Attaining This Power
April 18, 2002
Today I’m gonna talk about something that means to me what metal and other metallic types of music must mean to Dennis.
All of us probably grew up watching those wicked kung fu movies where people use “noi kung” or inner strength to defeat armies of opponents. I’ve had an interest in martial arts since I was 15 and through these years, I’ve seen my fair share of people who preach inner strength. Words like chi, or ki, tai-chi, and qigong all come to mind but I can honestly say 99% of all the stuff I’ve seen is pure bullshit, aimed at those who want to become good at a martial art really quickly.
Anyway, until I started learning a “soft” martial art called Yi Chuan (literally fist of the mind or will), I never really tried to pursue any sort of inner strength training. I tried it for a year but never really got anywhere because it was too slow and passive for me to enjoy. I thought it was bullshit because I didn’t feel any different in terms of power or speed or even health benefits. Well, one day I was at class and my teacher and I were practicing something called “sticky hands” - it’s the primary wing chun training technique. I suddenly realized how fucking strong my teacher was. I’m not talking about a high school bully who’s 100 lbs bigger than you strong, I’m talking about holy shit he can snap me in half strong.
I was fighting just to stay on my feet. With every small movement, I felt my whole body almost lift into the air, smacking into the wall. Then, he used more force and guess what… I DID go flying into the wall. I remember the hitting the wall and getting up and asking him “how did you do that?” I forgot his answer. Let’s compare this to another member of the class who was always slightly better and slightly faster and slightly stronger. When we were training, I would never have to fight just to balance, I could spend my attention on trapping him or getting in that punch. With my teacher, I never got a chance.
So after that day, I realized that that was what real inner strength was. My teacher isn’t a big person. He’s shorter but bulkier than me. Skeptics can argue that he has a lower centre of gravity and I would have a higher one and it was easier to lift and push me, but I was braced and balanced for his attack. Also, there’s another guy who’s roughly the exact same size and proportion to him and he sucks ass. He could have never sent me flying the way my teacher did to me. Still, he never told me how he trained to get that sort of power. I know it took him decades to get to that level, but even so, he wouldn’t share his training techniques. That kind of pisses me off about teachers. Many will never share the one thing that makes them better than their students.
I’m getting back into training every other day now but it’s all “outer” stuff. I want to learn more “inner” stuff. It’s so easy to copy “outer” forms and techniques. Anyone with working eyes can watch Bruce Lee do a few side kicks and copy his form and even his idiosynchasies (that’s what I did) but it’s impossible to watch someone perform some inner training and copy it. There’s a lot of subtle things like breathing and how to exert force and power that make copying impossible. Damn it. Don’t bother suggestion learning tai chi chuan or yoga or whatever the hell they’re serving at your community centre. I stress that 99% is bullshit rule again. It’s not that tai chi chuan is not good (it can be brutally devastating) but it’s that most teachers don’t know how to teach it for my purpose.
