.

Tui shou is about using what you have to get what you want. What you have, as a dedicated practitioner of Taiji solo forms, is a highly cultivated set of physical abilities (e.g. the ability to rotate the torso while standing balanced on one leg). What you want, as a martial artist, is the capacity to win fights, or at least avoid losing them.

The practice of tui shou is the application of Taiji body skills against light or moderate resistance. These skills, as encoded in the forms, include striking an opponent, throwing them to the ground, and dislocating or breaking their joints. From a tight self-defense perspective, Tai Chi’s famous relaxation and sensitivity benefits are only the means to these ends.

Ideally, tui shou provides an opportunity to explore the full Taiji suite of attacks and defenses, principles and techniques. In practical terms, this means moving in and out of clinch range while maintaining subtle contact, and seizing opportunities to attack while denying those same opportunities to a practice partner. Thereby, it presents a manageable subset of the real problems that define a real fight.

The worst tui shou, in contrast, offers elegant solutions to imaginary problems (e.g. wrist grabs), and fails to bridge the gap between self-cultivation and combat. Illustrating the point, see this video by Sifu Wei-Chung Lin of the Chinese Taoist Martial Arts Association.

To be perfectly clear, this video does not depict its creator’s attempt at Taiji pushing hands practice. I will critique as if it did, only because I have met a few people who do like to perform tui shou in exactly this manner. The demonstration shows how a fixed step push hands exercise can simultaneously be impressive and ridiculous.

The critical issue is not whether any kind of skill is employed, or even whether that skill produces the desired outcome, in this limited engagement, of uprooting the opponent. Winning is not enough; it is necessary but insufficient. The critical issue is how that skill is related to the solo Taiji form on one hand, and to free fighting on the other. Without that synergy, push hands is just a baroque and Orientalist strain of MMA.

The artificial restrictions of fixed step push hands are beneficial–when we recognize them as such, and consequently avoid reliance on strategies and techniques that would fail outside of these restrictions.

Push hands should not be regarded as a separate course, for that minority of Taiji students who enjoy fighting. On the contrary, tuishou provides a vantage point, from where we learn whether our solo form practice is actually correct. Afterwards, our success or failure in sparring will show whether our conception and execution of tuishou is correct. In my opinion, this is the most, and the least anyone should expect from the practice.

You’ll never appreciate the true complexity of a mundane, everyday task, until you’ve tried explaining it to a computer.

Contrary to popular perception, computers are not smart. Actually, they are stone dumb. Given a lengthy set of precise instructions, your computer can follow them well enough, most of the time, but when asked to exhibit the tiniest bit of reasoning or creativity, your cutting-edge laptop PC is helpless and hopeless. Ditto for the Mac. Sorry, Linux won’t help either.

Consider the simple act of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can teach the average six year-old child this skill in a few minutes; writing the equivalent instructions for a general-purpose computer could literally take weeks or months of effort.

Knowing all this, I was amazed by the concept and promise of Spike TV’s new show, Deadliest Warrior:

In Los Angeles, CA, we’ve created a high-tech fight club, with scientists, martial arts experts, and lots and lots of weapons. It’s all here to create a virtual battle between two legendary warriors. We’ll test their weapons and fighting techniques on high-tech dummies—stand-ins for human victims. Based on this data, a battle simulation program will stage a true-to-life fight to the death. The winner will be The Deadliest Warrior.

Could it possibly be true? Would the endless debates over the ultimate fighting style finally be put to rest, by indisputable scientific evidence?

As it turns out, Deadliest Warrior devotes the majority of its screen time to slashing, stabbing and smashing test dummies with period weapons. The remainder is split between historical reenactment scenes, and bull sessions with their resident martial arts historians. Sadly, for those of us with an interest in the simulator itself, the show never describes its operation.

Slitherine Software UK, creators of Deadliest Warrior’s battle modeler, would not agree to an interview. So instead, I will take a wild stab at assessing how the software works, and whether it meets its promise as a scientific and objective judge of human warriors.

The Genesis of the Deadliest Warrior Sim

According to the SpikeTV’s producers, a team of programmers spent five years developing the Deadliest Warrior simulation engine. This is not precisely correct. Slitherine Software created a real-time strategy game—The History Channel’s Great Battles of Rome—and later tweaked this game for the specific use of the Deadliest Warrior program.

Great Battles of Rome is a role-playing game, with some references to true historical events. It does not, and is not intended to simulate the reality of ancient warfare in authentic detail. As in other RTS games, the game player serves as general over an army of semi-autonomous battle units, each possessing unique strengths, weaknesses, and methods of attack. Play consists of directing strategy and tactics, advance and retreat, to capture territory and defeat the forces of the opponent.

Troop types in GBoR include light and heavy infantry, archers, cavalry and war elephants. Cavalry presumably move faster than elephants, but are less powerful against a lone soldier; archers can attack safely from longer distances, but are handicapped by forest terrain; and so on.

These game rules were reworked for use on Deadliest Warrior. Instead of pitting two groups of one thousand warriors against each other in one giant battle, the software matches up two single warriors—an archetypal ninja and Spartan, or samurai and Viking raider—for one thousand consecutive matches.

Why repeat the same match one thousand times? Why can’t this high-tech computer simulation compute the correct results on the first try? The simple answer is that neither the simulation, nor its creators know how to do so.

Enter the Monte Carlo algorithm. Instead of dictating fixed values for each fighter’s metrics—their speed and agility, the range and power of their weapons, et cetera—the programmers define a range of possible values. The computer then runs a series of test cases, using random numbers that fall within those ranges. After sufficient test cases have been run, the computer aggregates the results to guess the most probable real-life conclusion.

With a random number generator determining the outcome of these battles, one might assume fairness and objectivity; but that would be a mistake. Underneath the Deadliest Warrior’s fancy wire-frame graphics and state-of-the-art ballistic weapons measurements, lies a set of flawed assumptions that destroy the show’s claims to scientific validity.

Ninja vs. Spartan

As any experienced martial artist can tell you, the fighting tactics shown in the final reenactments are laughable. On the show, “computer whiz” Max Geiger explains these episodes as dramatized composites of a sober statistical analysis; but in fact, the analysis itself is probably no closer to reality.

Random numbers alone do not make a battle. Remember that the computer does not know how to fight, nor is it capable of learning this independently. In the end, it can only follow instructions.

Clippy, The Deadliest Warrior?

Can you guess who wrote those instructions? (I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t the International Ninja Council.)

Ultimately, these “scientific rules” of warfare were written not by experienced warriors, but by a group of programmers; and with the initial constraint that they should be simple enough to produce an entertaining computer game (Great Battles of Rome).

Theoretically, the Monte Carlo method might compensate for the programmers’ inability to identify the single most important factor in these warriors’ battle. (If we knew the answer to that question, there would be no need for a simulation.) Instead, they attempted to identify twenty different factors that could affect the outcome, and all the paths through which these factors can interact. In other words, they attempted to reduce mastery of the martial arts to a straightforward mathematical equation, and draw “scientific” conclusions from the use of that equation.

Understand that the art of fighting is not an output from this simulation; it is an input. It is not an experimental result, but a set of assertions written by software engineers. Whether or not these assertions are prima facie reasonable is irrelevant; dojo novices quickly learn that “reasonable” is not a working martial art. (Incidentally, this may explain why no computer scientists have yet won a UFC title.)

Considering the hidden complexity of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you might assume that a proper martial arts simulator would require many years of careful design, with input from experts in the fields of software engineering and martial arts. You would be correct.

Does Spike TV’s Deadliest Warrior reflect this disciplined approach to the intractable problem of single combat?

I can answer that in three words: severed pig carcasses.

What is the most natural method for safely evading a knife thrust, while simultaneously positioning oneself for an effortless disarm and throw? How does one naturally reverse a guillotine choke? People who know the answer to these questions don’t need an instructor or a class; for the rest of us, more detailed guidance is appropriate.

With that said, I am a strong advocate of “natural breathing” for martial applications, in contrast to the more exotic approaches advanced in some dojos.

While it may be true that one’s strikes are more powerful during an exhale, and least powerful during the inhale, this fact is subordinate to a higher truth. If your movement and breathing are strongly linked, then your opponent(s) can more easily control them both. Despite your best intentions, this coordination can quickly become a self-imposed suffocation, of the muscles and the brain.

I’ll illustrate with a short story from my own training. When I met my first Taiji instructor–whom we shall call James–I already had years of experience in Wing Chun, Aikido and other martial arts. With this experience, I had developed the habit of breathing out to meet an unavoidable incoming strike.

One day, James and I were working on a close-quarters sticking exercise, and he noticed this subconscious habit to his great amusement. When I started to breathe in, he laughed and hit me. So I let the air out, waited a second or two, and tried to breathe in again. James laughed again, and hit me again. After a few more rounds of fun, I got his point. Until I was willing to abandon this habit, I literally could not breathe without his permission.

Although this was only a training exercise, similar constraints are present in a real fight. We do not always have the luxury of choice when timing our attack and defense.

If we attempt to match the rhythm of our breathing with the unpredictable pace of our opponent’s movement, the most likely results are hyperventilation and auto-asphyxiation. Neither of these is conducive to power, sensitivity, or relaxation.

Since I cannot predict in advance when the opponent will drop their guard, or how many times I will need to punch them in response, I don’t even attempt to coordinate my breathing with the attack. By the same principle, I am very careful about creating defensive space through exhalation, recognizing that a poorly timed breath may be my last.

It seems that the only safe time to exhale decisively with a strike, is after the opponent is already knocked out. Be advised however that that referees frown upon such behavior.

Looking at ridiculous news reports of bamboo laptop computers and recycled toilet paper, it would be easy to conclude that the so-called “green revolution” has gone too far.

I think it hasn’t gone far enough. While many embrace the concept on a shallow and symbolic level, fewer people are asking themselves difficult questions about sustainability.

What does it mean to be green? Surely there is more to it than purchasing a slightly different set of consumer products. In the days before the great greenwashing, we were given simple instructions, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, to be used in that order. As originally intended, “green” is an attitude and a set of behaviors—not just a list of organic ingredients.

The person with a genuine concern for sustainability or social ethics will reflect that concern in their every action, and the most basic human action is movement. Philosophical theories, reasoned arguments, and ex post facto rationalizations are all secondary; if you do not exhibit ethical movement, then you are not an ethical person.

Wasted effort is unethical. Excess physical tension is unsustainable. Inefficient movement is the opposite of green movement.

In public, Kung Fu teachers often claim that their art are not for attacking others. That is true, but Kung Fu is not about personal self-defense either. The basic meaning of Kung Fu is skillful movement.

My martial art is green. How about yours?

When food is scarce and plain, this efficiency is an obvious benefit. For most people living in developed countries today, however, food is abundant and tasty. To a person who has become addicted to eating—as the majority of Americans are, studies show—this hard-earned fruition of Taiji is actually a problem: it makes you fat. (Technically, eating the food makes you fat, but let us ignore that detail, as everyone does.)

Dedicating oneself to longer and more strenuous practice might seem like an intelligent solution. Unfortunately, this is likely to accelerate the efficiency gains, exacerbating the problem in the long run. If we choose to define physical fitness as effort and exertion, then Taiji is a lousy fitness routine.

Big Mac inflation (2012 projection)

A comfortable and plausible short-term solution: redefine success as failure, and vice-versa. Prioritize effort expended, rather than work accomplished. Sure, your new Taiji may be less functional, but at least you’ll look good doing it!

The more responsible, but less appealing solution is to start eating within your means: to consume calories in accordance with physical needs, rather than insatiable desires. In the meantime, returning to one’s target weight requires a disciplined starvation diet, in conjunction with regular exercise.

Can we view this scenario as a metaphor for the United States economy? Creditors gorged at the sub-prime mortgage trough, ingesting a fair bit of melamine in the process. Irresponsible lending by them caused the problem, and additional lending to them is proposed as the solution. As the basis for this loan, we are asked to ignore the actual market value of the collateral, and assign a “fair value” based on our troubled bankers’ desires.

Having located a proverbial “bigger fool” to make this loan, we can restore liquidity and trust to the marketplace, by sustaining our otherwise unsustainable real-estate prices. Meanwhile, inflation erodes the savings of those Americans who chose, responsibly, to live within their means, and keeps them out of the homes they could otherwise afford.

Now, I must admit a fundamental ignorance of macroeconomics and international finance…but doesn’t this sound like redefining failure as success?

Hat tips to Scott P. Phillips and Dave Chesser

While many Chinese martial arts take inspiration from animals—Tibetan Crane Kung Fu, Monkey’s Fist, Dragon Style, and White Ape Boxing are just a few popular examples—Tai Chi Chuan uses dreary references to binary arithmetic. Small wonder, then, that most people consider Tai Chi boring. It has a serious image problem.

To remain competitive with the thrilling spectacle of mixed martial arts, Tai Chi Chuan should adopt a provocative animal mascot. But what kind of animal best embodies Tai Chi’s unique qualities?

Let’s look to the classic Tai Chi manuals of Wong Chung-yua and Wu Yu-hsiang for inspiration.

When practicing Tai Chi, doing too much is the same as doing too little.

Internally, the spirit should be controlled; externally, appear calm and comfortable.

The Tai Chi principle is as simple as this: yield yourself and follow external forces. Instead of doing this, most people ignore such obvious and simple principles and search for a more remote and impractical method.

Our ideal totem animal is not too clever, maybe even a bit lazy by nature…

In Tai Chi, being very soft and pliable leads to being extremely hard and strong.

…and can transform itself instantaneously from soft to hard, and back again…

Cultivate internal energy in a direct way only, and you will do yourself no harm. Store internal power in an indirect way only, and you will build great reserves.
When condensing the internal power, it should be like the pulling of a bow; when projecting the internal power, it should be like the shooting of an arrow.

…accomplishing these transformations through its tremendous store of potential.

A few possibilities come to mind. The mythical Qilin can walk on grass without bending the blades; similar stories were told of Tai Chi master Yang Lu-Chan. The Chinese dragon has strong potential–though it seems disinclined by temperament to employ the Tai Chi strategy of “following and extending”.

Tanuki
Photo credit: James Kilfiger

No, I think our ideal animal is the shape-shifting, hard-drinking, mischievous and strangely well-endowed Tanuki.