The Two Rivers

                         

 Left to right: Mr. Tang, Master Yan, Nick, and Myself

                 I awoke with a start to the domestic sounds of children playing in a park, and the distant and melodious chirping of birds. Laying beneath a pile of clean-smelling sheets and staring up at a spotless white ceiling, I could feel my groggy, sleep-addled brain slowly regain function as I tried to remember where I was. My inner ornithologist set off alarm bells at the chirpings outside; these were not the birds I remembered hearing in Hanoi. I shot upright and looked around the tidy, spacious room. It was beautifully lit by diffuse sunlight coming in from a courtyard outside, and fresh air made light blue curtains sway invitingly nearby. I squinted into the sunlight and moved to the edge of the bed, beginning to recount events that had brought me there.

                Due to airline issues, I had been forced to fly from Vietnam to Japan, and then back to Hong Kong, where I had planned to visit friends from college who lived in the area. After about 20 hours of travel and a sleepless night, I found them, and we had hit the town for a very, very late evening. My good friend Nick, a native of mainland China with whom I would be staying in China, had managed to drag my exhausted, delirious self through Chinese customs and border control and into the city of Shenzhen, where his family lived. After a night of exploring and partying in Hong Kong, we made it to his family’s apartment on the mainland by around four in the morning, and then there was wine to be had. I had slept like the dead… at least until that point.

                The door opened quickly and quietly, and Nick poked his head in, cleaning the lens of his glasses on his T-shirt. “Charles, you should get up now. My mother will take us to see the Xinyi master.”

                ‘The Xinyi Master’? I had almost completely forgotten, but months before, when I had been arranging to stay with Nick after my study in Vietnam, I had mentioned off hand I would be interested in meeting and possibly training with some martial artists in China. Nick’s mother was an instructor of Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan, and evidently had connections in various martial arts circles around Shenzhen. Given that I had asked to see something “uniquely Chinese”, Nick and his family—in characteristically considerate, polite, and discrete fashion—had arranged it all perfectly, months in advance, without saying a word.

                I dressed as quickly as I could and rushed into the kitchen, where I was introduced to Nick’s parents. Using my Mandarin vocabulary of “good”, “hello”, “delicious” and “thank you”, I managed to converse my way through a delicious breakfast of home-made noodle soup, and before I knew it was being ushered outside to the car. It was evidently a family outing; I was grateful Nick would be along to translate.

                After braving the aggressive traffic in Shenzhen (it made Boston’s drivers look tame and tractable) we arrived at another massive apartment building, parked and went inside. On the third floor, we were welcomed into a beautiful flat with ample hardwood flooring by a sturdy, hygienic-looking fellow with a broad head, neatly combed hair and a strong handshake. He wore a beautifully tailored wine-red suit of traditional Chinese style—precisely the type American martial artists might recognize from Kung Fu films, or nearly any other formal event. His wife was a small and friendly woman with short, well-kept hair and an easy smile. I finally shook hands with a younger man, perhaps in his early forties, in a suit of a similar style, but formal black in color. He had a short buzz cut and stood with tall, relaxed posture like the older of the two. From the way their arms hung at their sides, I was already sure these were the powerful martial artists we had come to see.

                Nick introduced me to my hosts. The stouter, shorter fellow was Hongtao Yan, the head of the Wudang Tai chi school in the area, who teaches various forms of Tai Chi as well as Xing Yi; both powerful internals arts of ancient origin. Nick and his mother had clearly taken my words very seriously; I couldn’t have been more pleased. The taller and lankier of the two, the younger fellow in the black suit, greeted me in fluent English with a strong accent. He had a soft voice but the same firm handshake, the same relaxed movement of the arms which bespoke the capability for great, relaxed force. His name was Jihai Tang; he was a recent student of Master Yan’s. I learned later he had learned English while studying biochemistry at Harvard University.

                Still exhausted from the night before, I let my guard down a little at the informal and initially casual nature of our meeting; Master Yan’s family—including a teenage daughter, aunts and uncles, a grandfather and several young cousins—were bustling about the apartment as we spoke, and the sounds and smells of lunch being prepared had lulled me into a state of ease. The party around me had commenced conversing in fluent mandarin, and my mind wandered as I examined a rack of Chinese training weapons mounted neatly on a nearby wall.

“Charles,” Nick began, gesturing toward the open floor space of the room in front of the weapon rack and shrine. “Sifu says he would like you to demonstrate your Vietnamese martial arts.” Head reeling with exhaustion, I did my best to seem awake and attentive, and obliged cheerfully; I had no intentions of seeming disrespectful when my hosts—both Nick’s family and Master Yan’s—had taken the time to arrange this meeting.

                I performed Long Ho Quyen and Khai Tam Quyen, making occasional adjustments for the size of the room, and bowed nervously to cheerful applause. I was then hurriedly ushered to sit by a beautiful hardwood tea-table, where Master Yan, Nick, Mr. Tang and I enjoyed repeated cups of ceremoniously-poured tea. Master Yan told me about his training and his school of martial arts, and showed an instructional DVD his teacher had made perhaps a decade before. I sat and drank the fine teas—I would later find out from an expert friend that these were some of the most expensive teas in China—as I watched, finding that my cup was stealthily refilled every time I looked away.

We discussed training philosophies and insights, or previous teachers, how long we had been practicing, why people study martial arts, and so on.

                As all conversations about martial arts go between martial artists, more than half of it was spent standing. Inevitably, Master Yan, Mr. Tang and I were on our feet, they demonstrating a set of Xinyi movements, a form, and finally a form from Chen style Tai Chi, and myself some of the internal breathing exercises I had learned from my Aikido training. Watching Master Yan, I could recall learning the forms he demonstrated from a friend and fellow martial artist in my early years of college, but I had never seen the movements performed so powerfully. Master Yan’s techniques were executed with a precision, control, and unity of body that made me feel increasingly ridiculous for the applause I received after my earlier demonstration. When he stomped the ground at the beginning of one form, I felt the whole apartment quake, and when his fists and feet lashed out in various kicks and strikes, a rush of air would follow the crisp snap of his suit’s broad sleeves.

                Through Nick, I spoke my praise of Master Yan’s forms, and explained that I had always wanted to see a master of these internal arts in action. Through Nick once more, Master Yan asked if I would demonstrate some forms from Aikido. Hesitating, I replied that Aikido did not have "forms" per se; it always required a training partner. This was my first mistake.

                “No problem,” I heard Master Yan say in Mandarin—one of the phrases I had picked up since my arrival—and soon Nick was relaying the rest of the message. “He says you should try to throw him.” My heart leapt. This wasn’t going to end well.

                Seeing no point in delaying the inevitable, I closed the distance between Master Yan and I and, in the style of chi sao or double pushing hands, I  put our forearms together and began trying to create an opening to unbalance him. With the sensitivity I had picked upfrom years of Aikido training, I could already feel the impossible rootedness and power behind his stance and posture; I could hardly budge him, and his arms were pliable and flexible, blending with my movements yet with each shift drawing me further outside my own balance. Growing desperate, I began to make more frantic, less “Aiki” (internal, blending) and more “jutsu” (technical, external, physical) movements in an attempt to unbalance him. I advanced, changed our spacing, tried to step around his guard, and even tried to trip him with a foot reap; nothing worked, and before I knew it he had trapped my arms and redirected one of my more ambitious shoves into a push that sent me hurtling back toward the weapon rack. Sparring with MMA fighters, state champ high school wrestlers, Judoka, and other experienced grapplers I had found myself able to shrug off most attempts to cast me off balance, a simple shift of this man’s waist had sent me hurtling out of control; it was the type of feeling one gets when thrown from a bicycle at about 20 miles per hour. Just waiting for impact, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

                But, with equal power, a hand seized my wrist and yanked me back on balance before I could bring Master Yan’s apartment to ruin. He re-established the positioning of our hands. I looked at his face briefly, and could see the calm seriousness of his features; dark eyes had shifted to Nick beneath furrowed brows. He spoke something in a soft and commanding voice. “Sifu says you should just throw him. Just use a real throw, you know, a Judo throw.” I grunted, feeling my face flush; despite myself I was embarrassed and frustrated to hear my best attempts at good Aikido being considered something other than “real”. Using what I had learned of Judo from friends in the past, I slid around Master Yan’s guard, gripped the material of one sleeve and his collar, and yanked hard to one side to pull his weight onto one leg. I would follow with a leg reap, and send him flying to the floor.

                But I didn’t make it to step 1. As I shoved hard to take his balance, I felt like I was pushing a wall. A meaty palm collided with my side and sent me spinning off balance and subsequently to the floor. Master Yan laughed good-naturedly at his easy dismissal of my technique, and said something in Mandarin to Nick. I struggled to my feet, and catching my breath stated my astonishment at Master Yan’s skill, through Nick. “Sifu says perhaps you should try on his student, instead, you can take him off balance.” Said Nick. I glanced at Mr. Tang, who even in calm politeness had a gleam in his eyes; it was the look I’ve seen at many martial arts schools I’ve visited… the gratification of showing an outsider the skill of one’s school, especially the hard way. It is not a malicious intention, and can be quite good natured, but it seems ever-present to me.

                I met the same fate with the younger, thinner, and less experienced Mr. Tang. We locked arms as before, and though he did not feel nearly as solid or immovable as Master Yan, the result was inevitably the same. I managed to blend with and neutralize some of his more ambitious attempts to unbalance me, but I was thoroughly outclassed; if at any moment my best attempts to stay balanced and maintain a unity of body form I strayed just slightly from a powerful stance, I was swept immediately off my feet and went careening to the hardwood floor below.

                This went on for some time, with much laughter all around—my own included, I did my best to remain humble despite the obvious humiliation—until Master Yan decided there might be ways to further demonstrate the power of their training. Calling Mr. Tang, he made a fist and gestured a straight punch, then waved my way and continued in Mandarin. I looked between the two, puzzled, until Mr. Tang spoke, stepping toward me. “Hit me.” He said in the same overpowering accent. I glanced at Nick, who nodded, adjusting his glasses and waving an open hand encouragingly. “Sifu says you should punch him in the abdomen.” I hesitated as Mr. Tang adjusted his posture, then gave a smooth, relaxed, but light hook to the body with my right. It bounced off harmlessly. “Hit hard!” Mr. Tang said emphatically, straightening his posture further. I ratcheted it up to about 50%. “Harder!” Mr. Tang almost yelled. Keeping with the rhythm, I put more of my body behind it. It felt like I was punching an overfull balloon; my fist bounced off in a way it didn’t when striking the heavy bag. “HARDER!” Mr. Tang yelled this time, and before I knew it I was landing full-force punches.

                Now, I’m no professional boxer, and probably if anything a mediocre puncher, but I was hitting him with about as much power as I could muster, and hearing nothing but “HARDER!” in response to each strike. Next, he patted his shoulder casually, unphased by my punching, and said “Kick me.”

                After 5 years of Tang Soo Do, some Karate, and now nearly a year of Muay Thai, I take my kicks a lot more seriously than my punches. But even these seemed hardly to effect him, and I got the same treatment. Kicking as hard as I could muster, I drove my hip through him and sent a fierce left round kick his way; still each time he yelled “HARDER!”, as I got more winded. Nick’s mother cried out in surprise when I started kicking full force, but Mr. Tang handled it without batting an eyelash
and, after ushering me back to the tea table and shaking my hand, went on to display other feats of internal strength, like pushups on the tips of his thumbs, and a sort of inverted headstand. With regards to his earlier feats, “breathing” through my onslaught of kicks and punches, Mr. Tang reminded me of a video I had once seen on youtube of practitioners of Systema (a Russian martial art with internal training methods) who had done the same thing. I find this tremendously impressive; my only understanding of it is the type that comes from having experienced it and knowing it is truly possible.

                The “tea party” continued in the way a tea party is likely to go between martial artists. After a few minutes of exchanging viewpoints on martial philosophy—Master Yan was apparently impressed with my thinking on the subject of styles and the difference between “Western” and “Eastern” martial arts training—we were back on our feet again. This time, I was on the observing and receiving end of a number of chin na, wrist-locking techniques, and throws from Xin Yi and movements of Tai Chi; all of which coincided exactly with Aikido techniques I had been learning or trying to employ earlier in the afternoon. Naturally, Master Yan’s movements were far more refined and powerful than my own; I was nearly thrown into the wall at least another dozen times.

                We returned to the table for another few cups of tea. Master Yan had me reiterate my views on different styles of training. I had been explaining that I viewed martial arts training along a continuum, from the close-minded and competitive to the open-minded and cooperative. I argued that ideally we seek the “middle ground” between the two; where overly competitive training requires too many rules to prevent serious injury or death, and thus constrains realism in practice and the use of valuable techniques for self defense, and overly cooperative martial art, where movements are strictly pre-arranged and, if there is a training partner, they do not resist or react in any way, leads to an unrealistic view of an entirely cooperative opponent and techniques that may not “really work”. In order to get this “middle ground”, I explained it was best to have trained at both ends of the spectrum, and to practice taking the mindset of one while physically doing the other. Master Yan agreed emphatically, and explained calmly that I was truly talking about Yin and Yang forms of training, both of which form a cohesive whole for good practice. He called them “the two rivers”, and explained that both needed to be navigable to really reach one’s destination in martial arts training. There were other rivers, too, all related, and these we discussed in depth as well; particularly “Eastern” vs. “Western” fighting forms, and internal vs. external.

                Before long, Master Yan’s family served us an enormous and luxuriant lunch; Nick explained it was in the traditional style of Shenzhen. I was persuaded to drink half a dozen glasses of strong rice wine with Master Yan and Mr. Tang as a show of mutual respect, and struggled with the combination of that and blisteringly hot peppers in the soup I was eating.

                After lunch, Master Yan gave Nick and I formal lessons in assuming several postures of Xin Yi, and making the first few movements of a Chen-style Tai Chi form. His attention or detail and scrutiny of our posture and form was acute; my legs were burning with exhaustion from staying in a back stance for close to ten minutes while he constantly readjusted my hands, elbows, neck, jawline, hips, then returned to find that my fingertips had wandered off, and my shoulders grown tight while I made some other adjustment.

               He took pictures of us in the postures we were learning, and finally took a number of pictures with us and his family. I was also honored to stand beside he and Mr. Tang in a photograph of the traditional style of martial arts teachers and their students; I recall seeing pictures of Bruce Lee and Yip man taken in the same fashion. Master Yan told me that if I ever come back to Shenzhen, that I should train with he and his students. I told him I would do it in a heartbeat, and hoped the metaphor translated reasonably well.

                After we had said our goodbyes and were lurching and screeching back through Guangdong traffic, I found myself reflecting on the whole experience and how it compared to my experiences in Vietnam. What had at first been an intimidating, if not even belittling experience had, after a show of mutual goodwill and through much conversation, become incredibly inspirational. After spending the last 8 months or so training mostly in external arts like karate and Muay Thai, I had gained a steadily more restricted and simplified view of fighting; it was all crosses and hooks and leg-kicks, and much of the complexity of the classical street-fighting or battlefield attitude had been lost. Though I’m a huge fan of kickboxing as a sport and martial art, it had certainly begun to drain some of the flavor from fighting.

                With Master Yan and Mr. Tang, I was shown glaring evidence that external power and striking alone would not suffice against traditional techniques. Internal power, sensitivity in movement and trapping were all crucial, not to mention the less “sportsmanlike” techniques like knee-pushing, foot-stomping, eye-gouges, strikes using the fingers and different parts of the hand (not possible with boxing gloves), etc. Master Yan had almost literally knocked some sense back into me, and returned my standing on the martial arts to a more balanced, centered, and holistic one. The MMA and Muay Thai training and I had enjoyed before my time in Vietnam, and the forms and kata I practiced with Sifu Duc were all different and necessary parts of a "whole" experience in the martial arts. Returning to the United States, I kept in mind that in my continued journey I should be sure to spend time on each of the two long rivers of martial art.