Episode 142 - Fishing Birds

This picture was taken at Zhou Zhuang near Shanghai.

Common cormorant can be trained as working birds. The birds are captured and trained to fish for their masters. These birds are great fishermen. The bird keeper will install a ring around the bird's neck before setting it to work. The bird jumps into the water and catches the fish as soon as it identifies one. The bird will of course try to eat the fish but the ring around its neck prevents it from doing so. The bird keeper can then take the fish out of the bird's throat.

Nowadays, fishing by common cormorants has become a tourists attraction activity. The birds and their masters become performers of fishing shows.

Episode 141 - The Art of Chin Na

When I was young, I was facsinated by the arts of those sifus who could easily submit a big guy with chin na technique.

It looks as if the rationale behind a chin na technique is simple: You use the strength of your arms / body to control a weak point (usually his joint) of your opponent (the "Weak Point Principle"). However, you will soon find that this is not the case, as you can not do it as smoothly as your sifu.

Your opponent will never cooperate with you as your training partner does. Your opponent will move his limbs and body instinctively, and naturally, when he feels a pain in his joint. Once he changes his posture, the optimum position to control his weak point changes. Either you let your opponent go and you change to another technique. If not, you will find yourself end up locking horn with your opponent.

Ironically, the Weak Point Principle easily becomes another version of the Strong Man Principle.

The reality is: Whenever a sifu perform a chin na technique, he will first do some tricks to destroy the balance of his opponent. Once the opponent's balance is altered, he loses his ability to adjust his body position and is easily submitted to the chin na technique of the sifu. The best sifu can do the unbalance together with the chin na at the same time - the chin na technique is also the unbalance technique.

The key is to control your opponent's balance, not just his joint or weak point.

Episode 140 - Museum memories

My family visited the Hong Kong Museum of Art today.

The Museum holds a number of important events this year. This time, it brings to us some interesting exhibits from the British Museum.

The exhibits are housed in two exhibition halls in the Museum. The Egyptian Section attracted the attention of most visitors. This section shows a mummy and many beautiful Egyptian artifacts.

I have been to the British Museum many times and this event only exhibits a small portion of the British Museum collection. Whilst it did not give me any surprise, it brought back to me many beautiful memories.

There are many great museums in the UK. Apart from the British Museum, I like the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the National Gallery. It's worth investing one whole visiting day for the collections in each of these museums.

A museum is a place where you can explore, appreciate, imagine and learn. I recall that I once saw a group of school children having a study tour in the National Gallery. The children sat in a circle in front of a painting. Out of curiosity, I and the other tourists gathered behind in the outer ring. The teacher stood in front of the painting and gave a lesson to the children (and the other museum visitors) on how to appreciate the artwork.

The painting was "Ulysses deriding Polyphemus" by Turner. It showed some Greeks ships sailing away from the coastal area. According to the teacher, they were fleeing from a giant's cave having hurt the only eye of the giant. The teacher then asked the children if they could see the giant in the painting. Everyone was quiet. The teacher then pointed to an upper portion of the painting. We were curious as we could not see any giant in the painting not to say that portion. A child then raise his hand and said, "I saw it! Here is his hand." I then realised that there was a hand image in the upper portion of the painting. It was merged with the cloud in the sky. It looked as if the hand was turning backward rather than outward for the escaping Greeks. The teacher then asked: "Why the hand is up there in that portion of the painting and in that shape?" The child answered: "The giant's eye is painful. He is soothing it with his hand."

The audience applauded.

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.