Excerpt from Master Ren Gang’s The Heart Treatise of Taijiquan
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translated by Mattias Daly
Some thoughts on traditional Chinese martial arts
When the video of Xu Xiaodong and Lei Lei’s arranged fight suddenly went viral in 2018 it inspired a large number of people to discuss and even attack the traditional martial arts, and some went so far as to mount an assault on traditional culture in general. Thankfully this furore eventually led to some fairly in-depth conversations about Chinese martial arts and the general state of traditional Chinese culture.
The various lineages of Chinese martial arts were all founded by people who experienced actual combat, and developed tricks and methods for striking and grappling, and then trained intensely. Wildly distinct styles of martial arts came into being because their creators all had unique experiences, but whatever their differences may be, they are all devoted to learning how to strike an opponent with strength, effectiveness, hardness, and speed. While they may once have been formidable, in all honesty traditional systems and methods have been left far behind by modern mixed martial arts. Comparison under controlled conditions shows that in terms of strength, speed, and even technique, the effectiveness of mixed martial arts training is a world above what comes from traditional training with stone weights or heavy staffs. To cut straight to the point, traditional Chinese martial arts have not kept up with the times in terms of combat effectiveness because they long ago divorced training from real fighting.
Brazilian jiu jitsu is a traditional martial art, but the Gracie family established an academy that each year requires new methods to be extracted from members’ fighting experience at the same time as old techniques are constantly improved upon. As a result of the Gracies’ research-oriented approach to real fighting, not only has traditional jiu jitsu avoided becoming an object of derision, it has in fact become a style that other martial artists humbly seek out in search of instruction. The spirit of these martial artists is something that we should all emulate.
I do know some genuine martial artists who are committed to studying and experiencing all manner of ancient, modern, foreign, and Chinese styles in their dogged pursuit of knowledge of real ways of fighting. They constantly improve upon themselves and cross the globe in order to try their hands against the best fighters they can find. As a result, some modern mixed martial artists have even arrived at my door to ask for instruction. All of this shows that there is a ray of hope that the traditional Chinese fighting arts will keep up with the times, but the people who really and truly understand the essence of the traditional arts are few and far between. Those who achieve themselves in the traditional way leave questions of speed and strength behind quite early on, as only in doing so can one find the place where the true tradition of Chinese martial arts continues to live. Those who worship speed and strength submit themselves to the limitations inherent in those two factors, and may even harm themselves in body and mind if they pursue them too rabidly. After all, humans are subject to the laws of nature, and as such there are sometimes unbridgeable chasms between two people’s capacities. If one’s training, in effect, amounts to trying to develop the strength of a bull within the body of a goat, then the angel of death lurks close by. One need only look to the fact that many Thai kickboxers die young to see my point illustrated.
Now that traditional Chinese martial arts have lost the advantage in terms of training speed, strength, and techniques, can they still lay claim to any superior factors that modern mixed martial arts has yet to absorb? Indeed they can, but they lie in the realm of the so-called internal martial arts, which modern practitioners of traditional martial arts have more or less forgotten.
Let us examine taijiquan. Its name refers to using taiji philosophy as the basis informing one’s approach to combat, to which the word quan, or fist, refers. If this philosophy is used in pursuit of good health, then what one has is “taiji exercise,” not taijiquan; if it is used in cultural pursuits, then the result should be called “taiji culture”—again, not taijiquan. However, nowadays there are a great many confused souls trying to use “taiji culture” as a guide for training in “taiji combat.”
There are currently two major false paths where taijiquan practitioners become lost. The first path is trodden by people who simply do not believe that it is possible to overcome an adversary without relying on physical strength; whenever these people fail against an opponent, they presume the reason lies in a lack of strength. For them, the word taijiquan is little more than a brand name plastered on the doors of their martial arts schools, while behind their doors they sweat away trying to build physical strength. Naturally, taijiquan practitioners are not truly specialized in strength training, and as such they end up helpless in the face of those who are. Thus, whenever this sort of taijiquan practitioner fights with a grappler he or she only has two choices: submit, or else completely disregard the teachings of taijiquan and start fighting just like a grappler. When they encounter boxers and strikers they are just as unprepared. Did Yang Luchan earn the name “Peerless Yang” by training this sort of taijiquan? Does the sort of art that only teaches you how to get into an awkward, tangled mess with your opponents have anything to do with the taijiquan upon which “a feather cannot come to rest and a fly cannot land?”
The second mistaken path is walked by those who cannot use strength but are at a loss as to what else they could use. They end up incapable of acquitting themselves even against the stragglers wandering on the path I just described above. Their end result is the sort of taiji exercise that is only useful as a healthy diversion for senior citizens.
Taijiquan’s ultimate secret: Making use of emptiness
Typically, martial arts ability develops through a process that goes from knowledge to reacting to feeling. In other words, learning a martial art’s “knowledge” means training in order to turn the specific reactions that the creators of the art developed into bodily reflexes. After repeatedly training so that one has the ability to react in the prescribed way, one then moves on to “feeling,” which means refining this reaction while actually sparring. The goal is to become even better at reacting in the desired way.
For those who have learned martial arts this way, one’s opponents must attack in ways that fall within the scope of what one has trained to react to if one is to prevail in a fight. Furthermore, one’s reactions have to be sufficiently accurate and swift in order for them to succeed. In reality, only a small number of relatively simple reactions can be trained up to the point of adroitness. If one is taught to train a hundred different reactive techniques, there will be no way to achieve mastery over any of them, and all one will end up with is a galimatias of “flowery punches and embroidered kicks.” This is why it’s said that you need only have truly mastered a single move in order to win most fights.
In terms of the abovementioned course of progression, there is no question: the traditional martial arts possess no advantage over modern martial arts whatsoever. However, if we turn the discussion towards authentic taijiquan training, we see a different kind of progression, one in which the most important goal is the recovery of a certain state of awareness and the abilities that correspond specifically to this state. These abilities accrue from and are sublimated from awareness itself. They are not a form of habituated reflexivity based upon accumulated knowledge and training.
Taijiquan originated from the Daoist philosophical milieu and went on to spur an evolution in martial artistry. If the Daoist aspects of thetraining are eliminated from taijiquan, then it becomes training in musculoskeletal reactions in which taiji is nowhere to be found.
The most profound aspect of taijiquan is its clear distinction of yin and yang. To be able to distinguish yin and yang, the student must cultivate awareness and the abilities that flow from awareness, not knowledge and reactions. What must be trained forth is the capability to naturally perceive all objects and phenomena while in a state of motion, and to have the body be capable of spontaneously responding to what is sensed. The essence of this art is found in training to create these capabilities.
The above may sound excessively mysterious, but in practice it is quite the opposite. This sort of state is not limited to taijiquan—I recently discovered that it can be found in skiing, as well. If a skier uses knowledge to try and prepare the movements that his or her hands and feet make while flying downhill, this will only cause the skier to fall. To avoid falling, a skier has to enter into a state ungoverned by knowledge and analysis. From this state, a type of dynamism based on raw perception springs forth, and the skier’s body constantly makes adjustments in accord with the terrain. This sort of perception has nothing to do with thought or decision making—it is pure awareness. The ability to instantaneously respond to changing circumstances on the basis of awareness is called gongfu.
Of course, what I just described can also be applied in martial arts practice. Yet it is here that we often bear witness to the misunderstandings so many people have with regards to how taijiquan should be trained. Specifically, their misunderstandings tend to center upon the word “song,” which loosely refers to relaxation. Many people interpret song as simply meaning to slacken the body or slump downwards relaxedly. The flaccid way in which so many people train actually makes the body’s ability to respond to changes increasingly clumsy, which is precisely the opposite of what the Treatise on Taijiquan describes with the words “a feather cannot be placed atop me, a fly finds nowhere to land.” Relaxation or song in taijiquan is the state of dynamic, spontaneous responsiveness to change that is birthed by highly refined sensitivity. It’s not what is typically meant when somebody heaves a satisfied sigh and says, “ahhh, I feel so relaxed right now.”
Another misunderstanding lies in the way in which many taijiquan practitioners attempt to deal with adversaries’ attacks by relying on analysis and calculation based on previous experience. This is never the optimal way to do things, as it never allows one to transcend the plane on which only the physically fastest and strongest prevail in combat. The supreme approach always lies in perceiving one’s opponent using natural awareness and then responding on the basis of this awareness.
Skiing can be used to illustrate this point, too. While one skis the ground beneath one’s feet is constantly changing at a blinding pace, so if one attempts to predict and analyze, a crash is inevitable. In any complicated, fast moving situation, it’s impossible to make calculations that take all factors into account, much less to keenly react on the basis of these calculations. Conversely, if one has reached a certain stage through proper training, then even in nerve-wracking circumstances it is possible to be aware of every fluctuating factor. If one’s body is relaxed—song, not limp or flaccid—then it has the ability to remain poised in a state of responsiveness to all of the changes rushing through one’s awareness. If one can ski like this, one need not worry about falling. In taijiquan, reaching this level of skill is described as the process of subtly transitioning from “the mind commands the body” to “the body follows the mind.” In short, if one wishes for one’s taijiquan to truly be useful as a martial art, this is where the path begins.
Today, taijiquan’s greatest enemy is students of taijiquan themselves, as they have destroyed Wang Zongyue and other predecessors’ system for developing the power of awareness and the gongfu that corresponds to this power. What most people train instead are useless reactions. For instance, before pushing hands, practitioners think about the best ways to control opponents and to prevent being knocked over, whereas the essential teaching is clear: before pushing hands, one must let go of the ego and follow the opponent, as that is the only way to make use of this spectacular method for training awareness and the responsiveness that flows from it! This misapprehension of the core teachings is the reason that today most people use pushing hands to train a type of reactivity meant to prevent being knocked over. The fact is that this rigid way of training is utterly useless as preparation for real fights, and that’s why taijiquan generally seems to pale in comparison with other arts. The only way to win in combat with taijiquan is to appraise one’s opponent’s condition with lucid awareness, and then physically respond to his or her condition in accord with the principles of taijiquan’s thirteen forces.
Now, how does one cultivate awareness? The simple answer is that awareness can be cultivated at all times, not just during taijiquan practice or challenging activities like skiing. Zhanzhuang was designed in part for training awareness. However, one must be clear that zhanzhuang does not mean trying to assume a low horse stance and hold it so steadily that somebody could balance two brimming bowls of water upon one’s knees. This kind of training is ludicrous. The proper way of doing zhanzhuang is traditionally described as “having one’s hands be like aquatic plants, one’s feet as though standing upon empty space, and one’s head as though suspended by a silken thread.” This means that one’s arms must feel like an empty, corked bottle floating atop water. The buoyancy thusly created then very subtly lifts one’s waist, which itself in turn controls the rest of the body. Having one’s feet be as though planted in emptiness means letting them seem to hang from one’s legs. The instruction to feel as though one’s head is suspended from a silk thread is also a reference to the feeling that one is standing in space.
The state of a person standing in zhanzhuang should be no different to that of a person soaring down a ski slope. One must be in control of oneself when practicing zhanzhuang, so one must gently lift the waist and remain sensitive to what the body is feeling. These conditions, when ripe, allow the thing we call awareness to emerge.
If one persists with practice, the further one’s gongfu develops, the more one will experience that things lying beyond the contours of the body can be made use of. After one is able to perceive the potency of the empty space surrounding oneself, there remain still higher realms of experience. For example, if one wishes to ski downhill on a black diamond course, merely making the body song will not be enough—the dynamic responsiveness that bodily relaxation yields is too narrow in its scope and its capacity to meet this challenge. However, if one can continue to song until the scope of one’s perception comes to include the space around oneself, one will become capable of freely and naturally changing in harmony with the terrain. Keeping one’s body balanced and staying in balance with the space one’s body occupies are two entirely different states.
Similarly, as one’s ability to maintain states of acute awareness grows, the range of one’s capacity for sensing and responding will also constantly expand. As this range expands, the energy one produces will increase. This is because any shift in space has the potential to act as a wellspring one can draw upon to create energy. This is why it is common to see true masters of taijiquan make only the slightest of movements and then send their opponents sailing away. To onlookers it may appear that the master struck the opponent, albeit lightly, but what occurred was actually the result of the totality of the space occupied by the master and the opponent moving as one. The energy contained in a blow produced by the entirety of a space vastly exceeds the strength contained in a blow produced by an individual’s musculoskeletal system.
Again, the more one’s gongfu grows, the more it will be apparent one can use everything in the environment beyond one’s body. The physical strength that comes from flesh and bones is very limited, but there is no limit to the energy in space. Thus, as one trains one will eventually return one’s strength to emptiness, in return for which one will become a part of the totality of the energy in emptiness. This result is the true meaning of “refining shen to return to emptiness.” In actuality it means totally blending and merging with one’s surroundings. This gongfu is also called “the individual and the universe joining as one.”
Post-Scriptum: Mattias Daly is already working on his next publication, entitled ‘Ten Discourses on Daoist Alchemy’. If you wish to support Mattias’ endeavor to make more classics available to English speaker, please visit:
