Books and training

A few weeks ago, I was just browsing through my school library and found a compendium of Shaolin martial arts. It is consists of 2 volumes, a few hundred pages each, containing numerous Shaolin training methods and pictures, detailing carefully every step to mastering the skills listed. I thought this was quite incredible and wondered if it was possibe that my school library had any classic taichi books since it has a long history itself.

And to my delight! I found Dong Yin Jie's Taijiquan shiyi!!!! Yes! That book which I had been looking for for so many months!! It was the 5th edition, printed in 1965! It had been kept in some other closed section of the library for preservation I suppose, but they still allowed people to borrow it! Incredible! It looked as good as new, with only 2 other people having borrowed it before me. That was not all it had. If I did not see wrongly on the screen, I think they even had the 2 books written by Yang Cheng Fu, the 1949 book by Chen Yanlin, books by Gu Liu Xin, Hao Shao Ru, Fu Zhong Wen, Chen Wei Ming and many others! And that only lists those avaible on Taijiquan!

It's been quite barren lately on my side of new understandings so I'll just talk about something I read the other day at Kinokuniya, Steal My Art by Olsen. It is actually a book about T.T Liang. In it were many interesting stories about TT Liang, like how he used to behave, his ups and downs with Zheng Manqing, his teachings etc. I especially remember one story where someone, I think it was Zhang Qin Lin, who told him(TT Liang) about a recluse with great skill, who lived on a hill. I think he was a student of either Yang Jian Hou, Ban Hou or Shao Hou.

Anyway, after getting the address of the recluse's wife from Zhang, Liang set out in search of her and sent her many gifts to get the address of the recluse. Finaly getting the address, he went to look for the recluse. When he arrived, he saw the recluse pounding something with a mortar and a young boy greeted him with tea. After trying numerous ways, he finally managed to get the recluse to talk. The recluse told Liang to stand in the position of Grasp the Sparrow's Tail, or was it Single whip? Anyway, a position that required a bow stance. The recluse felt the calf muscle of Liang's front leg, it was hard. The recluse laughed, saying, "Wood!". And that Liang's teacher had taught him wood taichi. Next, the recluse stood in Golden Cock Standing on One Leg and told Liang to feel his calf, Liang felt and its was soft. Liang finally figured that this is the result and true meaning of relaxing and using mind intent. Liang continued learning from the recluse until the recluse chased him away 6 months later. When he went back to his teacher, Zheng, he repeated the experiment with Zheng, felt Zheng's calf and shouted wood too!