Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Finding Shifu

When master and a disciple meet they are both ready for the exchange and mutual growth. In Chinese this is called yuanfen - destiny.

There is a perception that all good Masters have left China and now live abroad. Martial Arts are in China somewhat regarded as old school, tradition that society wants to break away from while embracing modern lifestyle. To certain extent this may be true however, Masters are still around in China, abroad – everywhere. Once you are ready you will look for one and he will find you.

Long ago, before I was looking for a Master I read that you can recognize one if they have great sense of humor, presence, calmness and wit. Avoid teachers that insist you should be practicing with them, those that speak highly of themselves are fake and avoid them. Real Master will speak highly only of their own Master and the practice itself.

I found my first teacher early in the morning in September 1999 (I believe it was 0630) in the nearby park (Temple of Sun) where I’ve seen people practicing taiji. I almost gave up after 30 minutes of looking for groups of people – it felt like it was a day off for taiji practitioners. And then, just at the tip of my doubt that I will find what I was looking for hundreds of people appeared before me simultaneously waving in small circles. I was enchanted and observed who amongst them could be my teacher. I wanted it to be a woman, I needed a role model and one quiet gentle woman drew my attention. When I approached her she pointed in another direction and suggested I talk to a woman who in quite harsh way required perfection from the group. She scolded people openly calling on their weird posture and laughed at them shamelessly. At first, I thought she was somebody I’d rather avoid but once recommended I accepted the challenge and agreed to meet with her the following day. Day by day I practiced every day with her for 5 years.

He Laoshe is a 7th generation Wu style Taiji (although she thought me Yang Style) and after bad press falong gong brought to Chinese energy practitioners she accepted modern style practice – forms approved by government, mostly focused on competitions (performance). She detached from traditional ways, didn’t talk much about qigong nor history. The base of the practice was to keep learning various forms and at that time I found it interesting, precious and soothing for me. I learned and grew, I conquered my fears in competitions, all very useful and applicable in my daily living, my memory and focus improved through memorizing all the movements and learning what ‘natural posture’ means in Taiji world. One after the other I learned forms: 8, 16, 24, 42, 48, 32 sword, 56 sword … each new form was helping me improve the performance of the old one.

After 5 years of practicing with He Laoshe one thing became apparent: I was getting medals on competitions, everybody could see that I mastered forms but I was ‘empty’ inside. Daily practice brought me insight that in 10 years I may get a grip on what my Qi flow is and how to work it out for personal benefit. It seemed like long time and my impatience triggered need to explore more teaching styles, to look for other teachers, compare what was out there and who was the best for me.

I met with 4 male teachers over next 2 years and each one brought something different into my perspective. The first one was young, also competing in Yang Style – looking back to time I met him I realize I wasn’t ready for him. From him I learned gentleness. The next one I met was a former soldier, he came to class in his pointy shining shoes and I thought he was all over the place. I didn’t find him grounded, he was too immature for my perspective of Master and how one should look like. From him I learned to appreciate calmness. Soon after that I met a teacher who was disabled, living in a poor neighborhood, who knew the theory, talked a lot but wouldn’t practice and didn’t require that I practice either. He required RMB500/month which would cover 8 classes and I could come more if I wanted. That didn’t quite work for me either, and even I saw him 3 times the connection faded away. From him I learned I learned the role of mind in the martial arts practice. The closest I got to change the teacher (Shifu) was when I met Chen Laoshe who had presence, posture, some charisma and strength that attracted me. I met with him 4 times, practiced for a bit and then found myself being dragged to dinners and gatherings where he wanted to show to others his new foreign student. As that was too much show off for my taste – so I stopped. From him I learned that the quickest way for worm to eat a wood is moving horizontally rather than vertically.

3 months later I had a privilege to meet with Liu Shifu, originally I knew him as masseuse. After inspiring massage session and few talks about Tao I was intrigued with his style, calmness and ease he was presenting life. After asking if I could learn massage from him he said I had to practice to attain gongfu (workmanship, skill, art). The way I understood it then is that I needed to fill my empty bones with strength and ground myself in practice. That is how I started practicing Bagua and Xinyi Style Martial Arts with Liu Shifu. Traditional ways of Chinese gongfu presented in the considerate way of learning how to act in harmony with Nature.

I can’t say I won’t practice anything else, I can’t say I won’t practice with another shifu. I am definitely not sure if I would’ve captured teachings of Liu Shifu if I met him 7 years ago but one thing I know for sure – after 3 months of practicing with him my Taiji improved significantly and I was able to sense the flow of qi.
For one year I didn’t learn any form, I was stretching my body, learning about Chinese culture and philosophy, sharing daily problems, talking about dreams and how they could be interpreted. Yesterday I had my first massage class – 1,5 years after I originally intended to learn Tuina.

In China I learn patience.

2 comments:

John Vesia said...

Hello Dalida,
I put "martial arts philosophy" into a search engine and found your site. I was intrigued by the concept of yuanfen (destiny) that you wrote about. I also agree with your assertion that a true master possesses the human qualities of humor, wit, and compassion. Keep posting, I'll be back to read more.

John

Dalida Turkovic said...

Hi John,
thanks for the encouragement, as I mentioned in my new blog - I am currently dealing with the fact that I cannot view my blog in China and therefore can't see any comments. Being in Europe enabled me to see new benefits of blog exchange. I hope I will manage to overcome the China attitude towards blogs and remain on the track sharing the experineces of martial arts philosophy.
I am glad to have met you too, learned a lot from your blog!

Dalida