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.

Forest of Literature, Ocean of Kung Fu

            I awoke at 5:30am after a long night of practicing Kung Fu and talking with Linh and Sifu Duc, and headed over to Ho Giam park to warm up and prepare for that morning’s practice. The weather was cold by Vietnamese standards, perhaps below 60 degrees, and faintly rainy. The air had a clammy, heavy humidity to it, which, in the way that anything short of a hot day does when you wake up too early, had me shivering by the time I was out on the street. That early hour was just about the only time when the streets were relatively quiet and peaceful; a handful of people were awake in the gloomy pre-dawn, sweeping their storefronts or lighting small coal burners to begin preparing breakfast. Sporting my Nam Hong Son Kung Fu uniform and a new pair of flat-soled sneakers I had purchased especially for practice, I must have looked like an especially odd tourist to the early risers I marched past. I received no shortage of curious stares, though without fail I always received a warm smile when I said “Xin Chao”

                I reached Ho Giam and spent a good deal of time trying to bring circulation back to my bruised and stiff forearms, which had been getting the brunt of my conditioning so far. I spent a good fifteen minutes warming up, stretching, and practicing the forms I had been learning (the first, Khai Tam Quyen, I had learned to completion the night before, and the second, Long Ho Quyen, I was about half way through from my previous morning sessions). This practice continued such that when Sifu Duc and Quang arrived, I was already sweating, and in my state of excitement greeted them perhaps too loudly for 6 in the morning.

                They didn’t seem to notice, though, and both remarked (as best I could tell in Vietnamese) on my uniform and new shoes, while ushering me over to a tree to continue butchering my forearms for a time. This time, Sifu taught me a few matching conditioning exercises; putting the fingertips together against the tree’s bark, then kicking the feet out and leaning on the fingers with the head to strengthen the tendons, slamming the palm against the trunk and pulling away with the fingertips clawed to practice grabbing and harden the striking surfaces of the hand, and finally knuckle pushups, of which I had painful memories from my training with the Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan.

                With raw and trembling hands I then commenced practicing Long Ho Quyen (which I later learned translates to “Dragon-Tiger form”) as I had learned it thus far. In typical traditional style, Sifu had me repeat the form a few dozen times, then showed me a new movement, had me practice that a dozen more times, and then began the cycle again. Out of shape as I was after almost a month of nothing but academic meetings and honorary dinners at Vietnam National University, I was really enjoying the workout. We ended practice with the “Dragon Horn” kick I had mentioned the night before, and covering a few options to counter that technique by closing the distance, kicking the support leg, throwing, etc. As always, Sifu’s movements were simple and easy; they looked casual in their level of relaxation, yet there was a formidable power and grace to them; I never held back when I attacked him, and was ever relieved glad he held back in response. At least twice he sent me flying onto the muddy ground so hard my ukemi was put to the test, and I resolved to wash my uniform as soon as possible.

                “Okay, okay.” Sifu signaled the end of class, waving his hand in the direction of the street corner where we always had our dozen cups of tea. “Tra kay si.” I nodded, and using a phrase I had been practicing since the night before, loudly announced what probably came across as “I PAY FOR TEA NOW PLEASE”. Quang and Sifu had a good laugh and nodded. “Okay, okay,” Sifu conceded.

                We went to our usual street corner, and after our first four cups, were joined by Linh. This allowed our conversations to proceed much more smoothly (once again, we had exhausted our verbal conversation skills with the same interview as before; whether I liked Vietnamese martial arts, and whether Vietnamese girls were pretty. I answered positively to both, as before, prompting the same mirth from my companions).

               “Sifu would like you to come to breakfast with us.” Said Linh, downing the rest of his tea as the others did the same. There was a tacit understanding that suddenly we were leaving. I nodded my assent and paid the owner of the tea stand, then stood to join the others. We walked down a nearby street to the type of roadside family-owned restaurant I had come to love in Hanoi, and seated ourselves at a steel picnic table inside.

                Before long we were slurping down massive bowls of scalding hot Pho and chatting excitedly about martial arts through Linh. We discussed the differences between straight punches with a vertical versus horizontal fist, how to get the whole body behind a punch, vital points to strike with the fingertips, and later more philosophical ideas; notably that martial artists of all styles tend eventually to attain a similar level of mastery. It reminded me strongly of Bruce Lee's quote to the same regard; that as long as people have 2 arms and 2 legs, there is only one real way of fighting.

               I was also asked to give details on my time in Vietnam and what I did in the U.S.  We shared a few glasses of a vodka-like rice wine (not my top choice for breakfast) and were laughing heartily by the time our bowls were empty. I had a moment of déjà vu when all three men rose together once more, and Linh looked toward me as he put on his jacket. “Sifu would like you to come have coffee with us.”

                I did my best to pay for breakfast, but was intercepted by Linh, who said this one was on him. He and I hopped on his motorbike, and followed Sifu and Quang to a nearby coffee shop. The world was spinning in a euphoric mix of caffeine high, rice-wine buzz, and the tingling remnants of hot pepper sauce around my mouth; I hardly winced as we wove our way through speeding traffic and narrowly evaded pedestrians; the near-death experience of a motorbike ride in Hanoi was gradually becoming something commonplace, but this type of food-based substance abuse certainly helped.

                Before I knew it, I was seated in a comfortable chair by an elegant coffee table beside Sifu Duc, and across from Linh and Quang. The Spanish-speaking older fellow from the tea stand arrived too, and joined us for a cup of the black, thick, and deliciously pungent brew. Between this, the tea, the rice-wine, and all the soup I had gulped, I made about a dozen trips to the restroom in the space of the hour we were there.

                Sifu’s questions about my training and my experiences in Vietnam became more and more pointed until I realized something was afoot; he had last asked me when I would return to Vietnam, and I had answered that in all honesty I did not know, and that I wanted very badly to have the opportunity to return. By now, he was speaking at length with Linh, who ignored me, and I was oblivious to the conversation. Sifu gestured toward me with one hand and grunted something that apparently bade Linh to tell me something. He turned to me after ordering another coffee, and regarded me seriously.

                “Sifu would like to test you this week, before you leave, so you can practice Nam Hong Son when you get back to the US.” I stared dumbly through my caffeine-alcohol haze, and gave Sifu an astonished look. I managed to bow my head about three times in a second, and gestured that I couldn’t possibly accept such an offer. Mercifully, Linh cut me off.

                “You will finish learning Long Ho Quyen and Khai Tam Quyen, and the face-to-face kata, and you will give a demonstration on class on Thursday night before you leave. Then, Sifu will give you a belt and certificate, and you will have something to remember us by.” I bowed profusely to both of them, and repeated “Cảm ơn” (Thank you) about as many times as I could. Sifu smiled boyishly and nodded, and was out the door before I knew what was going on. According to Linh, he was walking back to his apartment to get the certificate, so they might fill it out with my information.

               By the time I had finished my second cup of coffee, and had resigned myself to a heartrate of 120 beats per minute,  Sifu strolled back into the coffee shop and handed Linh a folder. He curtly interviewed me on my date of birth, address, etc., and wrote these down, but didn’t mention the certificate further or show me a thing about it. Clearly, I was actually intended to earn the thing. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

                We talked for another half hour or so, and in that time I realized I’d never be able to make the Thursday night class and catch my flight to Tokyo later that evening. My heart sank at first when I told Linh, and he subsequently told Sifu, but the two solved the problem in a most unexpected way:
                “It’s all right. Sifu says you will come to the children’s class in the afternoon on Thursday and test there. That way, you can test and still have time to make your flight. You will practice every morning this week, and then test with Sifu.”

                My head spinning with excitement for the upcoming test—and the horrid concoction of Pho, tea, alcohol, and ink-black coffee roiling in my stomach—I was unaffected by a breakneck motorbike ride back to the hotel, and cheerfully thanked Linh before taking my leave. It was only about 10:15 in the morning. It was going to be a long last week in Vietnam.

                The week itself passed in the sort of frantic blur as weeks are wont to do when they are your last in a country; I trained hard with Sifu in the mornings, and in the cramped space of our hotel in the evenings, when the professor with whom I shared a room was out somewhere else and not in kicking range. I practiced knuckle-pushups and smacked my forearms into any hard surface I found on the streets. As days rolled by, I grew more and more anxious.

                Linh came and picked me up at about 4 in the afternoon of our last day in Vietnam. Speeding through the Hanoi streets at early rush-hour, I tried to keep mental track of our turns so I would know how to get back to the hotel in case things ran late, or I couldn’t get a ride back; I couldn’t afford to miss that flight. For the first few blocks along the main roads, this worked fairly well, and I was feeling awfully proud of myself, until Linh slowed, dragging one foot to ease the motorbike into a sharp turn, and surged into what I would have called a cramped alleyway.

                But in Hanoi, it was still a street. And a busy one. The motorbike snarled down the bumpy, uneven pavement about six-feet wide between two rows of buildings, buzzing past people’s feet or swerving around oncoming bike traffic. Once, we had to pull up onto a sort of front patio of a restaurant to let a small car by. This road soon sunk into an urban labyrinth of similar roads; all thickly lined with buildings which loomed far and close overhead, giving one the impression that they were entirely indoors. I lost my bearings completely, and instead was focused on clinging to a bag of gifts I had brought for Sifu (including several bottles of rice vodka and his favorite brand of cigarettes), which smacked into any number of people as we sped by at unreasonable speeds.

                All at once, we erupted out into the open, and I found myself nearly gasping for breath. We roared in through a wide gate, above which was printed a long Vietnamese name which included the word I knew meant “school”. We soon arrived at a clean, tile-floored courtyard filled with children and young adults ages 7-14 or so, all in matching Nam Hong Son Kung Fu uniforms.

                I was greeted by Sifu and Linh’s brother, who was also an instructor. I presented Sifu with my gifts, which included a long, translated thank-you letter  which I had written with the help of a friend. I tried my best to get across how deeply I respected Sifu Duc and his skill in Kung Fu, how much I had to learn, and how he had provided a great inspiration for me to continue my training despite the demands of the rest of my life. “Okay,” Sifu smiled as he finished, nodding his head, and giving my hand a firm shake. He explained something earnestly to me, gesturing vigorously with his hands, then smiled and nodded to Linh.

                “Sifu says you have a great attitude as a foreigner and martial artist. You are very happy to learn from others and you leave your… how you call it, your mind, your ego behind you. He says you can always consider Nam Hong Son your home away from home of the martial arts. Also, he says he is still just a student, that there is always more to learn in Kung Fu. He quotes a famous kung fu saying, you know, ‘Forest of literature, ocean of kung fu’. If all the literature in the world is a vast forest, Kung Fu is even bigger, it is like the sea.”

                I remarked how much I liked the quote, but hadn’t much time to contemplate it; I was rushed to the front of the class after putting my bags down. Sifu, Linh, and his brother introduced me to the class, and I bowed back to a courtyard full of fidgeting youngsters. I sat off to the side with the other red belts, and watched the students of various ranks perform their various forms. The students chanted the verses which went along with each technique in unison. We saw a pair of higher level students (I later discovered one was Sifu’s 13 year old son) perform a complex kata, once again complete with the sort of theatrical intensity I had mentioned in my last post. Then, it was my turn.

                Though performing in front of a group of children should have felt like less pressure than a class full of adults, I found it so unfamiliar and unsettling it may perhaps have been worse. At the very least, I was anxious not to do anything to embarrass Sifu after he had treated me so well the last few weeks. The first few movements of Khai Tam Quyen came shakily, and I caught myself forgetting things I had done a thousand times before throughout the week without the slightest problem. State of mind is everything.

                I gradually calmed as the forms continued, and I made it through them in a blur. Next thing I knew, I was performing the face-to-face kata with the student I had trained with at Ho Giam park the week before, and bowing to the cheerful applause of the children’s class. It was difficult not to smile as I bowed in return, or hide my excitement when Linh and his brother presented me with my certificate.

                I received it, and also an embroidered white sash, which Sifu tied about my waist in yet another show of respect to which I would have objected if I could have communicated effectively. I bowed to the instructors and students once more to additional applause, and was soon surrounded by the class as we posed for a seemingly endless number of photographs. Just like at Heyman's Martial Arts Academy,  I had earned the lowest testing rank of an art, but felt great pride in the training; just to have an association with such great martial artists, and to have earned their respect through hard training, was more than enough, and I had added yet another set of tools to my growing toolbox of techniques and experiences in the martial arts.

                After photographs had been taken, I was treated to a full Kung Fu class of mostly private tutoring with Sifu Duc and Linh. Linh’s brother demonstrated a sword form in two parts, as well as a “Tiger” form. I practiced my forms and face-to-face at least a dozen more times, and a kicking drill with another student, and also got plenty of time to further aggravate the severe contusions on my forearms with conditioning drills.

                The class died down after another hour, and most students had by that time been picked up by their parents. I realized it was about time for me to go, so I thanked Sifu one last time, and exchanged parting wishes with he and the rest of the instructors. Clutching my certificate, I climbed aboard Linh’s motorbike and headed back to the Hotel just in time to catch our shuttle to the airport. Fortunately, I was able to change out of my Kung Fu uniform.

                Sitting in an aisle seat on our JAL flight, I could only laugh when I rolled up my sleeves to eat, and prompted a gasp of surprise from a nearby stewardess. The bruising and impact wounds have since faded, but the Nam Hong Son school has left a permanent mark on my martial art, on my Kung Fu. Even after nearly 35 hours without sleep, on my way to my next destination in Hong Kong, I couldn’t help but feel that some long-lost part of my martial art had been regained; I felt immersed in it once again, in the thick of the training, and was eagerly looking forward to how much more I had to learn. I realized, then, that Hanoi had been something like a port, and I had once more set sail on the ocean of Kung Fu.

A Late Night in Hanoi

Sifu Duc and I, with my new uniform. The man takes on a whole different aspect when wearing his own.

                The weekend after I met Sifu Duc and the other students, I was invited to a formal class in a larger park near the center of the city. After bowing out early from dinner with a friend and doing my best to ignore her advice that I could get mugged, stabbed with a needle full of AIDS, or otherwise assaulted in that park at night, I struck out into the busy streets of Hanoi to navigate my way to Lenin park with nothing but a puny hotel map to guide me. I called Linh, Sifu’s one English-speaking student that I knew of, and confirmed I would be attending. He told me where to meet him at the park, and thinking I had some idea of where that was, I assured him I’d be there.

                Upon reaching the park proper (having performed several death-defying road crossings, no small feet in that city, especially alone and especially at night) I realized that it was absolutely gigantic, and I would not simply be able to look around and pick out some rather conspicuous martial artists, as I could at the park near my hotel. Instead, the place stretched on and on down a main road of the city, and was bustling with people taking evening strolls, attending public dance or aerobics classes, listening to concerts, etc. Linh and I exchanged a dozen or so frustrated phone calls in attempts to find one another. I was 45 minutes late by the time I found him at yet another gate from the one I had been pacing around; he insisted on driving me via motorbike the last 100 yards or so.

                And it was bumping along on the back of a snarling motorbike that I pulled up to a class full of kung fu students; all neatly dressed in black robes with sashes of various colors; I could pick out yellow, blue, white, and red. The men wearing red sashes, in their general bearing, were obviously the highest ranked, and when I saw sifu approaching I knew this to be the case.

                Sifu Duc was an entirely different man in a traditional Chinese kung fu uniform; a phenomenon I’ve noticed with many of my teachers in the past. My Aikido teacher, Bill Gleason, seems to grow feet in height after changing into his Gi and Hakama. The contrast between an old cotton long-sleeved shirt and beautifully sewn silk robe was striking, and I couldn’t help but blurt out “sifu!” and give a traditional bow as he calmly approached with a contented smile. “Cha, cha!” he barked my name, waving a few other senior students to be introduced. He gave their names, and I babbled out my best “My name is Charles” and “Nice to meet you” in Vietnamese while bowing profusely. “Okay,” Sifu said insistently, thrusting a black bundle toward me.
                “He give you a uniform for tonight, and black belt.” Linh explained, putting a hand on my shoulders and pointing to a cluster of bamboo trees nearby. “Go and change into them.” Hearing “black belt” said that way, I failed to realize that black was the typical “no-rank” at this school (which was obvious from the other black-belt students, who had been sent off to a corner away from the class to practice nothing but arm-conditioning exercises), and objected as politely as I could, trying to explain that I was definitely not a black belt. Knowing what I know now, I hope in some ironic way my humility was not perceived as arrogance.

                Urged on, I jogged back to the bamboo patch, stripped down in front of an elderly couple walking a dog, and changed as quickly into my Kung Fu uniform. I enjoyed the feel of it immensely; it was very soft, light, and flexible. I could move easily in it without feeling restricted.
                I jogged back out to the class, where people were generally paired and working individually with one another. Most of the senior students were sitting crosslegged with Sifu by a bench. It looked to be a sort of intermission in the training. “Charles,  come sit down. You should drink some herbal mixture.” Linh said, while Sifu Duc let out a couple “okay” ‘s and urged me to sit across from him. Another senior student in a red belt, a much older gentleman probably around 60, poured me a glass of what looked like black kool-aid from a large pitcher and handed it to me. “It’s good herbs for Kung Fu.” Linh explained as I accepted and took a sip. The taste was like herbal tea and diluted Gatorade; I quite liked it.

At least one of the other senior students spoke English, and Linh translated readily for Sifu Duc, and so I managed to have a bit of conversation while sitting there, feeling official in my uniform and sipping herbal Gatorade. Sifu Duc, as he had at the tea shop, explained with a touch of pride my past experience with Aikido and Karate, and then, presumably, what he had been teaching me so far. He laughingly seized my sleeve and yanked it back to reveal the severe bruising on my forearms, which prompted a lot of good-humored laughter on the part of the surrounding red belts. I mimed the motions I was doing and shook my hands out melodramatically to simulate what I had been doing the last few mornings.

Linh explained that what we were practicing was Nam Hong Son Kung Fu, which a friend of mine later translated as “Great Western Mountain” or something to that effect. Given that Kung Fu is a Chinese style, I tried to extract from my companions whether this was some sort of Vietnamese Kung Fu or a Chinese style practiced by Vientamese, but never quite got the message across, and my companions continually responded that yes, indeed, they were from Vietnam, and we were practicing Vietnamese martial arts because of it. If anyone else has other information on Nam Hong Son, I’d love to hear more about it. It’s a beautiful style of martial arts with many spirited and talented practitioners.

Which brings me to my next point. While I conversed jovially with another English speaker, Linh rose and grab my shoulder “okay, enough talking, time for training.” I apologized quickly in Vietnamese to the fellow I was speaking to, and, feeling a tad sheepish, rushed off after Linh to where the other “blackbelts” were training.

We started immediately with arm-conditioning exercises, which drove my pulped forearms yet further down the road to path to complete annihilation. I continued despite the pain, and could clearly see the exercise in willpower which comes with such training; it took all my concentration to keep on striking; enough that Linh had to call me several times to get my attention. My partner, a middle-aged gentleman, was probably too polite to stop me.

We then began learning Khai Tam Quyen (a rough approximation of the spelling), which was translated to me as “first form”.  The movements were strong and slow, involving a lot of deep front stances and horse stances, and featured primarily one block and one strike executed while moving forward or standing still. The rudimentary basics were absolutely hammered upon, as they should have been, and I was caught dozens of time with awkward footing or a shallow front-stance, having to readjust after a loud reprimand from Linh. We repeated the form with the sort of endless rote repetition that is important for developing body memory. My legs were trembling by the time we were given a break, but I kept right on practicing; it had been years since I had been taught a form, and I had no intentions of losing this one, not while it was momentarily fresh in my head. After all, when would I likely find myself in Vietnam again?

I drilled the form relentlessly until told rather sternly that we were taking a break, and I should too. I nodded reluctantly and instead did some stretching exercises, trying to take control of my breathing, enjoying the glowing heat from my body. There is an curious, very natural and powerful feeling which comes from the correct practice of traditional forms, which I still have not found elsewhere. It is an awakeness, an aliveness, a complete “whole body-feel” which I still have yet to find in practicing non-traditional martial arts or other sports. It is not the same exhaustion and soreness, but an invigorated state; the circulation feels strong and movements well-coordinated. Tom Bisio explains the difference between traditional movements and some more westernized or sport-related movements, and how these would result in such a difference in feeling; interested readers should check out his book, A Tooth From the Tiger’s Mouth, which I reviewed in part in an earlier post.
        After our short break, we began learning a choreographed partner exercise of alternating attack and defense. My partner was the older red-belt who had poured my herbal Gatorade earlier that evening. He was a genuinely friendly and cheerful fellow, excited to be training with me, and to speak to me in the few words of English he knew. He taught me one “side” of the exchange of blows and blocks, and repeated it with me for nearly an hour.  The movements were smooth and performed at first with a sort of Taichichuan-like slowness, though as we gained trust in one another’s blocks we began to execute our kicks and thrusts with more realistic snap and force.

A fellow student and I performing the first kata later that week

I was interested in the way these “kata” were performed by the higher level students, in stark contrast to the way that Japanese martial artists practice. The Japanese (in my experience, in Karate and Aikido, especially in sword practice) way of training kata is a stoic practice of concentration and precise form. The most emotion a practitioner will show is a piercing kiai; all the attention is on the details, the angles, etc. It is clean, sterile, and precise. As we continued, our Kung Fu kata showed a vitality and emotion that would not have been tolerated in a dojo. The movements were loose and relaxed, not imprecise, but adaptive; in that if I took a larger step back than usual in one step, my older partner would throw his kick just a tad deeper to reach me, giving a different cry as he did so. There was an almost musical rhythm to the movement, and it was alive with almost theatrical emotion. As I landed a kick on my partner’s chest at the end of the movement, restraining it so as not to injure him, he made an melodramatic and astonished face, cried out “Owwwaahhh!!” and, stumbling back as though I had absolutely nailed him, fell to the ground and performed a neat back-roll to his feet. Others around us were doing the same with each strike, acting things out as though they were in an action movie.

As a martial artist with a primarily traditional Japanese training background, I was baffled by this type of attitude; it seemed so exaggerated, so fake, so superfluous to me, yet as I took the time to think about it, I realized that these men were actually adding a degree of realism to the training; a degree of emotional substance which might otherwise be missing. Students learn what effect they might expect from a solid hit, and how to relax and adapt if receiving one of great force. At the same time, it adds a vitality and enjoyment to the practice that keeps minds engaged and bodies moving with a precise martial rhythm. I think this may be some of what Bruce Lee was explaining in his lecture on “emotional content” , and what military psychologists have called “tactical performance imagery”. By adding a little imagination, you can get a lot more from a training exercise without losing the reality.

Sifu Duc came over next and critiqued our kata and Khai Tam Quyen, then had us practice some of the real-life applications of movements from the form, demonstrating these at full speed on one of the higher-level students. I was thoroughly impressed by the power and timing of the movements, how seemingly meaningless adjustments in the angle of an elbow or knee turned an opponent’s balance on its head. Sifu Duc took me aside and showed me a few counters to a knife thrust, and also how to jam an opponent’s kicking leg to imbalance them and cut off their changes of landing a blow. After going back and forth with these movements a few times, he waved a hand toward the rest of the class behind us. “Okay, okay.” He explained, and I bowed and rejoined the class, who were by this point all standing in neat rows facing the front of the little courtyard in which we practiced.
        I positioned myself as far back in the ranks as I could, with the most junior students, and followed along as we performed a few rounds of calisthenics, which, though not particularly difficult on their own, were agonizing after a couple hours of hard training. They kept my muscles, especially in the legs, from getting tight and cramped, though, and I was grateful for it the next morning.  Sifu Duc led the class with the type of authority I recognized from watching Kung Fu movies in my younger years, and the faded-black tone of his well-worn uniform added yet more authority to his demeanor; I knew now that the talented yet otherwise unimposing martial artist who had been tutoring me in the park on early mornings was not some local martial artist, but a well-known master in the Hanoi martial arts community. Linh explained this to me thoroughly the next morning when I asked.

Though I didn't understand much at all of Sifu Duc’s lecture, I watched as he paced back and forth before the class and spoke with an earnestness so palpable I felt I understood him outright. From his facial expressions, gestures, and so on, it was clear he was discussing the mission of the martial artist, the drive to develop one’s self, and the moral and ethical codes associated with studying the martial arts. Shortly thereafter the group recited a chant in Vietnamese which I later learned was the oath of the Nam Hong Son school. We then bowed as a group and ended the class with satisfied applause. My fellow students, the youngest around my age, began to slowly disperse, and I was quickly rounded up by Linh and Sifu.

“Sifu says you should hold on to the uniform. You can have it temporarily while you’re here, its alright.” Linh said, gesturing again to the bamboo patch. “Go and change, we should have tea.”

It was at least 11pm by this point, so I figured another hour or so of conversation and fun couldn’t hurt. I rushed back to the bamboo, changed with little concern of who was watching, and before I knew it was on the back of a motorbike speeding down the nearby main road—along the side, and… against oncoming traffic. With professional ease, Linh hopped the motorbike up onto the sidewalk, and, following Sifu Duc’s silver vespa, we made short work of a kilometer or so to a nearby roadside tea stand. There we sat for at least an hour, drinking tea and discussing martial arts. Sifu and I, through Linh, talked at length about Bruce Lee and his philosophies, his fame, and which of his “moves” we liked best. I demonstrated a sort of short-distance side-kick he used that I was particularly fond of. Linh explained to me that the name of the technique in Vietnamese was “Dragon horn”; it was appropriate that I liked it, he said, because I was born in the year of the dragon.

I forked up all of $2.00 to pay for our party’s tea (there were 6 or 7 of us, perhaps), and stood as the rest prepared to leave. I was mentally preparing myself for a rather long walk home, and checking my hotel map, when Linh bid my farewell and sped off on his motorbike, but Sifu gave a vigorous wave of his hand as he climbed aboard his well-groomed vespa “Cha, cha,” he called with a laugh “Okay, okay!”. I bowed gratefully and climbed aboard, and soon we were speeding down the main road (fortunately with traffic) at at least 50 miles per hour. I lost my bearings perhaps a minute into the trip, and spent the rest of my time staring dumbly at the cars, buses, motorbikes, and most of all pedestrians whizzing past us as Sifu wove deftly through the streets of Hanoi, still somewhat crowded at this hour. “Italy!” he explained while pointing to the motorbike. I nodded vigorously, and made my best Vietnamese attempt at saying it seemed like a good vehicle. I think I said something along the lines of “It’s delicious” or “It’s healthy”. Oh well.
        All at once, we reached my hotel, and Sifu Duc graciously dropped me off by the front steps. I thanked him profusely, and watched him speed off. I headed up the stairs, head spinning from an overwhelming evening, and was asleep before I hit the pillow. In 5 hours or so, I’d be back at Ho Giam park for morning training.

Stay Hungry

                In mid December, after nearly 48 hours of travel and half a planet worth of time zones, I arrived safely in Hanoi, Vietnam. As part of a research team collaborating with professors at Vietnam National University on an agriculture project, I would be in the country for a month, and was excited to begin my research—not to mention for a chance to sample Vietnamese martial arts.

                After a grueling first semester of my Ph. D, I felt drained, exhausted, and weary. My training had taken a severe hit as time went on and my workload increased; I was training in Aikido only around once per week, sometimes not at all, and attending MMA club practices about as often, yet still losing sleep to my bottomless school assignments. My body felt weak and heavy when I practiced, and the stress of 10-12 hour days working had robbed me of the true spirit of my training. I was losing my motivation for learning and progress; the intensity of graduate school sapped me of my energy.

                Hanoi was, despite the coal fires and nonexistent emissions standards, a figurative breath of fresh air; in a new setting, literally across the world from my old responsibilities, surrounded by new people, new sights and smells and tastes, I felt refreshed and finally had the time to rest (often at bizarre hours from severe jet-lag), recuperate, and gain some perspective on the whirlwind of the past few months.

                Weeks went by in Hanoi. We met with professors at the university, taught a seminar on biodiversity conservation, traveled 30 hours by train to our study site and carried out field research, and returned again a week later. All the while, we were constantly being fed and pampered, always more tea, another course of dinner, on and on. Though I was regaining some of my energy, I couldn’t help but feel weak, complacent, lazy and spoiled. When we returned to Hanoi, I resolved to start training on my own; all my attempts at finding martial arts schools had come up dry, and I resigned myself to practicing on my own in a park not far from our hotel.

                Every morning, I walked out to the park—about an acre of open space lodged between the mess of tall apartment buildings in the heart of the city—and strolled along the concrete path which surrounded the pond in it’s center. I would find a patch of unoccupied grass, then spend some time on warmup and stretching exercises, trying to gradually work my body back towards the type of shape it was in before graduate school had begun to affect my training. Little by little, I would work myself up to more and more athletic techniques, starting with slow blocking and parrying exercises from my time practicing Wing Chun, to light footwork and shadowboxing, then karate and Tang Soo Do forms and finally full-speed combinations, hopping and spin kicks, etc. In the first few days I would have to rest often, my heart pounding, as I cursed myself inwardly for letting myself slip so far. Recovery was fast, though, and I was soon able to keep up these workouts for about an hour, and return to the hotel feeling refreshed and a bit less ashamed to accept another invitation for a massive lunch of dog or cobra meat.

                Kicks and punches began to sing the way they used to; I could feel the snap of my sleeves with a well thrown backfist or the great momentum of a spinning hook kick tempered by a solid center of balance. I was really enjoying these personal training sessions, even if I was getting an embarrassing amount of attention from fellow parkgoers, who had come mostly to chat, play mah jong, walk their dogs, meditate, or attend an aerobics class which usually started as I arrived at about sunrise. People occasionally stopped, and speaking what little English they could, managed to ask if I practiced Kung Fu or Karate, etc. Given our proximity to Thailand, I was unsurprised that many recognized the kicks and elbows I was practicing as Muay Thai, which precipitated a lot of thumbs up and impressed exclamations I couldn’t understand. If anything could be said about Vietnam, it was one of the friendliest countries I have ever visited, and I received little negative attention.

                One group in particular, though, raised my suspicions. Perhaps my second morning in the park, I began to notice a couple men, always wearing the same track suits and sneakers, working out across the pond. I could never see their faces; they must have been some of the dozens of people who passed by me on the nearby path while I practiced, but I was never able to recognize them… they always seemed to appear in that spot after I had been training for a while, and I never could see where they came from. I would see them doing a number of leg stretches against a nearby wall, and occasionally engaged in exercises that resembled Tai Chi’s push-hands or other free-form trapping exercises. At one point, I even saw a few Kung-Fu looking forms practiced. I watched the men discretely the first day and the next, and was quick to notice I was being watched the same way; I would catch a sidelong glance here and there, veiled usually by some other action, maybe checking a watch or a cell-phone, but I was being monitored steadily and continuously.

                I open myself for criticism as a believer in potential mumbo-jumbo, but I believe martial artists (not exclusively) tend to develop an acuity of perception through their training that lets them recognize others with similar mindsets and abilities; for lack of a less-dramatic word, they can sense, in a way, “their own kind”. Whether I was throwing kicks or not, these men seemed keenly aware of me, I could almost feel it, though they were perfectly discrete about it. My increasing inklings that they were martial artists were increased as they days progressed, and I saw them engaged in more and more training; from attack-defense kata to kicking and punching trees. I knew I had to make contact.

                To continue with generalizations, another observation. Martial artists are like dogs (or just about any other animal, for that matter). When they meet one another, there is potential for violence. Only by following very strict behavioral protocols (for traditional artists, these can be very strict) are they able to establish mutual respect and the grounds for communication and understanding. I decided I should be conscientious about how I went about establishing contact.

                I wrote a Vietnamese friend of mine an e-mail, asking her to translate a letter I had written to the men, which explained who I was, what I was doing in Vietnam, that I was interested in studying Vietnamese martial arts, and asking if they would be willing to teach me. Within a day, I had a response, and a member of our research team (with better handwriting than my own) had copied it on paper for me. The next morning, I awoke even earlier than before, around 5:30, and rushed to the park in spitting rain; I wasn’t going to miss a chance to catch these men in action, and deliver them my note. I reached the park to find it empty, and started warming up on my own. Half an hour passed. Still no one.
                My heart was sinking as I moved on to practicing alternating finger-jabs and lead side-kicks, when suddenly I noticed a few figures moving across the pond. There they were again; the same men, the same track suits… somehow they had passed by me once again without my noticing! Like before, I was being watched covertly.

                Heart pounding, I ditched my routine, walked back to the path, and took it around the pond toward them. One of the men was stretching with his leg propped up on the wall around the pond, the other was throwing loose high kicks in a slow, deliberate manner. I stopped on the path and looked toward him, gesturing with an open hand toward his kicks. “Kung fu?” I asked, using what seemed to be people’s general term for martial arts (I had tried to pronounce the word for martial art as my friend had taught me a few days before, but couldn’t tell the difference between that and the word for “wife”, and I wanted to take no chances of confusing the situation or offending anyone). “Vang, vang.” (“Yes, yes”) the fellow responded, and I approached him with a friendly and polite smile, pulling out my messily folded note and offering it as unthreateningly as possible with both hands.

                He was a short, stout fellow with a shaved head shining like a cue ball, a strong chin, and mean, dark eyes. In a Mafioso-style 80’s track suit and stark white sneakers, he looked like someone involved in some brand of violent organized crime. I prayed I wasn't making a horrible mistake.

               Hee took the letter and read it over sternly, nodding faintly a few times, and abruptly called out to the other nearby. I nearly leapt out of my skin, realizing I had hardly breathed the last minute or so. “Anh uy!” he barked, then, looking to me, gestured to his approaching companion. “Sifu,” he muttered. My eyes turned to the other.       

                A taller, slenderer man, about my height, with a dark complexion and a squarish face approached us and asked cue-ball something in a voice that came powerfully from the back of his throat. He had almond-shaped brown eyes which shone with an acuity that kept me at a distance, and straight black hair combed like a schoolboy's. A sparse, dark moustache hugged his upper lip, and stretched with a brief and toothy smile as the Mafioso read him my letter. “Okay.” He said in a quick, quacking tone before he had ever even looked at me, turning away to walk further into the grassy clearing and motioning me to follow. I couldn’t believe it; it was happening. I fumbled to remove my fleece, extracted my cellular phone and buried it inside, then hung them both from the branch of a nearby tree.

                “Okay okay.” Said Sifu as cueball continued his stretching kicks nearby.  I was realizing this was probably about as far as either of their English went. I decided it was best to show them my Vietnamese went a bit further. “My name is Charles.” I said in my best, probably atrocious Vietnamese. The two paused for a moment, then seemed to pick up on what I was trying to say. “Chah,” Cueball nodded solemnly, sure he had pronounced the name perfectly, then, pointing to himself. “Quang.” He gestured to sifu. “Duc.” I repeated both names with a curt bow and an excited smile; my heart was pounding. “Chu” (Uncle), said Quang next, pointing to both he and Sifu Duc. In Vietnamese, everyone is referred to be an age- and (sometimes also sex-specific) pronoun, and these are a prerequisite to social interaction. Because the two men were more than a decade my senior and presumably younger than my parents, I was to address them as “uncle”; I stuck to addressing Duc as Sifu. He didn’t mind.

                “Okay okay okay.” Sifu erupted again with a look of mock exasperation, waking me from my excited stupor and idiotic grin by smacking a small tree beside him hard with his palm. He waved me over to stand with him beneath it's spindly branches. Quang came too, and faced off with Sifu in a horse stance. The two alternately brought their forearms together in an inward-sweeping block, once on each side, then collided again with a lower inward-sweeping block, clashing the other sides of each forearm together. Right against right, left against left. This continued for a few seconds, and I cringed at the loud impacts of bone on bone. Neither seemed to notice, and kept right on going with a sort of mechanical precision, not to mention power. The blows got successively stronger, and not an eyelid was batted. “Okay.” Sifu murmured and waved me over. I took a deep breath, hurried into a horse stance, and started the exercise with him.

                I’ve done a bit of work here and there to condition my forearms, but nothing could have prepared me for this. It started off innocently enough, just relaxed and loose, as he taught me to put my body weight behind the strike/block, relax, and just let it fly. The movements got faster, the collisions harder; I could feel my forearms throbbing with the type of pain one gets accidentally meeting shins while sparring in karate or Tae Kwon Do. The man’s arms felt like steel.

                The movements increased to such a pace I was having trouble keeping up; it felt like my arms would break before he stopped. Fortunately for me, one of us (probably me) got their next strike out of order, and, missing contact, we stopped. “Okay okay.” Sifu said, and he gave another quick, reserved smile as I chuckled as good-humoredly as I could, rubbing my stinging forearms. They were already raw and bright pink.

                “Okay.” Said Sifu, and pointed to the nearby tree. Quang walked over, squared off beside it, and began doing the same exercise with the tree; his forearms smacked loudly against the smooth bark, and dewdrops fell around us with each impact. I clenched my jaw and tried to keep the color from draining from my face. I lined myself up across from Uncle Quang and began crashing my smarting forearms against the tree. Each impact felt like I was hitting a three day old bruise. Quang increased his pace and forcefulness, shaking the tree infront of me, as the dew drops fell wet and merciful on my sweating forehead. I grit my teeth as he motioned for me to strike harder, and did so despite my body’s every indication that this was the worst idea ever conceived. So it continued; I was concentrating so hard on striking ever faster and ever harder, on managing the pain, I hardly heard Sifu’s next “Okay!” until he had repeated it a

 few times. He gave a boyish laugh at the expression on my face as I turned back toward him.

                He motioned to Quang again, who, by this point, was smacking the sides of his hands against the tree in an overhead chop, hardening what the Japanese call “tekatana” or the hand-blade, the outer surface of the hand on the pinky side. With the same resounding smack, he drove his hands against the tree alternately from above his head. I did the same.

                “Ba cham!” said sifu Duc. “Vang,” I replied hesitantly, assuming I had misheard him. He couldn’t have meant three hundred, right? He probably meant ba muoi, thirty. I cranked out thirty of the hardest overhead strikes I could, shaking the tree and feeling the impacts ringing through my hands. I stopped and turned toward him expectantly, shaking my hands in the air. “Ba cham, ba cham!” he repeated, and Uncle Quang skipped over, then drew the numbers “3 0 0” in the dirt with a stick, repeating “Ba cham.” Matter-of-factly. My heart sank. I had overdone my first few strikes, and would pay for as my last 270 led on. My hands were red and swollen by the time I had finished.

                “Okay okay!”. Sifu lined up with Quang again. This time, Quang threw four punches; two to the face, two to the groin. Sifu blocked these easily with the forearm blocking routine from before. “Okay.” He said again, then turned and walked away two paces, pointing behind his back for me to take his place. I did. This was going to hurt.
                The punches came fast, and without thinking I blocked them as crisply and strongly as I could. I could hear the harsh smack of bone against bone. Even worse, seconds later I could feel it. Punch after punch, block after block, it continued. As before, the pace and impact quickened, and my arms were trembling with pain; I knew I had to continued through it, though. These men were going far out of their way to teach me, and to quit now would be a great offense and breed bad spirit between us.

                I persisted, until at last I managed to completely whiff a block, losing my place in the sequence, and a rush of air hit my nose as Quang’s compact, rock-like fist stopped a centimeter or two from my nose. It would have taken my head off. “Okay okay.” Sifu called from a few feet away. I bowed to Quang and turned, only to see sifu in a puffy black jacket, pulling a black beanie onto his head and lighting a cigarette.
                “Tra cay si, tra cay si.” He repeated, which I understood to mean something about tea and something about a tree. He motioned out toward the street nearby. Quang had left my side and was putting on his jacket too. I rubbed, wincing, at my forearms as I pieced together that we were going out for tea. I thanked Sifu Duc and Uncle Quang profusely for teaching me, and they responded with typically taciturn nods, faces a grim, fatherly sort of expressionless. They were both now dragging contentedly at thin cigarettes and waiting for me to get my things. I sprinted over to the nearby tree and grabbed my fleece, but couldn’t dream of putting it on; my heart was still pounding, my face dripping with sweat. Even in the cool of a Hanoi winter, I was burning up.

                Quang hopped on his motorbike and went on ahead of us. I think Sifu Duc explained that to me, but I haven’t a clue what he said. Through my broken Vietnamese and a lot of martial art charades, Sifu Duc and I worked out that I had studied other martial arts in the past as I followed him up to where we would have tea. I told him I had studied Karate and Aikido. He asked if I had studied Muay Thai, and made a motion like the elbows I had been practicing most of last week. I nodded, and repeated “Muay Thai.” He nodded solemnly and took another drag from his cigarette, returning his hands to the pockets of his voluminous coat. It took me a moment to realize, but Sifu Duc, in his cursory examinations of my technique from across the pond, had figured out precisely what other art I had studied, and probably knew a good deal about my training than I did.

Right to Left:  A Student of Sifu, Uncle Quang, Sifu Duc, 

and myself at the shrine near our tea stand

                We met up with Quang at a streetside tea stand (a set of small stools around a teakettle and giant thermos) and paid about 10 cents each to sit or squat and drink the scalding, robustly-brewed green tea. Quang and Duc were excitedly interrogated by the other tea-drinkers on their new (and so blatantly white) companion; they were apparently regulars and conversed readily with them. With a lot of pointing to me, I suppose they explained my situation; I heard “Aikido”, “Karate” and “Muay Thai” at least once, and our new acquaintances laughed and smiled, either patting me firmly on the back or pointing and offering a thumbs up in a friendly, if half-mocking show of admiration. "Number one!" a man in his mid-thirties said with a gap-toothed grin, pointing my way. I shook my head. "Khong" ("No"), I said as diplomatically as possible, pointing instead to sifu Duc. "Number 1! Sifu!" There was a lot of hearty laughter; obviously more at my general goofiness than my stunning Vietnamese humor. I continued sweating profusely as the glass of steaming tea scalded my palms, but the sting was lost in the noise of the rawness from a few hundred impacts against a smooth-barked tree.

                Quang showed me a few exercises to keep my wrists from locking up as my forearms swelled from the training, and some ways of slapping and striking certain pressure points to get muscles to relax around the shoulders and neck. I conversed as best I could with my limited Vietnamese, though in about an hour’s time we had established only that I was twenty-four years old, had practiced Aikido for 8 years, and that yes, I agreed that Vietnamese women were very pretty.

                After some time, another student of Sifu Duc arrived; one who spoke English. Linh was a tour guide, a few years my senior, with a round face and heavy brows, a serious demeanor which broke easily into a kind smile. He spoke with a strong Australian accent, which he explained he picked up from his English teacher and from the tourists he tended to work with. He relayed Sifu’s questions to me and translated my answers, and helped the discussion along considerably.
                “Sifu says it’s alright if you want to train with him. You’re alright.” said Linh, “he got to work with you on the basics, and your arms and legs are good, but inside, something is weak.” I felt stung by the comment at first, but was honored at the honesty and brusqueness of it. It was at this point I knew I wasn’t being patronized or led along; these men weren’t going to sugarcoat anything for me. That was just how I wanted it.
                “He will train with you every morning in the park.” Linh continued with daunting certainty, “So he will see you tomorrow. Thursday, you will come train with the formal class at Lenin park." It was around this time that I realized I was going to be running late for a visit to the University, and still hadn't collected my things or eaten breakfast. I explained this to Linh, and, using his favorite catchphrase, he told me dismissively that it was alright. I expressed my thanks as thoroughly as possible, shaking Sifu’s and Quang’s hands at least three times, then gulped down the rest of my 4^th glass of tea and took off back toward the Hotel.

                My head was spinning as I hurried along the busy Hanoi street; it was almost rush hour, and the roar of the motorbikes was becoming deafening. I felt elated, energized, almost trembling with intensity. This was at least partially due to several glasses of potent tea on an empty stomach, but there was more. I felt all at once a sort of return to the intensity and passion which has motivated me in my training for years, and which got me involved in the first place. I had re-ignited some spark of ambition, of need, of… hunger to learn and practice the martial arts. My mind didn’t feel clouded or sluggish or weak, but inspired, like I had found my purpose again, reattached to the foundation of my training. I was eager to spring forth once more and continue my journey in the martial arts.

                Any martial artist who has practiced for more than a few years knows that inspiration and personal drive can at times be dampened by other obligations, personal and emotional issues, and so forth, leading to a lull or plateau where progress seems to stop and training feels stagnant. A key part of mastery, I think, is not the ability to avoid such occasional pitfalls altogether—this may not be humanly possible—but to persist through them and overcome them time and time again. I feel unbelievably fortunate to have met Sifu Duc and his students at Ho Giam park; they helped me rediscover that inspiration and get my training back on track. I hope my fellow martial artists can have similar experiences when they feel they have hit a wall in their training. Always remember: stay hungry.