A Score with the Master

20& years with Grandmaster Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming

By Taijiquan Master Roger Whidden, B.S., M.A

Appreciation

It is with great gratitude that I have the incredible good fortune to be in a position to scribe my experiences with a True Teacher and all who have supported that relationship.

Special thanks are in order for Barbara Tyminski and Andrew Chin for their technical advisement as well those who have encouraged the documentation of the “Score”.

Preface

We had created a Mecca for Martial Arts. Yang’s Martial Arts Association (YMAA) was at its peak when Dr. Yang called for a meeting with his core group.

Central to the meeting’s agenda was our Teacher’s announcement of his semi-retirement plan. This was a surprise to most of us. He was going to build a home and small retreat center in northern California. The intention was to move there and teach a ten year PHD-like Martial Arts curriculum to a small group of live-in students.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Yang calls me into his office to discuss his move in greater detail. I had been designing and building homes, A to Z, as well as my own martial arts school over the prior twenty years. Hence, my Teacher often sought my advice relative to construction. However, I feel a twinkle to my toes when he asks whether I want to lead a construction crew in the building of his seventeen-sided mountain top home. Gathering my glee long enough to assess that although my and others’ volunteerism at YMAA is righteous and just, this is not that. So, I ask if he thinks that fair compensation for my retreat center work is equivalent to my Taijiquan tuition over the next five year prior to the construction. He smiles and agrees. In essence, my Master has the trust to front me. I sense that he never doubts my commitment over the years. I even finish my last testing prior to our California construction. He really risked allowing me to “chew and screw”. I gladly follow through, even with a crew. Our group consists of intelligent and athletic long-term YMAA students of his and mine. Though talented in many ways, they have minimal construction experience. I earn my comp and love every minute of it.

At around that time I help proof Dr. Yang’s last two books on Qi Gong Mediation. The content was way out in front of me, yet for some reason the outline for this book is scribbled through that process! I had forgotten about my ink scratching until I recently reread his last three books in preparation for this script. I guess I had to go through the shock, horror, and hell of divorce and the ultimate spiritual and earthly crisis with the death of my son to truly understand.

My Grandmaster, upon meeting my son as in infant for the first time, held him, looked eye-to-eye and stated, “He has the face of the human race”. Upon hearing of my son’s passing, he immediately messaged me with the most compassionate and simple, “Each spiritual path is different”. I got it - the support, guidance, and encouragement I needed. My inner sense shifted my spirit to, “I’m in. I’ve got all the information and experience. Just do it”.

I spend the next year-plus directly experiencing the most profound loss of my life and equally experiencing the most profound gain of my life. I quickly realize I need to record my grief and growth and that it would manifest as a book - “Life, Death and Life with my Son”.

When I finish the rough draft, I email my Teacher and ask him if he wants to read it. I feel a bit at risk with the request, as Dr. Yang almost exclusively reads Chinese classics, in, of course, Chinese, as English is his second language. I also dare mentioning my idea for this book and add a request to come out and visit with him for a few days. To my delight, he immediately replies that he would be honored to

read my book, writes “Go for it” relative to this writing and warmly invites me to be his guest. I’m curious about how our conversations will evolve.

The day prior to my formal commencement of this writing, I awaken with the words “freedom and responsibility” as interdependent. I momentarily compare this to the common cultural consciousness of “freedom from responsibility.”

The last book of Dr. Yang’s, that I just reread, begins with “Dare to be free”.

“Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last.”

Introduction

“A Score with the Master” is a collection of my experiences since 1989 with Taijiquan Grandmaster, Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. I have chosen to include my first Taijiquan Teacher, Master John Chueng Li, my son Cory and other Teachers along The Way, too.

I have also elected to loosely interweave my journey with the Grandmaster with the classic thirteen postures of Taijiquan. The thirteen postures are comprised of the eight trigrams and five elements, also known as the eight doors and five steppings. (See many of Dr. Yang’s books for an in-depth study.)

The thirteen postures will manifest here as thirteen chapters that represent opportunities for enlightenment. These doors and steps are crossing, turning, changing, transforming, and/or choice points and processes.

At times, unexpected crisis has brought me to a door that offered an opportunity for change as well as the danger of the same old _ _it (SOS). At times, I consciously chose change. Re-creating, upon passing through, is a step closer to the Dao. Generally a sense of ease would result. Occasionally more conflict, confusion, and chaos would occur on the path to knowing my True Self.

The doors and steppings often need an expert guide to show The Way. Dr. Yang has played this role for me in ways that have been much more and better than I had ever imagined. Our relationship has continued to evolve through the years. It has been such a slow, organic process that took until his final day in Boston, prior to his move in California, for me to realize that we never formally punctuated our time and energy together.

The punctuation was a prolonged heartfelt hug and a statement to my Teacher while within a small core group that had gathered. I stated, “I have always felt that I am the luckiest Martial Artist who has ever lived”. I often told this to others. However, it had never occurred to me nor seemed necessary to relate it to my expert Guide until that moment. It had been self-evident. Equally core-inspired and true, my Master whispered to me that he felt like he was the luckiest Martial Arts Teacher ever!

The moment was so pregnant, that professional photographer, fellow YMAA Taijiquan practitioner and YMAA tech advisor, Tony Chee, immediately plucked his camera and clicked one off - the cover photograph.

“Partnering the possible”

Chapter One

Pung

Ward off

“It is the one movement, with ten thousand (infinite) variations.”

As a cycle of movement, Pung can be experienced as encompassing the whole of the thirteen postures – manifesting as something out of, and then returning to nothing. It is the primary pattern that can be experienced in all of its creative expressions.

Pung is the first movement in Taijiquan, for optimum health, to create safety, for scholarly prowess and to raise the spirit. Pung, as a posture, can be practiced as the horse riding stance. It is an expanding of one’s physical and energetic bodies in order to guard and grow the guardian Qi.

To maintain the posture for any length of time beyond expanding and usually exhaling, there is a condensing and usually an inhaling, of course. This could be considered Lu-Rollback, as in yielding. Ji-Press, as in squeezing and An-Push, as in pushing out, can also be experienced as one’s Gong Fu of inner vision evolves. As the Pung posture practice progresses, one may awaken to the Cai - Pluck (unite), Lie – Split (divide) as well as Zhou – Elbow (creating space) and Kao – Bump (wagging into one’s space) awareness. Similarly, the movements of Advance, Retreat, Left and Right are felt in the posture. Centering by dropping down completes the Pung cycle, coming back to the Wuji – nothingness that recycles back to the Yin and Yang – somethingness.

It was a long walk to the first door of Pung. I literally needed to relearn how to walk at seven years old. I had severely severed the toes of my left foot, requiring three major surgeries, six weeks in the hospital and a few more months of casting.

Recreating the original bipedal motion took all my concentration. I resented, hated and had the whole gamut of gut wrenching negative feelings about it. I was also the tallest and heaviest through grade school. Hence, my awkwardness, lack of normal abilities and even occasional unprovoked falls offered up many embarrassing experiences. To this day, my re-creation toward the Dao continues as the rehabilitation of and through my left foot progresses.

I’m eleven years old, finally make the cut and play on an organized sport team. It’s our second Little League Baseball game and I am out in the dark recesses of right field mopping up the last two innings. We’re behind 13-2 and I overhear the coach suggest to the manager, “Put the big fat kid in right field in to pitch.” I feel the calling. I’ve got the right number. The walk in is light and agile! The ball feels like round energy! I toe the mound and the aura bubble surrounds! Whoa, strike one, strike two, and strike three happen. I immediately identify with the greatness – oops, ball one, ball two, ball three, and ball four happen. Maybe the right fielder has the wrong number. Getting stuck in the horizontal world of this and that, now, where to place my hat? Ah, go back to that feeling, that heavenly feeling. It’s got my back – strike one, two, and three again – whoa, that lovin’ feeling. We call it the Qi in Taiji. I need to practice the Qi, but how do I do that when no one seems to know what I’m talking about? Some even wonder about my sanity when I confide my insides to them.

The great thing about the inner work of Qi Gong is that one can secretly practice going into the “zero zone” then produce Pung potential. So that’s what I do. I have a phenomenal four year run. I win eighty percent of the games I pitch, throw a no hitter, strike out nineteen of twenty-three batters in another and am the winning pitcher in a 4-1 championship game against a far superior team!

Prior to that Championship game, I arrive an hour before anyone else. I sit and formally meditate for the first time. I do not even know the word mediate! Just sitting on the bench, closing my eyes and feeling the waves of relaxation move down through my body into the ground is the way I enter the Om Zone. Coming out from the zero, my mind is clear and I spontaneously rehearse my found, round, mound meditation maneuvers.

The constant necessity to concentrate on the basics of standing, walking and normal activities of daily living stirs so much negative emotion that it provokes the potential and presence which empowers peak performances. Though athletic endeavors are the primary path to pour my passions, the effects of competing are complete. My weight normalizes, my mind gets fortified and my spirit gets vitalized.

Little do I know that this is just the first cycle of reversing the diseases and moving with ease. Extreme back pain and many contact sport injuries require a deeper and more regular move to meditative consciousness. The severity and frequency of the debilitating pain can be managed through a meditative mind, but I am going to need some expert aids and systems to guide this trek. My initiation into Asian Martial Arts begins with Karate as a teen. I soon incorporate Yoga into my “external” training. Teaching Karate at age twenty, further motivates me to seek out Holistic Healers in Chiropractic, Massage, Acupuncture, Qi -Healing and Psycho-emotional Therapy. Immersing fully into the study of Exercise Physiology fortifies the healing. I even make a deal with God. I will do all that I can if I can be out of pain.

Inching along for a decade, yet often still experiencing the stabbing knife pain, I reach a desperation point. I’m at a crossroads. At that turning point, I feel a whole-hearted acceptance of what my life is. I commit to doing all that I can, accepting the results, whatever they may be. Within seconds, I sense a white shaft of light enter through the top of my head. It takes me a year to realize that I have been back- pain free through that year! My back has been healthy through a very vigorous and vital next 35 years. Thank The Lord.

Once I am free of the stabbing, my spirit and physical vitality raise tremendously. I immerse myself into vigorous training four to six hours a day, six days a week for a year. I also venture into Chinatown to meet my Master.

My encounter of the first kind with Taiji Master John Chueng Li is at a free demo he gives at his Wu Dao Quan. My date (my future wife of over 20 years) and I arrive in a timely manner. However, no one else is present and there are about forty chairs set up. Curiously, I can feel the place vibrating as if packed with fans awaiting the Beantown Ballers to bound out onto The Garden parquet for a playoff game. Defying the scariness of the emptiness, we decide to enter and sit front and center. As soon as we center in our seats, Li Taiji steps in with the Yi leading Qi. The little old man of Chinese heritage is a walking Qi bubble! I can see it! I can feel it!

Though I had once witnessed a bio-electro-magnetic connection while viewing a female Taiji Master on TV, Li and me are here and now. And of course, I might have been in an altered state of consciousness while television viewing. After all, what is the effect of eating cheeseburgers and fries while being subjugated to President Nixon deceiving us as we get brainwashed in the war room of the family kitchen. Though my Qi connection to the Beijing Master was deep, my skepticism was high. Hadn’t we just fought our last three wars on Asian soil against those people? Who knows what tricks Dick and that Chinese chick may have been up to!

I stay with the good, good, good vibration as I witness his eyes as bright as halogen night headlights while misty with mo(u)rning dew. He performs a bit of his Taiji form and his Qi glee is making me quite happy. The Man calls me out to push him. My inner speak is goin’ on about how I’m primetime

and he is old time. Suddenly, I find primetime backpedaling in double time as I hit the wall in no time while spying old time as sweet as fine wine. It’s that Pung power, dam it. Sign me up.

Every Tuesday and Thursday evening I am the first to arrive at the sacred door. It reminds me of the enthusiasm I had on Saturday mornings as a pre-adolescent. Waking at exactly eight a.m. via my internal time clock, dressing in a flash, quietly enjoying breakfast alone, bouncing my Bob Cousy bball and bounding to my elementary school gym, is a natural rhythm. It is exactly the opposite of my school weekly morning anti-rhythm. On ball days, our janitor, Mr. Westgate comes earlier and earlier so I can do my solo fun time gym thing. One day he actually arrives earlier than I and opens the door for me – with Master Li glee as he looks up to me. The tiny man has a huge heart. I look for and acknowledge him every time I am at or by that sacred space – for he is the one who has the key to that life door.

Master Li greets and surrounds me with his sea of Qi – a true fellow custodian of the key. We climb the three steep stairwells of the old factory building. My chest heaves with heavy breathe, he silently heavenly breathes.

We bow and he performs a movement in the Taijiquan form a few times. He is moving so slow and covertly that I can’t track him! For God’s sake , I recently graduated college with almost all A’s, earned my Black Belt and am full time running the show at the local Y. He smiles and nods for me to repeat that which I am committing my time, energy, and money to learn from The Master. I don’t even get close to the ball park. It feels like I’m not even inhabiting this planet. He joyfully repeats it a few more times. My hands may be approximating the moves this time. Others come in and notice my sweat. It’s time for me to go to the corner and practice what I have not learned in front of the plant people for the next two hours.

It’s incredibly frustrating to sneak a peek at the class getting it while I get mired in the muck of my muddled mind. Heck, sometimes I don’t even notice my mind is away for a while! I don’t even remember enough to practice incorrectly at home. Each class, my eternally patient Teacher corrects my mis-creations and directs my discipline to do it again. For some unknown reason, I enjoy the torture! I am still the first one to the sacred door each class. The key Qi man doesn’t ever await me. I always want to be the first to greet him. It’s an incredible time for me.

Nine months into Taiji land, my younger brother Edgar is murdered. We have just moved into the home we bought, train in Karate, play hockey, have many of the same friends and even worked together for a while. We have quite the brotherhood.

I spiral down quickly the first two months after his heinous death. I indulge in all the comfort food that I had left behind long ago. The alcohol abuse and reckless behavior of my late teens manifests again, even though it is a decade later. I am working hard to awaken from the “dark night of the soul”, but I have lost my inner compass and am soullessly stuck in the social sludge.

“Here I come, brother”, I say with temporary relief that comes from escaping grief. I hail to heaven as I am about to crash while driving his motorcycle. I want to go, as this life is too painful. Edgar’s spirit simultaneously speaks, “Oh no, you have a lot to do”. I crash, burn and snap the strap off my full face helmet. It pops off my head and lands about ten yards away. My body is going to need a lot of repair and my brotherly brought heaven’s mandate shows The Way. I realize I need to continue to do my Dao doing, just much, much better.

I soon get back to Li and Taiji. Meditation becomes a daily practice. Yoga more fully integrates into my daily practice and conspicuous consumption dwindles dramatically. I’m still having great difficulty practicing at home though. So I imagine my Master is with me as I practice. It slowly starts working. I am able to get to that Zen Zone that houses my Chinatown cross-culture communions. It’s a bit like when I practiced my hook shots ala my childhood idol, Big Bill Russell. I create an empty space for them to come in and guide my learning.

Master Li includes me in the class practice on occasion now, though clearly the plant people are still my primary pals. At the end of one class, our Teacher has us sit down in front of him – a new format. He endeavors to speak to us in his best Chinglish. I struggle to understand. I am noticing much inner confusion as he speaks of his upcoming demise within the next year! He also looks directly into my eyes with those Qi Real eyes when he implores us to carry on his teaching. Though I can sense congruity at my core, my conscious mind is full of doubt. He appears to be in a great mid-eighties body with a magnificent spirit. And I, the primary plant pal, carry on his teachings? Through the chaos I decide to trust him and my central sense.

Master Li’s speech has stirred a lot of emotion in our small group. One man is outraged. He stands up and decries our Teacher’s wasting of his life in committing so much time and energy to this practice and in teaching so few of us. He even chastises our Master for working as a dishwasher (by hand) in one of the local restaurants. I note our Teacher’s glow grow! When the rage runs out, the Grandmaster responds, “ Wash the dish, Taiji, the same thing”, as he moves in complete coordination to his Chinglish. I am pleased with this piece of peace. I am definitely going for some private time with Master Fine Wine. I arrange regular private lessons with him and practice, practice, practice. I even start to experiment with the Taiji principles in my teaching, hard style training and gulp, life.

I meet my Teacher at the entrance of a new senior housing building that he has moved to in Chinatown. He glee greets me and we proceed to the corner with, you guessed it, the plant people. It is still incredibly difficult for me to learn the choreography of this slow movement meditation. An hour of constant correction and repetition is all I am capable of.

Gradually, I’m recognizing that his traditional teaching approach is more about using the Yi (wisdom mind) to lead the Qi (energy) to lead the Li (body). The more I relax about getting it right, scoring with the Master, throwing strikes; the more I can bring my consciousness to the feeling and guide the feeling to learn the form. Little by little I connect my formal form feelings to spiritual life experiences that I have received. Taijiquan practice is connecting to and growing my spiritual abilities! I have more peace, clarity and a sense of gain in relation to my brother’s life and death.

Haze, humidity and heat engulf the city as I bicycle the twenty-five mile trek to Taiji time. I arrive completely drenched in the sweat soaked goofy gear that goes with gearing on two wheels. Master Li welcomes me, but has me stand in Ma Bu (Pung - horse riding stance) just inside the main door in the foyer. I feel foolish complying with his non-verbal command. The Kung Foolishness gets capitalized when he couches behind me and commences covering the Chinese newspaper. A puddle of sweat below and steam rising above is duly noted by passersby and the building employees. He begins snoring and the Chinese news is now covering him! I’m starting to shake. Even my confidence is shaking. Self-doubt is bubbling up equal to this craziness shaken’ down. Just as I’m intending to jump from the horse to the wheels, I hear him stir up and utter, “Ah, Ma Bu”. I guess I’m still good to ride my horse, but moments later the snoring sounds resound. Hey, I’m paying for this! Enough of this Chinese water torture! Now is the time to chew and screw! I plot my escape more subtly this time, as I probably gave it away last time with those loud thoughts. As I am about to “horse whisper” my way to freedom, my Teacher arouses again and acknowledges my commitment with another “Ah, Ma Bu”. I settle in for the long haul and note my body transforms from shaking to a subtle bouncing, ala, eureka, riding a horse! My Master arrives in front of me, bows and affirms “Ma Bu”.

That was my last contact with Grandmaster Li. He died a few days later. I feel eternally grateful to him for guiding me through my challenging time. We were also pioneering through cultural, racial, age, language and Old China/Disney divides. He risked with me, trusting his instincts and training. I was just willing (somewhat) to do the experiment.

So I make a huge leap by settling into Ma Bu, the primary Pung posture. The Pung recollections easily flow to ten thousand variations, especially at YMAA. As my largest and most highly skilled push hands (similar to Greco-Roman Wrestling) nemesis and buddy, Jeff Pratt would exclaim to his push hands class, “It’s all Pung, all the time”.

Phil Goldman, a professional comedian, told me that teaching Taiji was a comedian’s goldmine for Goldman. Phil would especially enjoy working with the weekend workshop warriors and toss out a “Pung, dam it” at the most opportune, teachable comedic moment. He claims to have “Taiji tongue” Pung power.

Dr. Yang would expertly explain Pung in great detail from the most appropriate and opportunistic vantage point. He would always ground it by demonstrating it and verbalizing “Pung”, in a way that was fully congruent with the posture; tongue and Pung as one.

Ward Off was also used as a way to “roll the (emotional) monkey off the back”. Tongue Pung gradually became more prevalent at YMAA. Dr. Yang would often use the commencement of class to give voice to personal, professional and public problems. Group jibe would also arrive and once the warm up had produced the proper Pung effect of creating safe space, our Master would invite all to turn inward and rollback to Center. Now let us progress from Pung to Rollback in this text.

Chapter Two

Lu

Rollback

I felt like a Ronin (Japanese word meaning a wandering wave or Samurai) in Martial Arts after Master Li’s death. My Karate and Yoga teachers had stopped growing and I had passed them by. I was looking at an open road. There was certainly “a lot to do” and I had the information and spiritual motivation to do it. It was fun and exciting to explore the ancient practices in the new world in a self-directed way. This was a time to experiment with the possibilities that our free society had to offer and test my inner growth with my Rollbacked body and spirit. Hence, I Rollbacked to sports and activities that I had had to give up as a teen due to pain. Each endeavor was like a new life and opportunity to apply the ancient wisdom of “Less is more”.

Rollback is the epitome of less is more. As a martial move, it yields to the attacker’s power. If Pung is divided and just experienced as the Yang, then Rollback is the Yin. It is the inhale, drawing in and using or recycling of the energy at hand. Applying the yielding softness of Rollback into hard, external competitive modalities that I had previously had success in but incurred debilitating injuries was challenging. Rolling with, when I had previously and reflexively resisted, required a psycho-emotional revolution and evolution. Gradually I enjoyed the learning process more, the results were fabulous and the injuries were far less.

I eventually came to be aware of the need to explore what modern society had to offer in order to enhance my inner growth. Following an intuitive sense that had popped during the early Edgar grieving process, I enrolled in an intensive Masters Program at Interface Foundation and then an M.A. at Lesley College. These holistically oriented, eastern influenced and feminist based programs felt like a necessary step in order to Rollback to a time in my life when I might have rolled up poorly or unraveled. The three year process was extremely challenging for me. It was the equivalent of a feminine women being in a boxing gym in the nineteen eighties. It was a whole new world for me. The only reference point I had was the inner skills I had been developing primarily in private. Here, I had to TALK about my feelings with actual people.

“What are emotions anyway?” was my exasperated exclamation to our main Teacher, Doctor Donna Marcova. Stunned by the rawness and the high need for the Truth, Donna dutifully and duly dismissed us. She gave herself some Rollback space and time. When we reconnoitered, Ms. Marcova mouthed, “Emotions = E (energy) in motion.” Even I got it. The Master Li in me jumps in too. I’m connecting it all and it is extremely arduous. It’s a painful process.

As I complete those Masters Programs and hop to the next step, I immerse myself into house building opportunities. The inter and intra-personal abilities are absolutely vital in order to deal with the full process of construction. It’s an adventure and Heaven is supporting the fulfillment of my mandate in Martial Arts. I feel like The Creator is creating these opportunities to apply my abilities, grow the necessary capital to control my destiny and eventually build my own school. Renting and working for

other organizations has resulted in losing populations and missing out on the long term teacher-student relationships that aid in sustaining a lifetime commitment to this work.

My wife, Mary, and I opt for adoption options. I seize the last chance to bicycle cross-country. The once in a lifetime pedaling opportunity B.C. (Before Children) further opens my awareness to the wonders of our inner and outer world. Somehow I come out of those seven weeks of one millions cyclic revolutions with my Real Eyes realizing that I need to find my Master and establish my home in Marshfield (A coastal town south of Boston where my grandparents had built a summer cottage and established an oasis for us).

I investigate a few of the city’s Taijiquan schools. They are quite impressive in that there are

quality students, great curriculums and a variety of approaches. The Chinese Teachers are opening up to Americans. There has been a shift since Master Li last taught me Ma Bu. There is now a bridge to connect the massive differences between modern America and this ancient Chinese practice. It is a foot bridge that still requires courage and commitment. However, it is vastly improved from the risky tight rope that Master Li and I regularly traversed.

I’m sensing a decision coming soon as I sit at my Rollback-top desk. I decide to clean it out and then come across a tiny, old ad that I had cut out of the newspaper a few years prior. It is information about Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming and his school, but it is further away from my suburban home than I want to travel. I investigate anyway, as the small print seems to be magnifying the longer I magnetize to it. Wow, YMAA has moved to within only a half an hour car ride from my home, construction site and also my teaching location.

Pedaling to Dr. Yang’s free Saturday morning lecture is a pleasure. His place is packed with the complete range of humanity. It feels like home. Dr. Yang is completely unabashed as he transmits his vast in-depth knowledge of Chinese Martial Arts.

Warm tears moisten my beaming eyes, ala Master Li. We made it! All those years of secretly peaking into the back of my world history books for information about Asian culture (that we never got to) are over. Elective study projects that had always centered on Oriental study are the norm now. The possible truth of a past lifetime experience with many incarnations as a fierce Mongol warrior is a probable truth now. Occidentals and Orientals warring et passe’ pour moi.

My future teacher communicates about the written Chinese Martial Arts Classics as songs and poetry! He is living and presenting the holistic model that I have spent a lifetime working to understand and integrate. Academic and experiential, art and science, ancient and new, East and West unite, mutually supporting and benefitting.

Pedaling and pondering predominate on the path home. The sense of being completely satisfied with the possibility of studying with Dr. Yang satiates my being. And I find myself needing to focus on his last statement as a way of grounding the astounding.

The Martial Arts Master finished his mini workshop with, “It all comes down to conquering one’s laziness and selfishness”. “Keep it simple stupid” (KISS) keeps connecting to the commitment to conquer one’s (small) self and Rollback to one’s True Self.

An inner argument arises. If my bike has reverse gearing, it would Rollback to YMAA. It can’t be that simple, can it? I just spent three years in post-graduate studies embodying the leading edge of psycho-emotional theories and practices. It was all great stuff. I make it home and decide to sleep on it.

A week without a decision is weak. I know I need to opt and adopt now. My night school spirit Teachers come through. I awaken early on Saturday morning with this dream: I’m solo climbing our local Blue Hills. The granite outcropping is extremely challenging to traverse. It takes rock climbing skills that I have never practiced. To mountaineer free of gear brings fear and an ear for my mountain Master. Approaching the summit I hear a small group of hikers traveling along the rim trail. It is Dr. Yang and his top students! Do I transition from the personal path that has worked so well and bound the bramble bush boundary to be on the back of the band’s bus, or do I continue to go solo? I make the leap, quietly assuming my Rollback seat and bring up the rear.

The message is like a masterful massage. I get a quick breakfast bite and bike by the big blue spirit mountain on my way to YMAA. It’s a cool autumn ride to a place where the cool factor is so high that I am still elevating. I’m the first student there. The Doctor has already opened up and the heat is on. I squat over a floor hot air vent, warmth comes to my twinkle toes and I can feel the fire glow down below. I hear classical piano being played in the room next door. In a future week, I peek and it’s our Teacher’s son, Nicky Yang, five years old and dancing those keys with Qi! Shortly, the sacred space fills with Qi aspirants. This is a contentment that is new to me, to be led optimally.

It’s like Old China in the New World with the full range of races surfing the spinal wave of inspiration and Rolling the back through expiration to complete the cycling. The anterior and posterior wave of the spine through the breath inspiration and expiration is introduced shortly after I commence my study. Dr. Yang announces that we need to implement the White Crane Gong Fu emphasis on the spinal movement. This was the core of his internal training in his teens in Taiwan with his White Crane Teacher, Master Gao. He explained that modern Taijiquan for the masses oversimplifies the movements and postures. We need to Rollback to where we once belonged. This seals the deal for me. For a person at or near the top of his field, with a booming headquarters and growing schools around the world to change our training, is True Leadership to me. I imagine he knows that he will be challenged severely by all who have committed to the current standard current. But according to our Teacher, the current current is a riptide that is leading us astray. We need to swim across that errant current for several strokes, then poke our heads up and claim the high ground. I can feel the Truth at the gut and head simultaneously. If I’m not all wet yet, I’m going in for the whole bone marrow wash and washing of the brain now.

Over the next few years, Dr. Yang publishes several books that deal directly and indirectly with this “radical” change to Rollback our practice and learn how to Roll the back like the snake body that it is. He publishes what I consider the most important Martial Arts book ever written –“White Crane”. I immediately make it required reading for all my students. Even the committed Karate Kids and their parents need to read it as a part of their advanced training and testing.

My Master writes “Qi Gong for Arthritis” and “Back Pain”, too. I help proof them but I’m bothered by his boldness in putting himself out as an authority in medical areas where he has little or no experiential basis. How can he advise people with such pain without knowing that terrible territory within? After submitting my input regarding the “Back Pain” book, I ask Dr. Yang about this apparent contradiction. He responds with, “You have to move it and lead with your mind”. I know that but, but…

It takes me a few years to actualize my Real Eyes and realize my Actual Eyes to see the Truth of the Teaching. Qi Gong is the basis for Taijiquan whether it is oriented for health, safety or scholarly abilities.

Years later, he continues his proving and writes the book, “Taijiquan Theory of Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming”. Yet it is not until after my son’s “Life, Death and Life” that I break through and awaken to the astounding spiritual essence of our training too.

Along the way, I come to understand that our Teacher had much experience with long-term Martial Artists, especially in Europe. Hard style Karate and Judo had been established there several decades prior to here in the U.S. Many dedicated practitioners had developed arthritis and back pain through their training! Geeze, and I entered and continued in Martial Arts as a means of resolving these diseases.

Through the training, I recognized that I had to soften and internalize the Karate I had learned in order to facilitate a cure. However, it was difficult for this young guy to discriminate what aspects of the training were not a healthy match. For instance, I had trained Iron Fist Gong Fu for about ten years until I noticed that my internal training through Yoga, Meditation and Taiji was suffering as a result of the Iron. It was humbling to realize that that training was creating an arthritic effect. I guess I needed to loosen my arthritic mind in order to attend to my body well.

I figured out that Dr. Yang needed to state his case like a lawyer, based upon the material world science in order to help shift dedicated Martial Artists toward the natural evolution of the inner work and the soft side. Eventually his popularity in Europe boomed and many YMAA schools were established there. We, at headquarters enjoyed the bounty, as many of those school’s teachers and top students came to Boston and trained with us.

Our Master had to prove himself to the Old Guard, too. Chinese Martial Arts were starting to boom here also. As we joined our Leader in various demonstrations, tournaments and festivals featuring the traditional training, we became aware of our rapidly growing status. The Old Guard, Traditional Taiji Masters, tested our young Guide. The test was not through western style legal and scientific proofing. It was experiential, as in being awoken in the middle of the night while at a Martial Arts festival. Then being harassed in the small bedroom, Qi Gong quizzed and Push Hands prodded until The Elders Were satisfied that the young guy had earned a seat at The Table.

Though The Elders were satisfied, our Master was not. His mandate from Heaven was clearly to never be satisfied with his inner development. His thirst for knowledge through direct experience as well as through immersing himself in the ancient Chinese Classics has always astounded me.

I can recall one of our impromptu, short, simple and sweet meetings in which the good Doctor elatedly pronounced, “I believe we are ninety percent correct!” Though most are satisfied with the inner journey being close to accurate, I witness my Teacher ever more motivated as he moves closer to the Truth. To me, this is clear evidence that while most are satisfied with their inner growth when money, status and political power are gained, few use those material gains to foster enlightenment. Most are used by those material gains and crave more money, status, and political power. I have a Teacher who is committed to the “inner work”, as Master John Li often said.

At around the time of the onset of my YMAA training, our local Public Broadcast Station televises a series called “The Power of Myth”, with Joseph Campbell and hosted by Bill Moyers. It becomes quite popular and replays many times through the years. My post-graduate experiences have put me with the leading edge of wholism here. Now Campbell’s life work challenges even that education

to consider our common past and how it can inform the present to lead the future. Campbell’s mythic life work helps me to build a better bridge.

Though early on I had yearned for written and video information regarding my Martial Arts study, the documentation was scant, inaccurate, esoteric, or oversimplified. With Dr. Yang’s books and videos, I felt like I did when I first awakened to the Qi Ball experience. At that time, I preceded to read every sports biography and autobiography in the Dedham public library. I studied the formula of connecting to the potential, growing the love through the hard work, and lighting up the spirit until I embodied it. Our Teacher’s treasure maps are light years ahead of Dr. Seuss, Campbell, the athletic icons, et al. His digging deep into our ancient Earthling past combined with his higher cosmic consciousness has produced a leading edge that I am still in infancy about growing into.

Maybe my Grandmaster, I and others have Rollbacked to those ancient ancestral experiences well enough to toss the next pitch for PBS and the masses. I believe that the spiritual cultivation through Taiji and the like that many of our ancestors lived is necessary here, now, more than at any time in our Earthly existence. Our ability to Rollback into the vast ocean of Qi Gong and create a new wave for humanity is ready. Lets rock and Rollback to the ancient classics and create the future fantastic.

It’s time for more moments with my Master.

Chapter Three

Ji

Press

Dr. Yang comes out of his office casually dressed in gym shorts and a T-shirt. He is usually writing during the day. My Master states that he would like to test me now. It feels a bit like he is Pressing on me, as in a good massage. Though I am not aware of what this Taijiquan testing entails, I go for it.

I squeeze the morning Taijiquan classes into my construction and teaching schedule. Staying after classes to train by myself has become the norm. I feel so fortunate to be able to bike to Taiji and train with such variety of fellow beginner students. Our Teacher Rami Rones is younger than I, but highly skilled and committed. I’m just about to finish up and hop on my bike for a freedom ride home, lunch and a full work day.

My Teacher asks me to perform the first part of the classic Long Form. Confidence comes as my competence has been honed through diligent disciplined practice these last nine months. As I raise my arms, starting the sequence, I experience a strange sensation of floating. It’s like being in a helium balloon and it is taking off without my consent and control. Summoning all my mental might, I am able to Press it back down to ground. The rest of the form flows easily after that. As soon as I finish, my Master mouths, “I thought you were going to float away at the beginning”. Astounded by his clarity of vision and feedback, I reply, “I did too”. I successfully complete the other phases of the first level of testing. Little did I know that this is the only time I would pass through a testing level in one pass. In future testing, the Press(ure) would greatly increase and failing to pass would be fairly plausible.

The Press of the testing pressure attracts my full commitment. To have such accurate, direct, and immediate feedback with corrections is an optimal opportunity. Regularly compressing the training, refining skills as much as possible and putting it on the line for Dr. Yang and others to witness, produces great growth. In fact, my Teacher is able to give such profound feedback in future tests, that I often have to dig deep through my denial to deconstruct my misdirection and reconstruct creative solutions along The Way.

YMAA is a two way streak for feedback. All are offered the opportunity to check and challenge each other. Dr. Yang is most adamant about this with himself. His favorite admonishment to us is to give HIM trouble! Most are too intimidated to do this. Gradually, I become more adept and can actually give him trouble. He especially loves the trouble when it is coming from a place that is the result of doing one’s homework. We work hard to be in the position to correct and have correction. There is little opportunity to hide. Our Teacher leads with love and a constant tool is corrective feedback. The recognition that masking my maladies is a colossal waste of time and energy results in just doing it and trusting in the process.

This trusting brings on a sense of security. If one really wants to learn, this is a great place to be. I teach with a similar approach. My feeling is that if a person comes into a Martial Arts class, there is implied consent, even a demand for truthfulness.

However, because directness and honesty may not be common place, I often get checked by my students and the Karate Kids’ parents. Their giving me trouble is most often out of genuine concern. It highlights our healthy relationship. Often my reply to the questioning of my direct ways in regards to the children is simply, “If it is good, I say good. If it is bad, I say bad”. Inevitably, they get beyond their sad, bad, or mad and get to glad. With adults, I commonly comment that teaching Martial Arts is a kin to swimming. If I tell them that they can swim when they can’t, I am contributing to their delusion and endangerment. Especially in living by the sea coast, they can easily understand my due diligence around discipline.

Sometimes high level helping professionals have the most trouble with the Press of being checked. One prominent Psychiatrist, evidently exacerbated, emitted, “You can’t just tell me the truth”. All go to silence in reply. Several months later, after class, the Talk Doc hands me some research he has come across. It is of a study that a couple of Psychiatrists had conducted. They had noticed significant growth in their two boys in their year’s time since they had been training in the Martial Arts. They reported that the environment was unique in that there was a constant theme of what the Docs referred to as “brutal honesty”. They got it, though their conclusion was that it “deserved further study.”

Well, I know that we at the Dr.’s Y are in an environment that is way beyond the why of The Way. In fact, often prior to class we line up for an opportunity to be checked by our Master. We often ask each other for corrections. A class only on form corrections is packed. I am surrounded by people that really want to learn, and I realize how unique this is. The elation of being with such a “concentration camp” is equal to the despondency of the awareness that much of the life of the masses has been captured in controlled “concentration camps”.

One of Dr. Yang’s favorite workshop admonitions is about “whipping”. It is about earning the right to be corrected by doing the Gong Fu (hard work, or energy and time). When the student has a constant commitment, correction can be comforting. The Teacher’s kindness can come through even when “whipping”. If the student is not receiving criticism about correcting the course, is because the student is not doing the work. The Gong Fu is considered the talent that is worth ten talents.

Once I figure out the fabulous formula, I practice more and more. I even notice that much of my strong work ethic in the past has been motivated by the desire to AVOID direct detection! Gulp, motivation through that dirty Qi is like swallowing well water that has been stagnant. By being in an environment of corrective reward, the whole thing transforms. I’m working hard to drink from the clean, cool and clear circulating Qi channels.

“Not that, this” is the Master’s mantra to me when I show him my weak week’s weapon work. When I view my Teacher’s Taiji sword form, I am awash with astonishment as to how beautiful and lethal the choreography is. The Taijiquan straight sword (jin) is considered the highest of Chinese weapons and taught akin to classical violin. I am honored to be invited to this specialty class with the advanced group. I feel handicapped though. My mind and the sword are not in accord. I am making a huge leap, though. I regularly voice and display my handicap and continue to receive “This, not that”.

Whidden has hidden his foot handicap well until then. A turning point comes when I overhear Dr. Yang telling a man with paraplegia that the Qi can be sensed and led even through his legs and feet! The young man argues the point. Somehow, my left foot, desensitized for the last thirty years, hears it and gets it. Immediately, I construct a plan for a new foundation. I entertain the possibility that I can feel my left foot as well as my right. Shortly thereafter, my wife and I witness the first posture and message our soon to be adopted daughter, Jocelyn would give to me. Jocelyn, just after birth, extends her left leg and inverts her left foot, points it to me and holds it there long enough for me to read the teaching. Bonded by the feet, daughter and father have a simultaneous rebirth.

I had given up on my swollen, cold and numb “bad” foot. Jocelyn would act as my personal Qi feedback machine. The scar tissue has slowly and continually shed over this score and more. As the scar tissue and swelling get Pressed out, the Real me moves in. It is difficult, this Press pain to make gain.

Sometimes the Press comes in the form of a spontaneous slap of a kick. I experience the corrective contact on several occasions. I’m off base and the pitcher dutifully picks me off. If embarrassment is the seed of enlightenment, then that explains my bountiful organic garden.

I’m getting impatient, even maybe belligerent with my Master. I’m insisting that I need more information relative to the Taiji Fighting Set. It is an extremely challenging partner form to learn, and even more so to teach. The Doctor is about to leave for one of his six week Europe gigs and he has given his advanced class over to me. Sharing his immense responsibilities is a source of great pride and

bonding for the YMAA team. But for some reason I am getting stuck in this and that. Slap! I get the necessary correction up the side of my head. I seem to turn the other cheek and roll with it. The whole class is stopped to silence while I appreciate the residuals. He is good to go and I am good to go for it now. After that, I experience a bump up and am even qualified to have the honor of co-teaching and performing the Fighting Set with my Master in future workshops. This opens the door enough for me to put my left foot in and receive many more expertly placed and timed Presses with just the right amount of force to stimulate healing, never harming.

Fear of failure, as a motive method, is gradually being replaced with the love of learning. Fear of failure may be one side of the ego coin. The other side may be a fear of success. Both seem to comprise the coin and are one coin of the many money motive methods that are subtexts of the fear of death text. Acknowledging the fear based, dirty Qi motive forces is much easier and transformable when love based, clean Qi and spiritually motivated methods are presented and practiced. Failure does not seem like such a problem, maybe even a necessary and inevitable consequence of Real Living when really doing the experiment of life. The Press, the pressure that may induce failure, falling, death also induces the birth to a new life, maybe the True Life.

We are in the midst of our intensive bi-annual workshop series at Headquarters. Most of the Headquarters Instructors and Assistants gratefully volunteer. It is our chance to contribute to Taijiquan as a social movement, give back to our Teacher and learn something valuable for ourselves. There are always several teachers from other YMAA schools there, teachers and top students from quality schools, the wide world of life-time Martial Artists, newbies, wantabies an occasionally some “energy vampires”. I often joke as to how authentic Martial Arts training can attract “the full range of personality disorders”. Most often the whole spectrum of humanity will find benefit. Occasionally, though, our Guardian would notice his guardian Qi being invaded by an “energy vamp”. Dr. Yang would immediately stop the Presses, give voice to what was happening and ask the perpetrator to stop. Though often shocking to most of us, the inevitable result was a shift toward relax, calm and peace. Clear thinking and gain would follow.

Identifying this in my Karate Kids classes has always been easy for me. Immediate action in regards to improper behavior and the holding of the violator accountable is the just and righteous responsibility of the Teacher. Children are generally overt about behavior that may be working against the class interest. Adults tend to be much more subtle, even energetically hostile. “Energy vampirism” exists and sometimes it takes a team to bring the vamp into the cool camp or out to the damp ramp.

A case in point concerns an ongoing energy sucking of various Instructors’ time in our Pushing Hands workshops. I am peripherally aware of a middle-aged man in the intermediate group. I recall that he has a past history over the years of usurping in an ordinate amount of YMAA expertise. Since he has not progressed enough to be in the advanced group that I work with, I do not feel the need nor have been called upon to step in. I can feel his physical presence as well as his obsessing Pressing on our permeable and flexible boundaries between groups. For some unknown reason to me, the various Instructors that have spent an unreasonable amount of group time with him have given him a Press pass. I am not even aware that our Y has Press passes. I notice that the banter at lunch bats the brat about. It is unusual for our group to process problems so poorly. I keep a watchful eye out in the afternoon session. Sure enough, as I feel the need to Press, my buddy Phil Goldman presents the iron. Phil brings the vamp to my camp and asks me if I will work with “Dracula”. Since it is a Pushing Hands workshop and “The Count” needs to be accountable, physical feedback it is. He needs help on a moving partner choreographed routine, so I assure him that every time he is off, I will Press on (him). He agrees with the strategy and in every move he makes off center, I make him pay. Each payment elicits more erratic tactics and he gets ticked off as he pays more tickets. He eventually goes wildly off balance with my slightest Press and is heinously high on his hysteric horse. The whole workshop awakens to witness the wobbling. I stop it. He does not, and cries out “What about my ego?” Phil, with his optimal professional comedic timing, Pressed and pounced with, “Ego, we don’t do that here”. The New York City Psychiatrist gets it. He acknowledges in a way that indicates to us that his ego is justly and righteously burned. It may be burned in a way that hones his medal rather than imprisons him with metal. Geeze, Louise, this Ji works!

The Dalai Lama says that the ego is necessary for spiritual growth. In the West we generally try to build up the ego. In the East, the emphasis traditionally has been to burn the ego.

Practice, practice, practice is absolutely essential in order to build up one’s competencies and confidence, the ego. Get Press(ed) on regularly to let go of ego. A favorite saying of our Teacher’s and his Teacher, Master Gao is, “The taller the bamboo grows the lower it bows”.

Grand Master, Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming stands so tall, like the giant ancient redwoods of the West and bows so low, arcing and arching his back, back to earth, like the great green growth of the East that is now here for us in the West.

Chapter Five

Cai

Pluck

Yang’s Martial Arts Association was a bountiful fruit bearing tree for Martial Artists. We could Pluck from the deep, vast, time-tested and leading edge of health, safety, scholarly and spiritual practices and information. Dr. Yang could Pluck from the wealth of humanity, many of whom would volunteer their considerable talents with the zeal of missionaries. It is fair to say that the camaraderie we shared was that of being united in our diversity. Our diversity and sharing of our common interests made us all better for it.

The unique opportunity to train traditional Taijiquan with a qualified Master and committed students was more than enough in and of itself. Combine that with the younger population learning Long Fist and White Crane and we were often filling three large Wu Dao Quan’s (training halls).

We were also exposed to the world of Martial Arts, as Dr. Yang invited other qualified Masters to present seminars. I was lucky enough to get a taste of Ba Gua, Hsing-Yi and Cha Chuan. Seminars in Chinese medicine, Qi Gong, Chinese history and more expanded the offerings. In my first three years at the YYMA, I had learned more Martial Arts than my previous twenty! Yes, I had been a dry sponge, so ready to jump in fully, even over my head. And over my head I had gotten. Fully soaked, unable to absorb any more outside information, I needed to dry out. This became quite clear for me when our Master inquired as to why I had not registered for an upcoming seminar. Instantaneously, spontaneously, and completely unabashed I replied, “If it wasn’t for the lack of time, energy and money, I would”. Uttering that guttural truth and having it heard at the heart, gut and head was heavenly. Though my enthusiasm seemed to know no bounds, the reality of my life was that I was married, had two infants, and was building our home, as well as teaching. Pedal to the metal could be fatal. It was time to be a bit selective, condense my training and take a decade or two to practice what I had superficially absorbed over the prior three years.

Hence, Martial Arts in my life needed to become Martial Arts as a Way of Life. My Teacher’s life clearly exemplified that for me. It was so cool to go to classes that also fulfilled social needs. It could be at parties play pushing, participation in demos, being a part of the Yang family, competitions, or getting culture and feeling festive at festivals in our field.

Witnessing Dr. Yang’s wife, Mei Ling’s loyalty and their three children’s emersion in Martial Arts was a special treat for me. It also became easy for me to feel free to be me in my own family. In fact, my family formed with the Taiji thread embedded.

My future wife, Mary and I were the only attendee’s of Master Li’s demo. We had met at the YMCA where I had taught Karate. She even trained in my classes for a while.

Our first child, Jocelyn, had been a long wait for us as we went through the gauntlet of the adoption process. When we were presented with her as our first adoption option, many red flags popped up. We delayed our decision. In desperation, on the night prior to our last day to decide, Mary suggested that I have a dream that would declare our destiny. I stated, “That is not the way this intuition stuff works for me. I can’t just Pluck a decision from my dream world”. Well, within one year, YMAA had interwoven even into my “night school”. The dream that night has Dr. Yang and his senior students standing semi-circle as I stand slightly to the side. We’re facing a door that is always locked. However, Jocelyn’s birth mom, Kathy, fully pregnant, apparently enters through that portal. She stands well grounded and firm in her understanding that this is the family for her child to be raised in. No words are spoken and we all concur that this is to occur. I awaken to tell Mary. California here we come. We are there for fifteen days for the birth and to finalize and legalize. I commence my training with my new compatriot. We Meditate, do Yoga and train Taiji in a snuggly that helps us negotiate the stressors of this major change.

As we investigate our relationship, I become aware that Jocelyn is my Qi Gong Master. I notice she has all the skills of Qi Gong already! Deep breathing is natural. Maybe even I had this at one time? When I am with her during her discomfort, my deep breathing is required to normalize her energy. If I fake it, she just ramps up the rant. Joc is like my bio-electromagnetic feedback entity. If I get it, she affirms with ease. If I miss it, she alarms with dis-ease. It’s like she’s training me to be a True Parent. “If you’re going to be my Dad, then do it!”

The little blonde one loves being outside. If her energy is array, I can pass her through the portal and the cry is bye-bye. Hiking with my new babe in the backpack is a fave. Jocelyn would either keep a sound rhythm in coordination to my cadence or slip into sleep, deep. When traversing through the campus of West Point, the new cadet culled these coo’s from my core in coordination to the Plebes pacing, “Huh, ungowa, Jocelyn’s got the powa. Huh, ungowa, Jocelyn’s got the powa…” This becomes Jocelyn’s birthday dance, rant and chant that initially evoked humor, in the teens it evoked embarrassment and now is a source of pride.

When I came back to the YMAA campus to parent with backpack prior to class, my Teacher was initially taken back. However, he soon came back with a smile and said, “It’s not fair, she’s going to know Taiji without even training it”. (Don’t we all?)

Losing our grace and returning to grace seems to be a common human destiny theme. The Martial Master is fast becoming kid friendly as another boundary is bridged. We often Pluck flowers from each other’s gardens at YMAA.

I feel comfortable bringing my Bogota born son, Cory, to our sacred space. What a place for “the face of the human race” as well as all the faces of the human race. A song and dance comes for Cory to the beat of “Cory Edgardo, Cory Edgardo, Cory Edgardo, he’s the boy we love”. Our son would military march proudly, wherever he may be, allowing all to see.

It’s as “at home” for me in China, as it is in my newly built home. Maybe it’s my past lives as a Mongol warrior that “homes” me in at Wuhan. We’re completing our mini United Nations within our YMAA family by adopting our third child from China. When Master Yang hears of my plans, he sensitively, succinctly and simply states, “You are going to save her life”. With that I feel we are family and ask my Teacher to write out in Mandarin and help me pronounce, “I love you. You are my daughter. I am your father”. He adds, “Don’t be afraid”. My Mentor takes great care in coaching me in the correct communication pronunciation.

Though the international adoption option is new in China, the citizens clearly have curiosity and concern. Once they figure out that this “hairy white ape” is benevolent, they wrap us up with rapture. Jian Mei grows up healthy and pretty (the meaning of her name). She even commences her modeling career as the poster child for my school at age four and then models for my children’s book, “Master Roger and the Karate Kids”. Yes, we saved her, as all parents give life and extended families support life. Jian is finding her ways of giving back too. In fact, Jian told me, “Dad, everyone knows that you have saved me. They don’t know that I have saved you too”. I agree. We are in a true complementary community.

Dr. Yang is already in high demand internationally. He travels with his teachings about half the year. Delegating responsibilities is a must and we are growing so quickly that often volunteers have to grow up fast and the paid staff is maxed. There is opportunity with the responsibility and most feel the freedom to fly in that creative space. I recall Rami Rones so excited in sharing his realizations. Jeff Pratt thrilled to teach his first class and every class after that. Leslie Takao finds her teaching tongue after initial trepidation. Phil Goldman coordinates his comedic career with coaching classes so cool that even our “serious” Master can’t help but be okay, even try on that way. In fact, when funny Phil fills in for me while I am building my school, he often does it as me! Everyone keeps this a secret until I just happen to

catch the end of his Taiji gig, er, class one evening. Phil Plucks from my persona perfectly. He does it better than me! I guess I always wanted to experience being taught by me.

A kind of symbiotic study stupefied me each time my Teacher and I would get together after his bi-annual six week teaching tours. The Doctor was always great at listening to the intent behind the words. He could often finish a person’s sentence for him. My mom and her twin do that. However, when I would stop in his office upon his return home, there was a whole other level of mutual communion and communication. Inevitably, he would broach a topic that had been brewing for him, and I would have been in on the brew too! For instance, on one occasion he is going on and on about the sacrum and its importance. He states that it is called the immortal bone in Chinese. Dr. Yang has just made the leap to conclude that if the left brain is connected to the right side of the body, the right to the left and upper to the lower, then the frontal brain is connected to the sacrum and the rear brain to the sex organs. That means attention to the sacrum is key to the stimulation of the frontal brain, the area of the more evolved human potentiality. He is ecstatic! I add that the word sacrum has its Western origin in connection to the sacred. He’s got a halo glow. I can feel my sacrum vibrating stronger than it had over the previous few weeks of strong sacred sensations. We have our moment of mutual cultivation and he orders, “Now get to your training”. Jubilantly, I jog to the gym downstairs and practice my stairway to heaven curriculum.

On another occasion, my Teacher can barely contain his elation as I enter his office. He almost assaults me with, “I believe that we are 90% correct”. I reply, “Yah”. He smiles and says, “Now go train”. Our train(ing) is on the right track. The conductor waves his magic wand and our locomotive is not so loco or just local after all. The little train that could climbs that mountain it thought impossible. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can… Just use that locomotive breath.

All good families share meals together. We did that regularly after tests, demos and for special occasions. Whether it was at our favorite Chinese restaurant or pot luck at the school, it was mainly about the content, the food. Plucking from the duck, chewing the fat and picking the bone was more literal than figurative. Just like with our training, the social aspect came as a result as the breaking of bread. The connections came through more cleanly for me when we conjoined via quality caloric consumption calisthenics and then replenished with quality caloric cuisine consumption.

The YMAA Taiji train travels well in the wide world. At a tiny park in Southern California, I’m practicing the twenty minute Long Form at the slow pace that is an anti-demo show. Jocelyn is a week old and settles to slumber in the stroller beside me. A woman sits down on the bench in front of us and watches meditatively for the final fifteen minutes. When finished, she states that it was beautiful. I appreciate her and can feel that beauty, though I am still in the initial stages of just remembering the choreography.

In a small courtyard outside of Mexico City, a cat hides in the bushes and watches me train. I’m attempting to get grounded after getting altitude sickness in a failed attempt to climb a 19,000 foot volcano. At the moment I complete the Long Form, the cat leaves. Masters come in all forms.

I do ma bu for an hour each morning from our hotel room overlooking the courtyard in Wuhan, China. Jian sleeps contently on our first night together and awakens with an appetite for life that belies her “failure to thrive” first ten months.

In Guanjou for a day in the park, Jian is velcroed to me as I spy a woman 100 meters away swaying with the Taiji fan. We fans hide, peek and sneak behind a big boulder. She finishes five minutes later, turns and bows to us! We arise and bow low, maybe even a bit of a kowtow.

Regularly, my pre-school children would go downstairs in our home gym and “play Taiji” with me. It would run the range from the completely formless to me “teaching” them the form. As they outgrow me in Taiji, our cat takes over. All black Yinnie find hers way to a different perch each time she is aware of the Taiji training. Somewhere along the way I spy her out, though she is into her stealth-fighter-hider mode. Inevitably, upon finishing, she pounces into the center of the sacred empty space and shows me up with her cat-isthenics.

My friend, Alex Bai, often talks about Taiji when we ski. Alex grew up in Beijing. He has been a life-long Martial Artist, Taijier for twenty years and is a quite accomplished skier. Alex trains two hours each morning in his backyard in a clearing surrounded by woods and bordered by a stream. He loves his animal neighbors watching.

A Taiji student of mine for over twenty years, Dan Wychogrod, trains in his urban driveway each early morn. His neighbors love watching, especially when he does his animal frolics. What learning are we Plucking from them and they from us?

Living abutting a tidal marsh brings opportunity to have community with my plant and animal friends. My school is also adjacent to a tidal swamp. Especially in the opening year of the school, nature brought regular visits to our doors from the full range of swamp life. I have a difficult enough time teaching the two legged creatures, let alone four or more, or none. Yetis are welcome, though none have come (that I know of).

When Dr. Yang built his new school, I got the opportunity to train solo prior to the upper gym being used for offices. I loved my fun-time gym prime-time private time. One early eve, a woman of my age came in and sat where The Master would sit down when he would check my choreography. I had never seen or heard of her prior to that evening. Though unusual, I felt comfortable and she seemed so too. When I finished, she gave me correction, ala my Teacher, though more general, equally as accurate! I queried her qualifications and she countered with “Connie”. That’s about all I got out of her. Eventually, Connie connected and made critical contributions to the school, though her Taijiquan was not so good.

Retreating to center while at Dr. Yang’s Retreat Center recently finds me meditating in the octagonal outdoor gazebo. As I leave, their cat leaps onto the rail from the roof where it had no doubt guided me to no doubt.

Not to be outdone, their dog dutifully does dog duty outside the door as I do downward dog and other Yoga poses daily. It reminds me of how my dog, Roki would always retreat immediately to the center spot where I had trained, meditated, did Shiatsu, etc. Plucking wisdom of The Way comes from the source by way of many sources.

Cultivation through the eternal work transfers well to other ways of experiencing The Dao. I’m finding that I can feel quickly connected to, be comfortable with and contribute to the vibe in music, dancing, hiking, biking and to most any field and people that do The Dao. Exploring and experiencing the range of my inner and outer life complement each other as yin and yang. Plucking from the essence of the myriad manifestations of the Dao and allowing benevolent beings to Pluck from my experiences fosters cross-pollination.

Chapter Six

Lie

Split

Master Yang could Split like no one else I know. Sensing the vibe that needs to divide and then Splitting with the least force is a masterful teaching and personal skill. In psycho-therapeutic mediums this ability, when authentic, can be termed, “I’m not leaving you. I am coming back to myself”. It is a way of taking care of oneself without rejecting the other. It is also a way of honoring the need to have individual identity, space and time. When done well, we can be together alone and alone together. Boundaries can be clear, strong, permeable and flexible.

The ameba, though “brainless”, instinctively moves and shapes toward nourishment and away from toxicity. Ameba-being may be at the core of human beings too. Ah, if I only didn’t have a brain. Maybe amebas are my mentors too. I can keep my brain and be instinctive like them also. I wonder if instinct is an effect of going to the nothingness, “no brain” state on a regular basis. More and more, I feel like I naturally gravitate toward nourishment and avoid toxicity. This is a quality that I greatly admire of Dr. Yang and have worked very hard to remember and develop in my life.

I witness my Teacher’s Splitting on a regular basis at YMAA. For instance, we are in our last session of a six month course in Qi Gong Massage. The class is full with complete range of massage adepts. I am fortunate enough to partner with a guy who grew up in Japan and studied with my Shiatsu teacher there. We love Master Yang’s classic orientation of developing a personal growth foundation through meditation, self-massage, Qi Gong and the theoretical understanding. Aiding another is an inevitable and necessary outgrowth of self-care and cultivation. This is true of classic Chinese medicine and all ancient medicine that I am aware of. The Doctor was considered a Master of life.

In the last class, we are asked to give and receive a full massage with our partner. Everyone has their massage mate except one student who has been high maintenance throughout the course. Unfortunately her partner is absent, so our Teacher volunteers to be her victim, er, partner. I know this student well, as she had been my student for several years and then switched to YMAA. She works hard but, but… I cannot help but notice this unlikely coupling and am in great admiration of our Teacher for taking her to the mat. However, the student is preoccupied with reading the map as she straddles the mat Master. The more our Teacher gently guides her back to the terrain, the more she distracts herself with the map. It’s beginning to feel disturbing for all. Silently and stealth-like, the silken one Splits. The muddied water settles. Peace is restored. We get to share our skills, Dr. Yang gets to self-cultivate by way of meditate and the student receives an opportunity to breathe in a new experience. Our Teacher returns just as we are finishing. He dismisses us. We Split, free to do our destiny dance.

Traditional Taijiquan training has direct martial applications. Though in the early years of YMAA, our Qi Gong and solo forms were developing well, and push hands was coming along, there was a Split. Our inner and outer practice had a divide and the martial purpose was lagging behind. So our Master

showed us about twenty variations of the self-protective uses of “grasp the sparrow’s tail”, a technique that utilizes Split. It took about a minute. We were all agape while he filled in the gap so adeptly. He immediately Splits and we quickly huddled up to pool our perception and prep a practice plan. Perfect!

Often the Grandmaster would enter class, asses the mess and address the masses by assigning a senior student to partner with him in some way. Inevitably, the senior student would be schooled in such a way that we would admire the huge Split between our disabilities and our Leader’s abilities. Sometimes I would even be on to his “setting me up” and still fall into the Split! It wasn’t until I could keep center that I avoided the Split.

Commonly Dr. Yang would give a direction and walk away when he had maxed out his input. Then he would often be seen sweeping the stairs or cleaning up some other mess that would actually have more direct positive results than dealing with us humans. A constant correction to me was about turning my waist. A childhood memory comes to mind of my barber trying to turn my head and the whole chair would turn instead! The Master tried everything from manual manipulation to emotional tribulation. All methods contained compassion. Even his, “Who is your teacher?” “Don’t say it is me when you move like that.” “Is that all you can turn?” “Don’t be so stubborn.” did not Split the rock. He often left muttering while I did my stuttering and sputtering. He would come back to himself in short order and I was kindly left to muddle in the muck of mediocrity. Eventually the stirring would settle, and viola, the bamboo would take root and out shot a shoot, Splitting the rock so as to better roll with the punches of life.

Real genius is in asking the questions. The stirring conjures up the questions, initiating the quest, experimenting is the rest. Our Teacher’s stirring could come at any time or place. As I was training in our gym, my ever attentive Teacher corrected me while engaged in a conversation from the sidewalk!

While training a pushing hands partner pattern, I leap to a new consciousness of it being connected to the Taiji form, even life itself! The Man passes by, senses my high vibe and jibes “duh”. I feel the steel sword Split, highlighting my previous Split.

And just because he invites us to “give him trouble”, does not mean that we won’t get it back. For instance, when I question him in a packed Qi Gong workshop about how the 250 year old China man he has been extolling lived so long, he states, “He knew how to regulate his Qi”. I do my own “duh”. Simplicity can Split the complexity of conflict and confusion. Manageable pieces may make the impossible possible.

Occasionally we could challenge our Teacher on his vast vision even when we were light years arrears. Our Doctor has just come back from travels abroad and, as usual, has something big. In the first class back, he reaches way back and launches an alien attack. His rap has got everyone wrapped in rapt. However, I just got off a day on the rafters, crafting in construction. I’m fully immersed in the midst of building our new home and he hones in on me. He knows I’m not on board and asks for my accord. I Split and spit out, “I think you’ve got too much time on your hands”. The wrapped class rapt quickly turns to aghast, yet the Master appreciates my candor and feedback.

Aliens are always a hot topic and on one occasion, our Mentor Splits into multi-dimensions. Again, I’ve been totally immersed with the mundane material world and upon being moved to mouth my mind matrix, muster a mutter, “I would be satisfied with three”. Though the glee has left the Taiji

gym with that jive, we all feel free to be. We love to disagree. Different personalities accent the Splits and create an opportunity to form a new and more perfect union.

Star Trek, Star Wars and what the heck, anything in orbit, Taijiers seem for it. For years I hide in the closet on this topic. Sci-fi is held up high with the YMAA field of dreamers. The integration of all speculative science and mass media messages with our Taiji is perplexing to me. I spend the absolute minimum of mind meandering with that mode. In fact, I hate it!

I finally come out of the custodial closet when Dr. Yang, at the end of one of his quantum leaps, asks me if I am a Jedi yet. I reply that I have studied all his books and have not come across this Chinese word Jedi. All howl in complete disbelief. When I assure them that I am serious, the Master composes himself and kindly connects to the class consciousness. He continues his query. Completely out of the closet, I come back to the class with, “I hate that stuff. In fact, I think it is a complete waste of time and energy”. All are stone silent for a Split second, as I notice my Teacher subtly shift to Splitting from his loyalists to protecting the anarchist. Somehow he reins in the rising storm troopers.

It takes a couple of weeks before anyone actually talks with me. Then the big guy, Jeff Pratt, “Mr. Trek”, gets real big with me. We have been vital combatants up until this time. Our jousting has jumped us to the top of Push Hands competitions. Jeff comes over prior to a push hands class and privately parlays the party line. “We don’t agree with your anti-Trek stance, and that’s okay”. I respond with, “That’s how unconditionally loving the people in this space can be. Thanks, big man”. Even with such a space Split like this, we can still be on hallowed ground. Maybe Taiji space is the final frontier.

Dr. Yang gathers his core crew together for communication and, of course, Chinese cuisine. His semi-retirement plan Split to northern California is announced. We are Split as a group and as individuals, at least for a while. It brings up a whole lot of personal and interpersonal stuff. I can sense our Teacher needing to “come back to himself”. We need to get that “he is not leaving us” personal place. Though I can feel the congruity and leap to the logic of it, it still is going to usher in a whole lot of necessary and inevitable evolution for all involved.

As the plans become more real, the inter-play of Quantum and Newtonian evolve to a fascinating dance. The 17-sided “round” home on the mountain top looks like a UFO. The outdoor training area is akin to an alien landing pad. The county is known as “hippieville”. There, pot is the gold rush. What better place and structure to communicate with the extra-terrestrials?

I even open up to the multi-dimensional meanings amidst the myriad of maybes that meandered through our martial medium. After coming out of a meditation, just prior to leaving for our California construction, I have the feeling of being okay with being an alien abductee! Me, as an abductee? Are you kidding me?

In any case, when my crew and I finally land on that mountain top and meet with the other alien want-a-bees, I feel a giddy giggle in my gut. Though most have minimal building experience and we only allow two weeks for framing four thousand square feet, it has a kid-connected-can-do for me. The schedule is to arise at dawn, train Qi Gong together, commune at the breakfast table, work until noon, munch 1unch as a bunch, labor until dusk, reconvene at dinner, present our prepared academic studies and then early to bed.

The first night has a dozen of us workers awed by the starry night sky and joking about the alien nature of our adventure. Just as the jive is jumpin’, a jolt jostles us. The big bang theory is here and now as a blast has us dash to flashlights. No one is able to spy any spies or otherwise and we uncomfortably surmise that we are not alone. The human critters have the jitters. I tell my crew, “I’m gradually getting good with the Quantum leaping and tomorrow’s build is about the Newtonian universe”.

At lunch, the next day, Patrick shows us his “proof” that we are not alone – the cap to the outdoor gas heater flue. He had noticed the cap was off, searched the woods and found it about one hundred feet away. The heater had burped its’ head off. The big bang wasn’t an alien blastoff as some had thought, though we were having a blast. Quantum and Newtonian, often Split; we’re experiencing both each day, even the interplay.

Sometimes the wedge will get stuck when attempting to Split the firewood. Learning how to use the mind wedge to remove the wedge will retrieve the wedge and allow another attempt to Split.

Chapter Seven

Zhou

Elbow

My first thought regarding Elbow is of being at the dinner table with my four siblings plus parents. Though the food was generally aplenty, Elbow room was at a premium. Creating personal space was necessary and rubbing Elbows was common. Though there was space at YMAA, it was important to make sure that one established Elbow room and got comfortable giving, getting and rubbing Elbows.

Jeff Pratt or Jumbo, as Dr. Yang called him, was great at making sure he had Elbow room. In fact, when Jeff was absent from class, “his space” in the room was seldom occupied. It became a running joke. Even in workshops or classes that Jeff rarely attended, Jumbo’s space was commonly void. Our Master would often comment that he could feel Mr. Pratt’s presence when absent. Maybe all did?

I particularly like the comedic Elbow. My mind works hard to construct comedy occasions. As a case in point, when I had come across some advertising for a Taiji/Qi Gong certification course at a prominent Yoga institute, I could feel my Elbows warming to the task. Through this “institution of higher learning” one could become a Taiji/Qi Gong Teacher in a matter of days! So much for slow learners . This is America. We do everything fast, even slow. We now have such evolved teachers in Taiji that we have made the old, new. We have evolved that which took a tremendous amount of time and energy (Gong Fu) to learn; to have virtually virtual value and virtue (Gong Fool?)! Who would not pay top dollar to cut to the chase, or as The Doctor would say, “Take the elevator to the top”. This course is almost a helicopter drop at the top, of course.

I even practice a prepared pointy Elbow for my Teacher et al regarding the accelerated movement meditation course. I bring the glossy brochure into the common meeting area where Dr. Yang and staff often gather prior to a workshop. The brochure slaps down on the center of the table that several surround. Elbows abound. I ask if anyone has virtually visited this vista for yogis. No one had, but all are aware of its importance in promoting the popularity of Yoga and related fields of study. I stated that I have trained there many times over the years and found it to be of quite the quality. I also remind them that I had encouraged YMAA to establish a connection and maybe even a presence there with our “Daoist Yoga”, to us known as Taiji Qi Gong. Just as all are starting to step into that possible door opening, I open to the page that publishes the promotion program for Daoist taste testers who take it to teach Taiji.

All chuckle from our Qi culture corner at the preposterousness of that proposed program. Long-timers chime in with the incongruity of that which takes tremendous time and energy not taking much time and energy. As those thorny Elbows peak, I peek at my Master. He is sensing something is up, so I offer up the punch, er, Elbow line. “Well I quit. I’ve been here a dozen years, put in a huge amount of time and energy, put up the bucks and yuks. This could have all been accomplished in days, maybe even in a daze or haze and grazed on their great grub while being greeted and feted as a guest! I’ve had enough of this “Old China” Taiji. I want Disney and I want it now. I want it my way”.

“Baby sitting” was a common quip when our Master was feeling like his students where lacking in taking responsibility for their own learning. We pay big bucks for those who entertain, serve and distract us. There maybe an essential and necessary nursing period in the teaching/learning relationship. However, bucking to still be sucking beyond the infancy period is tantamount to the student abusing the teacher. If the teacher condones the clinging, the parent figure is setting the stage for the child to abuse and there is likewise an abuse of the child through over indulgence. “Cutting the chord” by allowing and promoting independence and eventually the evolution of a balanced relationship is essential for all.

Back to the comedic moment, all are aghast as my mask is at full mast. However, my Teacher is growing his gut glow. He cannot contain his chuckle all the way from his belt buckle. The group grows a glow as we find and flow with the flow. I guess we’re a go for another dozen years or so. The Master will likely make that a baker’s dozen, ‘cause we’re like cousins. Gong Fu takes time and energy, even in America.

In my Karate Kids classes, we work a lot on bringing awareness to the “secret punch”. The Elbow moving toward the rear that counterbalances and empowers the strike to the front is a “secret”. It is a

secret because one rarely attends to it, yet when one does; balance, power, ease and a meditative mindset is restored. We call it a big thorn and often sharpen it, so that it can help protect our beauty in case someone wants to rob us of it.

In my early days in Karate, as a teen with my brother Edgar and friend Randy, the secret punch was explained in detail by our Teacher, Mr. David Edwards. We had just finished rigorous testing with Mr. Edwards at the Boston YMCA. Our Teacher was an ex-Marine who had fought in Vietnam and was raised in Roxbury – a rough, poor neighborhood in Boston. We knew him to be all about the martial until he alluded to the attention given to the other, covert, less obvious, yin, etc. and in this case, the “secret punch” as the onset of spiritual training. Whoa! He was the least likely person I would have thought to be discussing the spiritual world. The “secret” of the spirit needed some Elbow room and I needed to continue to find others to rub spirit Elbows with.

The spirit work through the attentiveness to the feeling of the body, especially in attracting the mind to the “secret gardens” was a radical concept for the modernized dehumanized. I had been working with that since that first pitching experience and here I was, finally having a mentor with a foot in both worlds, inner and outer, mind and body, Old China and Disney. I was finding some Elbow room and others at the table to commune with.

Sometimes the Elbows needed to be down and round too. A taxi ride from the airport to the hotel in Houston required Elbows that were less like “els” and more like “bows”. We sardined our YMAA team into the back of that hack’s hooch in accord with our Teacher’s heehee. He giggled about our compacting fostering our competition compact. Did we violate the seat belt contract?

Shortly after Dr. Yang moved to California, I realized I needed to rub Elbows and even Elbow my way into new social circles. For the first time in my adult life; Martial Arts, family life and/or academia was not providing a preformed forum for rubbing Elbows. It was scary and exciting to be free of formal forums. On one occasion, I found myself with a date at a movie about ballet! I was relatively new to the dating scene, didn’t do movies often and ballet was never checked off on my ballot. However, I agree to see the movie, “The Dancer”. It was about a young Chinese man who dared to cross over to America in the seventies by defecting. Though his story was overtly East to West, I found myself with warm tears throughout. I was re-experiencing my own need to Elbow into foreign territory and rub Elbows with aliens. After the movie, my date appeared disturbed with our dialogue and distant from my discussing of the difficulties that the dominant domestic domain may have in adopting and adapting to minority and/or foreign culture. I presume it’s a covert thing, a bit like the “secret punch” and the spirit world itself. Unless one has rubbed Elbows and lit a match, it is difficult to appreciate the creative opportunities of diversity.

The appreciation of bridge building was generally not a problem at YMAA. Yet, there was a time when I thought the bridge may be out as well as another time when I feared that rubbing Elbows the right way and Elbowing in to create access to the sacred space might have a “glass ceiling” for me.

The Taiji testing was getting much more testing. I had become so committed to that learning process that I had progressed beyond the people who had been my instructors. Though several of my comrades questioned my commitment to testing and doubted Dr. Yang’s “allowing” of further advancement, I was undaunted. Each testing experience gave me vital feedback, whether I passed or

not. I would enter each test bared to the bone and honed. I would come out with my bone marrow and brain cleaner and more vitalized.

I had looked forward to one test since the first day that I had reviewed the sixty aspects of the process that were divided into ten levels to Taiji Mastery. At approximately the half way point, the testing required the twenty minute Long Form to be performed in less than three minutes with Jing (power). I had learned to relish the rehabilitating effect of the slow moving classic Taiji Form. I even had resistance to the suggestion of training the Form at medium speed. It was against my religion! Eventually I meandered through the medium and even opened to that religious experience. Yet, I really looked forward to testing at full speed and having the opportunity to wow all with my fantastic hand and foot speed. I had tested the Form fast in the individual three parts successfully in the first attempt at each. Though the bar was lower at those levels and the fatigue of fast was not a factor, I had no reason to believe I had to alter the course. Hence, I trained up to ten times per day on most days for about a year. I always loved going fast and here was my big chance to break the sound barrier. I was timing myself regularly so that I would finish in just under the three minute mark. It took me most of the year to get to that speed and I was ready to rumble.

The inner excitement and onlookers’ curiosity is high for this test. I feel euphoric when I finish, wow the crowd and The Master announces that I had finished it in two minutes and twenty seconds! When I look over at him expecting a nod, his head lowers and bobs. He is shaking it back and forth like a dog coming out of the pond while muttering, “That was not Taiji”.

All are taken back by his thorny Elbows. He states that we are done and inquires as to how many are headed into Chinatown for chow. I raise my hand but lower my head. After he leaves, several of the senior students side with me and allude to the transparent ceiling of which I had been warned. I do feel jobbed and robbed. There is no readiness in me for considering that the “secret punch” may still be a secret. The spiritual path that empowers the Jing may not be clear enough yet.

So I sit in the safety of my sedan and start sobbing about the jobbing and robbing. It takes a while for my psycho-emotional grumbling to stop mumbling and notice my gut grumbling for dumplings. It is closer to Chinatown than hometown. Hence, I commence to commute to cuisine with my community. Somehow I get lost along the way and end up passing through the neighborhood where Jack Dempsey, the man who murdered my bro, grew up. There is max wackiness now and luckily there is a sniff of Chow Chow and Chinatown. When I finally arrive, all are seated around two huge round tables with one seat left available. There is silence. Just as my seat touches down on the hot seat beside Master Yang, our Sifu says, “I thought you were going to quit”. I retort, “I did too”. We eat. The inner grumbles lessen as I feel the nourishment and nurturance. It takes about another six months. Slowly the spirit of the “secret punch” Elbow starts to seep into my speed. Spirit power is a possibility.

When our Grandmaster finally made his move to the mountains, I also found it necessary to explore a new matrix. I needed to get clear in myself. Clearing of that YMAA place of such bounty was part of that too. It felt like the Elbow room and the Elbow rubs were to be anew. The continuation of that old matrix, as wonderful as it was, needed a re-creation. Therefore, I restructured my school to incorporate my teenage children in assisting me, rented gym time to a Dance School and Theater Arts School and opened to other ideas. I realized that I also needed to change the label for more congruency and jazziness. The property became named “The Zone”, the gym and web was now “zazenzone”, I asked to be called Master Roger (after all, it is only i to a – Mister to Master) and I ended the school’s YMAA

designation. It was about making the map more accurate to the new territory and it came with some risk. Did I rub Elbows the wrong way? Did I Elbow myself out of my Grandmaster’s grace? Did I burn bridges that I had helped build?

Though I felt a bit Elbowed out of our Headquarters, I Elbowed my way in when our Master came back for his annual workshops. Dr. Yang made it absolutely clear to all that I had an open door at his retreat center at anytime I wanted it. I am finally going to take him up on that standing offer. Hopefully, I finish this rough draft in time to rub Elbows with my Teacher about this book and polish it enough to get some Elbow room at their study table too.

Chapter Eight

Kao

Bump

Dr. Yang has clearly Bumped up our field and has Bumped the cruise ship of the mainstream with our little tug boat enough to make it available to most.

Initially, our Teacher followed the original English translations of our Chinese discipline. However, the translations had often come from an English-speaking population that may not have had the requisite depth of feeling to make accurate translations. Also, much of the translations came from Chinese people who may have had the feeling but not have had adequate English language skills. So we were left with somewhat of a patchwork quilt. For instance, Kao was initially called shoulder stroke when Dr. Yang first came onto the scene here. When our Teacher would demonstrate and discuss Kao, it became obvious that shoulder stroke was a severely limited term. The Master’s demo would be more akin to a retro dance style called the “Bump” than stroking the shoulder. I felt like I should be playing some music and bring in the disco ball. Shoulder stroking may be necessary to treat the wounded. However, Bump is used to protect oneself from being wounded.

A clear indication that our Teacher was uncomfortable with the English translation was indicated by a marker board drawing of the Chinese character, an in-depth description and some physical applications. When Chinese language literate students were in class, he would just say the Chinese character to them and instant recognition would follow. If he used the Chinese character commonly with us, we knew a change was acomin’.

There were many label changes that felt like a relief when the Taiji map was Bumped up to more closely approximate the territory. In the Taijiquan Long Form, we had a posture called “lift hands and lean forward”. Especially to beginners, raising the appendages and tilting to the front tended to get them off balance. The label seemed to pull the mind out of ease, center and ground. The “lift hands” label led to too great of a leap in the application of the basic principle of the Wisdom Mind (Yi) leading the Feeling(Qi) and the Feeling leading the Body (Li). Relax, center and ground are axed down with the “lift” leaning label. It was embarrassing to use that translation while teaching. So The Master adjusted it to a more doable “lift hands to the up posture”. It felt good to be with a person in the power position, taking responsibility appropriately and making the necessary and inevitable changes. YMAA builds better bridges.

We often discussed the limitations of the English language in expressing the inner feeling. English has shifted with the modern ways and has become more linear, micro, intellectual and fragmented. Modern culture’s bias toward speed seems to have fueled the tendency to look for a word or short phrase when describing complexity. This is especially common in the mainstream medical model. A one word diagnosis produces THE pill for the population!

Contrast this sound bite orientation in naming a drug with an exotic name in order to sell more, to the descriptive, even poetic common languages of the past that facilitated inter and intra

communication skills. I would often raise the dialogue around the use of words like round, circular, arcing, curving and spiraling. Considering these terms separately, connected and overlapping gave nourishment to our practice. Considering other’s experiences and how their language is connected to those experiences made for some spicy classes.

As a case in point, our military Master loved to teach us the Taijiquan poetry. He especially loved the militaristic analogy of the Yi being the General, the breath akin to the battle strategy, the body as the terrain and the Qi represented as the troops. The Yi needs to have the inspiration motivation to lead the energy to where it is needed.

My yin oriented Taiji students were put off by this overt warfare referral. Hence, I met them where they were and referred to the Yi as the Good Shepherd, the breath being God’s plan, the body akin to a pasture and the Qi as the sheep. They were relieved and I was eventually able to interweave metaphors without Bumping into tightly held belief systems.

When Kao as shoulder stroke Bumped up to Bump, we knew that our Teacher had taken over the reins in our field. Once the door was open, we were allowed to step through and discuss incongruent translations, use more accurate biomechanical descriptions and explore developmental teaching progressions. Once “lift hands and lean forward” became “lift hands to the up posture”, “sinking the chest” became “settling the chest”, the “inner viewing” could also begin through referencing the outer body first.

The advanced Shaolin and Taijiquan students were even invited to Bump up Dr.Yang’s extensive Shaolin Staff skills to create a Taijiquan staff curriculum. We were exploring and experimenting together. YMAA was our science lab and art studio.

Therefore, Bump more closely approximated the use of any part of the body to nudge in an overt way. Bump’s yin aspect is of settling into one’s space or even role in life. Knowing one’s role in life was a common theme in many workshops. It is connected to knowing one’s destiny, hearing Heaven’s mandate and knowing how one stands in relation to these many realms. Bump’s yang aspect may be about fulfilling one’s destiny.

Of course, sometimes my frustration quotient would go through the roof when the truth got newly translated as “the foot follows the hand” while training partner drills. Gosh, I felt like I had just got, “The foot powers the waist and the waist guides the hand”. Those round sounds often confound. Eventually I figured out that the contact points, whether they are the ground, other person, et al, were the essential connections that powered choice and change.

Then the terms relax, center and ground would be used synonymously. Letting go of my rigid mind sets and growing to know these terms as one and separate is tough. It takes faith in the direct experience and being more flexible with mind maps.

And while I’m at it, how about those books in which first one needs to do this, first one needs to do that and first one needs to do it all! My mind going in circles long enough led me to the conclusion that it is all one and they can be considered separately. No wonder that I often used the reading of my Teacher’s books as a sleep facilitator. A couple of pages while in bed led to that relaxed feeling and sleep would easily follow.

Jeff Rosen and I would secretly spy each other’s eye when the Main Man would Bump up a technique on the fly. We referred to those special occasions as “Born on dates”. Witnessing genius was a genuine treat.

Dr. Yang would commonly say that the “feeling is the language of the body”. It is the food for thought, grist for the mill and energetic information for the mind. Likewise, the class body has the information for the teacher. Hence, the teacher needs to create an environment that creates the opportunity for the student body to illicit feedback. When the leader listens without bias, trust is formed and faith flourishes. Then the authority can guide the body of students well. The authorized body can then explore and experiment in ways that may allow new experiences to emerge. The new information allows for the formation of more accurate beliefs based upon the congruent complimentary interplay of the mind and body, teacher and student. The language evolves too. More precise communication skills guide the inner journey and outer application in creative ways.

Our Teacher used to enjoy peaking in on or peripherally participating in classes that one of his core cadre composed. I loved the language leaps that bridged our Bumps in the road. When I came up with the three core movements, as in moving the spine like a whip, wiggling the waist and wagging the tail, it brought more energy in motion, emotion and provided an updated way to channel all that creative energy. Our shift to spontaneous insight, sharing humor, bellicose banter, group gripes and lively debates Bumped the energy and was a way of including all.

I particularly loved the Chin Na seminars for stimulating latent Qi. It took me about five years at YMAA to enter those classes though. I worked with my hands and was getting plenty of Bumping through construction, my teaching, training and life in general. The thought of letting someone intentionally lock up my joints as a way of learning was completely foreign to me. The sight of Chin Na students exploring locks of all kinds, kind of left me locked up. They even had hahas after the counterattack act. That seemed totally awack to witness by this witness as to what appeared to be a crime.

Dr. Yang is a Master of the first order in Chin Na. I could see his eyes light up when new “victims” would attend. This was especially so if the prospects were much macho muscled or of the gumby guy or gal variety. It was as though no one could believe that such little force could enforce. This was even more the case as our Teacher got older, wiser and more adept at taking on all types. Chin Na became the number one way of Bumping up the student body’s respect, attention and energy.

I had promised Dr. Yang and my fellow students that I would venture into the torture after I finished construction and got my school up and running. When I finally voluntarily entered the lockup, my thought was that I was playing it safe by taking a seminar with my running mate and top student, Winslow. However, by the end of the first morning of a five day seminar, Win and I had hurt each other so much that we felt like we had lost. By the end of the second day, Winslow and I were so slow that even a touch would feel like a blow. For the rest of the week we had the inclination to rest for the week. We were so weak by the end of the week that we gave each other oral quizzes rather than experiential

checking. When the prison term was over, we were so locked up that the Qi key to be free was not where we could see. Bumping up in Chin Na was going to take venturing into the pain and pleasure paradigm. Somehow pleasure is associated with the pain - if even only from the relief of the apparent insanity of it all.

Rami was Dr. Yang’s main Chin Na dummy and played that role really right in many YMAA videos. Mr. Rones credits his large range of motion to the vigorous assisted stretching that expertly performed Chin Na can be. Being taken beyond one’s preconceived limits without being harmed is a gift from the facilitator of the Chin Na. Receiving the gift well takes the equal talent of relaxing, flowing with it, and, of course, faith in our Father figure. I finally got to that point when, yipe, I realized that if I wanted seminars with The Expert at my school to fill, I had to publicize to my students, et al, that I would be my Teacher’s Chin Na dummy. The seminars filled and the students relished seeing me Chin Naed. I eventually got into that Rami range of motion. Comic Goldman loved to exclaim, “James Brown” when I would go down and rise up with a whip, wiggle and wag. Master Yang’s sweeping of the floor with the “Roger broom”, lifting the tall one to a tippy-toe tap slap out and bringing me to sing were favorites too. It really was a treat to be stretched until the bright white lights were sighted. Never was there any damage by my Doctor. In fact, there was probably more of a Bump up through the dummy dance than any other smart structure.

I especially enjoyed my friend and classmate, Chris, being Chin Naed. Christopher is a cop of competitive character and quite capable. The Cop could not quite control himself when catching an apparent crack in a Chin Na technique. He would point out his consternation to the class, and alas, our Teacher would test the practice. The general rule of thumb in Martial Arts, definitely at YMAA, and especially so in Chin Na, is that if one challenges the choreography, one volunteers to be the test dummy. Try as he might, putting up a good fight, Chin Na Chris was quite a sight. Up, down, around,

through, whew, our Teacher knew what to do. Satisfying a cop’s complaints took expert Chin Na to result in restraint. Our Teacher always Bumped up to the challenge.

The Taijiquan Fighting Set was my favorite feeling feedback with our Martial Arts Master. If I could get a score on the Master, I knew two would be coming back to me soon. He really liked the groin kicks that miraculously would tap my testicles enough to tease a testosterone release but not hurt, not even a groan. I got the Bumps without lumps.

Chapter Nine

Advance

Due to Dr. Yang and other qualified Gong Fu teachers’ in-depth experience, ability to express their experiences clearly and the willingness to openly share, Martial Arts Advanced here at a rapid pace over the last two scores.

In considering my own journey through Martial Arts, commencing in the late sixties, it is astounding to me as to the present quality and quantity of information available. As a teenager, I can recall coming across wiffs of the essence of Asian culture. However, at that time, I would have needed to spend at least a decade living and traveling in the East to possibly be privy to the information that is here now.

The American mainstream was exposed to Hong Kong cinema and Bruce Lee wowing us with Wu Shu. The philosophy came through with the acting and dancing of David Carradine, as Caine in Kung Fu. This exposure piqued interest and true Masters risked peaking out. I can barely imagine what it must have been like to be at Perdue U. witnessing Jwing-Ming Yang training while in his athletic prime. In no time, a Perdue University Chinese Kung Fu Research Institute was established. Dr. Yang also taught college credited courses in Taijiquan there in the seventies.

With the quick ascent of quality Gong Fu culture, there also came massive quantity. My first teacher in Karate, Fred Villari, went from teaching at his headquarters in my hometown to about forty schools within the first year I was there! Many students from the classes I participated in where recruited and suddenly teaching and running schools! Mr. Villari also somehow Advanced to Master Villari around that time. The business acumen to advertise as The Karate Man on the Kung Fu television series profited in the proliferation of the popularization of our practice. I decided to opt out of that option so as to adopt and adapt to traditionally taught Japanese Karate. Though rigid, the constancy, accountability and connection to classical Kung Fu is clearer for me in the traditional teaching than the franchised Fu.

Shortly after making the leap to YMAA, my Teacher comes to confide his confusion to me in a curious way. I am training hard prior to classes on a hazy, hot and humid early August eve. Dr. Yang had opened his doors to the complete range of Martial Arts and artists to learn and share with us. When I had entered our training hall, I noticed a very large colorful poster almost covering the whole poster board and the previously posted print. Now my Teacher is reading it. He calls me over to view it too. To my astonishment, Mr., er, Master Villari of Karate has now Advanced to Master Villari of Taiji too! The poster promotes his program and his excess poundage pops my pupils. His sudden Advancement is not a surprise, though his size is. After all, he drafted David Carradine, a Hollywood Kung Fu Master. I am silent, and through the void Master Yang brings his “Chinglish” through anguish and fishes with, “Who is this Red Ferrari”? It tickles me to the bone and I intone, “His name is Fred Villari and I do believe he drives a red Ferrari”. We belly laugh about that.

A few days later, our True Teacher tells us of a telephone “telemarketer” who had wanted to know how much it would cost to master Taijiquan through private lessons. The lessons were to be in secret. There would also be a one year time limit. Dr. Yang politely replied that he did not have the time to allow for private sessions with anyone. The caller then offered $300 per hour at 1990 dollars! Again, our Master rightly refused the mister, er “Master?”.

That story reminds me of when one of my students asked what my black Karate uniform would cost him. I said, “It is $30, the same as the white uniforms”. He repeated his question, only this time emphasizing MY black uniform. I still did not get it. So, in frustration, he offered me to name my price! I got it, but he did not. I told him that experience cannot be bought, it must be earned. He bought a new black uniform and really worked hard. Eventually his Gi faded due to the due diligence that released the salty sweat that caused a cleansing. His inner Advancement eventually equaled the external appearance he had so coveted. The congruency helped him to fade to black as well as be in the white light.

Our local Public Broadcasting Station is well known for Advancing a high quality and diverse educational programming. I have always thought that our Teacher’s Taiji and PBS were destined to do a duet. It’s been frustrating for me to see, yup, Carradine’s Kung Foolishness masquerading as Taiji on my beloved PBS. I even wrote the station a note about that mismatch and lit the match for my Master. They never replied. However, they canned Caine and replaced him with a smiley white face. The new PBS face had spent a whole year in China studying from the top masters. He synthesized his sessions and gifted us a new and improved Qi Gong! This was definitely an Advancement from the Hollywood hypocrite. However, why promote the new kid on the block when there are local qualified Masters available who have many years of experience to share? The Advancement at PBS has continued with a guy who has trained aplenty, as well as understands and communicates the concepts easily. He is amenable to beginners. Yet, PBS claims to be a leader. Why not give a life-long leader the lead role? They did it with Joseph Campbell, Depak Chopra and many others.

My Teacher has stated to me that he does not have the right look, his speaking is too “Chinglishy” and Meditation is still nothing for our “something” society . Maybe he is correct. After all, couldn’t the Kung Fu television series have had Bruce Lee when he was at the top of his game? It was said that he was too Chinese for American audiences. But aren’t we ready for a person of Chinese heritage and genetics to lead us through the inner work of Taiji and Qi Gong? Personally, I have always liked a person keeping the accent of their primary language while using English. I find that I need to have my full feeling attention. Heck, isn’t this talking and listening thing a two way street? The listener’s role is to really receive in order to realize the results.

When Dr. Yang would use the word listening, I would consider it to mean a synergy of senses. Working with a medium that fostered this synergy led to many an interesting quip, especially during classes where there was a lot of shared sweat, or as I would jest, “exchanging of bodily fluids”. My Teacher would often be spot on with me as to what I had been doing that day. “Working on the ladder?”, “Lots of digging today?”, “A day with your children?” and the like was common.

Rami said that Dr. Yang would know when he had had sex!

Likewise, somehow I picked up the ability to accurately know what a person’s last meal was while in the process of push hands. Boundaries were quite flexible and appropriately permeable the deeper we ventured into the training.

The Grandmaster often admonished us to “feel what I feel”. When I connected to his feeling, I could more easily appreciate the time and energy it took to get there. It felt like riding the tiger to me. Gratefulness for his risking and the vulnerability in sharing and barring were also more accessible with the tiger in my tank.

There can be a symbiotic relationship with Teacher and student. It may be much like when musicians play and share their inner selves through their art form and the listeners really pay attention. According to the musicians that I know, the “audience” attention Advances the vibe to more profound levels. And if people really dance to the music, they build a bridge for all to access higher realms.

I greatly enjoyed witnessing our Teacher do his thing. If I let myself go right into that space, that OM zone, with my Mentor, Advancement occurred. Riding that tiger free of reins, when he has free range, is an experience that larger audiences need to have the opportunity to experience.

Free to reign, free to range and freedom from the reins is what is required when Dr. Yang takes charge. A case in point was when our Teacher was queried about giving the opening speech for the Olympics, when held in Beijing. This opportunity astounded us. However, as quickly and innocuously as he brought it up, he brought it down, never to be found. The Master related that the Chinese authorities wanted to craft the speech. Dr. Yang was to read their speech. That option fell somewhere between fat and chance. We were all disappointed that the Chinese officials had not allowed any range, tightly held the reins and only wanted a totalitarian reign. We felt like it was raining on our golden sunshine opportunity to Advance our field and all who may be open to it. Equal to the depth of our disappointment was our pride in our Papa.

I am riding the tiger at a “Taiji Farm Festival”. I’m sitting in the middle of stadium seating in a lecture hall at a college. Dr. Yang is making the invisible visible to all who want to catch the cool cat. The cool factor is super high when my Teacher takes center stage fully engaged. Our rapport is so ripe that I spontaneously and loudly finish his last lecture lines with him on time, like yin and Yang. He hears my call, yet can’t see through the bright lights of that lecture hall. As spontaneous as my linking to the lynx, he instantaneously fires his chalk on a line right between my eyes! I evade, catch the pitch and feel so rich. Now, how to autograph that Qi ball? We continue to Advance in wonderful ways, “keeping the intention straight, and the path round”, as our Grandmaster likes to expound.

I believe the modern Martial Artist has a greater opportunity to authentically learn than in the past. According to Dr. Yang, in the not too recent past, if you had the misfortune of having a bad teacher, you were stuck with that. In the modern world, one can Advance from an inferior teacher and reach for a superior teacher who may more match your commitment. Hence, the teacher is not the limitation in the free world, the student is. That is why, according to our Teacher, the free world now has the top ten percent of Martial Artists. However, it also has ninety percent of what Master Yang calls “a big fat bottom”. Have it your way.

Chapter Ten

Retreat

The Grandmaster would pull us back regularly. He would order a Retreat to the basics, home, the Om zone. Whenever we were about to be too much or maxed out on something, we were directed back toward the nothing. This irritated quite a few of the advanced students. Hey, this is modern America, isn’t it? We want to be something. It is our manifest destiny. Going to nothing was antithetical to Americanism, ah, consumerism.

We were lead according to the binary system of zero and one, nothing and something, Wuji and Yin&Yang. The motive force that moves nothing to something and something to nothing is Taiji. Our Taiji Master had mastered the teacher’s role in guiding the interplay of spirit and matter. He would attend to the material and energy of the class and guide it according to the Dao.

Master Jou, whom Dr. Yang considered one of his cohorts here in the states would state, “Invest in loss”. When the water encounters the big rock, it seizes the opportunity to change its path. The water may even Retreat and then gain again.

Self-effacing humor, the ability to display and be playful with one’s foibles, became a common way of a teacher Retreating back into the YMAA back pack. With Goldman going for the gold in comedy, we were all offered the opportunity to learn how to Retreat from the bright light that may blind when blind followers put their shine on their teacher. Dr. Yang really became good at noting when students may be taking too much of a shining to him. Learning with blinders on can also lead to blindsiding their Teacher. Et tu Brute?

Rami was great at giggling about his own gaffs. He told me of an incredible weekend of Qi Gong that had him bathed in light as he was exiting the workshop toward his car. His fellow students were stuck in a traffic jam at the doorway when Rami also got stuck and struck. Our Teacher noticed his top student’s tippy toe state and sent him into Retreat with a quick slap on the cheek. All were startled, and Mr. Rones offended, when the student inquired to the Master as to what that attack was all about. Dr. Yang calmly replied, “Last week you got in a car accident on the way home. I wanted to make sure you got home safely this time”. Rami recognized exactly what it was all about, had an instantaneous turnabout and grinned with appreciation. Rones recognized that he had had a neat little Retreat and now it was time to be present in the car seat.

The Teacher’s well-timed Retreat to self-effacing humor can also cause a necessary and appropriate Retreat of the student. The learner can shift away from idol worship and move toward ownership. It becomes easier to be present, honest and maybe even self-correct. The leader’s Retreat from the limelight gives him or her an opportunity to go inside and re-create. Healthy internal questions may arise. When do I do that? How does that work for the student? How can I guide an exploration? Can I create an opportunity for change here? These and a myriad of other healing questions can come from the curiosity that can lead to compassion and kindness.

The teacher Retreating to the zero zone, also opens the door for the boss to watch. Dr. Yang was incredible at adopting and adapting evolved qualities that he witnessed in others. I noticed him watch so well that he would seem to upgrade himself through his students’ practice! Retreating to those innate qualities of loving to learn allows the teacher to exemplify the student.

I loved the interplay of Retreating and advancing. I especially appreciated the “going into one’s Self Retreat in order to be with someone else well” approach that we used in Qi Gong Massage classes. Curiously, these classes catalyzed constant common complaints. The feedback was often about spending far too much time on understanding Qi Gong theory, meditating and in Qi Gong practice. The focus being on the development of the Healer and a well rounded and grounded application by that evolving Healer was often considered a waste of time. According to the critics, we ended up not having enough time to learn the massage pattern. East meets West. The Teacher was not serving up American Chop Suey. We were given a chance to learn Massage as a personal cultivation skill, a healing modality and as a mutual meditation.

From my standpoint, I can understand that the students want to learn the form, have the legitimacy of studying with a Top Dog and make the Massage money. I also understand Dr. Yang’s accent on the practitioner-client Massage experience to be a dual cultivation Qi Massage through the bodywork. It is of the utmost importance that the Healer be fully committed to the spiritual growth. The massage must not just become another money matrix.

The distance between different desires eventually led to the Doctor deciding to dead end the Massage seminars at our Headquarters. Interestingly, while recently at his Retreat Center, he told me of a new Qi Gong Massage book that he had just completed. I guess Retreating to the Retreat Center has rekindled the Massage treatments.

Taijiquan and Qi Gong as Internal Arts can be considered to be Yoga applied to movement and self-protection. Some of the first Taijiquan books I read as a young Martial Artist referred to Taijiquan as Taoist Yoga. Some translations refer to Taijiquan as linking postures (of the Yoga?). Relative to the current boom in Yoga, our Taijiquan and Qi Gong appear to be in Retreat.

I love the Yoga and am elated that the beauty, fashion and health industries have moved it into the mainstream. Even straight non-athletic white guys can find a class suitable for them, too. When I renamed my Yoga classes Old Ugly Men (OUM) Yoga, the class size quickly doubled. These guys can get it. They are attentive, appreciative and are actualizing aspects of themselves that awaken new possibilities.

Gone are the days when I felt so awkward about practicing Yoga that I did not even tell anyone. In fact, for my first class, at age twenty-one, I showed a bit late. Yes, there was internal resistance. Okay, there was a lot of sweating – even before I arrived at the door. I knew that I really needed to do it, as my lack of flexibility, balance and generally yangized state of being was impeding my progress in the Protective Arts. There were also numerous injuries that still needed licking and the back pain was still sticking. Highly motivated and really resisting, I felt like I was stomping on the brakes while the pedal was to the metal.

The door is slightly ajar. To my horror, the lights are off. It takes several seconds of silly silent standing to see several yogis of my mom’s age in black leotards lying on their mats. I have the urge to Retreat. Then I hear the Teacher welcome me in by name. I proceed to the far corner and utter every anti-Yoga sound resound while perspiring profusely. To my confusion, the old ladies seem to enjoy the torture. Though I really rot at it, I know there is nourishment in the pic-a-nic basket for this Yogi and Boo Boo too.

I immediately introduce Yoga into my daily training and incorporate it into my Karate classes. I do not tell anyone that the core of my Martial Arts is now Yoga. I just feel like I am taking Karate back to where it once belonged.

Yoga was also a key that got me to Taiji. No longer do I need to hide that key. The Yoga books that featured the old ugly man with the diapers on the top and bottom are less common. Beautiful women attract the practice and I am fine with that, as long as there is still room for Old Ugly Men in Yoga. Maybe I’m Retreating, bringing it back to the future?

Compliments can be compassionate and congruous. Compliments can also be controlling and coercive. Criticisms can be constructive and destructive. Therefore, the Teacher and student feedback loop requires artful care in order to evolve well.

I recall a time when I spontaneously and authentically complimented a Push Hands competitor on a magnificent move he maneuvered me off balance with. Then I noticed that he was stuck in processing that feedback as we continued competing. Hence, I gave him a complimentary push mirroring his magnificence. It worked. Therefore, I committed to competing with occasional compliments in order to manipulate. Points were often earned when earnestly enjoying reinforcing and then Retreating him to his own treatment.

Of course, our Teacher would commonly get compliments. This was especially true in the seminars that would attract the entire spectrum of students. If a Guru junkie, getting high on the vibe of idol worship, would dole out the adoration, Dr, Yang would gracefully compost the junk. As an example, Master Yang was often revered for his creativity. His reply would generally be along the lines of being like an archeologist and just digging up the buried treasure, maybe polishing it up a bit. Retreating to the inner feeling and bringing out that which is within is the root meaning of education. Attending to (possibly that which we already know?), is the root of the word therapy. Maybe much of our evolution requires the digging. Possibly we all have the potential to be our own archeologist, Retreating and then re-creating the Truth in our own way, time and place.

The YMAA heavy emphasis on compassionate, corrective criticism could sometimes be so cutting that a quick Retreat to recollect oneself was a necessary skill. Even to this day, I can honestly say that I can feel my reactive resistance to the critic, even if it is unnoticeable from the outside. Maybe that freeze frame allows me a safe Retreat to the inside while accessing the degree of veracity and then thereby renewing tenacity.

A student of mine who called herself the top “headhunter” in Boston added an interesting wrinkle to her training. Maybe she smoothed out the wrinkles through Retreating. Coffee commonly catalyzed her catapult to compete with the big cats. She would come to evening classes still hyped high

or be dragging her hypo low. A couple of years into her training, the headhunter had a significant shift. When I inquired as to the change, she stated that a morning meditation had mediated her metabolism. While ironing her shirt for work, Qi Gong arrived! However, it was not until after her drive that the resultant calmness and clarity became conscious. Wrinkle free Iron Shirt Qi Gong then became her morning ritual and conspicuous caffeine consumption was no longer an option. (note- Iron Shirt Qi Gong is an extreme hard style practice that is usually reserved for those getting ready for battle.) The “top headhunter” learned to hunt more easily and effectively while wearing her soft Qi Gong wardrobe.

The grand ultimate Retreat for our Headquarters at YMAA in Boston was about Dr. Yang’s heading for the hills. The redwood area of northern California is an ideal location to take a small group of young adults and immerse them into the wholistic experience of authentic Martial Arts with a True Master. The five and ten year programs there are equivalent to a PHD program at a prestigious University. The Retreat also welcomes short term stays for students to study. The well timed tenth posture of Retreat can be a real treat.

Chapter Eleven

Beware of Left

YMAA expanded into a new building. Now we had two more large training areas in addition to the other two class spaces in our old abutting building. It was so cool to actually have air conditioning that first summer in out new digs. Up until that time our air conditioning was an ancient southern Chinese Qi Gong practice that helped cool the heart fire on those hazy, hot and humid summer city days. Dr. Yang loved the HHH. He said it reminded him of home in Taiwan. We four season northerners were challenged in adjusting to it.

Especially with the new construction, YMAA attracted many a meanderer. On one occasion, our Teacher had just commenced a crammed Taiji class in the cool air of our new space. I’m off in the corner by the entrance and the bathrooms for some reason. I generally changed my placement in class, as I enjoyed the freedom of learning without desks and alphabetical arrangements. Bathroom and doorman duty was a new gig for me though.

A haggard looking young adult male enters, tramps up the treads and stands facing our Teacher. He is wearing a brimmed hat, a long unbuttoned trench coat, heavy pants and army boots. I move closer to the bathroom, open the door and switch on the fan. I keep him in front of me, Beware of left and in line with Dr. Yang. The man announces that he wants to participate. I am aware that my Teacher spies me and stays with a similar Beware of Left attentiveness that I have. I am prepared to leap if the creep even peeps toward popping off. Our Master masterfully moves the meanderer to a meditative mode and the man moseys away. Disarming, no alarming, even charming prevention maybe worth ten thousand pounds of cure in this case.

I witnessed Dr. Yang Beware of Left and impending possibilities of danger many other times. At an YMAA picnic party at the park, Police are present to prevent panic. There had been several shootings at a festival the prior day. Our party may have had a similar festive vibe that the previous victimized had. A horseback Police patrol appears to our left and has some agitation. The Master arrives and Qi vibes the horses back to calmness and then their riders follow suit. They leave us in peace and in one piece.

Another time, a man who is drunk stumbles into our studio. He states that he is a decorated Vietnam vet and wants to vent his rage on the Venerable one. Dr. Yang deepens his root, calms his core and clearly, as well as compassionately and kindly asks the gentleman if he could please take a seat. If the man could just wait a few moments until class was finished, the war could be continued. Surely the man would like some tea before they joust. The veteran takes a rest and before the tea arrives, sleep and snoring sooths the worries of the wounded warrior.

I’ve met many Martial Artists who claim that Master Yang is their Teacher. Maybe buying the books and/or videos makes that mastery materialize. After all, it seemed as though there was as much video equipment at our competitions and demonstrations as there were fans! Maybe being a fan of the famous also makes one a student in the modern matrix. Personally, I prefer one’s personal practice to foster being a fan of one’s own experience as a primary source of information. From one’s primary experience, one can then become a fan who feels the feeling of the famous. Being at one with the famous feeling is more likely to foster learning than idolizing at a distance.

Be Aware of Left, as in protecting the product from people pick-pocketing becomes important as popularity pops. Therefore, our Teacher employed several safety strategies. For example, he intentionally made a few changes to the choreography for the books and videos so as to discern who was a student through that mode. This is the land of self-promotion. It is important that “students” who suddenly become teachers through modern media modes need to be identified. I taught many book and video learners who eventually made it to classes. They were sometimes better than our regular population! However the learning occurred, Beware of Left safeguards allowed the teachers to be privy to important background information about the students. Quality control and limiting pirating is an important element for protecting ourselves and our field as we progress.

I once encountered a “Taijiquan Teacher” in my town who claimed to be one of Dr. Yang’s primary pupils when the Master first came to Boston. I was in the investigative stage of deciding whether I wanted to build a school here in my home town. So I proceeded to ask some of the old guard at YMAA and checked records with Mrs. Yang. There was no recollection or record of “Dr. Yang’s prime pup”. Hence, I opted to visit, find out if there was virtue and view his video version of Taijiquan. Sure enough, the virtual video man verily verified our verification validation, though he obviously had little virtue, had not worn his glasses while viewing and had no one to review him. He clearly loved padding his resume, seemed to enjoy doing it his way, padded his payday, but recognized it was mayday when he found out that he was found out.

Quality control was essential when wearing the label of Doctor and Grandmaster. Dr. Yang was constantly searching and experimenting with what would motivate us to internalize, realize and find the Teacher inside to prevent idolize.

Noting that money was a main motivator with the modern man masses, Master Yang maneuvered with many money matrix motivation methods. I kindly giggled inside, also felt so sad, as society seems so sick with sucking up slick tricks. I felt my Teacher’s pain when it came to that again and again.

When I was in China adopting our third child, Jian, Taijiquan was a common practice at dawn. The students would already be ready and the Teacher would appear. At YMAA, Dr. Yang committed to commencing classes kindly by being timely. I could feel how difficult it was for him to deal with the dilemma of the “dedicated” doing delinquent disruptions due to delays. He would often voice his appreciation to those of us that were regularly prompt. He prided himself in rolling with the rest. Our Master would often speak to the importance of the onset of class, especially relative to a meditative discipline such as ours. He even brought up his internal struggle, presented as, “Am I the Master or the student?”. This question highlighted many of the “Old China meets Disney” difficulties. Much discourse fueled our course, and of course we entertained the entire range of views.

I liked coming early. It offered me an opportunity to meditate in the comfort of my compact car while commuter chaos continued. Very often my “VIP” parallel parking was outside and beside Dr. Yang’s office just twenty feet from his meditation seat. After venturing into the deep, my Teacher and I would get to greet. Then, solo training time was so sweet. Many times other early birds would arrive and we would fly to our own fancy. By the time class occurred, I was fully in that sacred space of learning.

There was a tickle inside when our Teacher drew the line. He stated, “Anyone who is late will need to stand in Ma Bu by the door for as long as he or she was tardy”. Though the eyebrows rose, dander awoke and some were surprised, we all became cool with that. The class even took a new tact with the bold act. However, the next class for me came on the heels of a snow storm. Though the commute from my coastal community was initially cleared, the city was coagulated. Commuting through the congestion, I was missing my meditation. Stuck at the intersection, I skipped my solo session. Grid locked at the last light, yet I could see the YMAA sign so bright. Finally unlocked, where is my VIP spot? By time I got out of my car door, early was no more. As I entered the commenced class, Teacher must whip my ass. I sat in Ma Bu as the Master said I must do. He stated, “The last one I thought must do Ma Bu, would be you”. I then had the thought, “me too”.

Many other creative motivational methods caused correction. One of the real radical risks I relished was when Dr. Yang appeared from the left doorway and announced that he was only going to “say it once”, then exited stage left. We all quickly became acutely Beware of Left. No more instant replays, redoes, multi-chances or unloading the responsibility of paying attention on the Teacher. The Teacher’s role is not to capture the attention. Though entertainment as a distraction is highly valued in our society, True teaching is only rarely about the attraction of distraction. The True teacher is to present the present of presence, though is not quite valued by most. It is the student’s responsibility to let go of distraction and bring their attention to the present, thereby activating their Teacher’s present of presence. Bravo!

Grandmaster Yang had many right hand men and women. I guess I could be counted in with that crew. If I were on the right of our Master, then he was on the left. Beware of Left, in this relationship, was about keeping the critic out of the inner circle and having caution at the crossroads when testing. The testing criterion was structured and the process was functional. Structure and function, skeletal and visceral, form and free, matter and spirit, yin and yang, etc. worked as one. However, the testing became more and more free form as I climbed that ladder. It was a solo trip from the fourth level to the tenth, last level. I would prepare for the possibilities and put my pants on the line. Most of the time I would break through to new abilities as the Master would put the pressure on. Occasionally, I would lock up and lose out on leaping a level. As the testing became more testing and my intention to take it ‘til I make it came clear, comrades confided. The conclusion was that the Main Man on the left would never let anyone pass through to Mastery. I pondered that possibility and became more wary of the left. Beware of Left left me with a healthy head in relation to the testing head games of our Headmaster.

Dr. Yang was unabashed about asking for help. Sometimes volunteers who wanted to help were fueled by impulse. Whatever the fuel, our Master would even resort to Chin Naing their intention to make sure the person followed through. Often people would gripe that they “had” to do something. If they asked me, I would usually reply along the lines of, “When you offer your right foot forward, be sure

to Beware of Left, because The Man will use everything at hand that he can to make sure that you are true to your word”.

Chapter Twelve

Beware of Right

I’m being aware of the left as I am traveling along a beautiful country road on a cool spring day. It’s a new route as I play special delivery man for my “Mister Roger and Neighbors” local public access television show. The show has become a bit of a cult hit in my town and now I am getting it to abutting populations. We’ve had a ton of fun with our monthly hour long gig. My adolescent students got to goof on “Mr. Roger” and guests while providing tech support. We had a wide range of wholistic Healers, Educators, Martial Artists and spiritual Teachers risk getting gonged and goofed on while they spun their jargon and demonstrated their discipline. The teen techs were allowed to test us with their tricks. I also had the power to gong show up any guest at any time. We committed to the risk of running that flexible and permeable boundary line of creativity of our craft so as to deepen the experience and raise consciousness. We also had to Beware of Right so as to avoid gonging ourselves off the show. Inviting the tech guys to demo, video their Gong Fu and join our guests occasionally helped all to Beware of Right. We even recorded a few hours of Dr, Yang’s seminars at my school. Beware of Right was well respected when my Teacher came to town.

The narrow route is arcing to the left and a truck is coming from that direction as I approach an intersection. I spy the driver to check if he is Beware of Right, as his turn arcs to the right. Beware of Right appears to me just as the impact is about to start. An SUV blindsides and broadsides my right side. I hear my gut utter an ungodly groan as my body rockets into a whiplash with my head headed laterally to the sedan post. “This is the end” enters my energy field and I ward it off with, “I have three children to parent”. My cranium makes sudden, sedan contact and consciousness goes blank. Then information trickles in with an odd smell. I ponder as to whether I have passed on or have been given a pass to be this person again. I recognize some familiar upper body sensations, then some vague visuals, a couple of common thoughts come through, but I have no feeling below my waist. As recollection of the crash comes, I recall my head miraculously recoiling from the car body boundary as if reacting reflexively to an electric shock! That coordination came from my core. The memory of the vehicle being lifted, rotated and then landing on the hood of the oncoming truck comes back. I recall the car landing on its driver’s side as sensation sparks from my legs. However, the concussion, et al, is so severe that there is no ability to recall as to whether my children are in the rear. I strain my brain, but no gain. Courage needs to be collected to Beware of Right rear to find out whether there is anyone there. I see only the shattered glass and realize, alas, that my lad and lassies are safe at school. I crawl through the opening that held the windshield and then collapse. Emergency aid comes quickly. Consciousness clears enough to communicate that though I have multiple traumas and need expert evaluation, there will be no drugs to dull my decisions as I deal with the damage.

The Doctors do their due diligence and in wheels the Jeep creep. They close the curtain across and quiz the crasher. He is in his eighties, on a medical cocktail and claims I ran the stop sign and hit Him! Hearing those words raises rage as I rock and roll off my cot where I lay and I say, “You ran the stop sign, hit me and I have three young children”. The staff goes stiff and then in a jiff whisks me to a wheeler. Security escorts the cart to another court. I request my x-rays, call my wife to pick me up and get me to my Chiropractor quick.

The truck driver and a driver that was behind me testify to the fact that the Jeeper had run his stop sign. Jeepers, investigators approximate his speed at impact to be about fifty miles per hour! They told me that he lived right in that neighborhood - so much for “Mr. Roger and Neighbors”. It was “a beautiful day in the neighborhood”, and The Grand Ultimate neighborly force of the deepest and highest order took over and allowed me to continue to parent my children.

Teaching through only talking and from the supine was fine for a short time. However, complete rehab required realigning, redesigning and refining my inner and outer healing methods. My Chiro, Acupuncturist and I successfully negotiated a deal with the insurance company. They agreed to pay for weekly treatments for both for a year in lieu of disability compensation. We three healers felt like we could put humpty dumpty back together again. The gamble paid off as my Teacher curiously watched. By the end of that first year, we were able to achieve a ninety percent recovery. I had also seized the opportunity to Beware of Right in other areas of my life.

Noticing that I had a blind spot to my right, I had my students constantly work with me to awaken my awareness of the blind side at my broadside. That physical practice possibly prompted my perceptions about feeling broadsided on my blind side in my marriage! Beware of Right.

My Teacher alluded to disaster at diner after a test just prior to the crash. A couple of my long term students had tested, also. One of them brought up the subject of my having just one more level to climb. Dr. Yang neatly put that comment on my plate. I responded with, “My life is going very well right now”. Our Teacher replied with, “Be careful then”. It would have been even more prophetic had he stated, Beware of Right on a country road and Beware of Right, as in wife.

As our Teacher transitioned from Boston to California over the next ten years, Beware of Right came more into awareness. Though I and most of my colleagues consider our Master to be a most benevolent Dictator, attachments abounded and abandonment surrounded. How does one make such a huge move back to oneself? How can the remaining students deal with feelings that may be entangled like tentacles around our Master?

If I am to fully embody the teaching, then I can have the Teacher inside and I am my own Doctor. I put my name on that medical form where it asks for my Physician’s name. I am my own boss and my life’s work is my business. I am the number one fan of my own experiences and that is a way to light my star. Other Doctors are my trusted advisors. Other Bosses are valuable resources. Other stars are beautiful too. Dr. Yang has been all of those for me and his moving brought opportunity.

An opportunity for change manifested with a slow shift toward co-teaching with my Master. Especially with the Taijiquan Ball training, our timely teaching transitions were so smooth that yin and Yang as one was barely perceived from the outside.

With the approaching change, dangers dug in. For our Teacher, I felt like somehow those dangers were akin to daring to dart by the graveyard at night. Dr. Yang often told us of his needing to traverse to and from class as a teen in his homeland of Taiwan. Passing by the graveyard on his way home, the darkness could be quite ominous. Beware of Right often brought ghost lights and fright. Following one’s True Destiny can unearth grave dangers.

By the time we got to build our Grandmaster’s UFO-looking round home, a reversal of roles was necessary and easy. He and I smoothly changed roles while at the building site. It was a relief to be allowed and supported in leading what I do well. I also noted a glee from our Main Mountain Man as he played his supportive part.

We even spun plenty of fun with the reversal. Most opportune times were when the builder boss, played by Sir Roger, would be last off the site and therefore the last to sit at the dining table. He commonly continued commanding communication until all were uncomfortable. When he would direct demands to the servant, played by Yang, Jwing-Ming, the workers got worked up. After a while, the Master and I would break a smile and all would enjoy the freshness of role reversal. Beware of Right can be an opportune time to let go of right (and wrong) and shift to a centered spirit.

Chapter Thirteen

Center

I needed to wait before writing this last chapter. My student, Andrew Chin and I scheduled a retreat to the Center at Dr. Yang’s Retreat Center over the Christmas break. Though I could have finished the first draft and proudly present it to my Master as a Christmas present, a prior experience kept coming into my conscious awareness. That experience informed me to re-Center at the Retreat Center in order to finish this book cycle well. The memory that motivated me to put the pen and paws on pause was about previously presenting an alternative paradigm for the thirteen postures. About thirteen years ago, a thought had popped while practicing pushing with perspiring partners. The popping thought was about dropping to Center, soil, earth, core consciousness, etc. that allows wisdom to bubble up and the resultant babble may be biblical. I immediately transitioned to the marker board and called the class to get on board. I diagramed out twelve circles where the numbers would be on a clock face. I put another in the Center and connected it to all the other orbs. Just as I was finishing punctuating the thirteenth circular posture, our Teacher stepped in through the Center door. He instantaneously recognized what I was structuring and instructed me to “Don’t go on without me”. We re-Centered.

Centering, dropping, relaxing, free falling, death, etc. is the necessary step to change to a new paradigm, new life. Dr. Yang’s White Crane Teacher, Master Gao, knew what he had in “little Yang”, as he liked to call teenaged Jwing-Ming in Taiwan. Master Gao told his highly ambitious adolescent to

“plow” (as in drop down to Center and aerate the soil). “Then, when it is time to raise your head up, you will know it”, was the follow-up advice.

Here is where I feel Center, the last posture, correlates directly to Pung, the first posture. In the cycle of life, the start and finish are the same point. The cycle of the circulation of inspiring and expiring, of breath, of spirit, finishes with a new beginning and begins with the finishing. The thirteenth posture, Center connects to the Pung in each posture that makes every posture the “one posture and ten thousand variations”. The nothingness of Center creates the somethingness of Pung. Pung expands cyclically to the nothingness of Center. Zero and one, the binary code, it is basic math.

I noted, in the first encounter with my Master, that he walked with naturalness, talked with somethingness and chalk erased to nothingness. His high mindedness had a singularity with his low bodyness that indicated to me that he was onto it. He was connected to the ancients. The Dao was informing. He knew enough about hardships that can lead and create new paradigms.

Center is the point of conception, the start of re-creating to a new form of life and a letting go of the former form. Centering gives us a dynamic equilibrium that allows for True understanding (I love that word and its implication of being connected to earth, that which supports, empowers and makes heaven accessible). Centering requires an acknowledgement of fear (of change, life, death?) and a letting go of that fear. That fall from grace, going back to zero, nothingness, awareness of our invisible body, allows us to pass on. The Centered meditative mind’s nothingness connects our pure consciousness and the transparent body of the spirit world, the Qi to this Earthly life. That connection enables us to ultimately live in this material world through a spirit Centered life. It can also allow us to return to Grace for spiritual re-creation.

Centering one’s consciousness at the Center of the material body requires easing through the dis-eases. Sad, bad, mad and glad can be entangled like hairballs in the drain, clogging the dropping to Center. Intentionally inspiring and expiring through the grief brings relief.

At the Center of our practice is the embryo breath. The conscious connection through the breathing cord connects to the child at Center. The Wisdom mind, or Teacher, connects to the center of the emotional mind, or student. The sage and disciple are as one. Heaven and earth, yang and yin are at the same time and place. Our meditative Martial Arts methods clean to the bone marrow, wash the brain and re-create life.

In my early years with the Master, I found safety at my Center through the Martial meditative methods. Rehabilitating after the auto accident was no accident as I carefully connected my consciousness to Center. Reminding my mind to work from the Wisdom mind following divorce meant meditating and meandering to a new matrix. My son Cory’s passing required a commitment to the Core, the Center that has resulted in spiritual experiences that I never knew as possibilities. I was escorted to my pure essence and guided by my Core(y) to transform my essence into clean Qi that raised my spiritual awareness. Through Cory’s kindness entering and Centering of my energy, I was able to lay a new foundation through the first one hundred days following his passing. The Spirit Embryo was formed as in the Small Circulation Meditation that Dr. Yang lectures and writes about so extensively. The constant necessity to Center my awareness at the Core over the pregnancy period converted the purified Qi necessary for the Spritual life to grow. The Core(y) at the Center was accessible through the

time and hard work of grieving. The more I was able to grieve, the more the gain. The resultant quantity and quality of Qi was sufficient to birth the new life. Cleansing and vitalizing the bone marrow and washing and nourishing the brain have allowed the opportunity and attainment of a more pure, true Self-recognition.

I am currently in the third stage of “Three years of nursing”, according to my Teacher’s research of the ancient documents. This “awakening” period requires protecting, caring for and nurturing the baby as it grows through its new form. Sensing and communicating with nature is now more common, comforting and conclusive. Spirit consciousness is easier, regular and significantly more profound. The baby is nurtured in ways that are known through the continued consciousness of the Center Core.

“Crushing the Nothingness”, also termed “Nine years of facing the wall” is waiting. This may take more than one lifetime. “A Score with the Master” makes what once may have seemed impossible, possible.

Epilogue

At Chinese din din after my last Taijiquan testing, newly promoted Grandmaster, Dr. Yang announces to all at the round table that I now need to go back and redo it all. The quest continues and the more I know, the more I realize I do not know. Ten thousand questions arise. The gut becomes stimulated and that big battery provides the charge to change.

Unconditionally, I am proud to say that Grandmaster, Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming is my Teacher here on Earth. My re-Centered Cory is my Heaven Teacher. Master Yang’s picture is in my school’s gymnasium, the sacred space of learning, the Wu Dao Quan, “The Zone”. My Teacher is also in my sacred inner Center with a vitalized Core.

“From the Core a new view,

Maybe even a halo-do…”

-Cory Ode Code

v.12

lines 1 & 2

Afterthoughts

I vividly recall my Teacher in distress at one time about a decade ago. I stepped over, sided up and inquired as to what was going on. He confided in me that he had discovered that he had a genetic heart valve condition. It had killed males in his family at an earlier age than my Master was at that time!

Dr. Yang had the necessary operation and has had great gratitude for such a procedure to be performed so perfectly. We all have been genuinely grateful for our Teacher’s life having been qualitatively extended.

I am also eternally appreciative of the inner work that our Master has done that allowed him to accurately sense and act accordingly. The marriage of ancient wisdom and the marvels of the modern world live on through Dr. Yang. May we have more Scores with the Master.