Tai
Chi of Professor Cheng Man Ch’ing
through
the voice of his Italian representative
(Italian
Master Tiziano Grandi interviewed by Marco Venanzi)
Tiziano
Grandi was born in Baden (Switzerland) on September 23, 1960. In 1979 he begins
practicing Martial Arts. He wins the Switzerland Championships of Kick-Boxing in
1983, ’84, and ’85 (S.D.K.B.V.). In 1986 he spends 6 months in Thailand to
study Thai Boxing, where he fights twice. In 1988 he goes to U.S.A., Los
Angeles, Van Nuys, to study under the supervision of Benny Urquidez; last fight
August 11, 1988 in Las Vegas. Since then he starts an internal and external
research which takes him around the world. After meeting an extraordinary man of
the Gurdjieff School, he fully dedicates to the harmonious development of human
potentials. In 1990 he begins to study ancient Chinese philosophy and medicine
under the supervision of Prof. Ming Wong C.Y., last member of the Taoist sect
“Tao Kung” from Canton (China). Thanks to a recommendation by Prof. Ming
Wong, in 1994 he begins to study with Great Master Gi Hon Pin – Kaohsiung,
Taiwan – who is the present responsible for the Tai Chi School that was
founded by Prof. Cheng in 1959. In 1997 he continues to study in Prof. Cheng
School following the teaching of Great Master Huang Sheng Shyan, School
responsible for the South-East of Asia. He practices and teaches Tai Chi Chuan
full-time in La Spezia, Italy. There, in 1994, he founds the Cheng Man Ch’ing
Tai Chi Chuan Study Association, Branch Italy. Furthermore, he wrote some books
in Italian, and he collaborates to several Italian journals. At the
international taiji championship in Singapore ( 21/24-11-02) he got the third
place.
Why
have you given the name EXPERIENCIAL to your Tai Chi School?
The
name Prof. Cheng gave to his school is SHI
ZHONG which means “To be in the centre”. This “To be in the centre”
Is derived from the relationship between the “Centre of Gravity”- Space and
“Synchronicity” –Time.
Everybody
knows that inside each of us are different personalities, many identities, each
leading to one’s individual aim. When one of these identities, for instance,
that aiming to acquire knowledge, becomes the strongest, other identities will
join the strongest one, in order to build this “Centre of Gravity”, which
enable us to pursue an aim with the maximum of determination. So we don’t
waste our energy everywhere, among thousand of accidental events, which are
commonly called destiny or fate. The stronger the Gravity centre is the freer we
feel.
When
our Conscious Intention – YI
NIAN – becomes precise, intense and continuous, accidents cannot happen:
unforeseen events will occur less, because accidents also need Space and Time to
happen. Things normally occur around us, and we are influenced by them,
so accident controls most parts of our life. The possibility of accident is all around us. If something is not
happening, something else takes place instead. Only after developing The Conscious
Will (another meaning of YI NIAN) are we free from fate, from accidental
events. The accidental theory is
very simple: accidents only happen when space is available; if the space is
taken they cannot happen. So what does take place? That what does take place, we
refer to as Conscious Action. We need a permanent, real identity, in order to
build this gravity centre, which allows us to bring all the other identities
inside us under control. For instance our good proposals we feel inside could be
taken under control by laziness, which is an offer easier identity to comply
with. If we succeed in letting this Identities Group have the power to express
our best intentions, then this Centre of Gravity will control and tame the
requests of the lazy identity. Our aim is to become ONE, in Chinese you call it SAN
YI which literally translates as three inside one (3= Body, Emotions,
Intellect).
SINCHRONICITY:
The
Centre of Gravity is something taking place inside us, in our space. But
Synchronicity is a phenomenon that takes place in external TIME. This is what we
refer to as “Coincidence”, which is the unforeseen relationship between
determinate facts happening in our life. This chances of life may appear in many
forms, for instance as a dream, a meeting or an event, linked to another without
apparent reason. Most people spend their whole life without seeing anything: the
only messages they get are that of simple curiosity, strangeness, fortune...
However, the one who is able to be in the centre, will realise that the most
important task he has, is to discover the specific Meaning of his being in the
world. Everybody‘s life makes SENSE in a particular way, so that our ACTING
among people is unique and irreplaceable. That is what Christians call vocation,
Socrates calls Daimon and Buddhists call Dahrma. “Being in the centre“ means
letting our individual note play in the great symphony of life. You need to
become INDIVIDUAL at the end: so you can transcend your individuality afterwards.
The best English word to explain and translate SHI
ZHONG is experiential. Humans are
losing their sensibility and ability to re-act
to stimulus, because people are used to “interjecting.” Everything may pass
through without us necessarily assimilating it. To swallow something means not
to assimilate the experience. This leads to a progressive atrophy of self-
thinking and self-acting, to the impossibility of being oneself or being in the
Centre. The assimilation of experience on the contrary, imposes our experiences
not to be completely swallowed, but to be bitten, chewed and finally completely
destroyed (de- structured), in order to be absorbed in a selected, critical way.
What
is the difference between the so-called Experiential Tai Chi and other Tai Chi
Schools?
In
applying this practice, we observe life. Other ‘Academic’ practitioners
employ their Tai Ch’i skills to remake the doing of the greatest teachers of
the past. One has to be completely free from past conditioning influences and
schemes in order to reach a natural practice. Academic practitioners repeat the
correct execution of fixed models in a mechanical way, we try instead to develop
through an experiential, personal way the inner potentiality of the practitioner,
thus reaching a more exact and personal dimension of HARMONY, where everything–
techniques, forms – is becoming, but not the principles TAI CHI is based upon.
The harmonious relationship between BODY and SOUL makes the essence of our
practice, meanwhile ENERGY – QI –
is just a secondary element.
My
intention is not to teach but to hand on these basic principles which I have
learned from others. This sort of communication basically happens from my body
to theirs. It is a different language for each of us, and this is the first
thing I had to learn as a ‘guide’. It is not correct to tell someone how and
what to feel, everyone catches reality according to his own disposition. This
difference has to be not only respected, but also motivated, in order to let the
practitioner be himself, helping him to develop his Capacity of Discrimination,
to decide what is useful and what is not for his own self-fulfillment at that
moment. These are the steps of learning: Understand
yourself, possess yourself, transform yourself.
Understand
yourself: it means to KNOW forces existing in our body, their function, their
use and their relationship. (That has nothing to do with Aura, Metaphysical
Cosmic Energy or some other spiritual items...)
Possess
yourself: it means to know how these forces are to be used in a conscious
way, instead of using them mechanically or rather being their instrument:
let us think about rage, laziness, hunger, thoughts, sex...
Transform
yourself: it means to lead the exceeding energy deriving from these forces,
which have been used consciously, in order to come to a non-ordinary condition
of awareness. From this moment the practitioner is let alone and he should
constantly remember that every foreign
advice for coming out as a winner upon these ‘Battles’ could be like poison.
The best place to let this way ripen is in the here and now, where life is
catching us.
Only
through SELFKNOWLEDGE and not through faith in symbols of someone else, can the
human being come to that reality in which his identity is rooted. You should
remember that the entire history of evolution is history of CONSCIOUSNESS and of
the progressive spreading of becoming aware.
Have
you got a teaching program?
Yes,
I have got a program lasting 17 years, but the most important work is going to
be done in the first 3 years. The first aspect is concerning the Form, that
means the physical shape. That simply means to let our vital force freely flow
without meeting obstacles and without stanching, trying to gather or preserve
it. SUNG is required to achieve this
goal. You can translate this Chinese term in an almost approximate and rough way
as Relax your mind and loose your body. As we have already said you need to know
and control your body, free it from all muscular tenses, in order to reach an
extremely natural condition , Spontaneity – Zi Ran. You have to release your whole body, beginning from the head
to the feet, from the inner side to the outer one and first of all in the way of
thinking. The control of the form has got a practical meaning in Tai Chi,
because if you want to apply the substance of this art, you have to use Forms
and Postures, which are very exact. You have to be able to come in a YIN or YANG
condition, according to peculiar rules. The thing is that you don’t make some
usual body exercises!
If
your Posture and your Mind attitude are right as well as your moving, then
results will come soon.
Second
point: harmonise your breathing. For the beginner it is important to breathe in
a natural, spontaneous, easy way. There are very few „normal“ people, who
can breathe in a right way... Don’t try to control your breathing without the
help of a Master and without taking the right measures. That could lead to
psycho-physical diseases. You can exercise like this, but it has nothing to do
with Tai Chi.
You
can distinguish three kind of breathing: the mechanical, the artificial one and
that one produced by movement. The so-called normal breathing is unconscious.
The artificial breathing happens under mind control. These two kinds of
breathing are supported by different muscles, which are independent. The main
problem for the beginner is to let breathing pass through from one group muscle
to the other one. It’s quite an impossible task. We are mostly concerned with
the third breathing, produced by moving. The most necessary thing is the
KNOWLEDGE of human body. The basic idea is that some movements, some postures
could produce an alteration in the breathing, even if you have a so-called
normal breathing. It is difficult to know which movements or postures will cause
a certain kind of breathing and the most important thing is to know which kind
of movement is good for which kind of person. Breathing is like your
fingerprints: everyone has got his own... From the time you have been born you
have been breathing mechanically a certain amount of air. If you let some more
air come in, it can’t be combined with the substances in our body.
Biochemistry is Proportion, exact quantity.
You have to remember that air doesn’t content only oxygen, but also other
components and all that comes in the lungs, which usually absorb the substances
they need. What about the quantity in excess? Controlled breathing, as usually
practiced, causes only disharmony: if you only change the other substances
inside your body, that means also yours habits,
you could get benefits from these techniques. The stomach, for instance, needs a
certain amount of food, not only for nourishment, but also because it is used to,
the stomach is provided with nerves which, with a lack of pressure, cause hunger
in stimulating muscles. There are two types of hunger: that one of the body and
the nervous one. Lots of organs are working mechanically, every organ has got
his rhythm, linked with other organs. Changing breathing, you also change the
rhythm of lungs. And what about all the rest?
The
stomach has got its rules, it needs some time to digest food; if food has to
stay in it one hour, but you accelerate the stomach’s rhythm, the food will
come through sooner and the stomach won‘t have time to take what it really
needs; somewhere else the contrary happens... Let’s take another look at
another aspect of less known breathing; the diaphragm is a flat, large and
strong muscle, which lays like a cover on the abdomen’s viscera and it
separates the upper side from the bottom. At the top there are the brain, the
heart and the lungs.
At
the bottom there are the stomach the intestines and the sex organs. The
diaphragm separates them like a barrier, but also it connects them. You don’t
usually consider this function of the diaphragm and forget its position: it is
set with vertebra, where other muscles groups are fixed, too. If these are rigid,
the diaphragm can’t perform naturally. The diaphragm is connected with is „Pillars“
to the body of the second, third and often fourth lumbar vertebra; it is also
linked with the disks, which are inserted between every vertebra, to the arch of
the psoas, which ranges from the cross hypophysis of the first lumbar and that
one of the second lumbar.
The
diaphragm is in the front, at the back there is the large muscular mass t of the
back: so vertebra are between these two forces and the are submitted to both of
them. At the moment of letting air in, trying hard, the ribs are automatically
pressed forward, the bust backward. Thinking to make it better (or worse) you
lift your arms up in the vain hope of increasing the thoracic volume.
Contracting the diaphragm in order to let air in, you inevitably contract the
spinal muscles, making them shorter. With the aim at relaxing and releasing, you
shorten yourself.
The
problem is how to let air go out and not actually how to let air come in. People
always think they don’t let enough air come in (that is a particular sort of
QI), but their lungs are filled with such a great amount of air that they
can’t eject it. You can think of a very full bottle you try to fill! If you
want to have good breathing, you shouldn’t try to get anything, and first of
all don’t try to practice breathing!!!
If
you don’t breathe well, that is because the diaphragm is blocked, as well as
the back, the neck and the feet are. It is wrong to think that if you breathe
deeply with the abdomen, that means deforming further the diaphragm, you can
obtain a sort of wonderful ability. In order to breathe well you must begin to
free the NECK, the NAPE, the BACK and the FEET.
You
have to achieve SUNG, CH’EN (sinking),
ZHONG TING (postural setting), as it
is stated by the Ancient Masters of Tai Chi. Tai Chi is neither a breathing nor
a martial technique to its own purposes, but it is the Art of Balance and the
study of arches‘ movements first, of spheres‘ movement afterwards. The
diaphragm is connected to the neck through a vital nerve, called The Phrenic
Nerve. It originates from the fourth cervical vertebra, down to the thorax,
crossing the pleura, where it is connected with the diaphragm. It is a motor
nerve, and it can’t really function freely if the nape is contracted. The
pneumogastric nerve also crosses the neck before reaching the lungs, the hearth,
and the abdomen. It is the „bigwig“ of the autonomous nervous system. When
the muscles of the ribs and the abdomen are freemoving; they activate the solar
plexus at the cross point of the vegetative nervous system, just under the
diaphragm, where the sympathetic nerves and the two pneumogastric nerves meet.
Ancient masters knew all these things, so that in the „10 Essential Points“
of the M. YANG CHEN Fu thus gave the following advice: xin
jing qi he, relax yourself and release your muscles, breathe in a natural
way. Xu ling ting jing, keep your head upright, as hanging from the top,
in order to free neck and nape from their tensions.
Third
point: control upon your MIND. It is the third and last point, you could
impossibly get any results without. You have to take control upon your own
CONSCIENCE, so that your Conscious changes from excitement and anxiety to
complete calm. That means to develop Attention
( a positive aspect of Mind) and Awareness
( a negative aspect of Mind) thank to the self-remembering,
getting the inner and outer part of your body in a state of „Great Sensibility“.
Only then you can have the exact sensation of QI
flowing into your body. At first you only feel some nervous sensations,
perhaps a stimulus of the endocrine system, you don’t feel the QI,
as like meant in Tai Chi.
These
three discussed points are in the „3 Levels, 9 Phases“ – San Cen Jou Bu Kong- that Prof. CHENG learnt at the Taoist School
„Sacred Society“, connected with the current HUANG-LAO. The whole Taoist
Alchemy is anything but an evolutive process of CONSCIENCE, described in its
metallurgic-chemical terms, following the hermetic process „ So up, so
down“. You mean alchemy like a simplifying tactics in order to discover its
acting principles in reality. Is reduction at the mineral state must not be
understood in a negative way.
If
I understand it properly your practice‘ vision in its last part is very
different from the practice which is nowadays very popular. You don’t teach
for instance „The small heaven‘ revolution“ or how to open the third eye,
how to see the aura, in a word, how to develop the so-called one’s own Psychic
Power?
What
good is it to develop all that, if Soul is not over the narrowness and
unsteadiness of the human mind?
The purpose of all arts is Experience of the self. Human beings nowadays think that few years of practice in such „secret Methods“ could bring them to the level they put their idols. How many persons practicing Tai Chi, Yoga or others disciplines have reached the power promised by these practices? Who could support his own affirmation in revealing himself, as some Christians Saints, Indian Bodhisattva or authentic TAO’s men have done?
The
modern world is rich in scientific knowledge, but it is unfortunately ignorant
about the interior aspects of human nature. The discriminating power of balanced
intellect, considered absolutely necessary by the Ancient Masters, has been
replaced by the most effective motivation of our age: money. I don’t mean that
activities like QI GONG, REIKI, KARMIC ASTROLOGY, CRISTALTHERAPY, the reading of
AURA, and Kundalini YOGA are not useful. There are surely some valid things in
them. The point is that in the centres where such activities take place, there
is no work about the self in relationship to one’s own personal growing up or
self-fulfillment. One gets instruments, techniques, notions, but one doesn’t
get real support for one’s own development, like the process of Knowing
oneself, possessing oneself, transforming oneself. The benefit of these centres mostly consists of the
superficial being all eased together, relaxing the body from the daily tensions.
These centres don’t have a real head giving them orientation, even if there
are thousands arms, which could be energetic or tired, frenetic or measured. On
the other side, all the ways a human being has got to stay awake are used to
deck one’s sleeping: so you are dressed with a buddhist tunic, like a
stylist’s dress, you are singing the morning mantra, like other people are
used to playing golf or doing jogging...
Now
I wonder what your opinion about martial arts is.
We
have got the Military Art, which aim is as soon as possible to prepare a soldier
to follow orders, so that he lacks conscience,
able to kill everyone, with no doubts.
We
have further the Martial Sport... and finally the Martial Art. It is a very long
way towards perfection, with help of discipline,
which is to be learnt and constantly improved. It is the way to a particular
Soul attitude, able to let human potentialities come through, in every arts’
field, because to a certain extent all arts, all kind of Martial Styles too,
come together at the end. The Martial Art is different from other methods,
aiming at the developing of human potentialities, because of its particular way
of working with the other, and of the concept of life/death.
Knowing
the battle’s strategy means to understand how to face reality, instead of
suffering or escaping it. Life is “hard” and “bad”, so should I be
harder and worse, always struggling in order to survive? Not at all! To live
life as an eternal struggle is not wise, but paranoiac! A warrior is a master in
facing conflicts, which are in between on the way to the fulfillment of his
purposes. The challenge is not to destroy everything, but finding the WAY
through harmony to creation. The Martial Art is concerned with life, so that
everything else can’t be called Martial Art in my opinion.
When
I speak of disciplines I say that
these techniques or practices have got an existential meaning. They are to be
directed to the human being in his wholeness and in his uniquety, not like a
simple acknowledgement of technical abilities. The body care is the less
important part of this art. The improvement of the practitioner has to be valued
in his attitude inside the practice itself. I would like to stress that if you
use instruments and techniques of a higher level, if you don’t master the
techniques of the preceding phase, there is no efficacy or help in applying them.
It is further important to understand why and how school wants to
use that particular instrument.
What
about the situation in Italy of the school of Prof. Cheng
Man Ch’ing?
Prof.
Cheng began to teach Tai Chi in USA, exactly in New York at 1964. He died in
Taiwan at 1975. During these 10 years he has been teaching Tai Chi to thousand
of people, who spread his teaching. So I’m not the first practitioner of Tai
Chi of this school in Italy, neither I am the best, but I’m the only one in
Italy who has accomplished the whole teaching program of the school, and I’ve
passed an exam to be able to teach in Taiwan at the head quarter of Prof. Cheng,
and at the school of G.M.Huang Sheng Shyan in Malaysian Borneo. The association
grounded by Prof Cheng in Taiwan appointed me to its Italian representative.
At the end of April this year, during the visit of G.M. YAP GIONG and HUANG
CHIEW MEI in Italy other people will be able to take the exam, in order to let
them become full members of Prof.
Cheng Man Ch’ing’s school. So as you can see, that is just the beginning....
Is
there any difference between the Tai Chi of Prof. Cheng, you are teaching in
Italy and that one teaches in the USA?
Yes
there is. But there’s a difference in the appliance and not in the substance.
There is a very different cultural reality in USA, which is far away from ours.
So, Prof. Cheng created his Simplified Tai Chi, in order to adapt it to the
American culture. So, as he said, it is based on a tripod: Form 37, Sword and
Tuei Sho. This tripod supported a crucible, inside with there was anything he
knew about the art to reach the TAO. His
American representative BENJAMIN PENG LO and one of his famous students WILLIAM
C.C. CHEN have surely taken all the could assimilate and they are doing their
very best to hand on Tai Chi.
American people are keen on a particular aspect of Tai Chi: how to do? A Tai Chi
Master said once to me: “ You should give them at first what they are looking
for, then, when they trust you, you can give them what they really need.” We
are surely all beneath the same sun and on the same earth, but everyone should
create something different, unique and original.
All
right, we are coming to the end of this interview: what about some advice for
your practitioners?
I
can’t give any advice, because it is better to pick up a bad fruit from a tree,
than to look at someone picking up a sweet one according to some foreign advice.
You shouldn’t act like some people who “try everything and keep the best”,
but they don’t try anything and keep the first thing they get.