Yang Jwing-Ming: “Tai Chi was the only doctor I could afford”

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.

“Your Breathing Is Improper,” Kenpo Expert Warns

VANCOUVER—Local Kenpo karate instructor Dick “The Tiger” Rickson has a message for his students: Stop breathing improperly, or die.

As the newest inductee into the Red Belt International Karate Hall of Fame, Rickson knows a little something about breath. More than one hundred eager and respectful learners in his three area Kenpo dojos obviously agree. Some join for health and fitness reasons, others for self-defense–but no matter the primary motivation or goal, all are tutored in the ancient ways of breathing.

Return of the Jedi: Five Questions with a Neigong Expert

內功 neigong (pronounced nay-gung): the science of observing, strengthening and directing bio-energy, or chi.

The Magus of Java

A repository of extraordinary skills such as telekinesis, pyrogenesis, telepathy, remote viewing and levitation, the esoteric Eastern school known as Mo-Pai has been described as a real-life order of Jedi Knights. Some have even speculated that its history inspired George Lucas’ script for Attack of the Clones.

Among the ancient neigong lineages still in existence today, the Mo-Pai is characterized by an unusual openness. The school and its headmaster, known by the alias “John Chang”, has been the subject of two recent books and a video documentary.

Jim McMillan, who identifies himself as a longtime disciple of John Chang, has graciously agreed to share a few of his experiences with Martial Development readers:

Master Wang Says: “Taijiquan Sucks”

This is a distillation of previous published interviews with Master Wang.

Having traveled across China, I know that Taijiquan has the most practitioners of any martial art. Upon hearing that this boxing method was handed down from Zhang Sanfeng, I despised him for a long time.

Taijiquan is far from the art of actual combat; they have nothing in common with each other.

Later on, I read the collected edition of Zhang Sanfeng’s teachings, and realized that he had progressed deeply into the great Tao—and I came to believe that Taiji was not handed down from him at all! Actually, it doesn’t matter; even if one is a descendant of Sanfeng, he is not worthy to talk about this method without first gaining its essence.

Mencius, Morality and Martial Virtue

Master Po and Kwai Chang Caine

A Socratic Dialogue

Master Po: Grasshopper, soon you must leave the mountain. We shall now begin preparations for the day that you accept disciples of your own.

Kwai Chang Caine: Be not concerned, master. I have committed each of your Kung Fu fighting techniques to memory.

Po: Grasshopper, these techniques are trifles. It is most important to transmit wude, the moral principles of Kung Fu.

Caine: Yes master, I have also memorized the 377 rules of virtuous conduct, and I will require my students to do the same. Rule number one: “Don’t show up drunk.” Rule number two…

Po: Stop right there. It is not the teacher’s job to recite these rules; it is the teacher’s job to embody them. They are descriptive, not prescriptive. Wude is not something you do, it is something you are.

Caine: Master, I do not understand. On the day I arrived in the temple, I took an oath to follow these rules. Are they not important?

Po: Grasshopper, that stuff is just for the newbies. It is time for you to receive the inner gate teaching on martial morality.

Warren Buffett on MMA Training and Self-Defense

A Fake Interview with Real* Quotes

Warren Buffett
Credit: Mark Hirschey

Martial Development: First of all, congratulations: a recent surge in Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price has made you the richest man in the world. $62 billion dollars, I hear. According to my estimates, you could literally buy up all the tea in China.

Warren Buffett: I drink Coca-Cola.

Martial Development: Fair enough. You know, kung fu is all about profitably investing time and effort. As one of the world’s greatest investors, I thought you might have some unique insights to share with us.

Warren Buffett: I’ve never even made a hostile acquisition! What do I know about kung fu?

Martial Development: More than you realize.

Vladimir Vasiliev, Russia’s Mind Warrior

Excerpted from Vladimir Vasiliev: Russia’s Mind Warrior is Set to Hit the U.K. by Trevor Robinson

Through training in the martial arts, we begin to pay more attention to aspects of experience that might have seemed peripheral, if not hard to believe before. We begin to start noticing and giving more credence to experiences such as meeting someone for the first time and instantly liking them or disliking them without knowing anything about them. We like their vibes, we can tell if someone is staring at us and when we look up (what makes you look?) we feel we know what they are feeling or that something is going to happen, the phone rings and we know who it is before we answer it. As we allow ourselves to develop new sensitivities, we begin to view the world quite differently.

Training in Psychic Energy

Vladimir Vasiliev is a Master in The System [Systema] and he has an outstanding command of its use. Though he is so humble, I’m sure he would be the first to deny it! What I will relay now is on his personal account of the Psychic Training he received while he was with the Special Operations unit in Spetsnaz. In his own words:

The goal of the training was to make you multi-functional. You were to be able to work effectively in any kind of situation and never fear it. Perhaps more importantly, you were expected to learn how to be creative and act spontaneously. Divergent thinking, being able to come up with unconventional and unusual responses and decisions in different situations was an absolute necessity. You had to be totally adaptable to survive in the unit.

The key to this adaptability was the Psychic Training you received. You were expected to go well beyond the mere physical and psychological mastery to a point where intuition and that sixth sense, that we all have but seldom use, became a part of your daily life.

Awareness, or tapping into your sixth sense, was a focus for many of the exercises. Training classes could run for five hours and in some, you’d be blindfolded for the entire time. You’d have to follow what was going on, do your exercises and come to an understanding of the principles the instructor was teaching without the use of sight.

While sparring, the instructor would also walk around the class looking for trainees who weren’t paying attention to the total environment they were working in. If he thought you weren’t aware of his presence, he’d hit you with a stick over the head, this taught the trainee very quickly to be aware of where everyone was at all times.

At other times, we were brought up into pitch-black rooms and had to guess how many people were in it, if any. We’d also be blindfolded and have to identify colors just by touching colored blocks of paper. Again, awareness was to extend far beyond the normal five senses into the area of the psychic.

Some instructors who were skilled at passing psychic energy would take a few glasses of water and charge them with energy. This was a charge grounded in a psychic form of energy. It was much like touch healing. They’d concentrate on the water and send energy into it through their fingers without touching it. The trainee would then have to come into the room and tell the instructor which classes had been charged with the energy. The purpose behind this exercise was to teach the trainee how, on a mission, to tell if their drink was poisoned. Poison has a much stronger energy than regular water and that energy is discernible to those who have learned to access and use their psychic abilities.

Martial Development – Fun Facts About The Author

Reader and contributor Rick Matz tagged me to participate in the 7 things pyramid scheme writing project.

The rules:

  • Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
  • Share 7 random or weird things about yourself.
  • Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
  • Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here we go…

Yogi Stops Own Heart for Six Weeks, Returns to Life

The True Story of Sadhu Haridas, a 19th Century Yogi Phenomenon

Originally published in the London Telegraph, August 22, 1880

We are not told whether the Seven Sleepers who retired to a cave in Ephesus during the reign of the Christian-killing Emperor Decius, and only woke up 155 years afterward, when Theodosins II was on the throne, made any special preparation, but probably they did not. Perhaps it was not necessary. Those were stirring times for members of the new faith, and they had little opportunity to grow obese.

But, as a rule, to fast successfully it is said to be necessary for a man to abstain beforehand, and reduce himself more carefully to the required condition by a long course of preparation. Pre-eminent at this art of suspending animation—for an art it becomes—are the Easterns, and most wonderful stories are told of the natives of India, which, whether they powers are due to narcotics or any other process, seem to open up—if true—a wide field of medical study.

Once of the Indian stories, not easily accessible, but of considerable interest on account of the known veracity of the witnesses, will probably be read with interest at the present time, and is inserted here.

Wong Kiew Kit on The 3 Levels of Kungfu

Question from a student:

I understand that Kungfu, a multifaceted system, is a system of combat, and hence dominant and superior combat power is its highest priority. Is that true?

Answer from Wong Kiew Kit:

It is a matter of perspective. I would view kungfu in this way. Kungfu as a mutifaceted martial art, has three levels of attainment. The lowest level is combat efficiency. This is also the most fundamental level, without which it ceases to be kungfu and degenerates into a demonstrative form.