Method

不二法門

The one and only way

"Do you know what I shall study, I asked?

But... Yourself, who has ever studied anything else, he answered smiling?"*

Before they became obsolete, old martial arts practices were a training leading to a possible good career. Money, fame and glory always being the main motivation for most people, they were high in demand and it was quite hard to get into a school. Until relatively quite recently, people used to queue to try to get a master, coming bearing gifts with no guarantee to be admitted as a student. It was said that to become a student, you had to be gifted, diligent and liked by the master. Nowadays, of course, it's quite the opposite.
Wong Kar-wai in his movie "The Grandmasters" has quite captured this change with one of the main characters who goes from being one the persons to be seen in the equivalent of the best club in the city to a simple teacher in the equivalent of a suburban street crowded with competitors. This, of course, has had a profound influence on the way arts are taught. Where students had to be totally devoted they have, nowadays, to be encouraged every step of the way. 

Having to teach to a happy few selected for their talent and whoever wants to learn are two very different things that cannot be done in the same way. What has to be done to be able to carry a tune in a Karaoke and what had to be endured to become a Castrato are really not the same things. The evolution of old practices into a leisure product for the masses influenced by the theories of modern science has deeply influenced and changed their teaching methods. Old methods were about change, trends and personalisation with a great part, if not all, insisting on self-discovery. They were anything but a mass product following a precise process and predestined to be successfully applied to most people, but a set of general rules setting a tendency to be rectified according to each person's specific case. That is why, for example, good Chinese pharmacopeia will never meet the requirements of modern medicine. It was never meant to produce a precise formula working on the masses. Basically, it was a tool to set a formula with some common ingredients according to the sickness but adding others according to the patient. The main idea in the old methods was that the teacher was a guide directing the student through his own discovery. Apart from a main set of rigid rules concerning the hazards and the perils of the training and the method, the rest was up to the student and his cleverness, if not genius, and hard work. The student had to appropriate what was taught, some schools talking about "stealing the technique". That is why it seems interesting to compare the different ways of teaching.

Step-by-Step Explanations or Self-Discovery

This extract from the Analects of Confucius resumes very well the kind of passion, dedication and cleverness that was expected from the students in the old days: "If I raise a corner and one does not come back with the three others, I shall not repeat myself"**. This is, of course, a far cry from nowadays leisurely training where a student has to be explained over and over every corner, one at a time. Selection was hard during those times and students that were only just training the bare minimum were sure to be left behind. Also, a student did not only have to copy exactly what was taught to him, but to make some modifications according to his/her search of the moment, try to look further. The teacher would, then, tell him/her if it was going in the right or the wrong direction. Nowadays, when a student leaves his teacher, he may suddenly feel that his sudden independence is leading to lot of progress. This is due to the fact that, alone, he has no choice but to think by himself. In the old days, the student was required, almost from the beginning, to do so.

Copying or Imitating

There is a saying in Chinese Martial Arts often used when one imitates animals, but that actually can be applied in all cases: "象形取意", imitate a form in order to obtain its essence. Nowadays mass training often relies, within a school, on a strict copy of techniques and routines, books, videos, exams within recognized organisations standardising everything. The elders conceded that every one is unique and cannot be trained exactly the same, that a tall sturdy body moves very differently than a short skinny one, so that it was more important for the student to discover what lies behind a move than just trying to reproduce every details of it. One of the methods was to live at his/her master's place. Immersing oneself in the rhythm of your teacher's life, trying to imitate him fully, being able to finish his phrases... was one of the fastest ways to study.

Strict Rules and Total Freedom or Trends and Opportunism

Change and chaos being at the centre of the study, the elders believed that one could set a trend, a tendency towards better or worse, but certainly not classify things around just right or wrong. It was then more a question of being in a virtuous or vicious circle. That is why one could be right but still making things worse because he had put himself in a vicious circle, the principles determining the virtue or vice of the trend outperforming the supposed benefits of a precise exercise. A very simple example concerning everyday life can be given: It is good to exercise everyday but it is bad to exercise while you are feverish. So, health and fever make the trend, exercising in itself being neither good nor bad.
Nowadays, at the two extremes, we find schools which are ruling very strictly what is supposed to be right or wrong, almost religiously, while others, often in reaction, profess total freedom, often also very religiously. In other words, the choice is often between to have to copy exactly in every detail or to do as you feel. In older practices, it was a question of trend, going in the right or wrong direction. This method brought flexibility, bringing often a hierarchy between what was more important, could be harder to change, and what came second, could be modified. But this flexibility, like anything flexible, was within a range, you could not do everything, any change had to be justified, it was certainly not up to one's feelings. For example, a lot of practices considered that alignments below the waist and for the head, governing balance, were to be changed with only extreme caution while the rest of the body mattered less. In other words, where one would put his/her feet, and the position of both ends of the backbone were a crucial matter while the angle of your weapon secondary as far as the use of one's body would be concerned. Neither absolute rules nor total freedom, it was a very demanding training because you had to justify in length the reasons behind your training. Hence, 'this is right, or wrong' or 'It's how I feel' would have been very insufficient. 

Because of change, a rule trumping over every other, opportunism was ultimately what would have to be followed. It was sometimes just about doing the right thing at the right time, supposing an understanding far beyond blindly following rules or doing whatever comes to mind. Hence, some schools were even going to the point where they considered that you should not care about what your opponent is doing but just do what you have to... 

Feeling and Sensation or Visible Effect

Perception can be deceiving because of sensations and feelings. "Feels like" temperature and real one are often two different things. Martists cared less about feeling like dying than really being killed. That is why 真, real, genuine, was at the centre of their practices and they would be very careful about their feelings and sensations. For this, any practice, and especially internal ones, were very careful to base the success of their trainings on visible changes on the body. Hence the tenderness of the muscles, the fullness, or even roundness, of the bones, the clearness of the iris, the flatness of the stomach, the presence or absence of sweat, the different kinds of sweat, the resistance to cold or heat, the sounds made by the articulations... For example, you could then feel good, in perfect shape, but know from different visible signs on your body that actually rest was greatly needed. Of course, as a hobby, the feel good factor is often more important.

Precise Rules or Riddles

There are a lot of sayings in the martial arts, often seemingly setting a precise set of rules. While teaching as a hobby a large number of students, they are very useful. However, in the old days, when students were less, and carefully selected, every one of them was a special project. The aim was for them to get the clues to understand by themselves, which actually made those sayings, like for a lot of other teachings of those times, riddles. By example the famous "沉肩墜肘", sink the shoulders and drop the elbows, is religiously practiced with students thinking of putting both articulations in a precise alignment. However, it was actually a riddle in which one had to find what would lead the shoulders to sink and the elbows to drop without having to think about those. Said otherwise, sink the shoulders and drop the elbows are the result of something, not something to do. That is if using the riddle method of course.

Contradiction or Oxymoron

To allow a student to discover by himself, a teacher would often make two statements that seemed totally contradictory, leaving him to find a way to conciliate them. Once again, it is very hard to use the paradox method to teach a hobby for the masses, any contradiction being too disturbing for people who are used to precise rules and right or wrong.

Same Repetition and Fixed Principles or Evolution

As training changes one's body, it was believed that a student had to change his/her way of training accordingly. It was never about repeating over and over the same movement to reach an impossible perfection, but to change it according to the new abilities training provided. New abilities, new principles too. Of course, training nowadays being never close to what it was before, it is all more about getting accustomed to a move than transforming one's body in order to get new abilities. A classic example of old training was from straightness to roundness. Hence the double meaning in some schools of 挺, meaning to (physically) straighten up for a beginner who had to train with the arms as straight as possible, but meaning to bulge once a student had reached enough fascias flexibility and had the ability to lock some part of the body like the chest, arms naturally describing a circle.

Fan and Friend or Teacher and Father

In the leisurely world, everything goes, and people can look either for a normal teacher, or a friend/teacher, or a coach, or even a wise person to be respected, admired and idolised. From fan clubs to friends sharing a passion, you can find all the types of relationships between the consumer and the product. Before, the teaching of old martial arts being professionally orientated, it was mainly about efficiency. If there was obviously some Confucian influence on the way the elders saw things, efficiency remained the main goal. It is then necessary to understand that the term 師父, teacher/father, implies not just a simple teacher/student relation but a very clannish system where the teacher was the head of the clan and the father to his students. This had to do with what Chinese people call 緣份, fate which brings people together, we can choose friends but not family one would say. It was different and stronger ties because they went beyond just liking. Stronger ties meant, in this particular instance, to find a profound bound where the devotion of the student and the love of the master would make them go the extra mile, the father wanting nothing but the best for his children who, themselves, were trying very hard to make him proud. It is certain that a consumer hobby can never achieve this type of relation and the adding efficiency it brings. Nowadays, on one end of the spectrum, you have the fan and hate clubs. You recognize them easily, the fan clubs are always training in the shadow of their masters, considering that they will never reach their divine boxing level, 神拳, a very popular denomination in China for very good Martists. Not to seem too indoctrinated, they normally credit their master with one or two imperfections, like having a bad temper, but would never raise any shortcoming as far as his martial level is concerned. Hate clubs are usually coming from fans disappointed from not achieving what they were expecting, often behaving in the total opposite of fan clubs. On the other end of the spectrum, we find those who totally reject this kind of apparently submissive relation, wanting to be treated as equal if not as friends. They have then a much less passionate relation, but maybe a more suitable and healthy one since this is just a hobby nowadays after all.

Regular and 24/7

This difference is quite known. A good training was, in the old days, not only during the official hours of sweating, but any moment of the day. Hence eating in the horse stance, always sitting in the lotus posture, sleeping on a rope... A lot of schools would also use the monastic ways in order to make training the only thing around which one's life revolves. Of course, it was meant for people that were both gifted and passionate. This life was actually bringing joy and excitement to students, especially at a time when there were so few other entertainments. The difference of results is obvious. Take someone who goes to classes in order to learn how to correctly align his/her lower back, but once the classes are over, walks and sits not aligned because life is too busy to think over and over every minute of the day to correct one's posture. What kind of posture do you think his/her lower back is going to take in a stressful situation, the one trained a few hours a day at most, or the one taken the rest of the day, walking, sitting and sleeping? Ancient training didn't have this problem, people just had to take the correct posture the whole day long, or at least think about it untill it became natural. Their life was training, training was their life.

Endless for Everybody or Elitist Formation
In the leisure world, it seems that one who enters a school is meant to stay there almost endlessly. Seeing the little time and efforts in comparison that are spent for training, it actually seems quite logical. However, like any study or military formation, martial arts where not an endless study, if only for those, very few, who wanted to spend their lives as the equivalent of researchers. From a quick formation of a couple weeks or months to a long one, there were a lot of different choices proposed in the field. For the more elite school, there was often three level of mastery, basic, around three years, intermediate, around five, and advanced, around ten, 小成, 中成, 大成***. Those studies were very much elitist, students would either succeed or be left at the level they could reach, the teacher stopping to teach them if he decided they could not go any further. Furthermore, students were often tested in their motivation. A classic legend is the selection of Shaolin's elite by having students carry buckets of water up some stairs. Those buckets had a hidden space in the bottom where some weights were added without the carrier's knowledge. Those who would reduce their pace because they felt the load was heavier would only go through the basic formation. Those who thought they must be tired, how come this same load seems heavier, but did everything to maintain their pace were ultimately chosen for the elite training.

It is all, at first, about the method. It is what leads the way. That is what makes interesting, for those who are willing to discover the old practices, to try to understand how they were taught, and why in these ways.

*"- Savez-vous, dis-je, ce que je devrai étudier?

- Mais... vous-même, répondit-il en souriant, qui a jamais étudié autre chose?". L'Entrée en Bouddisme, Bruno Bayle de Jessé, Guy Trédaniel Édition (The Door to Buddhism, Bruno Bayle de Jessé, Guy Trédaniel Edition)

** "舉一隅不以三隅反，則不復也", 論語, 述而 8.

*** There is actually one more level for those studying the Way, 道.