Another Take on the Parries

I'm thinking of buying a fish. Betas seem like low maintenence creatures, and it pleases me to think I could name it some rough and tough name like Knuckles, Lefty, or Enzo. I've already staked out a space on my desk with a little sign that says " Reserved for Knuckles the Fish."

 

Over the weekend, before I came up with this fish plan, I got to practice fundamental cuts with my friend Alex. She doesn't know anything about swords, but she does have an active curiosity about all things martial. While I was showing her the eight attacks, she showed me some really interesting variant angles for Jiao (Wrapping) that I hadn't considered. This just goes to show that all sources are potentially valuable for insights.

 

Before we move on to the last two techniques, I want to offer an alternate view on the three parries. While talking to my buddy Robin who is from Singapore, he offered a different translation of the word Dai. He said it might be more appropriate to translate Dai as " to bring to or with you." If this is the case, then the idea that Dai pulls your opposite's attack toward you and deflects them just enough to miss fits well with some descriptions I've read that Dai is analogous to Roll-Back in Tai Chi. This suggests that we might be able to think of Dai as yielding and deflecting, Ge as blocking with neutral energy (without forward or backwards movement) and Ya as pressing or pushing energy.

 

Dai is commonly depicted for high attacks, but if you think of it as bringing and receiving at attack, you should be able to use the same blade energy for middle and low attacks. Same would hold true for Ge and Ya I think. These additional applications may not be commonly taught, or over time the level and the energy may have become confused and connected with eachother.

Ti: The Eighth Deadly Technique

I know only a handful of moves in kendo. I'm an anime fan, I love samurai movies, ninjas have their moments for me, but kendo and kenjitsu have never held much pull for me. I did have the opportunity while at Guard Up to learn a thing here an there though, and one of them I think was called nuki. It was a neat move, where you kind of raise your sword and skip back when an opponent is swinging at you, but pretty much that was all it was until one day when I had to substitute for a sick instructor in a class called Sport Armor.

 

Sport Armor was this class where all the students wore hard plastic motocross armor and helmets. Even though the class was taught with padded swords, the idea was that the armor would allow you to fight at close to full speed and power with less fear of injury. Well, there I was, and while sparring I was holding off the brutal cuts of my opponent, and then it occurred to me to try nuki. I waited for the swing, lifted my sword up and out of the way as the cut swished by me, and found that I could swiftly step forward and chop my opponent cleanly on the forehead. It worked like magic, as if I'd practiced hours and hours and waited insidiously for my chance to strike!

 

I'm proposing that Ti, our eighth deadly technique is similar to nuki. Ti means to "lift" and I have come to think that it is used much like Jiao as a compound attack. When an opponent cuts for your hand and you are not in a position to use Jiao to wrap them, lift the hand out of the way, let the attack pass, then bring the blade down on their arm or head or wherever with a Pi cut. The lifting of the hands sets you up for the cut, and if timed right, your opponent may still be finishing their first move when you bring the sword back down.

 

Let's take stock: we have five attacks, three parries, and three counters. Of the three counters, we have one basic counter, and two compound counters. That gives us eleven moves. The final two are special blade controlling techniques which we'll examine next week! Have a great weekend!

Jiao: Compound Defense and Attack

Eureka! That move I said was confounding me? I've figured out a place for it in my map of the 13 cuts! The final two deadly techniques will be considered compound actions in my theory of Tai Chi. That is, they are not a single move, but they are a couple moves strung together that may be so common in use that they are considered core techniques in Tai Chi. Hopefully my explanations will support the theory.

 

There's a creative pleasure that comes from deciphering martial arts. It might be similar to what sleuths feel when they're closing in on the perpetrator of a crime or what a scientist feels like when they are unravelling a technical conundrum. Is it a mental analog for hunting? For me it feels like when you get a case of the giggles when you're in the library; you're trying to keep your composure, but the idea is bubbling up from inside you and you are fighting the impulse to overflow into the quiet civility around you.

 

The first of the two moves is Jiao, or "wrapping." Earlier, I talked about Dian and Pi as long-ranged attacks. I propose that when you're using the long ranged attacks, a very desirable target is your opposite's sword hand. It's probably the part of their body that's closest to you, and if you deliver a good hit to their hand, you'll probably seriously impair their ability to fight.

 

So you're minding your own business and your opposite goes for your hand. First, get your hand out of the way. Move your hand six inches to the right or left so their blade just misses. As you move your hand, set up your counterattack by dropping your blade tip down to the level of your opposite's wrist. Now, with a small turn and arc of the hand, draw the tip of your blade across the hand or wrist of your opposite. The motion you trace in the air with your hand for the whole move might look like a letter D on it's flat side if you cut by going over their hand. If you went under, it would be a D on it's round side like a bowl.

Jie: Way of the Intercepting Sword

I tend to be very reductionist in my learning. I try to figure out that the smallest reasonable unit of knowledge is for a subject I'm studying and then try to group things into small, conceptual sets. For example, of the 13 cuts of Tai Chi Sword, I've broken them down into eight attacks, three parries, and two add-on or miscellaneous techniques. Yet of the eight attacks, I tend to think of five of them as useful core techniques. Of those five, two are first-choice long range techniques, and three are middle range techniques. See if you can sort them out based on what you've read about them.

When I get beyond the core ideas, I tend to ask myself why bother expanding? Every additional idea should add value to the whole, and we should resist adding things indiscriminately.

Now we're getting into the reeds a bit with the next three attacks. I left these out when I was describing the other attacks because they're a little more special purpose and they're also a little harder to use. You might call them advanced attacks. One of them, which I will describe last of these three, is particularly weird and I'm still not sure how it fits into the pantheon of moves we're learning.

So you have some attacks and some defenses. You can move on your feet and you're developing a good feel for position, distance and timing. Time to pull out the gutsy moves that get you bonus points during the battle. Next time your opposite winds up for a swing, either because they're slower than you or they're wasting energy on a big windup, hit them with Jie. Jie means to "intercept."

Imagine if you will a baseball player ready to take a swing at a fastball. Now imagine that the fastball is you and your organs are the strike zone. Now imagine that the bat is sharp. As the player takes his swing, what if you could just put out your sword so that as he moves his wrist crashes into the front edge of your blade? You wouldn't have to do very much work and the player would probably be handless, putting him at a distinct disadvantage against your next move. This move may exemplify the saying "the kung fu man does not strike first, but hits first."

You missed me ya, ya, ya!

Alright. Bad joke.

 

Here we are at the third and final block of Tai Chi Sword. This might feel weird to you who know martial arts or fencing. In Wing Chun, there's probably six core blocks and then a dozen additional ones. In foil fencing there are nine parries. How can Tai Chi get away with just three? I think other systems are more mechanistic about they way they define their defenses. In fencing, you have high inside parry with palm up (Parry 4), high inside parry with palm down (Parry 3), high ourside parry with palm up (Parry 6), etc. In Tai Chi, I've approached each of the techniques in a more generalized sense. Instead of high block left, high block right, high block with drooping wrist, high block with point toward the sky, etc., we have one energy concept: carry their attack high enough to miss.

 

Let me remind you that I'm aiming to get to a place where I can use the gim and the general methods of the Tai Chi Sword. My interpretations may be totally non-cannonical or just plain wrong. However, if it helps us get some useful perspective on the weapon and fighting style for our own training, I think that's valuable.

 

My thinking on Dai (Carrying) is that it represents a preference for the energy of the parry while disregarding the actual move used. This might be appropriate for a style that focuses on sensitivity and harmonization. The different shapes and positions you might get yourself into during an engagment might be so numerous that it's impractical to try to name them all. Therefore, think of the idea of guiding your opposite's blade into a harmless empty space, or carrying it to where you want it to go with a smooth, gentle contact not a harsh block or bounce between blades.

 

Ya is the opposite of Dai. Ya means to "press." It exploits the low bridge the same way the Dai exploits the high bridge to make your opposite's blade too short to hit you. When executing the basic Ya, rotate your sword so that the front edge is facing away from you and the back edge (thumb side) is facing toward you an the blade is parallel to the floow as if you were going to put it on a table. Then simply press down. I prefer not to press beyond the level of my belt. If the attack is particularly low, I will bend at my knees to lower my blade and maintain balance rather than bending over. Execute to your preference.

The Geometry of Bridging

Back when I took Wing Chun with Stanley Jue and Jerome Majeed, Stanley brought his wife to the school because he was instructing her on Wing Chun at home. Amy was a fiesty fighter, and I discovered one day while sparring against her that while I was more than a foot taller than her, she was definitely landing more hits on me than I expected. What's more, I found that I was having a really hard time blocking her attacks! What turns out to have been my disadvantage was geometry. While Amy could punch straight across at my stomach, I actually had to reach down to block her, causing my arms to be shorter and throwing off my timing against her.

Let's put it another way. You're standing opposite someone of equal height and reach to you. If you reach out and just touch them with the tip of your fingers on the collar bone and they reach out for your belt, because of the angle they must cross, they will actually not be able to touch you. This is the bridging geometry principle we will use to our advantage with the high bridge parry called Dai.

Dai means "carry" and we're going to use it to carry high bridge attacks up and away from us. If your opposite thrusts for your face, they are probably attacking over your sword and raising their attack to form a high bridge. Let the tip of your sword drop and lift your hand so that the handle moves up and the blade of the sword kind of drags behind lazily. Meet your opposite's blade with the flat of your blade and carry it into a higher bridge just over the top of your head. Adjust the angle so you don't just slip past them and still get stabbed in the face. I like about 45 degrees. You might also rock back a little as you do this. The shortening caused by the rising angle and you slight rock back will cause them to fall short! When you become more practiced, try lifting their blade into the space next to your head and above your shoulders. You are now able to protect yourself from high bridge attacks with Dai!

Ge: The First Parry of Tai Chi Sword

In Chinese martial arts there's this concept called Bridging. It's a model for thinking about the options available when you are attempting to connect an attack or deal with an attack during a fight. When your opposite touches you, the connection between your bodies is called a bridge. You might think of bridging as having three flavors. If your opposite reaches out and touches you and their arm is parallel to the floor, that's a level, or middle, bridge. If they reach out and touch you and their arm is rising as might be the case if they were shorter than you or touching the top of your head, that's called a high bridge. If they reach out and their arm is descending like if they were reaching for your belt or if they were much taller than you, that's called a low bridge.

When thinking of defense, a rule of thumb is to draw a line from your shoulder to their elbow, and then follow that line for your block. Therefore, if someone is attacking you with a high bridge, an invisible line would probably go from your shoulder to the underside of their arm. You would therefore attempt some kind of block against the underside of their arm. For middle bridge you'd block to the sides, and for low bridges you'd block down. Simple, right? The thinking behind bridging is that is gives you a reliable starting point to think of your attack and defense. The actual move you use and the energy you apply is up to you.

With bridging in mind, we will learn the first of three parries in Tai Chi sword: Ge. Ge means "to block." In my interpretation of Tai Chi sword, it is a mid-level block, used to deflect attacks aimed roughly between your collar bones and your belt. Here's how the great sword choreographer Anthony DeLongis explains it: Imagine that you are in a doorway. Take a step backwards so that the frame is just in front of you. Now, as attacks come at you, gently sweep each attack with the flat of your blade just enough to the side so that the attack hits the door frame. Cool, huh? Anthony DeLongis can be seen fencing against Jet Li and his gim in the opening of Fearless.

The Will to Live

There's this movie you should see if you want to understand the practical underpinnings of Chinese martial arts: its called To Live.

 

Plot summary is this: rich landowners lose everything and then some during the communist revolution in China, and in the end they're grateful. They're not grateful for all the terrible things that happen to them, but they are grateful that they're still alive. I like to think of Chinese martial arts like that. In Japanese martial arts, you can see from the way many of them practice their techniques that in their martial art, it's okay to get killed as long as you slay your opponent. Honor and victory are revered above personal safety. In Chinese life though, you have disease, raiders, invaders, natural disaster, manmade disaster, your own government, incompetence and bad luck trying to kill you on a daily basis. Therefore, the primary goal isn't to demonstrate one's skill or to uphold the honor of a lord who feels no loyalty to you, but to make it home to your family alive and in one piece.

 

Therefore, you should be strong and disciplined, but also open to all conceivable possibilities that may lead you to survival during a fight. Some might call certain options cheating. I tend to think of it a good sense. The connection to the 13 techniques of Tai Chi and the concept of Duifang is that you should throw out your dogma and rigid techniques, and move with the informed fluidity of wisdom, discipline, and intent to win. (A taoist might say skip the intent to win part. Up to you.)

Duifang!

You burst into the hallway, hot on the heals of the six-fingered man. Blocking your path, you see a swarthy swordsman dressed all in black leathers with a scar across one cheek and a fierce-looking sword at the ready. He raises his sword and beckons. Do you:

1. Rush him and run him through, counting on your superior speed and training to win the match? (Turn to page 9)
2. Wait for him to attack and defly finish him with a well-placed counter attack? (Turn to page 13)
3. Find a new way to follow the six-fingered man? (Turn to page 22)
4. Test your opponent, taking a moment to understand him even though the six-fingered man is putting distance between you? (Turn to page 49)

I'm going to take a brief break from describing my thoughts on deadly techniques to go on a tangent on fighting philosophy. With five blade techniques in hand, next I'm going to teach the three basic defenses before continuing with the final five advanced techniques. First, we're going to learn a new word: Duifang.

 

Scott Rodell writes about this word in his Tai Chi Sword book, and he describes the word as meaning "opposite." In a duel, you might have an opponent, but in Tai Chi (which subscribes to a possibly more developed sense of energy) insead of an opponent you have an opposite. The intent, motion, and energy of your opposite must be met with the perfectly matched response. I'm not going to say "harmony" because then everyone would try to be soft and squishy when duelling. The fact is, sometimes speed and power are the appropriate ways to win the day. Sometimes they're not. Hard, soft, fast, slow, bold or deceptive, use the technique that best matches the moves of your opponent and that will end the fight in your favor in the shortest amount of time with the least injury to yourself. In my opinion, that is the best use of Duifang.

Chou: The Fifth Deadly Technique

You may be a little concerned at this point that there haven't been any descriptions of cool slashing cuts like you see in the movies. After all, isn't COOL why most of us picked kung fu over other martial arts? Well, have no fear because there is a horrible and deadly slashing technique in Tai Chi sword: it's called Chou.

Now, don't get too excited. Well, not just yet. While Chou is a cool technique, it is probably not going to be used the way you see in movies when fighters use the Dao, or broadsword. The Dao is a heavy weapon with a curved blade, and that makes it great for slashing because the curve allows you to continue drawing your sword easily across your distressed and soon to be former opponent. When using the Gim, your wrist must make up for the lack of curve in the blade. Get a partner. Promise the partner you are not going to cut them. Using a wooden sword (you promised, remember?) place the middle edge against their arm, a few inches below the shoulder. Now lightly draw the sword across their arm by pulling the handle to the opposite side of their body, like you're wiping gore off the blade. The pulling and dragging action keeps the sharp edge of the blade moving and cutting against your opponent. With a real blade (I told you to practice with a wooden sword, remember?) this would create a deep cut.

Notice that you are not chopping! That's for Pi and Ji! With suppleness and skill, you can use Chou in a number of mid-distance attacks that we'll examine later! When your opponent thinks you've gone in too close and they have the advantage on you in the close-fighting game, show them the error of their strategy with your Chou technique! Okay, now you can get excited. :-)

Ji: The Fourth Deadly Technique

I saw "Peaceful Warrior" at the Kendall over the weekend. It is a bit overblown at times, but reminds us well that the outside world can scramble up our thoughts so much that we cannot live to the truth that comes from within. A book on Quakerism I've been reading also addresses this: Quakers gather to "pray" in silence, in a fashion that might be called meditation if it were an eastern art. They still their minds and spirits, and listen for the internal voice the "small voice" within to instruct them, free (hopefully) of the biases of outside opinions...

 

Ji is described as a cut using the extreme third of the blade. Mainly because I like symmetry and not out of any historical or martial insight, I'm going to say Ji is to Pi what Ci is to Dian . I suggest using Ji as the heavy commitment version of the fast, light Pi cut. Where Pi uses a quick rap to cut thin bones such as the thumb or collarbone, Ji uses a more powerful stroke like that of an axe swing to say, sever hands and split skulls. Don't think cutting like you might see a samurai do, but think chopping, like a woodsman.

 

This gives you a good fundamental set of moves. With Pi, Dian, Ci and Ji, you have enough tools to attack effectively in most situations in basic sword fighting. From here we will begin learning attacks that are a little harder to apply, because they will often require some aspect of footwork or complex handwork to execute.

Balance and Motion

I've gotten sick twice since I've been working at my new company. Twice. I generally don't get sick more than once every few years! I suspect it is from living a very busy life--perhaps a little too busy. I can't help but think about the idea of the Yin-Yang, about how life must be balanced between activity and recovery and how I must be unbalanced toward activity and not getting enough recovery, making me vulnerable to... germs.

There's also another aspect of the Yin-Yang I'm wondering about: it's a circle. To me that suggests that creation and destruction happens within a defined space. The space of your life, the space of a day, the space of your understanding. It means we need to think of our activities as being constrained by limited resources and that we should plan appropriately.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled lesson: footwork.

There is a particular kind of step you see often in the Tai Chi Sword form. The practitioner begins in a kind of ready stance, knees bent, feet shoulder width apart, then extends and plants their heel in the direction he/she intends to move. Then the practitioner shifts their balance to that foot as they roll from the heel to the full foot.

Try this. From your ready stance, lift the foot and extend it, but instead of planting it on the heel, thrust using your grounded leg, your glutes, and the momentum of kicking out your raised leg to cause you to burst forward. Then, land the foot by smoothly touching your heel to the ground rolling onto the foot and bending your knee all at once to bring your weight onto it. Now you have quickly and safely advanced and moved your weight at speed! This is basically the mechanic of a fencing lunge.

Ack!

Been sick... can't write...

Ci: The Third Deadly Technique

Friday's practice session was very productive. We learned up to "Black Dragon Swings Its Tail." It's funny learning the Yang form because different teachers count and name the moves a little differently, and some of the moves vary as well. It feels a little like linguistic drift, where people who all started at the same place settle abroad and develop new accents. I bet if we were feeling a little more anthropological, we could track changes in the form through comparing students from around the world and cross referencing their "bloodline changes."

"Black Dragon Swings Its Tail" is very cool, as is the move that leads up to it in our form, which is called "Ancient Tree with Twisted Roots." Books I have on the form discuss these moves as special blocks for overhead and leg attacks, but I strongly feel that they are infighting moves. I showed my friend Pete the two moves, and asked what he thought they might be used for, and he instantly said "pommel strike!" Could be the way I did the move, but hopefully it's the common sensibilities of empty hands martial artists...

After you have practiced the Pi and Dian techniques, you might want to move on to Ci. Ci is also called "thrusting." From your ready stance, begin by dropping the point of your sword as if you were going to perform Dian. As you extend, step forward into a bow stance (or a lunge stance if you know fencing). Put your shoulder in behind the arm and sword so all of your weight is in the move. You may also want to turn in with the shoulder and hips to give the attack more power if the situation warrants and it doesn't seem too dangerous to commit so much. Imagine you're putting your sword through a door.

Where Dian might be for striking fingers and ligaments, Ci is for hitting organs. The more organs you remove from your opponent, the less effective they will be against you.

The first two deadly techniques: Splitting and Pointing

There are people who say you only need to learn one punch really well in order to win most fights that you might get into. I tend to agree with this. Fighting seems really easy: hit the guy until he falls down--and it is in concept, but what one discovers when they get into a full-contact fight is that it is really, really hard to land a solid hit on your opponent on purpose. People move, people block, people hit back. However, if you have a punch that is strong and practiced to the point that it is not only very reliable, strong and consistent but that you are able to place it wherever you desire with accuracy, you may have more to work with that your opponent from the moment the fight begins.

 

The same may be true for swordsmanship, and I think the two most fundamental techniques in Tai Chi gim are the Pi and Dian techniques. Pi mean "splitting" and is most likely used like when the magistrate in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon splits the tea cup with the Green Destiny. Dian means "pointing" and is basically a stab. I'm grouping these two moves together because they are mechanical complements to eachother and because they both aim to use the extreme two or three inches of the sword. This to me means they are your longest weapons and therefore your first line of attack or defense.

 

The two mechanics I'm talking about are bringing down the point of the sword and extending with your elbow. Beginning with Pi, from your guard stance, extend your arm from the elbow and then bring down the point. Try to cast the sword like a fishing reel, not chop like with an axe. You should end up with the arm and blade extended without having to put the breaks on the sword to keep it from overswinging. If you were to put a cupcake (or a tea cup) on a table, you should be able to cut the cupcake without hitting the table. The extension should be without force and be a smooth motion. Do not pop the blade back up at the end of the swing, but let is stop at full extension.

 

I prefer to use the dian as the same two movements in opposite order. Beginning in your guard stance, lower the tip of your sword so that it is pointing at your intended target, then push the blade forward from your elbow until you reach full extension. This should allow you to drive the tip of your blade accurately into the target. Practice by hanging a small object from a string and poking it head on.

 

Spend as least one session where you do the cut 500 to 1000 times. Just be relaxed about the motion and to not muscle the blade so you can learn how to move it. After a while, you should be able to "swish" the air without effort--this will show that your movement is fast and clean.

Yang Jwing-Ming's Two Person Set

Tomorrow I'm going to begin learning a two-person set for gim to supplement my study of the Yang form. Going through the Yang form is proving very helpful in my understanding of the gim, but I suspect expanding my base of experience by learning a two-person set will improve my overall understanding of the gim.

 

By seeing more permutations of sword movements and especially sword vs. sword movements, I should get more context from which I can derive and understand fighting applications.

 

What I don't know is where this two-person form comes from. John found it in his research in the back of a book by Yang Jwing-Ming. The two possible drawbacks are that YJM seems to be primarily a Northern Shaolin practitioner of White Crane Kung Fu, and that this form might have been invented by YJM. If it was invented, it's ideas of applications for the gim might be incompatible with the principles of the Yang form. We'll see...

Sword vs. Sword: Is the Gim Worth It?

There are three big assumptions that I am making about Yang Tai Chi sword: that the originators of the form knew what they were doing, that the current form we are able to see today is mostly the same as it was three hundred years ago, and that the continued use of the gim was due to an evolution in the fighting techniques around it that kept it effective in the face of weapon advances such as steel, improved guards, and blade curves.

In the west, longswords gave way to the small sword, then to the rapier and sabre as metalurgy improved, armor became less common, and the design of the weapons evolved. I've heard that the Civil War cavalry sabre is often considered the pinnacle of one-handed sword design for it's guard and effective cutting curve. Many claim the katana to be the pinnacle of hand-and a half or two handed swords. Where does this leave the gim then? Is it a comparable weapon or is it an inferior weapon?

I think the answer might be both. The guard of modern gim is inferior to that of katana or sabres, exposing the hands to quick, disabling strikes. However, the gim is also a fighting tool with certain characteristics. It's probably at least as good at cutting as the sabre and katana given the sanmei or wumei composite steel construction of late gim, and there exist fighting styles that attempt to draw out the strengths of the weapon. Tai Chi is one of them. Taken in context as an extension of a martial art, the gim might be equivalent or better than these other weapons in a one-on-one fight.

Keep in mind these things and others when practicing gim:

1. The gim is primarily a one handed weapon. That suggests your other hand is free to do other things to work in concert with your sword hand, such as block, attack, and grapple.
2. In Tai Chi, a gim practitioner is generally already a skilled martial artist since you learn the empty hand techniques before learning the weapon skills. The gim practitioner can therefore move freely from sword fighting to hand fighting and more.
3. The gim has two edges, giving the weapon more attacking options than single-edged weapons.