Silent Tao » Teachers

Day 5: Grandmaster Chen Quanzhong in Xian China

Shawn Cartwright — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:11:18 +0000

Grandmaster Chen Quanzhong (陈全忠) is my Chen Tai Chi (陈氏太极) teacher. Today our students had the chance to meet him in person for the first time. At nearly 90 years old, he is the senior most Chen Tai Chi Grandmaster in China and has practiced the art his entire life.

Grandmaster Chen Quanzhong with TCCII Students in August 2011

He greeted our students and gave them a demonstration of his version of the Chen Tai Chi form. Grandmaster Chen learned from his father and several other teachers. He is the only living master to have learned directly from a 16th generation master.* Because of this it is believed that his version of Chen Tai Chi is the oldest one in existence.

The Tang Dynasty style courtyard of our hotel in Xian.

That afternoon our students enjoyed climbing the Xian city wall. There is nothing quite like doing stairs after several hours of horse stance training, so we took our students to climb the Xian city wall after lunch. Since that wasn’t enough for the hardest core group, they finished off the day with a visit to the Wild Goose Pagoda and shopping at the nearby marketplaces. When the day was done, we enjoyed the peaceful courtyard of our Tang dynasty style hotel.

Here is a three part video series based on the question and answer session Grandmaster Chen had with our students.

* Note: Although Grandmaster Chen Quanzhong learned from a 16th generation master and would ordinarily be considered 17th generation he is called 19th generation because Chen family blood descendants keep their family’s genealogy generation number. He is significantly older than the other 19th generation Chen masters such as Chen Zhengli and Chen Xiaowang.

Chinese teachers of Nei Dan (Internal Alchemy)

Shawn Cartwright — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:03:55 +0000

Question: Could you tell us a little more about your Chinese Internal Alchemy teachers?

Reply:

Here is a partial list of our Chinese teachers.

They have all made important contributions in some way but in terms Taoism and Nei Dan, the following are most relevant to your question:

Li Laoshi: Technically from the southern Zhong-Lu school, he was also a synthesizer and a scholar. His knowledge was encyclopedic. He answered a lot of questions and filled in a lot of holes. His teaching is the probably the most significant influence on our cultivation.

He Laoshi: Longmen and Taijimen (a secretive Taoist sect, not to be confused with some modern groups that use that appellation). An iconoclast, despite being the abbot of a Taoist temple, he prided himself on never having worn Taoist robes. His use of Qigong for healing and foundation building was a strong influence on our teaching. He organized and explained the principles of using Qigong for healing very thoroughly and systematically.

Chen Laoshi: Wudang Longmen (a branch of the Northern Quanzhen School) He taught a great number of classical Qigong forms, but we had greatest affinity with the Taiyi Qigong material. He taught a system of Nei Dan that most closely resembles Zhao Bi Chen’s system.

We also learned a system of martial alchemy. You can read a little background on it here.

Ignorant Peasants

Shawn Cartwright — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:54:50 +0000

One phrase you might occasionally hear in China is “Wu Zhi Nong Min” or “Ignorant Peasants”. This phrase has two meanings. The first and older one is used to refer those people, usually farmers, who have very little formal education and lack the inclination to view things in a larger perspective. They do not understand things outside their narrow world view.

I recall coming across this phrase when talking to one of my Feng Shui teachers, a highly educated professor of psychology who also happens to be a 22^th generation family lineage Feng Shui and Yi Jing master. This school of Feng Shui uses the Chinese Lo Pan, or geomantic compass and the Yi Jing to determine the Feng Shui of a location. The Lo Pan is itself extremely complex, requiring considerable training and education to use.

I asked him about the differences between his school of Feng Shui and another more popular one that is much less complicated. For example, instead of calculating the direction of the front door and then deriving the Yi Jing directional correspondences, the popular school simply says, “open your front door, that is South.”

He said “That is ignorant peasant Feng Shui. They don’t have the proper education to use the complete method, so there is a simplified one for them to use.” His comment, though said humorously was not a put-down, but a statement of fact. He used “ignorant” in the sense of its original meaning.

The second way of using “ignorant peasants” is decidedly pejorative. In 1956, when schools and universities where closed on the mainland, leadership positions in government and industry where given to loyalists. These people no doubt fought bravely and supported the new government, but they were often former revolutionary farmers ill-trained for managing enterprises, that is, the poster children for “ignorant peasants.” Because their positions gave them power, they were feared, but they were not respected. People called them “ignorant peasants” behind their back. Eventually the term developed an extended usage as a put down, regardless of the actual competence of the individual.

I came across the use of the term as a put down when talking to a moderately famous (in China) Xing Yi practitioner. The question I asked him was “Why do some Xing Yi schools practice their five element fists in different orders?” His answer was “The fists should only be practiced in the generating cycle of the Wu Xing like we do it in our school. We have the original style of Xing Yi. Probably the other schools that do it differently were founded by ignorant peasants who didn’t understand the five elements.”

When I meet another teacher of an art I already study, sometimes I will ask simple questions about well known differences between the various schools to gauge the person’s point of view and personality. In this case, although the teacher was a very nice person and very good at his style of Xing Yi, his views were pretty narrow minded.

There are valid reasons from both martial and Qigong perspectives to practice the five element fists in different orders (for example, you can practice them in the controlling cycle). If this teacher did not know of these other reasons, then he is ignorant. If he knew of them but disagreed, there really was no good reason to put the other schools down. Rather, he seemed to relish the opportunity to “Bian Di Bie Ren Tai Gao Zi Ji” to put others down in order to build his school up.

It is hard to keep a straight face when the person you are talking to tells you everyone else is wrong and he is the best because they are ignorant peasants. He was acting like an “ignorant peasant” in the original sense of the term.

However, we should resist the temptation to judge him too harshly. He may not even be even aware of what he’s doing. Instead we should learn from him – learn what not to do! What not to do is sometimes the best lesson we can learn from some people.

Learn not to be an “ignorant peasant.”

Who Told You to Fall into the Pearl River?

Shawn Cartwright — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:48:18 +0000

Lest you think Guangzhou, China is all about flowers and hot middle-age moms with the fashion sense of a 14 year old, let me tell you about some of the other cool things in the city. There are crazy Chinese medicine men, esoteric Qigong dudes, and “normal” people showing extraordinary proficiency in music, dance, calligraphy and common sense.

A few hours outside the city is Lo Fu Shan, one of the pre-eminent Taoist mountains in China. Although not as well known as Wudang Shan and Huang Shan, nevertheless it was and is very important. Ge Hong, who lived 283-243 CE, cultivated immortality on Lo Fu Shan. One of our teachers of medical Qigong and internal alchemy was head abbot at a Taoist temple located on the mountain. There is a major private hospital which was founded by one of his student just outside Guangzhou that integrates both Eastern and Western medicine.

In the city we study with another teacher who combines traditional Chinese medicine, Yi Jing, and internal alchemy. He is one of the few doctors in China that can still use the single needle acupuncture technique (Yi Zhen Fa or Du Zhen Fa) to treat you. In the old days, the best lineage trained doctors could diagnose you just by looking at you. They could select one point to use and successfully treat you in just a few or even one treatment. We are quite fortunate to study with him.

The city is also the home of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the founder of modern China. Our family system of Kung Fu has a connection to him through the Hong Men Hui. Dr. Sun was a member of the organization and it played an instrumental role in the founding of the Republic and the preservation of the real Chinese martial arts. My grand teacher, studied with the head of this organization.

The city’s shopping district still preserves some of the old architecture. Since the city is semi-tropical, it gets almost daily rain showers, which must keep the Guangzhou dragon (Long in Chinese) pretty busy*. The city’s old buildings were built out over the sidewalks so you could walk and shop without getting wet. It is one example of a practical Chinese solution to a very real problem.

Of course, if you need a break from training and shopping, you can always relax on the river walk in the colonial district. You never know what you’ll find…

On one side, the river walk has no guard wall. That’s right, no stone wall and no guard rail. It’s a 10 foot drop right over the edge into the Pearl River. Unless you can free climb up a stone wall, or your companion carries a rope and crampons, there’s no getting out if you fall in.

In China, danger is also opportunity. The lack of a guard wall creates an opportunity for a small businessman to thrive. Under an elevated bridge that takes you above the walk to an exclusive hotel, we watched an enterprising entrepreneur set up a fishing business one night.

His girlfriend helped him squat a section of the walk as he set up the lines. He had about a dozen rods which he cast out into the river and braced in metal brackets he wedged between the flagstones. When we asked what he was doing, he told us catching fish to sell in the local restaurants. The restaurants want fresh fish every morning and it pays pretty well.

You have to give the Chinese great credit for their culinary culture. While they are limited by the quality of their ingredients from a pollution/organic standpoint, they appreciate fresh food and expend great efforts to prepare it well. Nothing short of Haute French cuisine comes close to the care and skill employed by even the average Chinese chief.

As we watched the fisherman work all 12 lines with a skill that bordered on effortlessness, I told my interpreter that “In the US we have codes requiring safety railings because if not people would fall in, sue and win big money.”

I asked her if China had safety codes for this sort of thing.

Laughing, she said “It’s not like in America. People here have better sense than to walk up to the edge of something and fall in. If you tried to sue in China for something as stupid as falling into the big old river they would say to you ‘Who told you to go to the edge and fall in!’”

It seems like common sense is still relatively common in China!

* In ancient Chinese culture, dragons are often associated with rain, weather and water. Each city, region and body of water has its resident dragon which determines local conditions based upon the orders of heaven.

Exporting Chinese Culture

Shawn Cartwright — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:16:41 +0000

Generally speaking, the first part of any culture that gets exported is its products. It is pretty easy to understand why we got silk, spices, and china from China before we got philosophy and Kung Fu. Trade goods don’t need context, just cash.

China has been trading with the west for thousands of years. But where trade flows, ideas inevitably follow. You start to see transmissions of language, as it makes it easier to trade. And some people become interested in the culture producing the products. This is when you start to see the transmission of the deeper arts.

In the beginning, much of the arts transmitted are those that can be understood intellectually or physically. Scholars can learn the language and those with athletic inclinations can copy movements.

But the deeper spiritual aspects of Chinese culture take a lot more. When you get to this realm, you have to be taught the actual practices of cultivation and the esoteric meaning behind the language. This is why finding a good interpreter is crucial, as we previously mentioned.

The intersection of eastern and western culture was greatly facilitated by events of the 19^th and early 20^th century. Although the colonial period was generally a dark period for China, it did make it possible for both cultures to truly meet and interact.

The combination of western education with traditional Chinese training produced a generation of Chinese scholars who were reasonably conversant in both cultures. The fall of the mainland to the Communists in 1949 resulted in an unusually high concentration of the military and scholarly elite in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

That is why my grand teacher, Christopher Casey, went to Hong Kong and Taiwan to learn traditional Chinese culture, particularly the highest levels of Kung Fu, or Chinese Boxing as it is more properly called.

Mr. Casey (Kai Sai was his Chinese name)* studied Tai Chi from Tao Ping Siang, Pa Kua and Hsing I from Wang Shu Shin and Shen Mou Hui, Fukien White Crane from Masters Chen and Hsieh, and Wing Chun from Lo Man Kam. He also studied qigong and philosophy from the Hong Men Hui. You can find out more about his background in this article.

Not only was Mr. Casey’s martial skill great, but as a student of western philosophy he was able to organize and synthesize these arts, providing a method to teach them in a systematic way. I believe he even advanced the arts in certain areas.

I have been fortunate to study with several of Mr. Casey’s students and some of his teachers. My main teacher of Mr. Casey’s art is Mr. Alsup. Although he learned many arts, his specialties were Fukien White Crane, Wing Chun, and Kai Sai Kung Fu, Mr. Casey’s personal boxing method.

* Kai Sai is what Casey sounds like with a Chinese accent, get it? But it also happens to mean “Victorious in Every Encounter” – which is a pretty cool nickname for a Kung Fu dude.

Finding Teachers in China

Shawn Cartwright — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:16:50 +0000

Many people want to go study in China. We often get questions about how to do this.

There are basically two options 1) pack up and move to China so you can immerse yourself or 2) keep your day job and visit periodically. Either way, the challenges of finding a teacher are similar.

If you just want to go to China and tour the major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, or Guangzhou you should probably just join a tour group. They make certain you get to see the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, Terra Cotta Warriors, the River Li, and so forth. They take care of all transportation, meals, and the minimal amount of interpretation you need.

Or you could just do what I did in graduate school. Two of my friends and I bought a plane ticket to China and showed up with a guidebook and some cash. It was a real interesting adventure.

You see, China is not like Europe, where the average westerner can just get off the plane with a guidebook and easily find their way around. At least in Europe, you can recognize most of the signs, even if you don’t speak French, for example. If you don’t have language training prior to going to China, it is like you are mute, deaf and literally illiterate.

However, most of you reading this are probably interested in going to China to study some aspect of Chinese culture. You will need to plan this carefully. If you can join a small group people who have already blazed a trail, then you will be much better off. They’ll know where to go, who to see, how to travel and have access to interpretation.

If you want to find your own teacher in China, this will require some good planning and a little luck. As I mentioned in the previous post, the Cultural Revolution decimated traditional Chinese culture. For example, if you want to get advanced training in traditional Chinese medicine, finding a good TCM doctor or school is easy. They have them all over the place. However, finding a family lineage trained TCM doctor who integrates Yi Jing based medicine and Nei Dan is a challenge. Those remaining are either very old or, if young, educated by someone who was very old. We haven’t found a single exception to this rule.

Consider a few examples of our teachers:

Master Li (Nei Dan, Philosophy, Yi Quan) is over 90 years old. His teachers were born in the 19^th century.

Master Li (Buddhism) is in his 50s. His teacher was over 100 years old.

Grandmaster Chen (Tai Chi) is in his 80s. His teachers were born in the 19^th century.

Master Chen (Taoism) is in his 40s. His teacher, High Priestess Li was born in the 19^th century.

Dr. Chen (Yi Jing, Feng Shui) is young, in his late 40s, but he was taught by his Grandfather. His system has been passed down in his family for over 20 generations!

Dr. Chen (TCM, Yi Jing, Qigong) is in his 50s. His teachers were born in the 19^th century.

In case you’re wondering, they don’t have to be named Li or Chen to be our teacher…

Madame Ye (Taoism, Buddhism) is in her 90s; her teachers were in their 90s.

Master He (Nei Dan, Taoism, Healing) is in his 60s, he learned in secret during the cultural revolution.

Once you’ve found your teacher(s), the second challenge is talking to them. Conversational English or Chinese won’t do. You will need an interpreter who is highly fluent in both English and Chinese. They will also need to know classical Chinese, esoteric classical Chinese and eastern and western philosophy. Finally they will ideally be a student and practitioner of the traditional arts.

As you can see, finding a good interpreter may even be harder than finding a good teacher. This is the area where the worst ravages of the Cultural Revolution can be seen. There just are not many young people who are getting the required training to carry on the traditional arts. Those that do are the future gems of Chinese civilization, rare and precious indeed.