Transcript
Speaker: The Kung Fu Crew Podcast.
Speaker: Bringing together practitioners of various styles in schools and their unique perspectives to explore the world of Chinese martial arts.
Speaker: Welcome to the next episode of the Kung Fu Crew Podcast.
Speaker: Now the style that we will be focusing on today is Shin-ni Liu Hequan or Mind and Heart Six Harmony Boxing.
Speaker: It's quite a mouthful but it's a very interesting style.
Speaker: It comes from the Muslim communities of Henan province.
Speaker: And it is probably the origin of many of the later Xinyi and Xinyi Quan variations.
Speaker: And as such has a pretty long documented history.
Speaker: It might also have been connected to the development of Chen style Taiji Quan.
Speaker: My guest is Derek Notman from Massachusetts, who has a lot of experience practicing and teaching that specific method, which will be what, like I said, what we focus on.
Speaker: And I hope that you found the interview as insightful as I did.
Speaker: And I hope you enjoy.
Speaker: Welcome to the Kung Fu Crew podcast and to the new episode with Derek Knottman, who I actually know from a few years back because I joined a couple of virtual classes on Xinyi Lue Chuan, which will also be the main focus of our talk.
Speaker: But welcome here, Derek, and maybe you want to share a few words or say a little bit about yourself, say something about yourself so that people know who I'm talking to.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Hello, and thank you for having me.
Speaker: Yeah, my name is Derek Notman.
Speaker: I am from the United States.
Speaker: I've been involved in Chinese martial arts for over 30 years.
Speaker: Yeah, I got into all this through an interest in philosophy and Taoism and looking for an integrated system of thinking, healing, self-defense.
Speaker: You know, the whole Chinese concept of five excellences really appealed to me.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I spent a lot of my life when I was younger just trying to find people to train with and study with.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: I'm 53.
Speaker: So back in the day, it was not easy.
Speaker: You know, it was before everybody went to China and everybody went to Thailand and all that.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: I started out with jujitsu and boxing and all kinds of different stuff, but I was always most interested in the Chinese arts because of the philosophical and the, I guess you could say esoteric, but the deeper possibility that it pointed out other than just self-defense.
Speaker: And so that was always, for some reason, interesting to me, the idea of self-cultivation and enlightenment and all that.
Speaker: So that really directed me toward the Chinese arts.
Speaker: Wing Chun was the first Chinese art that I trained and I had a really wonderful sort of deep apprenticeship with a guy in that out in Portland, Oregon, back in the 90s, a guy named Clyde Alvarado, who was a good practitioner of Wing Chun and Filipino arts.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: After that, I started studying.
Speaker: I spent some time with James McNeil and learned Xing Yi and some Chen Tai Chi through him.
Speaker: And then I hooked up with Xie Pei Chi and He Jin Bao and that crew out of Beijing.
Speaker: And I started studying Yin Style Bagua.
Speaker: Probably spent, I don't know, 12, 15 years mostly practicing that.
Speaker: I would go to Beijing and study with those guys, come see them in the States.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: So that was great because Sher Pei-Chi was like Yoda.
Speaker: He was just a super cool old guy that was, you know, had incredible vigor and strength and was a really funny character.
Speaker: So that was neat to be around all that.
Speaker: And it was a good introduction to what's possible in these arts.
Speaker: You know, he'd do things like
Speaker: his gray hair would get dark again cause he'd be patting his head or, you know, he, he was always smoking and drinking and missing all his teeth.
Speaker: He was just a classic old school character.
Speaker: Um, so that was a good practice for me.
Speaker: It's a huge art.
Speaker: So it was like overwhelming.
Speaker: You have eight animals, each has seven different hands and that's 56 times.
Speaker: You know, I'm not, my brain doesn't work that way, but it was a huge expanse of material.
Speaker: I wound up moving to Asia for a few years, living in Thailand, uh, did a little bit of Muay Thai, but was mostly training Bagua at the time.
Speaker: You know, I'd already been studying that for a long time.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: Then let me see, I moved back to the States, was living in Boston and I got introduced to my Xingyi Liu He Chan teacher, uh, Shui Sheng Peng, um, just through a connection who knew I was interested in Xingyi Liu He.
Speaker: Um, he knew Peng had just moved here from Shanghai.
Speaker: And so that was a beautiful thing.
Speaker: We, you know, basically Peng and I trained together every morning for a few years.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: you know, I had some foundation and, uh, but it didn't take me long to realize that I didn't understand what I was doing, just his physical body and what he was teaching me.
Speaker: I just couldn't do it.
Speaker: And so, um, I had to make a decision to sort of throw everything out and start over.
Speaker: And it was, uh, it was a great thing to be confronted with because it really, um,
Speaker: put me on that mindset of not knowing you know and when i was younger i could never get good fast enough i wanted to be the guy who knew i wanted to be the teacher you know it's just what it was and so uh
Speaker: I was in my own way.
Speaker: And so in a lot of ways, the starting over was profoundly liberating.
Speaker: And Shingiluha is a very, I like to say Shingiluha is a short direct path up the mountain.
Speaker: It's a hard climb, but it's quick comparatively because
Speaker: The shapes are just so demanding.
Speaker: And, you know, sort of the idea in Xingyi is like yoga.
Speaker: You yoke to, you bind to liberate.
Speaker: So the idea in Xingyi is we make the body into like a fist.
Speaker: Everything comes together together.
Speaker: And through that, the absence of the creation of shape and intent, the body really releases.
Speaker: So each time we're creating a shape, we're engaging.
Speaker: Each time we're releasing, we're releasing.
Speaker: And that binary softens and opens the body over time.
Speaker: The challenge is because we're working with tissue in the physical body, it takes years to really change the body.
Speaker: So everybody is quite often looking for a quick result where there isn't one.
Speaker: Yeah, anyway, so I've done a lot of work in the healing and wellness space.
Speaker: So when I was in Boston, I had a healing arts practice right in downtown for many years, which allowed me free mornings to meet with Pong and train.
Speaker: So that was a beautiful experience and relationship.
Speaker: And since then, I've
Speaker: You know, I keep working with Xingyi, but I also have studied some Gao style Bagua Zhang and Yang style Tai Chi with a guy named Yang Yu Sen, who's one of the best practitioners I've ever seen.
Speaker: He's beautiful to watch.
Speaker: So, yeah, I sort of bounce between the three arts, but I would say that everything I understand comes out of Xingyi.
Speaker: And also I would say that the way that I understand Xingyi is it's the mother art of the other two.
Speaker: Like you can find everything that's in Tai Chi and Bagua in Xingyi in a different name and iteration and a different flavor of expression.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: You know, I'm a believer that really the classic idea of the body is the hand and you have to be able to close the whole thing in harmony and open the whole thing.
Speaker: It's kind of that simple, but simple done well is profound.
Speaker: Well, I mean, Siniluche definitely seems to have the longest history as well.
Speaker: You can trace it back the furthest.
Speaker: So there's a lot of stuff that I would like to dive into deeper.
Speaker: But maybe because you mentioned right at the beginning, you said, oh, you got interested in Chinese martial arts also because of this wholeness or this
Speaker: you know, the different aspects and elements of it.
Speaker: How would you define, like if somebody asked you, okay, what is a actually, what is a martial art or what does a training method have to have for you to call it a martial art?
Speaker: Yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker: You know,
Speaker: For me, the whole martial distinction is kind of ridiculous, especially at this day and age.
Speaker: If you're really interested in fighting, go to an MMA gym.
Speaker: No question.
Speaker: Get it out of your system.
Speaker: Then come back and appreciate the deeper aspects that are available to these things.
Speaker: Because if you have a doubt the whole time, if you never do it, but you're training on martial art, but you never fight...
Speaker: It's, it doesn't make any sense, you know?
Speaker: So then what you do is you don't really know if you know.
Speaker: And so then you get a little bit, uh, what's the word I'm looking for the viciousness of somebody who's insecure.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: It's like, it's not real.
Speaker: Um, for me, um,
Speaker: I also grew up playing ice hockey, and I grew up around an area of fishermen.
Speaker: So I knew guys when I was a kid that could fight, and it wasn't because they were martial artists.
Speaker: They were just tough and mean and hard.
Speaker: So to me, the martial piece provides a –
Speaker: And even here, I'm not speaking about fighting so much as the feedback you can get from proper training can provide a physical response that allows you to develop something that's real and not just in theory, you know?
Speaker: And so, I mean, again, just to qualify that because it's kind of contradictory –
Speaker: The difference is that if you're never experiencing force put back on your body, your shapes, you don't know if they're really real, right?
Speaker: A lot of people in yoga, you see it, they're making the shape, but there's no inner connection.
Speaker: There's nothing really happening.
Speaker: So martial art can give you that feedback without the fighting.
Speaker: And that's useful to get stronger and healthier and then maybe put yourself in a body that if you wanted to test the fighting piece, you could do so with some possibility, right?
Speaker: A lot of people, my general observation of Chinese martial arts is people are weak.
Speaker: They don't train very hard and they haven't really gotten strong in the body.
Speaker: The release and the ease comes from having developed the strength and then giving it up.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a fair point.
Speaker: And I find it interesting when you look at how many, many of the great masters, you know, that everybody looks up to, uh, how they, they learned or how they trained or even how they taught.
Speaker: And in many cases, it seems to have been like, okay, so I only teach people who already know how to fight people who train some basic stuff or wrestling or whatever.
Speaker: And said, okay, you know, so you, you understand the basics.
Speaker: So now let's, let's go in deeper.
Speaker: So it kind of, it makes sense that you say actually interesting, you know, to have the basic experience and then you go into these maybe more complex training methods and, and yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, there has to be something there to work with.
Speaker: If you haven't put together the raw material of the physicality, whether it's just the strength or the willingness to get in there and get roughed up, right?
Speaker: A lot of people, you know, and to some sense, this was true for me too, right?
Speaker: Anybody that gets interested in fighting is coming from some degree of insecurity about being safe in the world.
Speaker: There's some fear around all that, you know, and that's fair enough.
Speaker: Not a problem.
Speaker: The...
Speaker: the idea that you're going to learn something intellectually that you're going to use physically to keep yourself safe and be tougher, it's just wrong.
Speaker: And so a lot of people want to look at this fighting and be deadly, but they're just not even physical.
Speaker: And so, uh, I think the Chinese martial arts in particular, because there is such a beautiful philosophical and spiritual component there, which is very real and very useful and beautiful.
Speaker: they can be attracted to that and then not want to put in the hard work that's behind that.
Speaker: And so, you know, I was really lucky in that my Shingi Liuha teacher, and I'll say Shingi Liuha, as it was taught to me, is what my teacher called Han Jin, which is like, it's an angry energy.
Speaker: Like he'd have me...
Speaker: There'd be a tree a hundred yards away and I'd be walking in the rooster step between two trees.
Speaker: And he'd be like, you're walking through that fucking tree.
Speaker: Like that's your mindset.
Speaker: It's like, uh, I'm going through whatever gets in front of me.
Speaker: And that's really useful to get where you're trying to go, but it's not a great mind state to live in because it's intense.
Speaker: Shingiluha is a development.
Speaker: It's a, uh,
Speaker: I'd say that the art in the beginning is all about stepping and later it's all about standing.
Speaker: It changes, but it changes based on how you've changed, right?
Speaker: It's not like, okay, now you do this.
Speaker: It's organic.
Speaker: There's a recognition of what's really at work here and you begin to, your practice will minimize quite naturally in a sense.
Speaker: But basically, yes, you have this,
Speaker: real physical critical mass that gets hit that integrates the body the way i think of it you have to first thing is unify the three sections of the body so i have all these uh you know because i'm interested in philosophy or at least i'm just wired that way number and principle classical education model all these things because i read you know play down all this it's a structure it's a way of working with things and um
Speaker: To me, that's inherent in Chinese martial arts.
Speaker: The numerology is everywhere.
Speaker: The idea of trivium and quadrivium are all throughout it.
Speaker: And so Xing Yi is an aggressive kind of a mindset.
Speaker: My teacher was a very sweet guy who never brought up martial art.
Speaker: I didn't learn a lot of technique and fighting stuff from him.
Speaker: I'd done all that 15 years, 20 years prior to even meeting him.
Speaker: he was really into the exercise and health aspect.
Speaker: And he was a very generous, kind person, which was really nice to see coming out of that tradition.
Speaker: But he was a brick shithouse.
Speaker: I was kind of like, you know, what are you going to do to him?
Speaker: He was wicked strong, compact, you know.
Speaker: And so to me, that's what Gong Fu does is it just makes you so nobody, you're going to be hard to deal with.
Speaker: And I don't think we can really be much more than that.
Speaker: Was that also because you mentioned that, I mean, you had you had done a lot of other training before you met your senior teacher.
Speaker: And you said you mentioned before that you realized, oh, actually, I didn't really understand what I was doing up until then.
Speaker: But now you also mentioned this physicality.
Speaker: Was that one of the things that drew you to his teachings also to to see like, OK, so he's really like like strong and stable and all of that?
Speaker: Yeah, that's what made me realize I was living in a glass house was that his physicality was just so much more developed.
Speaker: And I could see that it was from the practice.
Speaker: And so it was like, and I think back on that now, in a sense, like Shea Pei Chi was a great practitioner and a great teacher.
Speaker: So it wasn't that I didn't know all these things.
Speaker: I'd heard everything.
Speaker: I'd heard all the classical stuff.
Speaker: I'd trained in a classical system.
Speaker: I just didn't understand it.
Speaker: because I hadn't gone deep enough physically to have changes happen that I could then register and keep building on.
Speaker: It's a little bit like a trail of breadcrumbs.
Speaker: And when I think back on why that was,
Speaker: There's a few things.
Speaker: One, I just didn't work hard enough.
Speaker: I didn't know how at that point, and I just wasn't ripe, if you will.
Speaker: But the other was, in yin-style bhagwa, you know, I was practicing a hundred different hands, a hundred different things.
Speaker: Xingiluha is just one, just one thing over and over.
Speaker: There's no form.
Speaker: There's just a single action done over and over.
Speaker: And my teacher...
Speaker: you know, he taught me rooster step, which is really no action to it.
Speaker: It's just stepping.
Speaker: You don't use the hands at all.
Speaker: And I did that for three months, only that, you know, just stepping because that was what it was.
Speaker: I was, uh, I was willing to do that because I'd been around Chinese Kung Fu long enough.
Speaker: I'd invested enough in it and I wanted what was at the end of the road, you know?
Speaker: And so, um,
Speaker: I think that there are three things that are necessary.
Speaker: One is a profound desire because it takes time and a lot of work.
Speaker: The other is a method that you can learn so you're not just randomly using your body.
Speaker: And the third is a teacher who has it embodied so you can feel it.
Speaker: You can see what it is.
Speaker: Otherwise, it's an abstraction.
Speaker: And I know for me...
Speaker: Prior to meeting my Shingi Lucha teacher, it was all abstraction.
Speaker: I was doing the stuff I was training, but I wasn't, the mind and the body were not integrated.
Speaker: And so that critical mass, when it gets reached, then you become beyond the need of a teacher in a sense.
Speaker: You learn how to learn.
Speaker: And so like I can go, I mean, I can watch a video and
Speaker: I can do what that's doing because my body knows how to make shapes.
Speaker: I've been doing this a long time.
Speaker: Or as you get better at martial arts, you can go spend an hour with somebody and get so much out of it because you're in a position to actually learn and absorb and embody what's being shown.
Speaker: But until you are, it doesn't matter how much of that you do.
Speaker: It doesn't show up in your own capacity.
Speaker: So you mentioned, I like this, this three pronged approach of the three basic elements.
Speaker: Let's talk about the method.
Speaker: I mean, when you, when you did start learning, you already mentioned that, okay, so this rooster stepping or chicken stepping.
Speaker: So that was one thing, but, but how would you, how would your teacher approach teaching you?
Speaker: What would that look like?
Speaker: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker: So he didn't speak a lot of English and I don't speak a lot of Chinese.
Speaker: So it was a lot of hands on, a lot of putting me into the shape.
Speaker: But, you know, he would always say to me, he said, you have foundation.
Speaker: So this is good, you know, for him as a teacher.
Speaker: And I can empathize with this.
Speaker: having been teaching myself if somebody comes in and they already can do some of the stuff it just makes it so much easier you know and i had the the hunger for it you know so he would show me by doing the exercise you know classical chinese start saying some song in his head that is what defines the exercise show me each one of the little bits
Speaker: And then just have me do it.
Speaker: So like, and he'd be on me, you know, lower and longer constantly.
Speaker: I'd be drenched in sweat, you know, when we were first started training, you know, so the process was at first I learned the rooster step.
Speaker: I only did that until the rooster step creates an asymmetrical isometric contraction in the body that connects the way it, it,
Speaker: solidifies the pelvis so you can sink the chi and connect to the earth.
Speaker: Because in Xingyi, we have this saying, rooster legs, dragon waist, bare back,
Speaker: tiger head embrace, eagle claw.
Speaker: That is the, what do you call these things?
Speaker: Hieromorphic image, which is a different components of an animal.
Speaker: It's also the order of creation.
Speaker: So when you get the rooster legs, you've stabilized the pelvis.
Speaker: Once the pelvis is stable and down, then the waist can be separated from the pelvis.
Speaker: So then you have dragon waist.
Speaker: When the waist begins to wake up, it starts to wake up all the muscles in the back from all the rotation and holding up.
Speaker: So then you get the bare back.
Speaker: Once you get that, then you get the tiger head embraced because the shoulders get subsumed into the back.
Speaker: The shoulders problem gets solved.
Speaker: Then you get the eagle claw because the strength from the back goes all the way out to the ends of the hands.
Speaker: So it's like a, it's a recipe.
Speaker: And so to make that recipe happen, you have to hit each stage.
Speaker: And so the first one is in that rooster shape.
Speaker: So in my experience in teaching this, people don't put enough into that and they don't go low enough and long enough to build that lower base and strength and pelvic floor and the psoas.
Speaker: I mean, there's so much integral energy.
Speaker: physiological architecture that's getting strengthened through that, um, to then move on to the next shapes.
Speaker: And so it's really, that's what it is.
Speaker: It's like, you need a hundred dollars to buy something.
Speaker: If you've only got 70, you got to keep going until you get the a hundred dollars.
Speaker: And this is, yeah, this is how that works.
Speaker: And so, um,
Speaker: My learning with him in general, it was very slow at first, but then once my body had changed, you know, so like I do the rooster step for a while, then the next shape he taught me, uh,
Speaker: I believe was Lung, Lung, which is another form of rooster.
Speaker: So here's the theory is you have rooster shape lowers the strengthens the walking and begins the changing of the body.
Speaker: Lung is a vertical circle.
Speaker: And then, uh, uh, Lung Diao Ban dragon hangs his wrist is a horizontal circle.
Speaker: And then you have Yao Samba.
Speaker: These are the sort of three traditional exercises is a diagonal.
Speaker: So those three plus the rooster is stabilizing the body and opening it up to the three planes of motion.
Speaker: Everything else is derivative of that to a certain extent.
Speaker: That's very interesting because a lot of the stuff that you mentioned actually resonated with me.
Speaker: I'm training Chen Style Tidy, I don't have that much exposure to Xinyi Liu He, but also that you don't want to use your hips to turn.
Speaker: This is what beginners always do.
Speaker: Whenever they try to generate turning power, they use the hips and then they lose their stability because the feet also have to move.
Speaker: The separation of hips and waist, that is a core component.
Speaker: It's really interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: So for us, the first thing you have to do is move the waist without moving the hips.
Speaker: And then you differentiate.
Speaker: And then later on, you don't even think about it.
Speaker: But at first, you have to actively inhibit certain movement.
Speaker: Part of the problem in Chinese martial arts is everybody thinks, oh, I'm moving my whole body and everybody wiggles around.
Speaker: But it's not that.
Speaker: It's the opposite of that, actually.
Speaker: So anyway, once I...
Speaker: sort of went through the crucible of learning how to learn the shapes and my body became developed and more responsive you know at first i might learn a shape and i'd work on it for a month or a couple months but then down the road i'd learn three in a day once i could do it you know what i mean so it's like the slow at first and then it's fast
Speaker: yeah yeah that makes sense and so you mentioned shapes um how would you describe like what is this what was the shape to you what does that mean yeah it's a great question so shingiluha we have the 10 big shapes sheda shing is how it's also known to me 10 is the number of multiplicity right the 10 000 things so i hear that as meaning just making shapes we have 10 because we need a number but
Speaker: Once you learn how to make shapes, you can make shapes.
Speaker: And so what I mean by that is the shape is the object of the meditation because it's what your intention is.
Speaker: It's how you are directing and organizing your body is through the requirements of that particular shape.
Speaker: In doing that and maintaining that intention, you are bringing your awareness back onto your body and developing your awareness so that your awareness...
Speaker: is following your intention.
Speaker: And this is the same thing as sitting meditation.
Speaker: Each time your mind wanders off, you bring it back to the posture, which is your intention.
Speaker: And so it's the same process.
Speaker: We develop mindfulness by bringing our awareness back to ourselves.
Speaker: And the unique thing about Kung Fu, as I see it and my experience of it,
Speaker: Is that then saturates the body with mind and awareness and that first stage?
Speaker: Takes time because most people are so fucking abstracted.
Speaker: We're all lost out there.
Speaker: It's the nature of it and so this turning around
Speaker: And regaining the ground of the body by saturating it with awareness through focused intent is how we really start to get these deeper tissues and get everything to begin to release.
Speaker: That releasing returns us to resting at emptiness.
Speaker: This is why emptiness is what's talked about all the time in these arts, because if you look at where you really are, there's nothing there.
Speaker: We are meeting the world from our central emptiness.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But when you say posture, because you mentioned a certain posture, but in Xiniliuche, it's mostly in movement, right?
Speaker: You don't have, like in the beginning, you're not really standing.
Speaker: Yeah, but each shape is a posture.
Speaker: So you're moving, but you're moving in that posture.
Speaker: So there's a lot of internal engagement that's going on that's sort of almost held or rigid is the wrong word, but it's fixed.
Speaker: And then you're learning to move with that without letting it all fall away.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's a little bit like, I mean, we do have a lot of that in ChenSell as well, these kind of contradicting requirements.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: You want to have the posture, but you also want to be able to move and that teaches you to be able to move while adhering to certain principles of posture.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And this is totally unqualified.
Speaker: This is just me saying what I think, but, uh, uh, you study with Nabil, is that right?
Speaker: You're that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So when I look at your guys, Chen style, I love it because I see everything that I see in Shingiluha, the way the body works, the look, the tendon, the connection, all that.
Speaker: When I started training the Bagua and Tai Chi, and that was, you know, I'd been with my Shingiluha teacher for, I don't know, 12 years, 15 years, something like that.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I had moved away, and so I started studying and going in another direction just because I like to train.
Speaker: What is my point?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, so when I met my teacher, Yusin, it's all the same.
Speaker: His Bagua, his Tai Chi is just like the Shingi in terms of the tendon method and the way you're using the body.
Speaker: So the shapes are different, but what you're doing, this –
Speaker: directed opposition, this recognition of how to embody these contradictory things, such as reaching through the fullness of your body and then releasing away from the edges.
Speaker: You know, so this is why for me,
Speaker: I do think there's more unifying these things in terms of, you know, again, it's think about gold as a substance.
Speaker: You can make it into any shape you want once you have the substance.
Speaker: And so training makes our body the substance.
Speaker: And then the shapes are just, have you learned how to make that shape or not?
Speaker: So you talked about the beginning stages of Xinli Yuhu, you said it speeds up once you have that basic understanding, like physical understanding.
Speaker: Is there a larger curriculum?
Speaker: Because some Chinese styles are super expansive in terms of so many forms and exercises and weapons and whatever.
Speaker: Is that in Xinli Yuhu as well or does it stay in this kind of minimalistic training?
Speaker: So it's, it's a little of both, you know, so my understanding is this, and I'm not a very, like, I'm not trying to be Chinese.
Speaker: I don't speak Chinese.
Speaker: I'm not trying to like pass on an exact curriculum.
Speaker: That's not really my disposition or interest.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, I learned from my teacher as I understand it.
Speaker: And again, communication is a barrier because of the language stuff.
Speaker: So we can communicate at a certain level, but I can't get into real detail kind of questioning.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Our art, which comes down from Lu Song Gao, has 36 basic shapes to it.
Speaker: That's the curriculum.
Speaker: Within that, you could go, you know, it's like the Yin style Bagua curriculum was huge only because you can keep making distinctions.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: So at a certain point, the curriculum is whatever you want it to be, depending on how many distinctions you want to count.
Speaker: But the basic piece in Xingyi is small and simple.
Speaker: You know, this is the other thing.
Speaker: It's like I could show you everything in two minutes.
Speaker: but you wouldn't be able to do any of it the way it's supposed to be done.
Speaker: But like each shape in Shingiluha is just one basic movement, one basic movement over and over.
Speaker: And because of that, the...
Speaker: external form that you're learning or copying is, is very simple to do it with the requirements is very hard because it's physically demanding and challenging.
Speaker: And you have to maintain that awareness while you're doing the movement, while you're doing the line.
Speaker: So it's a, it's a small concentrated system.
Speaker: And I like that because I, you know, and even my practice now, right.
Speaker: And so this is the other half of that question.
Speaker: What your practice becomes down the road, at least in my experience, varies.
Speaker: You know, I don't go through the whole thing.
Speaker: I've got a few favorite shapes.
Speaker: I've got a few favorite Bagua shapes.
Speaker: I do the beginning of the Tai Chi La.
Speaker: You know, like, and I can go more...
Speaker: in any one of those directions if I wanted to.
Speaker: But what I'm always working on is the quality with which I'm doing whatever thing it is that I'm doing.
Speaker: And there is a consistency there, meaning it's always engaging through the whole body.
Speaker: It's always getting out to the ends.
Speaker: It's always releasing from periphery to center, from center to periphery.
Speaker: It's finding those
Speaker: qualities of good movement and release in whatever particular shape or you know sequence that you're playing with so to answer your question directly shingy is a small dense thing that can expand out if you wanted it to but it also falls away like i don't do rooster step much anymore
Speaker: I don't need to.
Speaker: I already did it.
Speaker: I got what was there to get from that.
Speaker: And now I'm using that to work in different ways.
Speaker: And so my Xing Yi practice is a lot more standing and single action.
Speaker: I don't do a lot of line stepping anymore.
Speaker: But I think it's necessary in the beginning.
Speaker: Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker: Was there, I mean, you said that you didn't learn a lot of techniques from your teacher.
Speaker: Was there any partner training specifically that you did with him?
Speaker: Is this a big part of Sini Luche or is it really focused on the solo training, on the power generation and all of that?
Speaker: It's more focused on solo training.
Speaker: At the same time, there's body banging exercises.
Speaker: So my teacher and I would smash into each other and do all those kind of exercises.
Speaker: choreographed stepping patterns where you're hitting your waist.
Speaker: We use trees to bang into as well.
Speaker: So there's a lot of ancillary practices.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: you know again depending on what you want to develop depending on how you're going to use it you know so i learned a lot of that stuff i don't do any of it anymore it's just not interesting to me i don't have the time uh and i'm not trying to make my body indestructible you know i mean a big thing with especially chinese martial arts is people have an immortality project they think they're going to live forever you know and it's that doesn't interest me and i also think it's a misunderstanding of the possibility um
Speaker: Yeah, it was featured in, I mean, I studied synology.
Speaker: It came up all the time, like scholars, and everybody was fascinated with this idea.
Speaker: Some people had interesting interpretations like drinking Quicksilver, like Mercury would make you immortal.
Speaker: Yeah, but it still exists today.
Speaker: Look at Instagram.
Speaker: Everybody, you know, so I mean, Chinese had that culturally, but everybody has that a little bit...
Speaker: because you know they haven't come to terms with it which which is fine i'm just saying the the so for me the idea of making myself indestructible through those kind of practices and there are people that go that road in kung fu and that's great if you like it but not my interest yeah it's a part of many traditions yeah yeah and to me one of the interesting things about shingiluha and i can remember this when i first encountered it was like how do you use that like how do these exercises translate into application
Speaker: And what my teacher would always say is you fight, you just fight.
Speaker: You don't, you don't try to do a particular thing.
Speaker: He'd say the exercises transform your body and then you're strong and you're balanced and you're quick and you're agile.
Speaker: And that's difficult to fight.
Speaker: And, you know, so like, I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, I, if you've seen or been around fights and violence, you
Speaker: it's not intricate.
Speaker: It's not a big exchange.
Speaker: It's sudden, it's abrupt, and it usually ends with who's got more power and who's angrier, you know, in a certain sense.
Speaker: And so, um, I think the real value in Xing Yi from that standpoint is a, the intensity with which you have to do the shapes and the practice to bring about the transmutation is an ability to dial in like that.
Speaker: It is an aggressive thing.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And the body that gets created being very relaxed and supple and agile is a hard thing to deal with.
Speaker: And so it's this combination of being able to be very watery and soft, but also to be able to become very focused, you know, so, um,
Speaker: Yeah, I'm a big believer that the whole thing is around transforming the tissues to create an unusual type of mobility and strength that gives you the element of surprise if somebody that's uninformed just were to try to grab you or, you know, what have you.
Speaker: And that's very useful in a real world context.
Speaker: As soon as you get into a cage and we're in an agreed fight, you know, then everything changes.
Speaker: You know, there's a horses for courses, as they like to say.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a different context.
Speaker: So you mentioned this kind of body hardening or conditioning, these ideas.
Speaker: Are there also elements that, I mean, obviously the entire training curriculum, from what I understand, is essentially also a form of strength training, but maybe not in a conventional sense, or maybe most people wouldn't recognize it as such.
Speaker: Are there exercises, though, with weights or something specific as part of Sine Luche that you would also do, like, I don't know, like a big spear or some styles to...
Speaker: Yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker: The traditional weapons training, heavy weapons, I think, is a part of all the arts.
Speaker: So it is in Shingy.
Speaker: But I would say more to the point in what's unique and very interesting is the method of strength development and Xingyi, and I would say Chinese Gong Fu done well, what makes it special is that you're learning to use the mind to load the body.
Speaker: So as soon as I have an outside object,
Speaker: It's not me generating it.
Speaker: I'm in response to that object.
Speaker: But if I can, with my Yi, imagine it.
Speaker: So a classic idea that is in a lot of the different shapes of Shingiluha is lifting a heavy stone.
Speaker: And it is a shape, but it's more of an idea.
Speaker: And so my ability to really make this heavy and have my whole body convinced and organized and acting like I'm holding something very heavy here is generated through my own nervous system and ability to hold my body in a state of...
Speaker: dynamic contracted strength, if you will, that is even, it's not like I'm just in my arms.
Speaker: I am always spreading and distributing the workload of any shape evenly throughout the whole frame, the way a drum is stretched across its frame.
Speaker: So that way all the tissue is being pulled at evenly.
Speaker: And that's what you're sensing.
Speaker: That's where your mind and intention and awareness are.
Speaker: And so the ability to do that is,
Speaker: over and over changes the tissues, strengthens the tissues and enhances the skill and ability.
Speaker: So Xing Yi is like this, each movement, bang, bang, open, close, open, close.
Speaker: It ends, it finishes, it finishes, it finishes.
Speaker: So it's got a different feeling than the continuity that you can find in Tai Chi and Bagua.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: But because of that percussive nature, it's very clear and it's simpler because transitioning changes unless you've built those shapes properly is really hard.
Speaker: Yeah, this is also, this seems to be a big misunderstanding, at least in, I don't know how it is in China, but in Europe and North America, when you think about these internal martial arts, that they are kind of arbitrary, but then when you actually learn from someone who really understands it, it's actually super specific, like I said, with the shape, like very, it's like, no, it has to be like this, because there's a very specific intent in this, and that actually creates the training benefit.
Speaker: That's right, because a shape is just a crucible.
Speaker: It's also active.
Speaker: So every time I make a shape, I'm working with energy, not energy woo-woo out there.
Speaker: The energy of being in that position and how much it agitates the body is like that's an energy, that agitation, that difficulty.
Speaker: And then harmonizing with that is how you're transforming things.
Speaker: So the creation of the shape
Speaker: is really about the pressure that you create through the restrictions that make the shape.
Speaker: And without those restrictions, without those constraints, if you will, there's no pressure buildup.
Speaker: And so there's no change.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Now for me, when we talk about strength training, for me, it's a natural segue to also talk more about health.
Speaker: Because I mean, conditioning, like when you talk about this body hardening stuff or toughening up the body, it can also have an adverse effect on health if you do it the improper way.
Speaker: And what I find interesting is that a lot of people talk about health.
Speaker: And then when you say, hey, it's also strength training for some people, it's like, oh, but I wanted to train for health.
Speaker: I thought, yeah, but how is that the opposite?
Speaker: I mean, like strength is the first thing that you lose when you get old.
Speaker: I mean, it's like.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: It actually was, I think he was German, a very famous strongman named George Hackenschmidt, who said strength should never be divorced from health.
Speaker: And it's true to be strong, to be healthy is to have a degree of strength.
Speaker: And, and so, um,
Speaker: I guess to me, the distinction is the type of strength.
Speaker: In Chinese Kung Fu, everything comes from a softness and elasticity, a capacity to absorb and receive.
Speaker: It's not a keeping something out there and using my muscle to manage it.
Speaker: It's about a joining and receiving and being able to unbalance in a sense.
Speaker: And so, yeah, Xing Yi Lu He,
Speaker: Well, I would step back and I would say this, that health is a function of circulation, whether it's an economy, a road system, or a human body.
Speaker: No circulation, no health, right?
Speaker: Things need to move.
Speaker: The whole point of Xing Yi, for sure, and these other arts, I would say it's in there too, is that
Speaker: you are getting the blood and chi out to the end points and that is about circulation and so each time you are developing your strength and your strength is really just a function of your blood and chi getting to the ends there's a fullness that develops you know and this is where this stuff gets a little bit weird and again you have to separate it from the martial piece but like
Speaker: The demonstrable body quality that I look for in a teacher is that somebody has energy at their hands.
Speaker: Like I can, if somebody has, I can just make them lose balance and move just by touch because there's a fullness here.
Speaker: That fullness displaces.
Speaker: It's not magic.
Speaker: It's not anything other than, you know, one, one object moving another object, but it's a function of there's like a leading edge.
Speaker: Do you know what I'm talking about here?
Speaker: Have you experienced this?
Speaker: You know, the, the pong quality in Tai Chi.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a fullness there to me.
Speaker: That's a result of the healthiness of the tissue that everything is full of blood and chi.
Speaker: And that is because you've created the capacity or the conditions for that to happen by opening up the body, getting the blood moving around that invigorates the body that creates a, you know, your, your tissue quality can be felt.
Speaker: So it's not a mystery.
Speaker: If somebody's really tight and thin in their tissue, they're not going to have a lot of capacity to receive and release.
Speaker: Yeah, and what I noticed is that one of the things that a lot of people are, it's highly sought after, you know, the ability to have a lot of effect with small movements or very little movement.
Speaker: I noticed that, I mean, obviously you can teach that little movement, but usually there's nothing behind it because it also lacks this coordination in the body.
Speaker: But when somebody has it, it is actually like outwardly, there's not much happening, but the entire body structure is shifting and changing and suddenly you can feel all of that, well, essentially the
Speaker: entire body behind it that's right yeah you know so internal martial arts i i like the definition that it means that i'm moving within the space of my body itself rather than just moving my body through space yeah you are using the
Speaker: the bony structures to create stretches through the tissue, through small little movements of like semi-foundational joints.
Speaker: And that is the internal movement.
Speaker: It doesn't need to be a big movement.
Speaker: And, you know,
Speaker: This is why I say you have to separate it from fighting.
Speaker: For me, that's a very interesting and useful study because of the healing effects.
Speaker: And at the same time, it's also useful in application of martial art.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: only if the person's body has been transformed and then what you're really seeing is somebody that it doesn't matter what they do they've got power behind it and it's not because they're doing something it's because they are that someone yeah would you say that if you proper like would it be possible to properly train and not have beneficial health effect like if it's
Speaker: Well, this is the rub.
Speaker: I mean, no, I think no matter how you trained it, you would get some beneficial health effect because it's just fundamental that you're stepping in the beginning, you're getting exercise.
Speaker: It's hard work.
Speaker: I mean, for me, one of the things, and hopefully in this new year, I'll...
Speaker: get a chance to do more of this.
Speaker: I've just, I've had a few, a busy few years.
Speaker: So I've sort of stepped back, but I think shingi liu ha for people that are athletes and strong is an amazing art because it's such a challenge.
Speaker: Like I've never seen anybody that can do the rooster step.
Speaker: The rooster step will just make you want to quit right away.
Speaker: And, uh, so, you know,
Speaker: it is a very physical practice.
Speaker: So you're going to get the health and strength benefits at a basic level just from doing it, even if you're doing it wrong.
Speaker: But why do it wrong?
Speaker: Because the real value is in the long-term longitudinal practice.
Speaker: You know, I mean, the thing about Chinese Kung Fu is it takes 10 years, 20 years.
Speaker: It's like, if you hear that and you're put off, you're never going to get it because it, you know,
Speaker: And it's not like there's nothing happening until 10 or 20 years.
Speaker: It's good all the way.
Speaker: It's just that it really takes time.
Speaker: I mean, at least for me, it has.
Speaker: I've been doing this for over 30 years, and I can think about the changes in the experience of being me and how I relate to and feel my body.
Speaker: And it's so profound.
Speaker: It's such a world away from what it used to be.
Speaker: And I'm 53, and I'm comfortable, I'm healthy, I'm strong.
Speaker: So it's like...
Speaker: Those are the benefits that I put the work in for is the, you know, to be clear, calm, and comfortable.
Speaker: That's, that's what I'm after.
Speaker: Now, you mentioned a lot of elements that I would describe also, because you said that in the beginning, Chinese martial arts, they do have a connection both to philosophy, but also to spiritual practice, to mindfulness, to all of these elements.
Speaker: We did talk a little bit about this already before we started taping, but are there specific...
Speaker: aspects or elements in Shinjuljuche, we would say, oh yeah, this is kind of the mindfulness training, or is it just that it's always there when you train it, or is it something different?
Speaker: How would you describe this?
Speaker: Yeah, well, it should be always there.
Speaker: So for me, mindfulness, mindfulness is another word that's been co-opted by people
Speaker: the world of, you know, everything means everything.
Speaker: Mindfulness is specific.
Speaker: The Buddha defined mindfulness is observing the mind's attention as it moves from one object of observation or attention to another.
Speaker: So in Shingiluha, the mindfulness is that your shape is correct, that you don't lose your ding, that you have the He, that all the ideas that go into creating, uh,
Speaker: All oppositional force to open and connect the body are present during your practice.
Speaker: And that is a function of your ability to stay with the felt sense of the body.
Speaker: And this is what we're strengthening.
Speaker: The mind becomes quiet because the mind has something to tend to and it's the shape, it's the body.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: you are learning to always operate from that space in a sense.
Speaker: And so there is a, you know, the paradox is you have to be released into yourself, but you have to be reaching out through yourself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: you have to be relaxed but you have to be alert you know it's like we're trying to bring together you know this is where for me this is part of what interests me philosophically tai chi and i i use tai chi as a default a lot just because of the philosophical clarity of the idea tai chi is simply recognizing that the world is a world of duality and opposites
Speaker: And to find the center, you have to know the ends.
Speaker: So we embrace the paradox of duality and we harmonize it through the Trinity, through recognizing the middle point.
Speaker: And so that is a type of awareness that develops and you're learning to develop it by learning to pay attention to yourself first, your physical body.
Speaker: But then as that changes, you begin to notice more subtle energy and body, the movement of mind, the emotional flavor of an experience.
Speaker: These things can only really be discerned if we've created a space from which to observe them, which is why we have to transform the body and its tissues so that the nervous system releases, the mind quiets down, and then we can hear the subtler conversations that are happening.
Speaker: Now, there was one thing that you mentioned this before we started taping and I thought it was really interesting.
Speaker: You said that back when you trained, like, I mean, you're still training, obviously, but when you were still learning a lot about Chinese martial arts, you had this idea that like, oh, if I just practice enough Kung Fu, then everything will, will.
Speaker: you know, fall in place.
Speaker: And then later on, you actually realized, actually, now that's not really true, like specific aspects of, I don't know, health maintenance, but also, you know, mindfulness training, you still had to learn about that stuff as well, right?
Speaker: As specific.
Speaker: Yeah, I, you know, I, I had this idea, because I, this is how my landscape of my mind works that, uh,
Speaker: You know, harmony, if I could bring the body into enough of a harmony through practice that the mental and emotional levels would also be harmonized.
Speaker: And at one level, that's true.
Speaker: But I also went through a period of great depression and I had to step outside of physical practice and meet myself at an emotional level.
Speaker: at that level, you know, but what fascinates me, or I learned from that is that the method is the same.
Speaker: And this is what I mean when I say that the terms vary, but the relations stay the same.
Speaker: So because of all my practice, it was very easy for me.
Speaker: Once I,
Speaker: I was emotionally ignorant in a certain sense.
Speaker: I just didn't grow up with a lot of that.
Speaker: And so once I realized that and I began to get some sense of that context or landscape, if you will, it was really quick and easy for me to work with it because my physical body was released.
Speaker: And so then it was very easy for me to stay with sensation because this is what you learn to do.
Speaker: And whether it's the movement of mind or the emotional, uh, flavoring of an experience, uh,
Speaker: the same path is always to be unmoved, right?
Speaker: So it's like standing meditation, the way you're doing it is also the same way you're doing your sitting meditation is also, you know, so for me, inquiry is a big part of my life and the work that I do.
Speaker: And what is inquiry?
Speaker: Inquiry is looking at what you're saying and what you mean, because a lot of the time we'll have a word and it is just a concept to us and we don't know what it's pointing at.
Speaker: And so by looking into it, what do you mean by that?
Speaker: You begin to uncover these things.
Speaker: And so like, you know, you've read about Chinese martial arts, emptiness is everywhere, right?
Speaker: The idea of emptiness is the ultimate attainment.
Speaker: I would say that they don't just mean that as a metaphor or as a thing, it's actual.
Speaker: And so when you really understand,
Speaker: delve into the spiritual journey, when you really begin to look at where you're looking from, what you realize is the elsewhere-ness of your appearance.
Speaker: I've only ever seen myself over there, and that guy's looking that way.
Speaker: Where I'm looking from is empty.
Speaker: It's open.
Speaker: And so that is a truth to be embodied, but to embody that is to move through all the mental and emotional resistance that goes along with recognizing one's empty center, because we're conditioned to think the opposite.
Speaker: I'm a somebody I'm going to do a something, you know?
Speaker: And so I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, but for me, that is, uh,
Speaker: the privilege of pursuing that line of question is in the resulting state of being that one attains in terms of experiencing the world.
Speaker: And Chinese martial arts are exactly that in a certain sense, meaning the whole metaphor, the whole idea of the story of transformation is, um,
Speaker: fully tended to meaning mind, body, and spirit.
Speaker: Just, I'm amazed at how clever these arts are, but it takes a huge effort to actually do them in the fullness of what they offer.
Speaker: Yeah, what really resonated with me was also because I had a kind of a realization like that for myself as well, that some people, I mean, some people assume that, oh, you know, just practice martial arts and it will be, it's perfect physical therapy and emotional therapy and whatever.
Speaker: And I don't think it's that, but at the same time, it's very beneficial because it has this neurophysiological training that's in there.
Speaker: And when you then actually look at other, like maybe you have a specific, it can also be, I think, physical health,
Speaker: I realized this myself, I had a couple of issues and it doesn't matter how much martial arts I train, those issues might not go away because that's not what the training system was specifically designed for.
Speaker: How could it?
Speaker: I mean, they didn't know what condition I specifically had.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: But when I then started looking at it, obviously all the training was super helpful.
Speaker: because I already had the ability to also access or be aware of certain parts of my body and what I'm doing there, and I can then correct it.
Speaker: It was super helpful.
Speaker: I found the same to be true for the level of the mind or the emotions.
Speaker: It's the same because the training is actually very helpful in terms of the skills that it gives you to access yourself.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think the way I see it now is that you have to pursue mind, body and spirit in the context of the whole, but you also have to meet each one on its own terms.
Speaker: And so in art, you know, these arts are profound in that they're able to act as systems that can really create a context for the study of all those things.
Speaker: And yet it's useful to clarify further and meet each piece on its own.
Speaker: But the practice of having it in an overall space is just, it's so valuable because yeah, when you're doing hard physical practice, emotional come up all these things.
Speaker: So you have a familiarity with the landscape.
Speaker: but then there may be a need to tend to just the body on a different level than you're going to find through your going full practice or the willingness to sit with hard feelings that you may just gloss over through the activity of, you know, I, I did a lot of training hard to not feel my feelings.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: So, um, it's, uh, it's such a beautiful practice.
Speaker: You know, my, my biggest complaint would be that, uh,
Speaker: people bring it down to their level too often.
Speaker: And, uh, and so it, it loses its shine or, or really what I mean is, is that, uh, you know, it's a beautiful mystery and it's something that we can really participate and be transformed by, but having the right attitude is really important because it takes time.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: you know, anything you persist at over a long period of time, you'll have your ups and downs.
Speaker: And there's a lot of wisdom to be gained in that.
Speaker: I mean, you know, for me now, it's like looking at some of the ways that I got it wrong is painful, but so beneficial too, because, you know, it's like you got to own all of your experience.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now, since you mentioned since you already mentioned the shine of the of the arts, you know, the arts losing their shine regarding, you know, maybe the greater martial arts community or or communities, I guess there are more than obviously there's more than one.
Speaker: Like what what what would you hope for personally?
Speaker: Like how like where should Chinese martial arts as a as a training method, as a culture, as a community, where should this go?
Speaker: Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker: You know, I don't really know.
Speaker: I'd say I'm in general positive because I know there's some really good Western practitioners out there now.
Speaker: And there wasn't when I first started this.
Speaker: I mean, there may have been, but they were fewer and further between, you know, but I think there's some really good clarity there.
Speaker: demonstrable embodied by teachers of different traditions that are available now.
Speaker: So people that are serious can really actually get something or at least study with somebody who's serious and has something to offer.
Speaker: It's still going to be hard.
Speaker: It's still going to take time and all the rest of it.
Speaker: You know, I think the two biggest challenges
Speaker: errors are um one getting too fixated on fighting and this is why i'm an advocate of if you if that's a thing for you go do it meet it get it out of your system know what it is because if you're studying chinese martial arts and trying to be a fighter you're in the wrong place you know what i mean it's it's like all these stupid videos of tai chi masters getting beaten up by mma guys of course
Speaker: you know what i mean it's like it's it's just it's too stupid to even have it be a thing some 60 year old guy that's doing park tai chi fighting some 27 year old i mean come on but uh um so yeah the fighting thing can get in the way and uh it's useful for every man to know how to defend himself so i think it's a good thing to look into but chinese martial arts is uh
Speaker: first of all chinese martial arts are training systems they're not fighting that's what they are they're training systems and then if you wanted to fight you would test it in that arena anyway enough on that but then the next thing is it's harder than you think and so a lot of people especially that are interested in the more subtle spiritual aspects they don't train hard enough and they don't transform their body
Speaker: The profound degree of release and relaxation that are the byproduct of this practice comes from hard work.
Speaker: It's like, you know, John Chas said it beautifully, relax a little, you get a little peace, relax a lot, you get a lot of peace.
Speaker: So like the smiling, excuse me, the smiling tiger,
Speaker: idea that is in this, you know, this is how I think of my Shingy teacher.
Speaker: He was a smiling tiger.
Speaker: He was always smiling, very sweet guy, but he was a bear.
Speaker: What are you going to do with him?
Speaker: You know, he wasn't going to pick a fight, but nobody was going to look around a room and say, Oh yeah, that's the guy I want to fight.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: So that whole phenomenon of being a smiling tiger is,
Speaker: is the you know discipline gives us permission to manifest our greatness it is the relaxation of somebody who's done the work if you haven't done the work you're not going to be relaxed around it yeah that makes sense and you know what i think once the episode airs everybody will start working really hard and
Speaker: I don't know, maybe not.
Speaker: But yeah, I can totally understand where that's coming from because I have made similar observations.
Speaker: Yeah, and Tom, the last thing I'd say is you have to be willing to work with somebody over a period of time if you're going to get their art.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, but I also agree with, you know, more access to people who actually have knowledge and skill and not just, you know, kind of fantasize about martial arts.
Speaker: And I hope that, yeah, I really hope that also the podcast here can help a little bit.
Speaker: Maybe also, you know, connecting people, making this more accessible and helping people understand what the practice is all about.
Speaker: Yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker: And I think you're doing a great job to that end.
Speaker: And I think, you know, what I hope, I guess, is that more people can rally around the commonalities and then appreciate the difference of how the arts get there.
Speaker: Because, like, I look at Nabil and I love his practice.
Speaker: I'd love to play with him and learn from him because I see so much of what's going on there.
Speaker: as being something that i'm also doing but it's different you know the shapes are different you know and so yeah i would love to see more people that are interested in the sort of beyond the form shenfa body qualities that get developed and uh exploring those that's to me what's interesting yeah
Speaker: Well, maybe we'll meet again virtually for the second season because I'm thinking about maybe doing these more as group discussions, bringing together different people, and then maybe look at those commonalities and then talk about, but also the differences.
Speaker: Like you said, it can be quite interesting as well.
Speaker: Yeah, I would love that.
Speaker: I mean, my personal goal is on...
Speaker: putting forward a context where people can really explore meditation, healing and movement in this space of finding that through line, which really, you know, I, I, my little tagline is release the body, recognize the movement of mind and rest in being.
Speaker: And this is really, whether you're doing that through training, doing that through sitting, doing that through Jinshin, you know, it's, it's all the same mindset.
Speaker: very nice thanks thank you so for for the first season thank you for participating and thank you for sharing all your your experience and your your insights and yeah we'll definitely keep in touch and hopefully we'll meet again on the podcast sounds good daniel thank you so much i appreciate it it was nice to be with you thank you take good care
Speaker: Thanks for listening to this episode.
Speaker: I hope you had a great time.
Speaker: The next episode will air next month.
Speaker: And until then, feel free to check out our Instagram account, where we also feature some of the people we talk to, other practitioners and teachers of Chinese martial arts, and anything else that might be interesting in the world of Kung Fu.
Speaker: Thanks, take care, and hope to meet again.
