Militant Chinese Communists cowered whenever I mentioned the word “gun,” but they gave no thought to the daily sight of men carrying two-handed long swords over their shoulders on the way to go swing and twirl around in the park, or the groups armed with tai chi swords (called jian) carving the air in unison, or the student clubs of young men swinging metal nunchucks around the soccer field and tennis courts in the twilight dark.
Getting some pointers from a friendly spear-wielding stranger in the park.
It remained conspicuous to me, even though I brought a sparse knowledge of Chinese martial arts and exercise with me on my foreign stay. I knew there would be tai chi morning exercise groups, of course- what surprised me was just how numerous and common these groups were, being at every mid-sized park I went to in China, and how diverse and popular the practice was. There were tai chi groups with swords, with folding fans, and the various forms of empty hand and breath control tai chi, and there were individuals who brought out their imposing spears and pole weapons for solo practice, and there were dancing groups for uptempo line dancing and partner ballroom-style dancing, and various and sundry different styles of kung fu.
Aunt Fong’s father-in-law leads me through his daily tai chi routine.
Anyone familiar with Chinese language and culture might note that kung fu is a broad word that does not designate martial arts only. Kung fu (or “gong fu” in Chinese pinyin, which is 功夫), as I understand it roughly, refers to both skill and practice. A musician could refer to her piano playing as her piano kung fu, her years of piano practice likewise as kung fu.
Aunt Fong encouraged me to study “Chinese tea kung fu.” I couldn’t resist deliberately misinterpreting “kung fu” and sent her this doodle of “Kung Fu Fong.”
So, all the acrobatics and dancing and weightlifting and running and stretching and martial arts forms and competition that I saw could be summed up as kung fu. The stout old man in the riverside park that I nicknamed “Master Splinter,” who twirled two bo staffs at a time and juggled them by launching one into the air as he transferred the other from his left to right hand, and bellowing a high-pitched wail deep from his belly as he did so, was practicing kung fu. He was also doing kung fu when he led a small group of young students through handstands,flips, cartwheels, and splits.
Learning to spin the bo staff.
Aunt Fong was always telling me “China gong fu, very good!” I was practicing sanda, or Chinese kickboxing, already, which would count as a form of Chinese kung fu, but I think she wanted me to do something more traditional. In China, the more ancient it is, the better. And even though I remember telling her “Okay, I’ll try it” dozens of times, she seemed to sense my growing skepticism that “China gong fu” was “very good!”
I practiced two different styles of kung fu in the park. The first was with my aunt’s friend, Wei. Because he was such a big man, we called him by the Chinese word for big, da, and so he was either Da Wei or Master Da Wei.
Da Wei showed me a kung fu form that consisted of choreographed moves going forward and back in a straight line. Each week, we’d review the routine so far and then he’d add another line of moves onto it. By the end, I was going back and forth 6 lengths, kicking and clawing and elbowing and blocking. It seemed not at all practical from the perspective of martial arts as a means of self defense from real, stronger foes, but as a training method for body movement it helped me flow in a way I hadn’t done before. And while I was thankful to learn one-on-one from a teacher who was generous with his time, I have to say it seemed very dull to be doing such basic moves over and over, not the amazing flips, spins, and crisp, snapping techniques of Shaolin monks.
Going through the kung fu form with Da Wei.
The other kung fu style I got to try is translated into English as “push hands.” In push hands, two people stand arm’s length from each other and do as the name says: push each other until one loses balance. It might sound dimwitted, like an excuse for boys to play rough in the schoolyard, but in practice the skilled push hands players moved so smoothly in reaction to my attempts at shoving them that several times I lost my footing and had to step forward, off balance, because I had over-committed my forward motion. The look and feel of it was like Neo’s bullet-time back-bend fall in The Matrix. Any time I pushed their chest, they rolled their shoulder back, gripped my pushing arm, and pulled me forward. Try as I might, I couldn’t move them out of position without resorting to wrestling-style overhooks and underhooks (encircling and gripping my arm around their arm).
A few times, my opponent got aggressive and pushed into me with all he had, sending us both to the ground, me first. The goal of push hands was only to get someone to step out of their standing position, not take them down to the ground. I was more than used to being wrestled to the ground from my experience in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so while the exceptional falls were unexpected, they did not catch me unprepared. I immediately latched onto my opponent’s exposed neck and, without squeezing, held them in a choke hold for a couple seconds to prove a point: while they may have won the push hands battle, I had won the war. In a live situation, me squeezing for a few seconds would have cut off blood flow to his brain and made him black out. And, while their kung fu was spent mastering how to push and react to pushes from a straight-on, standing position, my kung fu back in America was spent on martial arts- martial arts as a real method of combat and self defense.
Gathering an audience as I press in with my overhook grip. My back is dirty from getting pushed down earlier.
Another extremely aggressive opponent in the push hands group would look for opportunities to latch onto my fingers and bend them backwards. Bending fingers is so dirty that even early no holds barred/mixed-martial arts events banned it, along with other notorious moves like eye pokes, fish hooks, bites, and groin strikes. I was afraid for my safety, having this stranger in a strange land quickly go for this injury-causing move, and in that desperate moment, having no safe word or mutual unspoken ground rules to rely on, I had to hook my leg around his in a reaping motion to trip him backwards and release my fingers. Shockingly, his onlooking buddies in the push hands group made a commotion then, not at him for hurting an unsuspecting beginner, but at me for using a judo throw in a pushing game.
Even more surprising, when my malicious sparring partner righted himself back up, he again went for a grip on my fingers as soon as he was able. Looking back, I should have told everyone “Bu yao” (“No/ I don’t want”) waved it off and walked away. Practicing with an untrustworthy partner like that is a stupid way to get hurt or let bad feelings build into a real fight. But I pressed on for a few more rounds with him.
Getting arm-dragged in Communist China.
In a way, I felt like I had to prove myself. Aunt Fong had introduced me to this group on several occasions, and each time, instead of them coaching me through drills and new techniques, they all waited to take turns against me in a battle of China vs. foreigner. I really wanted to compete against them and better my skills. So, against my adversary, I had to be constantly on edge, yanking my hands away as if from a hot stove whenever I felt his grip begin to squeeze. To this day, I remember his hollow eyes and predatory smile the way crime victims in stories recollect their attackers even all the way back from childhood.
On the taxi ride back from the park, Aunt Fong could read it on my face but I told her anyway. I didn’t want to do Chinese kung fu any more. “China gong fu” was not “very good,” but fallen in my eyes.
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