Episode 139 - Body Bow - What Exactly It Is?

Taiji practitioners like to talk about the five bows in the body. It is said that "Fa Jing" is like shooting out an arrow.

However, very few know exactly how the bows operate. Without knowing how the bows operate, one can never shoot out an arrow successfully.

The most important member of the five bows is the body bow. Many contemporary writers say that the body bow is the spine. According to them, what you need to do is to curve your spine and make it straight again, just like pulling the string of the bow and release it, in order to send out the power.

It gets you nowhere if your follow this method.

It is true that you need to move your spine in order to send out the internal force. However, it cannot be done by curving and straightening your spine in the normal way. You need to activate your back muscles and the related power channels in the very first place in order to utilise the power of your body bow. Before your back muscles are activated and the related power channels opened, the purported curving and straightening of your spine is meaningless - You only curve / straighten your body by contracting / extending the muscles in the front part of your body. Your spine is still sleeping.

You need to think about "fa jing" from the perspective of exercising coherent bodily force. It is not just a matter of opening the bows (all five bows). It is the coordination of the whole body, whereupon the whole body contracts or extends coherently and in a very short slice of time, with your back performing the decisive role.

Assuming that you have activated your back muscles and opened the related power channels. The next step is to find out the way to pull the string of the bow. The method is to contract the back muscles and then extend it. It is the converse of opening the string of a physical bow where you extend the string first and then release it to let it contract again. The post on spherical power has already disclosed the secret of this mechanism. It is the expansion of power that send the power arrow out. You cannot send out the arrow by the other way round.

Episode 138 - Money Toad

Remember the post on Princess Frog?

The gold toad in the Liu Hai folklore has been depicted by artists of different generations in various forms and shapes. However, regardless of the forms and shapes of these gold toads, they have two common features - (1) the toad is three legged; (2) the toad has a coin with it.

The object in the photo above is a Yixing purple clay teapot modelled on the mythical Liu Hai gold toad. Yixing is situated in the Jiangsu Province of China. It is the home of the unique red/ purple clay, from which clay the famous teapots are made.

I purchased this teapot from a shop in Beijing many years ago. I was attracted by the appearance of this strange teapot and decided to bring it home as soon as I saw it. I was curious about the identity of the animal but the shopkeeper was not able to tell me what the teapot denoted.

This teapot has been sitting in my cupboard for many years. It was not until I conducted some researches on the Liu Hai folklore, after a visit to the Temple of the Deity of Matchmaking in Hangzhou, did I finally discover the true identity of the creature.

A typical gold toad model has a coin in its mouth - superstitious people like to keep one at home with a view to attracting fortune.

My teapot toad is obviously not so money-minded. The coin is on its back, with a lovely baby toad sitting on the coin.

I don't mind if it does attract fortune.

Episode 137 - Seals of the Emperors

These are the impressions of certain imitation seals of some of the late Qing Emperors.

I obtained these impressions during a recent visit to the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

It is a Chinese art tradition that an owner, or an appraiser, of a painting used to affix his seal to the artwork. If it is a famous artwork, you will usually find a large number of seal impressions on it. If the artwork had once entered the royal palace, you can even find the Emperor's seal impressions as well.

I am not particular attracted by such practice of affixing one's seal to a great painting, as the seal impressions unnecessarily occupy a portion of the painting surface.

Having said that, I do agree that these seal impressions have their own artistic qualities.

Episode 136 - Dayang Yihao

Dayang Yihao (Great Ocean No. 1), China's deep-sea research ship, is visiting Hong Kong and mooring at the Ocean Terminal.

Judith read the news about the visit a few weeks ago and noted that the ship would open to visitors during her stay in Hong Kong.

Each of Judith and I sent a letter to the University of Science and Technology, one of the sponors of the event, to apply for the visiting tickets. Each letter applied for 2 tickets. According to today's newspaper, there were 5,000 tickets for the public, but the University received over 50,000 applications. So the University drew lots. We were lucky and got 4 tickets!

As we got one extra ticket, we invited one of Chiu Yin's classmates to join us today.

I know very little about deep-sea research, but I believed that it would be an enjoyment to board a ship and have a look at something unfamiliar to me. The doctrine of "Defamiliarisation", which I learned from my literary theory studies, has always been a golden guideline that brings live water to my heart.

The beautiful white ship, the long boarding ladder, the crew's rooms, the research centre and the various strange equipment knitted together in an orderly manner. Together with the friendly crew members, they presented before me a new horizon of life, a different view of looking at our beautiful planet, and gave me the chance to see, talk and listen to people from different walk of life. Judging from the environment of the ship, the life of a deep-sea researcher must be interesting, rewarding and relaxed without work pressure.

The pressure, if any, can easily be washed away by the great ocean.

Episode 135 - Balance, Unbalance

Remember the discussion on TADB?

At the beginning of the taiji martial art training, a practitioner learns how to maintain his balance. At the later stage of the training, it is the reverse. A senior practitioner should learn how to make use of the force generated by the lose of balance. This is not a situation of really losing one's balance. The unbalanced position is somewhat "intentional". It is "created" as a result of "following, sticking, adhering and connecting" to an opponent to such an extreme that one's balance can no longer be maintained.

A skillful practitioner can, however, make use of the power produced by such an "unbalanced" position to uproot his opponent and, through uprooting the opponent, maintain his balance again. It's just like holding the hand rail in a moving train to maintain one's balance. The power as generated by an unbalanced body is not enough to move a train, but it is more than sufficient to uproot an opponent.

This is the conversion of balance and unbalance, the conversion of Yin and Yang.