I wouldn’t have hit the youth in the kidneys on the underground platform if Ronan hadn’t been there. I had little choice and no time to think, I had to be in the moment and hurt him with a static Tai Chi Nei Kung technique that I had never used in that way before. An epiphany.
Epiphany is from the Greek word meaning a coming to light, an appearance, a manifestation. In modern parlance it is a revelatory manifestation of a god or divine being and thereby has come to mean a sudden flash of insight into the essential nature of something or someone or an intuitive grasp of reality. I have had a life full of epiphanies.
In the Iliad it is the gods who make the heroes blind to reason, blind with hatred, anger, lust and envy; they’re at it still, but sometimes even a god loses focus and control and in that instant it may be possible to have your epiphany. The greatest hero in that book is Odysseus. He was not a god or even of divine descent; he was an ordinary man, but he always had a plan. He always tried to operate out of reason, not emotion. After so many years of blindness, I try to do the same.
One time I asked my master to demonstrate applications to my students with sword against spear. He said, “Impossible” and so I did it myself. He then said, “Ah, that is very clever!” He had never thought of it because his old master had taught him only on the basis of sword against sword, or broadsword against spear. Of course, if really attacked, he’d have had no problem in doing it. The late Robert Trias wrote a book called “My Hand is My Sword”; my sword is also my hand.
Albert Efimov met me for the first time in France and said that he had heard a lot about me. I told him that some of the stories were even true. He said he heard that I loved martial arts and asked to push hands. Albert is rather aggressive and I didn’t understand his essential nature at that time. I guess the fall from the horse was still hurting me so I hit him without hitting him. He sent me a fax one week later identifying himself as the Russian I’d hit in the face with his own hand and asking me to come to Moscow to teach sword fighting. I guess that hit gave him his epiphany.
Those Russians. Best students I ever taught. Albert took me to meet Konstantin V. Asmolov from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Konstantin is a geek, a typical internet nerd. Tall, thin, hunched and four eyed. Nobody in Western Europe has heard of Konstantin, yet he is one of the most knowledgable swordsmen you could ever meet. I had two hours in his company talking and exchanging ideas and looking at ancient Chinese and Korean texts. I went home and the first time I picked up a sword everything was new, I finally understood and was like stout Cortez silent on that peak in Darien with all his men as he gazed for the first time on that lonesome ocean. Epiphany.
Young Kie came and told me he was a swordsman and wanted to start learning Tai Chi sword. I told him I’d charge him double until he finished the form to my satisfaction. His questions have even made me go back to re- read Liu’s “The Chinese Knight-Errant” and Musashi. Thanks to my Russian friends I can now begin to understand and teach him at an appropriate level.
I have had many talks with Kai and Ilpo about Dim Mak and pressure points and suddenly one day when pushing hands I understood how it had to be, control, qin na to close or seal in order to Dim Mak. I took the guys to eat some bear kebabs in Turku to thank them for their help.
Philippe has taught me so much about wine and next time I drink Chateau D’Yquem, I’ll know how to taste it properly. I was showing him Fair Lady Works At Shuttle and was going into the turn to do the next one when I realised for the first time, everything is something. Monster epiphany.
It is fairly obvious when extending the arms or feet that you are hitting the opponent, it is less obvious what is happening when you retract or coil them. Most people go through their whole martial arts career practicing their forms without thinking about any of this. Practicing like that may be fine for producing a tranquil mind, but it will be difficult for them to advance their understanding of what they are actually doing.
It seems to me that the forms are arsenals of movement and that these movements can be individually applied or combined together in an endless variety of combat possibilities. That is the value of forms; those old Chinese guys knew a few things.
I guess as a teacher one of your responsibilities is to make it possible for your students to have epiphanies. I just came back from the first European Tai Chi Championships in Utrecht. My students and students of my students. They did not win much more than 20 golds and 50 medals all in all. I guess that was also some kind of epiphany for the other teachers and styles.