Cycles, Awakened Application

拳理需靜悟，拳技要勤修

Boxing principles need to be calmly awaken, boxing skills must be diligently cultivated.

功到取成

Fetching when the skill is there.

Even for Chinese speakers, the martial art language seems obscure, if not totally incomprehensible. As far as a being an oral teaching stressing on self-discovery, it seems quite opportune to have such tool, but it has, of course and like anything, many drawbacks. Indeed, before even getting lost in translation, people often end up going astray when using terms having more than one meaning, not applying the right one to the right training.
Indeed, apart from the natural confusion which often exists between the martial arts theory and pure philosophy, the will to discover deeper meanings also pushes the students towards avenues they can intellectually understand but are unable to physically achieve. Hence, there is an old saying pointing out that a student shall neither be stupid nor too intelligent and, if there are only those two kinds available, the dense should be preferred over the smart one. It is first important to understand that theory is not rules to be learned by heart and understood, but awaken to. It is then essential to realise that when using theory, “A set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based”, any principle coming from it can only truly be actual if it has a real impact on one’s training for the least.

I. Academic Or Awaken To

Reading this blog, one may be overwhelmed by all the theoretical gibberish it uses. Firstly, this blog should be regarded as a mere written tool and cannot provide unfortunately anything more. Secondly and more importantly, if one has attached too much importance to the theories developed, he/she has missed the point. Indeed, as it is mentioned in “About this blog”, the aim is to explain an approach, a method in fact, not to give rules and principles to be strictly followed.

The study of the martial arts theory should actually mainly be self-discovery, but in a very systematic and steady way.

1.1 Discovery

Training is a self-discovery, it is not a question of repeating over and over the same movements and principles until saturation, but to use those to awake to new ones. Certainly when starting, one has to learn a few moves and principles to know where to go, but then it is a question of growing by oneself, the teacher being just a stake making sure the progression follows the right direction. As a stake, he/she remains of utmost importance, having to be present 24/7 until the student can grow straight by him/herself. Of course, leisurely modern training changes the rules, students being unable to spend enough time training or to be with their teachers, awaking to basic principles and reaching body transformation taking years instead of months at best. Still, this blog is about describing the old ways, even if they have become totally obsolete. Therefore, the first quote uses the character 悟 (awaking to, apprehending, perceiving, becoming aware), a term often used in martial arts and some other disciplines to describe a special pondering and active process. This goes far more than just knowing, understanding or even mastering.

1.2 Systematic and Steadily

Studying martial arts theory is a calm, steady and systematic process. It has to start from a very basic understanding to evolve to more and more profound ones, often using the same character or saying as a tool (see Cycle, Evolution). That is why 气, translated until now most of the time in this blog as vapours, represents a basic understanding needed when one starts to ponder the implication of vitality in power. It may, as will other characters and sayings, be translated otherwise in further posts as to stress on some other aspects of such a notion. Because it revolves around discovery, step by step is a cornerstone of the study, one could not leapfrog in the old days as it is often the case nowadays, but should become fully aware of one understanding before moving on to a deeper one.

The second decisive point about theory in martial arts is, of course, that is has to go hand in hand with an application, it cannot remain just an intellectual understanding (hence, again, the use of awakening).

II. Pure Theory Or Applied

Because martial arts theory could be quite profound and obscure for those who haven’t reached a certain level of understanding or body transformation, intellectualisation was and still certainly is a pitfall we all so easily fall into. Therefore, the first quote is a way to remind the student that they are two sides in one’s training, a theoretical and a practical one, both having to be simultaneously considered. Furthermore, in internal arts, awaking to principles goes hand in hand with body  transformation, hence the second quote. It appears then necessary to always have a practical training application going along with a principle. Too often, martists fall into the two traditional pitfalls of trying to find an all-purpose definition and not contextualising.

2.1 All-Purpose Definition

We all tend to try to find an all-purpose definition for terms or sayings which basically were meant to have more than one level of understanding. Unfortunately, playing for the least on polysemy forbids from having such definition. There are quite a lot of terms and obscure sayings which cannot have an only one purpose definition, the infamous 气 being one of the typical examples. Hence, having a definition exclusive of all others is often a trap in which a lot of people fall in, especially when such definition most of the time does not go along with any kind of precise training. Even 沉肩墜肘 “sinking shoulders, dropping elbows” actually knows more than one possible translation “heavy shoulders, weighting down elbows” corresponding to another type of training, which makes contextualisation a very important thing in training.

2.2 Contextualisation

Martial arts language pay extra attention to the training context in which a saying or term is employed. Not contextualising a saying or a term is another shortcoming often found. Indeed, when it comes to translation, it has become a habit of not translating certain terms because they cover more than one meaning or they work as a metaphor. If it is certainly possible in other disciplines, as far as martial arts are concerned, it is a blatant mistake. Therefore, to each training actually corresponds a certain meaning. In this sense, 气 will be translated as vapours in 不通氣則喉出，通則頭出 “Obstructed, the vapours come out the throat; unobstructed, they come out of the head”, because it corresponds to a type of training designed to improve vapour circulation and, at a certain stage of training, the student can see vapour coming out of the trachea, then the forehead, then the top of the head, where the frontal and parietal bones meet*. On the other hand, in 以氣為主，以力當先, 气 would better be translated as vitality or even “feeling full of energy” when it concerns a particular training meant to have the whole body shivers. Then “Feeling full of energy to direct, strength must come first”** points out that the shivering training comes from vitality, a certain way to fully mobilise one’s organs, but it has to be done with a fully tensed body, certainly not a lax one, which would be hurtful.

Another example is 沉肩墜肘 quoted earlier, which correspond to the outcome of a correct relaxation and body transformation in “sinking shoulders, dropping elbows”, a passive process, while it is an active one in its meaning of “heavy shoulders, weighting down elbows” and correspond to the so-called bamboo training after one is finally able to tense his/her body through the locks.

Becoming a leisure product, internal arts are more nowadays about rules to be learned and followed to the letter. Training and theory are more and more standardised, sometimes even in the name of tradition, putting aside the fact that old internal arts were about personalisation and change.

*One shall remember that 气 when meaning vapours describes a process of interaction between liquids and heat. The vapours coming out of the throat or the head actually refer to external vapours, not the internal ones. To keep things simple, the vapours coming out of the body are a reaction of the heat needed to create other vapours inside the body. This type of training actually uses something somehow very similar to the gustatory sweat process by warming up the body and increasing the metabolism but without gulping any food and while mobilising all the organs. As it was mentioned earlier in this blog, some breathing techniques include mimicking eating, another way, apart from the peeping thief techniques, to learn how to mobilise one’s organs.

**To be compared with a former interpretation: “Vapours direct, strength must come first.”