TaiJi for Self Defence 10

The Map Is Not The Territory

In the last post I looked at the social and political environments that resulted in the martial content of martial arts being deprioritised in favour of health and fitness.

In this post I want to look at “how” the various arts changed and more importantly the implications for those of us that wish to better understand and utilise the martial potential of the various arts that we study. In order to avoid confusion it should be understood that when I say martial art I am referring to skills of self defence in a situation of non consensual violence, in other words when you are being attacked, not when you are engaging in a sporting competition, or as Anko Itosu (1831 – 1915) Shuri-te stylist, often referred to as the founder of modern Karate said “Karate….It is not intended to be used against a single assailant but instead as a way of avoiding injury by using the hands and feet should one by any chance be confronted by a villain or ruffian.”

In previous posts primarily in the “Form Collector” series I looked at the benefits and pitfalls of form practice. In this post I want to look at what happened to Forms / Quan / Kata (Forms here on foreword) through the transformative period that I outlined in my previous post and consider what the implications are four our training and how we should approach our Forms.

The sub heading of this blog; “The Map Is Not The Territory" is a metaphor created by Alfred Korzybski to illustrate that the way in which we perceive the world (our mental map) is not necessarily how the world really is, due to our mental habits, preconceptions etc. But if we take the metaphor out of the phrase we are left with a truth. A map, the type a hiker might use, can only ever be a partial representation of the real world, territory, that the map details. An experienced map reader can run their finger along a route on a map and use their experience to visualise what a walk along such a route would entail, but no amount of examination of the map would add up to actually walking the twenty miles along that route. A Form is a map it is not combat (the territory), if a form that is well constructed it will help an experienced practitioner to understand and evaluate possible scenarios.

This brings us to a serious issue, how good (accurate) are today’s Forms? Returning to the Map analogy, as we are now deeply into the age of digital navigation fewer and fewer people can actually read a map, so even modern maps constructed with high resolution satellite imagery are used less and less. It is now not uncommon to see some vintage maps hanging on walls serving little more than a decorative purpose, now imagine a scenario where an experienced hiker has a map that he likes because it reminds him of a great walk he has done, but doesn’t like the key at the bottom of the map (the key tells you what all of the symbols on the map mean) he knows what the map means because he’s been to the territory it represents so he cuts the key off and puts the map on the wall.

Sometime later another person sees the map and likes it and draws a copy of it, but to make the map a little more symmetrical and pleasing to the eye he moves a few hills, and changes the course of a few rivers and the locations of a few bridges, but it still looks similar in many places. The original owner can still discern the relevant geographical details, then some time later the drawer of the second edition in entrepreneurial spirit thinks on how much he enjoyed drawing the map and decides to make the drawing experience accessible to more people by creating a painting by numbers version of the map. It’s a little simpler, easier to draw and paint and still looks something like the original. But could you use it to navigate by? Probably not. In essence this is what has happened to many Forms; standardised, smoothed out and simplified, but without some serious analysis they don’t really represent the territory of self defence.

This distortion of forms, while present in many, not all, modern Chinese Arts and Japanese Karate to quite a large degree it is somewhat less present in Okinawan arts (Uechi Ryu, GoJu Ryu, Shorin Ryu and others) and some Chinese arts, particularly those exported from China in the late 18th , early 19th centuries. This is good news for the practitioners of TaiJi and XingYi because we can use some of the information in other arts to fill some of the gaps in our understanding. We can do this because contrary to what some would have us believe, TaiJi and XingYi really are not that different to any other martial art. While some strategies and tactics may vary we are always fundamentally working on the basis of two people each with two arms and legs fighting each other. We can even go so far as to assume that both individuals are right handed, as all Forms make that assumption! Even those that display left handed focused techniques.

It’s easier for practitioners of TaiJi and XingYi to be open to learning from other styles if they can acknowledge the history, albeit somewhat sketchy in places, of the schools’ origins and histories. Both TaiJi and XingYi clearly have their roots in early mainstream boxing schools, I’ve included some images of TaiZuQuan and ZhangQuan showing postures that can clearly be seen in either TaiJi or XingYi or indeed both. I’ve also added an image from Qi Jiguang’s Ji Xiao Xin Shu" (New Book of Effective Fighting Techniques), published in 1560. This book contained a sample of what was thought to represent the best boxing schools of that era. The methods it contained fed directly into the Chen Village and the creation of Chen TaiJi Quan.

So how did we get from established military hand to hand techniques in the 1560’s to where we are today? Referring back to the map analogy above, forms and the techniques they contain went through multiple generations of transmissions and changes. Probably the most profound change was the overlaying of Daoist health cultivation methods, the precursor to what we now refer to as QiGong. This shift of training focus ultimately produced what we now know as the “internal” martial arts. The word Internal should not be confused with soft, this difference will be examined in the next post.

Looking specifically at TaiJi as it’s probably the most ‘modified’ martial art, TaiJi focuses on what are referred to as the eight powers, these are simply eight methods of applying or receiving force. At least one of these powers should be present in every TaiJi technique. One of the effects of smoothing and standardising the form was a greater emphasis on manifesting one of the powers rather than performing an explicit martial technique in each form posture. This loss of specificity of technique and a focus on core shape had the benefit of allowing a greater integration of QiGong principles into TaiJI. One example of this smoothing and simplifying is the technique of Step Back Ride Tiger. In earlier forms this technique involved a step back and a pivot to the right of between 90’ and 120’, in some modern versions the pivot has been entirely deleted with little more than a slight glance to the right and a waist twist of 10’ to the right before returning to the starting direction. I’ve seen several Youtube clips of instructors trying to explain why Step Back Ride Tiger is not White Crane Spreads Wings, it has to be explained because the techniques now look extremely similar.

In the late 1990’s I was fortunate to spend a little time with Master Wang Hao Da a senior Wu style practitioner, known primarily for his pushing hands skills, but he was also one of the first Wu stylists to bring the fast form into public awareness. At the time he said (via a translator) that the fast form can look different, not only between practitioners but performance to performance by the same practitioner. At the time and for several years later this rather confused me and I put it down to something lost in translation. It was some years later when I read a work by Chen Yanlin who was a student of Tian Zhaolin, who in turn was a student of Yang Jianhou, not the more widespread Yang Chen Fu lineage.

In his writings he explained that the form can be performed in two possible ways, with the emphasis being on either blood or energy. “Blood” meaning the focus is on the physical / martial manifestation of the form, while “energy” being a focus on QiGong. Many experienced TaiJi practitioners will; be aware that each posture can have several applications, one simple example is that of range, so a technique such as turn body swing fist can at one extreme be a wrist locking skill while at the other extreme it would be a shoulder locking skill and in the middle an elbow locking skill. So in the “energy form” any variation would be due to the large frame / small frame variation, but in the ‘blood” variation a practitioner could choose to do any one of the three techniques or indeed throughout the form where the technique is repeated vary the technique for each repetition. Hence the form looking different during each performance, this approach is something of a challenge in today’s environment where there is so much emphasis on standardisation.

In summary we have practical issues created through historical circumstances that have to be acknowledged and addressed if TaiJi and to a lesser degree XingYi practitioners need to take into account if they are to maximise the value of their training regards practical self defence. First and foremost what has to be acknowledged is that in all likelihood the “traditional” art that you are training bears little more than a passing resemblance to how these arts originally evolved. Quite simply get over it and adapt.

The next post will look at how we can adapt, both ourselves and our training.