Bob Hubbard
08-28-2006, 03:26 PM
SEEING THE SHRINK
By Pete Starr
Many years ago a prominent martial arts magazine featured an interview with an old Aikido master who had once been an uchi-deshi (live-in student) of the art's founder, Morihei Uyeshiba. The reporter asked the old man about the underlying "secrets" of the art and the teacher replied, "Take that which is very large and make it very, very small."
The journalist obviously missed the profundity of this reply; he passed right over it and ended the interview rather quickly, adding only one or two more short paragraphs to his story. The whole interview covered only about half a page of the magazine! I was really disappointed because it was clear that the old master had acquired a deep understanding of his chosen discipline but because of the writer's ignorance, it would not be heard.
When the neophyte begins martial arts training his movements arevery large and somewhat awkward. With lots of practice they become smoother, more refined, more efficient, and a shade smaller. As he/she continues training the movements are polished and distilled further and at the black belt level the student often (consciously or unconsciously) believes that they're about as good as they're likely to get.
Oh, he/she will still work to increase power and speed but little thought is given to the real nature of the techniques and body movements themselves, so it is here that many students simply stop trying to look deeper into the nature of the art.
We've all read or heard stories about famous masters of the past who could, for example, lightly deflect an aggressor's violent attack and with a small, seemingly powerless movement drop him to the ground or send him flying several yards. No doubt, some of these stories are simply exaggerated tales intended to impress an audience ("I was there and saw it happen, for real..."), but some of them are close to the truth.
Wang Shujin was well-known for his seemingly "invisible" technique. An opponent would seize him and he'd make a small "shaking" movement which would launch his adversary a considerable distance or cause him to crumple to the ground. There are similar stories told about Yang Chengfu and other internal stylists, stories which are probably fairly accurate.
The secret to their superior technique was told to the magazine reporter by the old aikido teacher. One's movements must be condensed until they are very small, almost invisible. This refers not only to the technique itself, but to the body movement that accompanies it and gives it strength.
You can't start right off trying to "shrink" your movements. First you must strive to make them very strong and quick, and eliminate the "glitches" in them as best you can. Once this is done (a process that actually takes years of practice), then you can begin to work on compressing them. The idea is to maintain the same amount of power that is generated by a large movement and gradually condense it, making it smaller and smaller...and proportionately more potent.
It isn't enough to simply make the (larger) movements of the techniques themselves smaller; that by itself won't do much except that it might make you look like one of the twelve dwarfs trying to practice martial arts. You have to shrink the body movements, too. This is considerably more difficult to do. As they become smaller and more concentrated, the body movements seem to be felt more on the inside than the outside. This feeling originates in the soles of the feet.
The breath also has to be condensed and as easy as this may sound, it's not.
In Yilichuan senior students are initiated into this kind of training through the practice of the "six coils." It takes time and lots of practice (thus, the meaning of the term "kung-fu").
Not many of today's martial arts practitioners train to reach this level of skill. Most of them don't even know it exists. Of those few that do, not many are willing to put in the required time and effort to achieve it...which is a shame because if they don't achieve it, who will teach the next generation? This kind of extraordinary skill will be lost forever.
By Pete Starr
Many years ago a prominent martial arts magazine featured an interview with an old Aikido master who had once been an uchi-deshi (live-in student) of the art's founder, Morihei Uyeshiba. The reporter asked the old man about the underlying "secrets" of the art and the teacher replied, "Take that which is very large and make it very, very small."
The journalist obviously missed the profundity of this reply; he passed right over it and ended the interview rather quickly, adding only one or two more short paragraphs to his story. The whole interview covered only about half a page of the magazine! I was really disappointed because it was clear that the old master had acquired a deep understanding of his chosen discipline but because of the writer's ignorance, it would not be heard.
When the neophyte begins martial arts training his movements arevery large and somewhat awkward. With lots of practice they become smoother, more refined, more efficient, and a shade smaller. As he/she continues training the movements are polished and distilled further and at the black belt level the student often (consciously or unconsciously) believes that they're about as good as they're likely to get.
Oh, he/she will still work to increase power and speed but little thought is given to the real nature of the techniques and body movements themselves, so it is here that many students simply stop trying to look deeper into the nature of the art.
We've all read or heard stories about famous masters of the past who could, for example, lightly deflect an aggressor's violent attack and with a small, seemingly powerless movement drop him to the ground or send him flying several yards. No doubt, some of these stories are simply exaggerated tales intended to impress an audience ("I was there and saw it happen, for real..."), but some of them are close to the truth.
Wang Shujin was well-known for his seemingly "invisible" technique. An opponent would seize him and he'd make a small "shaking" movement which would launch his adversary a considerable distance or cause him to crumple to the ground. There are similar stories told about Yang Chengfu and other internal stylists, stories which are probably fairly accurate.
The secret to their superior technique was told to the magazine reporter by the old aikido teacher. One's movements must be condensed until they are very small, almost invisible. This refers not only to the technique itself, but to the body movement that accompanies it and gives it strength.
You can't start right off trying to "shrink" your movements. First you must strive to make them very strong and quick, and eliminate the "glitches" in them as best you can. Once this is done (a process that actually takes years of practice), then you can begin to work on compressing them. The idea is to maintain the same amount of power that is generated by a large movement and gradually condense it, making it smaller and smaller...and proportionately more potent.
It isn't enough to simply make the (larger) movements of the techniques themselves smaller; that by itself won't do much except that it might make you look like one of the twelve dwarfs trying to practice martial arts. You have to shrink the body movements, too. This is considerably more difficult to do. As they become smaller and more concentrated, the body movements seem to be felt more on the inside than the outside. This feeling originates in the soles of the feet.
The breath also has to be condensed and as easy as this may sound, it's not.
In Yilichuan senior students are initiated into this kind of training through the practice of the "six coils." It takes time and lots of practice (thus, the meaning of the term "kung-fu").
Not many of today's martial arts practitioners train to reach this level of skill. Most of them don't even know it exists. Of those few that do, not many are willing to put in the required time and effort to achieve it...which is a shame because if they don't achieve it, who will teach the next generation? This kind of extraordinary skill will be lost forever.