#goatanddragon

[goatanddragon]

on training, and words, and too much so on the words.

I know people who can’t work unless they have a solid goal. “I want to be able to do a hundred pushups without stopping for rest.” Or “I want to become a marine biologist.” So you train for that, but if you don’t make it you’re never satisfied. And if you couldn’t decide what you wanted in the first place you’ll never leave the harbor at all. I used to think that way. “I want to be a black belt.” Great - what kind? The kind that barely scrapes by? Who checks his training at the door when he leaves the kwoon? Or the kind you can’t help but want to emulate, in both his physical skill and attitude toward others? Or, “I want to master this system.” The system is a continuum. It cannot be mastered, not truthfully. So instead, I tried to set my goal is simply this: practice. I will practice, and I will enable myself physically and mentally to attain whatever it is I want, whenever it presents itself.

I wrote those words back in June. I don’t know what was on my mind at the time. I’m not even in the same headspace now as I was in June. Clearly some things, the important things, don’t change. Training doesn’t fail you. Sometimes I look back at all these old words, the quotes, the pages upon pages of musings and I feel like snapping all my journals shut, piling them atop one another, and being done with talking about all this. Because I can sum it all up, nice and neat, merry Christmas - training doesn’t fail you. Training doesn’t fail you. 

Here’s a better quote, from Wong Kiew Kit’s The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu. 

None of true practice is wasted. Drifting off the breath is just as important as staying with it. It's learning. The mistakes teach you. And there are all kinds of mistakes to make, all kinds of delusion to explore. There are a million ways for the mind to drift off. The more you experience it drifting off, the more you will understand about staying with it. if the failures don't happen now, they are going to happen later. In practicing you learn to approach problems differently, directly, and intuitively. You learn to trust your intuition. Because that is what is going to get you through the difficulties of life. Not logical, sequential thought.

Words are the bindings that help me wrap my head tightly around a problem. But they can’t make my body stronger. They can’t make my kung fu better. Words will always have a place, but some things are beyond them. Training is beyond them. There are places in my heart, in the sinews of my muscles, in the marrow of my bones, where words cannot penetrate. We have a head to think, and it thinks us into all kinds of jams. It thinks us into boxes, into corners, into safe places where we never can fail. Where we aren’t afraid. But our muscles do not think, the body does not think. It only feels. It only does what it knows how to do. Kung fu isn’t words. It’s time, and energy. It’s not a belt, it’s not a creed, it’s not a place, it isn’t primarily a thing you can touch, taste, smell, or even see. It’s something you feel, deep within you where the weight of everything you are crushes down and forms diamonds. Sometimes it hurts. Most of the time it hurts. But not enough to stop me.

[goatstylekungfu-blog]

Are you the same person from GoatandDragon? Did I somehow accidentally unfollow you?

I am, yes. I've changed a lot since I began that blog, and I've begun to feel I've outgrown it. Thanks for following me again. :)

[turtle-to-dragon]

“thank you for your patience”

Yesterday’s kung fu session was focussed on beginners, and during a partner exercise I was paired with one of our newest students. She’s been training with us for only a few months now (4, iirc), but she’s one of those who are surprisingly quick to grasp new movements.  Being the student with more experience, I of course adapted my speed to hers, giving her feedback on her technique. I tried to keep it simple, as I know it can get overwhelming when you have to watch out for so many details at once. It’s only much, much later that you can apply all of the corrections about your stance and your steps and your “elbows dripping” and your cover and breathing and eyes, and slightly bent joints and timing and distance and rhythm...  So imagine my surprise when that new student was not only very quick to catch on to techniques she never did before, but also managed to increase the speed of our drill without getting too sloppy. She still has a lot to learn, but I was very impressed - and made sure to tell her.  And after that partner exercise, just before we started working on forms, she turned to me and said “thank you for your patience!” - I didn’t really expect that, either. Not that we do not treat each other respectfully at our school, but her thanks was delivered in a way that I experienced as unusual. 

I try to make sure that everyone feels at home at our school and has great learning experiences and can work on their Kung Fu as intensely as they possibly can, and it just warmed my heart to get that kind of feedback. Especially since it did not feel like any kind of work to train with her, but rather like a natural situation. 

Apart from that exchange (which left me in an even better mood than before), training went really well. I’ve been trying to change my perspective on the beginner’s lessons, as I’ve been recently reminded that training the basics is one of the most important, if not THE most important things I can do for my Kung Fu right now. (Yes, I’m looking over at you, @goatanddragon :D)  It was not only very rewarding to do so, but also possible without adapting anything to the needs of my knee. We trained forms at a very low speed to make sure our newest student could keep up, so I didn’t have to worry too much about sudden weight changes and difficult transitions between stances, which in turn led to me being able to go low. It felt great. ^_^

Looking forward to get back to training tomorrow, and to hopefully train more with our newer students on Monday and/or Tuesday... ^^ 

[hieuynguyen]

Martial Arts Questions Game

Martial Arts Questions Game Rules: Tag people!

Sorry I don't Tumblr ever, didn't know I was part of this

Lets get to it!

When you first tried martial arts: family was in it, so tried it before I can remember. First official class was when I was 4

Martial arts you have trained in: I’ll answer this as what I’ve long term studied, so Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Boxing, Wrestling and Judo. Archery if you count it.

Other physical activities you do: Hit the weights when im not training, dance, tricking, some free running, parkour, attempted tumbling.  running away from cardio if that counts.

Martial art you most want to try: Capoeira

Most recent martial arts movie you saw: rewatched 36th Chamber of Shaolin

Most recent martial arts book you read: The Book of Five Rings, Go Rin No Sho by Miyamoto Musashi

Fav martial arts movie: 36th Chamber of Shaolin

Fav martial arts book: Go Rin No Sho

What do you wear for training: Depends. when I’m at the kwoon during normal hours then full uniform; White top with black piping, black pants, black sash. self training of private training i wear multiple layers of clothing, usually a hoodie on the outside, and I might throw in the weighted vest and ankles.  Almost always have the ankle braces and knee braces.

Worst martial arts injury: took a bad elbow to the face once.

3 favorite martial artists: excluding the obvious, Wushu is Jade Xu, traditional is Lylan Nguyen and XMA is Steve Terada

3 martial arts goals this year: Don’t die, get better, train more.

Favorite movement in your style: N/A

Do you compete?  I used to.

Anyone else in your family do martial arts? sister and mother used to.

Do you dream in martial arts? yes.

Any martial arts regrets? any second I wasted when I should have been growing.

Advice for someone just starting out: empty your teacup

@goatanddragon​ @juji-gatame​ @martial-endeavors​

[shaped-by-karate]

Hey. :] Thanks a bunch for adding me to The List. Just one thing - I recently moved my blog from my original Tumblr account to a new account [this one] so that Goat and Dragon would be my primary blog. The old blog is at the URL goatanddragonn [extra 'n'] and that is the one The List is linking to. Current blog is goatanddragon [no extra 'n']. :] Thanks, sorry for the confusion.

Alright, fixed it on both The List, and the ask you originally sent, thanks for letting me know. 

goatanddragon

[goatanddragon]

on a sense of wonder.

Wonder is one of the wildest qualities on the massive scale of human experience. Just a pinch of it stops time. The world halts. Your eyes fill. You become, for a small time, everything you truly are. - Victoria Erickson

The Raven. My youngest student, so emotional, but not in the way most little boys are. Affected, that’s a better word. In a span of ten minutes traveling from impassioned to unglued, and back again. Training is hard, he’s learning. I don’t like this, he’ll tell me, as I fold my arms and order another repetition of the same painstaking drill. It’s not for me, I wish I could tell him. We aren’t training for battle, or to fight. We have no great war to win, save the one we all fight alone every day. To give up, or not to give up. I don’t like this, he says, those ocean eyes full of tears. He can go so much further. He doesn’t know what pain is. Often, on those lazy Saturday afternoons after I’ve spent my weekly half-hour teaching the boy, I feel the sting of having failed him.

But then I catch him here, between the trailer and the stage where he, I, and our fellow demo team performed Kung Fu at a local festival. The first to find it, this secret spot, he clambered up and watched the performances in quiet awe, so emotional, but not the way most little boys are. I don’t like this, he says, when we train. We train hard, but not nearly as hard as we could. Oh, but Raven, I know you see why it has to be. Because you watch with a critical eye and though you may not say it I know you see what training does for you. And even if you don’t, I do. 

That was you last weekend. 

That was February. Seven months nearly to the day, you tested for your yellow sash. I was so proud, but of course, if you’d performed like that last weekend, I’d have been just as disappointed standing there watching you as I was proud seven months ago. Not disappointed in you, but in me. Yes, it’s your body and your mind, it’s your sense of wonder that keeps you impassioned. But it’s on me to fuel your fire with high standards and training that, sometimes, you won’t like. I don’t like them, either, when my instructors put me through them. But that’s what gets you from A to B. 

Your wonder is the reason I love you, little Kung Fu brother. You’re 100% all-American kiddo, no doubt. You’re loud and you run and you hit things and sometimes when you smile I can just see the light coming off of you. You can tell me you don’t like Kung Fu, but never will I believe that you don’t love it. Maybe one day you’ll walk away from this. On that day, the color of the belt around your waist won’t matter in the slightest. But the capacity of your heart and strength of your character and fortitude of your mind will. If you walk away, even just at the end of a Saturday lesson, with nothing else but a little more confidence in yourself, I will have succeeded. If your muscles hurt and your back aches and you want to quit but you don’t, I will have succeeded. If you never lose that sense of wonder, well, that’s got little to do with me. You will have succeeded. And no matter what comes to pass, I am better now, Raven, for having you as a student. For getting to see, in small moments, everything you truly are.

[goatanddragon]

goat does judo!

Thursday’s #latenitekungfu session was pretty low-key. Monk was fresh from the dojo where he’s been cross-training in Judo with Tiger and in unusually high spirits. Being a white belt again has activated a long-dead joy that I think most martial artists cease to feel once they’ve trained for a while. There’s just something unique about being a beginner that’s hard to replicate. 

What I like is the feeling of no expectation, Monkey says from his carved-out little corner of the world. I enjoy my chats with him but miss the constant companionship of when he lived with Dragon and I, just one door down from me. Little has changed, I imagine. I know he sits there in his swivel chair with his feet pulled up underneath him and sips something lukewarm while he studies, indulging my questions and poetic musings. 

The cloth around your waist doesn’t tell a faithful story about your skill, he laments. I love that I can make errors without feeling like I’m supposed to be a representation of the school or style. I had forgotten what it was like to watch a demonstration and not know where to start. Judo is making my body move in ways I haven’t moved before, just as Kung Fu did when I started. I feel my knowledge expanding at a rapid rate, which is the greatest feeling there is. 

On the mat last night Monk talked me through some basic Judo, as a preface to beginning my own cross-training adventure. At his dojo, everyone is offered a free trial class, and if things go well enough, I might end up their newest judoka. 

For an hour we grappled. I felt the full effects of being a beginner again as we rolled: the awkwardness of the movements and the elation of success. Afterward I lay sweat-soaked and exhausted on the mat, and Monkey quizzed me on what we’d gone over. 

Kesa gatame, he started with the easiest one. We’d spent the majority of our time drilling it. “Head-in-arm position,” I replied. Ippon seoi nage. “One-arm hip throw.” Osoto gari. “That’s the sweep.” Uchi komi. “Practicing setting up.” Neiwaza. “Grappling.” Randori. “Throwing, but you can only grab from the waist up.” Hajime. “Begin.” Good. 

Shoshin. The beginner’s mind. It’s quite a journey we’re on. Once the road seemed endless in both directions but lately I realize the road behind is more alive than we give it credit for. Maybe it’s more like a faithful dog, nipping at your heels and urging you forward, always right there. And the road ahead - if it can be thought of that way than it must always be ahead, of course - asks nothing of you. It is inanimate, unthinking, content if you are that you never take another step. But beginning, then, is every step. So then, hajime. 

[goatanddragon]

well, I’ve never done that before.

I know it’s about the shittiest pop-up in the world, but it’s the first one I’ve ever done in my whole life, and I am so glad I had the foresight to set up the camera. I only intended to record the practice - which, so far, has amounted to getting a little airborne but never even getting my feet underneath me - for the sake of seeing what I looked like as I spent the next few weeks trying to achieve the pop-up. 

Late nite kung fu. Following some key advice I had received from The Dragon about kicking straight up into the air, I had managed to get my feet underneath me about fifteen minutes into practicing the motion. After a dozen similar attempts, I excitedly called Monkey over to my side of the school to show him. He stood there, hands on his hips, quietly analyzing my efforts - quintessentially so. I made my attempt, my feet meeting the floor just before my back crashed back down. Expectedly, he forwent praise in favor of a suggestion. Do a sit-up. Blankly, I obeyed. Now do a sit-up in the air. 

I smiled. I smiled because Monkey’s suggestive critique is nearly always foolproof. Whether or not my body can keep up physically is another matter. But a sit-up? I can do sit-ups all day. 

I laid back down, breathed in and out, and went for it.  And hey, I know it’s about the shittiest pop-up in the world, but it’s the first one I’ve ever done. And that was pretty damn awesome. 

[goatanddragon]

This past weekend my Kung Fu school was out at a local festival for a demonstration. This is nowhere near the complete performance but I wanted to spotlight the kids! Sometimes it’s hard to see how much they’ve improved from day one until you’re analyzing footage and trying to splice a video together. Super proud of my little kung fu brothers and sisters. 

Video by: goatanddragon

[goatanddragon]

focus > intelligence.

Bruce Lee said the successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus. Focus determines one’s reality. It trumps natural talent, intelligence, and even the magnitude of the goal itself. Nothing is accomplished without focus. It is the vise that holds the board in place so the nail may reach its destination. It is the scope by which the sniper makes the perfect shot. It is the lens through which the stars are brought into view. 

My youngest student, the Raven (previously Dog), tested for his Green II two days ago. I first introduced him to you sixteen months ago.

The boy is hard on himself. I have the distinct notion he’ll grow up to be his own worst critic. His mind is always racing, his focus like a rabbit dodging foxes in the trees. - original blog post, January 2016

It has been over a year since I began teaching the Raven. It was temporary at first, but shortly after the trial period his father elected to enroll him in private instruction permanently, and I have been his instructor ever since. In sixteen months he has advanced three ranks and put a lot of personal effort into improving his kung fu as well as his attitude. The Chinese zodiac was not incorrect when describing his animal’s nature - 

Because dogs genuinely feel they know best, they can sometimes appear bossy. They accomplish goals quickly, their successes the result of hard work and intelligence. But the Dog never really relaxes. Despite appearing calm and at rest, his heart and mind are always jumping.

In the three months he trained for his Green II test, the Raven proved he could be diligent about his practice, intentional with his training, respectful to his instructors, and well-behaved in class. He gave me numerous examples of self-improvement that I drew upon continuously in my decision to allow him to test. And of course, he met the requirements for performing all of his chamber material well and correctly. I had no qualms about handing him a test application. But for whatever mysterious reason, Raven’s focus led him very far off the path of success come test night. 

Before the finishing tea ceremony, I pulled the boy aside for an impromptu, stern heart-to-heart. While I have never been angry at him, nor have I ever been so quick to reprimand him on a night that I typically view as one he should enjoy (let me destroy him in his next lesson, I joke with myself). But at this point, Raven is aware of what is acceptable etiquette/behavior on a test and what is not, as he is also aware that his focus should not be on what other students are doing, saying, or how well (or not well, as he is fond of pointing out) they are performing. 

Sometimes you wish they were older, so you could be more methodically formulaic with your words. Statistically, people who are distracted take much longer to complete tasks than their focused peers, and they also make many more mistakes. The Raven’s kung fu suffered on test night. His forms were about the shoddiest work I’d seen him put out. Where focus goes, energy flows. 

So, sixteen months in, we’re narrowing our focus. Raven is on the 7th of the first fourteen ranks he hopes to achieve, halfway to 1st-degree black. It will take all the time it takes, and I have no issue with that. But I do take issue with the notion that if we do not tighten up, he will not only be a sloppy black belt, he will be an arrogant one, and that is a dangerous combination. 

Next time the Raven tests, he will be a machine. 

[goatanddragon]

the score.

all my wolves begin to howl, 'wake me up, the time is now' body aches, I'm bound in chains, but there's a fire in my veins and there's a revolution coming 

On tonight’s episode of Late Nite Kung Fu...  Monkey and I spent the majority of the two-hour session working on nothing but kicks and sweeps. After a brief warm-up jog and some practice with diving shoulder rolls (and, of course, Monk’s patented walking stances), we moved into butterfly kicks, which are honestly not even in my repertoire. At most, I’ve dabbled in them when directed to do one or two as a class exercise, but I have never been formally instructed on how to do one. Monkey relayed some tips he originally gleaned from Tiger: basically, despite that we train traditional Shaolin kung fu, do some wushu! Then, fighting a pulled hamstring, he demonstrated the butterfly kick. As a disclaimer, Monk himself is not proud of the result and assures me he’s done much better in the past. I, however, still watch the clip with a childlike awe and all of his self-deprecation will never take that away from me. (Eat your heart out @pathofthemonkey!) I mean, come on, he was injured, and he still pulled this bad boy off.

Lessons learned: 1) Doing a wushu power stance makes you feel like a complete badass.  2) In wushu, Monkey explained, everything is tight, everything is powerful. There’s not a loose muscle or appendage in the stance, minus relaxed shoulders. The chin stays up, shoulders back, and the face is ready and still.  3) #2 can be applied to traditional kung fu, for sure! I have always struggled with keeping my chin up, for one. 

When I mimicked his stance, Monkey shook his head and proceeded to point out an umpteen number of ways to improve it. It continually amazes me the level of conscientiousness required to make this art the best it can be, down to making sure the tension is held in the right parts of the body. 

After sweeps and spinning crescent kicks (which I’m not going to embarrass myself discussing until I have some good progress down!) Monkey and I took a look at the curriculum boards, where everything a student is required to know is printed for their reference. 

Lessons learned: 1) I think too much. Progress is not made in the mind, but in the performance of the technique. My hang-up is that I don’t want to perform the technique until it’s perfect, as if I could somehow listen to and absorb all the information about that technique, let it marinate in my brain, and just spit out a golden example of what it is supposed to look like. I mean, if it really worked that way, we’d all be fucking beasts. Haha. I wish. 

Monkey: How are your side kicks? Me: I like to think they’re pretty good. 

I think you all know how that story ends.  Tonight was pretty lax. Monk’s injury meant he couldn’t train as hard as he’d have liked and I was in a chipper mood so there was a lot of laughing and joking, up until he tightened up and became stricter for the sake of getting things done. My side kicks elicited Monkey’s quintessential grimace, which I am well-accustomed to. He proceeded to break down the technique and after ten minutes of me missing the mark, I was sent to the wall to practice static holds while Monk made minute adjustments to my posture. 

My calves ached horribly, sore from this week’s leg day at the gym. By this point, the backs of my knees and quads also felt like hot Jell-O, protesting against every twist and trembling with the weight of my lifted leg. My obliques were forced to engage and felt as though they’d been gathering dust for months. These just weren’t things I was conscious of before, I’d realized with a sickened feeling in my gut. Subdued, I shut my mouth and focused on trying to power through and not put my leg down. 

When he finally ordained that I could rest, I retook my position on the mat thoroughly chastened, frustrated, and eyes watering from the pain, but resolute. About ten failed attempts later, something clicked, and as I extended my side kick I angled my torso in the direction of the strike and pulled my shoulder back, engaging the oblique. Monkey immediately came to life, praising the attempt. That was the one, he brightened. Again. 

I felt such a swell of relief but it let it be sucked down with my frustration and exhaustion, trying to keep my mind focused only the task itself. I am reminded of a Zen saying that more or less goes: Your mind is like a house. Leave a door open. Let emotions come and go, just don’t serve them tea. 

Lessons learned: 1) Progress for the sake of progress.  2) Training with your friends is fun. But a lot more gets done when you get serious.  3) 

I’m still internalizing this one. I understand that it means the work you put in to accomplishing something elicits a twofold response. First, the work itself costs you - it costs you time, energy, pain, frustration, and suffering. That’s eating bitter- what you are willing to do to accomplish something is directly correlated to how badass you’ll be at that thing when the work is done. (By the way, the work is never done.) Even literally, practicing your kung fu warms your body, taxes your muscles and bones and both weakens and strengthens you. But when you’ve mastered something, the warmth from that is the reward. That’s the satisfaction of knowing it’s under your belt. It’s basking in the glow of a fire you built. It’s having run the gauntlet and emerged on the other side intact and better off.  In five years, I may very well be an instructor at one of the most up-and-coming premiere Shaolin kung fu schools in the country. Dream big, right? We’ll see what happens. More on that later. 

Thanks for chilling with me, guys! Until next time - 

<3 Goat

[goatanddragon]

The Shaolin Wu-Yi Institute Black Belt Outdoor Exam. Second-degree black sash candidates take the outdoor portion of their exam series, designed to challenge their physical endurance off the mat. Also featured are third-degree candidates performing Yang Style Tai Chi. All photos and video and the video itself taken/produced by me. 

[goatanddragon]

benched.

two months ago, approximately.

I really couldn’t tell you how I did it. I get hit in the face so often in kung fu that it’s not completely far-fetched to assume that’s how I incurred a corneal abrasion that (coupled with inflammation of my eyelid caused by allergies) would fail to heal for weeks. 

last Saturday. 

When I woke in the morning, I made the terrible mistake I’ve made numerous times over the last few weeks - I ripped the scab off the cornea. Long story short - your eyes dry out when you sleep, and if you have a corneal abrasion, a scab of new eye skin forms over it and if you wake and open your eyes sans any lubrication of the eye itself, the eyelid will rip away the scab. I’d done this previously numerous times by mistake, about once a week on average. Every progressive time, the pain lasted a little longer. But Saturday - Saturday set a record: the pain (and blurry vision, tearing, and congestion) did not stop for eight hours, lulling briefly for about four, and then picking up before I gave up and went to bed that night. 

last Sunday.

When I awoke Sunday morning, I was careful not to “rip” open the scab, and for about fifteen minutes there was no pain at all, then seemingly of its own accord, my eye became hot and scratchy and did not stop plaguing me all day long in waves. During one lull Dragon and made a trip to the grocery store for dinner ingredients. I wore my sunglasses inside and he made blind jokes that kept me in good spirits.

the ER. 

It was at my father’s insistence (and panicked fear of vision loss) that I asked the Dragon to drive me to the emergency room. I felt bad - we’d just settled in for a night of TV, video games, and a planned mac-and-cheese with-sausage dinner (mmm!) that he graciously put on hold. At the ER, we weren’t given any reason as to why the scratch hadn’t healed on its own but I was given painkillers and drops. The painkillers made me nauseous and kind of loopy.

the ophthalmologist. 

I didn’t even know that optometrists weren’t medical doctors. Jeez. The ophthalmologist was able to tell me that the reason the eye had begun to hurt continuously was due to a swelling of the eyelid - as the swelling increased over the last few weeks, it reached a point where every blink was chafing the wounded skin of the eye, causing perpetual pain. He placed a contact on the eye and gave me more drops. 

penance. 

I should have gone sooner, much sooner, to the eye doctor’s for help with the scratched cornea. I actually did go see an optometrist a few weeks ago - that’s how I knew it was a corneal abrasion, but I didn’t seek further treatment, figuring I could bide my time and it would get better on it’s own. I’m really quite blessed and lucky it didn’t get infected in my procrastination. 

So, per my (questionably) good judgment and at both Dragon and Monkey’s insistence, I am sidelined from training for the time being - no kung fu, no gym for one week, when I head back to the ophthalmologist to have the contact removed. It’s only Wednesday morning and it’s been rough. I miss my passion and my family at Shaolin. Still, I’ll try to make the most of the week, catching up on rest, keeping up with medication, and maybe hashing through a Netflix series or two. The Dragon did promise that if my eye was 100% irritation and fatigue-free by Thursday afternoon I could attend class. 

What he doesn’t know, however, is that as of last night I’ve been feeling a bit of a swelling in my tonsils, which is an indication of a potentially encroaching infection. When I get home, I’ll be downing some immunity booster, gargling salt water, and putting myself to bed. Hopefully I won’t be sidelined for too long. 

Dragon: You could have had this fixed weeks ago if you weren’t such a baby about people sticking things in your eye.

*sigh* Yeah. I know. Well, life goes on! Never let it keep ya down. Kung fu, here I come.

[goatanddragon]

everybody was kung fu fighting!

[The Shaolin Monks] pursue spiritual peace through mastery of bare-fisted murder.  – The Simpsons, 16x12 “Goo Goo Gai Pan”

To fight is a concept with which every person on the planet is familiar. From the impoverished bowels of third-world countries to the highest echelon of wealthy societies, fighting can almost be heralded as the true universal language. People fight for what they love, against what they hate, for change, for honor, for glory, for money, to stave boredom, to get fit. Every day, wars are waged against both mental and physical obstacles to success. The most personally successful individuals are the ones who brave adversity and courageously do battle with what threatens to block or distract them from their goals. 

Challenging someone to a duel is not a foreign concept in the Western world, but conditions had to be met before making such a challenge was considered socially acceptable. Bound by a set of societal mores (the essential or characteristic customs and conventions of a community, by the dictionary definition), duels were usually made over questions of personal honor. At least superficially, the point of the duel (whether it be carried out with swords, guns, or mano-a-mano) was for each participant to demonstrate a willingness to lay their life on the line for the restoration of honor, either to themselves, their families, or some entity they represented. 

In the Chinese culture (the birthplace of kung fu and by proxy many hundreds of styles of martial arts), such a challenge is called gong sau, or “speak hand.” Plainly, it is a challenge made by one individual to another to test the skills of that individual’s school or style. It was often enacted in private and under relatively civilized conditions. Bruce Lee himself notably engaged in such a fight with the still-living Wong Jack Man at Lee’s school nine years before Lee’s untimely death. The fight was unrecorded and, following tradition, held in near-complete privacy. Performed in good faith, gong sau is meant to enhance a student’s knowledge base and physical versatility, not to harm or disgrace the opponent. These days, many reputable kung fu schools will actually have written policies either barring their students from challenging other schools for the sake of martial morality or greatly restricting the circumstances under which a challenge can occur. Martial arts is a business, and while injuries are common, injuries acquired by way of an outside challenge can potentially irreparably damage a school’s reputation.

So what if the challenger wishes to challenge a member of his own school? Then it is not a question of style or the skill of instruction, but of skill. When does a match between fellow students cross the line of propriety?

Martial artists live by a code set forth by their masters and the school they are trained in. In a traditional martial art like Shaolin kung fu, the mind is trained as much as the body, and attitude is tantamount to effective absorption not only of the physical material, but of the headspace critical to becoming a respected member of the school community. Those students who embody every aspect of wu de (”martial morality”) are seen as pillars of the microcosmic society that is the kung fu school. Martial arts is indeed a sub-culture of the world-at-large, operating with its own norms, rules, traditions, and mores. There is a way a martial artist is expected to behave here, and while new students typically pick it up by power of observation, elder students have been known to correct them verbally when breaches of conduct are observed. It is the duty of higher-ranking belts to do just that, politely but firmly, to school them into the appropriate role of respectful, passionate student.

Enter the Tiger. 

Tiger is the youngest third-degree black belt in the school, a few years my junior but two full ranks (and many chambers) my senior. I do not know the exact timeline or details of his martial arts history, but he began his kung fu training a few years ago as a child, and earned his black belt in Taekwondo before that. He is a champion wrestler and world-champion kung fu competitor numerous times over, cross-trains in groundfighting arts, and is a highly skilled sparring partner. His athletic abilities alone make him somewhat of a marvel to newer and seasoned students alike, martial skill aside. But what makes Tiger truly admirable is his humility, coolheadedness, and unwavering willingness to help any student who asks for it. About martial etiquette he maintains and encourages a historically “traditional” frame of thinking and it comes across very obviously in the way he shows deference to other instructors, treats his students, and handles conflict. Though quite serious when it comes to matters of martial propriety, Tiger is fun-loving, amicable, and always game for a round of sparring. The rest of us students love the uncommon occasions Tiger is able to break away from his personal commitments and come train for the simple reason that he is fun to watch and his great attitude makes him a highly respected, but highly accessible role model. I know of no one who has ventured to disrespect him. In fact, I know of no one who is not completely awestruck at him.

So when, one evening, a white belt walked up to Tiger and challenged him to a fight, I imagine even Tiger was himself was somewhat taken aback.

Enter the White Belt. 

He’s a young man around Tiger’s age, give or take a couple years, with short, curly hair and big, shiny glasses. So fresh to the kwoon his perfectly black uniform still gleams under the fluorescent lights, he approaches Tiger and personally challenges him to a fight. 

I was not present at the time, engaged in a class that was simultaneously occurring. The school was crowded with students that day, and once class ended at 7:30 that evening those who had attended flooded to the back of the school, on their way to locker rooms or the carpet to stretch. As I walked by, equally purposed, I saw Tiger kneeling on the floor, the white belt’s head between his legs, the rest of him all but immobilized as he struggled to buck Tiger off. Tiger, of course, looked as calm and collected as ever, if not slightly irked. Having no picture of what was occurring, as I had just entered the situation, I only got the impression that this wasn’t a usual sparring match.

Fascinated, I reached out to Tiger after the fervor had died down to try and figure out what had happened.

Goat (me): He challenged you?

Tiger: Yes, he did. The issue I had with him was that I specifically told him there was a difference between sparring and challenging someone. I made it clear that if he wanted to spar I would... make it a learning experience. But if he’s asking for a challenge, it’s completely different.

In a martial arts community, I agree wholeheartedly: vernacular is important. Challenging someone seems to imply that the challenger wishes to do the other person some degree of harm to prove a point, barring defense of honor, which was not the context here.

Tiger: I told him that it was inappropriate for him to actually challenge someone at the school, especially at his rank and lack of skill. Said that at this point, he should be seeking help and guidance rather than walking around challenging black belts.

Which is apparently exactly what the young man had been doing. Prior to making his fatal mistake with Tiger, he challenged Monkey, Horse, and a handful of other notable students. With no previous martial arts training except for some summers spent with a grandfather who was apparently proficient in some form of Aikido, he really never stood a chance. 

Goat: Challenging someone to get better sounds exactly like some old-fashioned school-of-hard-knocks bullshit instilled by an overbearing (or at least misguided) father figure. 

Monkey, Dragon, and I got on the subject of the challenge while hanging out at home a few nights later. It was then I first found out the white belt had been challenging other black belts; Monkey revealed he’d been issued (and accepted) a similar challenge, as had Horse. Monkey, naturally, prevailed in the match. I was surprised to hear that after losing to two successive second-degree black belts the young man would bother trying to win against a third-degree, but then, a lack of logic had already proven a recurring theme. Dragon, interestingly, had not been challenged, and expressed rhetorical curiosity as to why. To me, it was glaringly obvious: either he hadn’t gotten around to it, or (more likely), the student was shying from Dragon because, well, Dragon’s a big, scary-looking motherfucker. Tiger and Horse are both of average height and relatively unassuming standing a crowd of students. Monkey is tall but thin. I speculated that the white belt had shown at least some intelligence picking opponents with a body type most similar to his own. Tiger, Horse, and Monkey may have all presented the illusion of being equally manageable.

When I had the chance to introduce myself to the young man (I try to do this with all new students), he told me that Tiger reminded him of his grandfather, who was a “fighter,” but seemed hesitant to share more with me, perhaps still shamed from his encounter with the black belt. Still, he kept a smile on his face when I asked him if he’d learned anything, replying yes, I got a lesson in vernacular. Before taking my leave, I asked him if he was still on his quest to challenge black belts to fights and he shook his head abashedly. 

Tiger’s account describes giving the kid a chance to rescind, or at least to re-consider what exactly he was asking for. As always, Tiger extended the offer to spar, to help coach the young man about technique while in a practice hand-to-hand scenario, but the white belt was relentless, insisting on a “challenge.” With his great reverence for martial etiquette at the helm, as well as the honor of the school in his hands, Tiger acted in defense of both and allowed the engagement. It didn’t last long, and while Tiger was not cruel, hurtful, or punitive, he did not show mercy with his technique nor offered any of the usual encouragement or helpful criticism that a student would be blessed to receive from him in the course of a training match.

Tiger: A challenge is a questioning. It questions my rank, my skill, my training and, most of all, my teachers. As a direct representative of their teachers, a martial artist can not take a challenge lying down. Some people might see that as an old-school mentality (the entire idea of someone challenging a martial artist is, by itself, pretty old-school), but I take it very seriously.

(Tiger, center, earning his third-degree sash last year.)

In researching modern opinions on gong sau (though this incident doesn’t completely align with the definition) I came across numerous opinions about the subject. Perhaps common-sensically, many martial artists advise against it unless certain criteria are met and rules set in place governing the fight. The best advice I read was simply this: just don’t go looking for a fight, because eventually you will find one and it will not end well. Moreover, it seems to me that if one’s mindset is so narrow and linear that it drives an individual to believing the best way to achieve the goal of becoming a great fighter is to continually challenge fighters of much higher skill, that student would be more suited to a Muay Thai or boxing gym than a kung fu school.

“The most dangerous time for any student of any discipline is when the student is at a point where ambition outreaches skill. This will serve to keep the student training, but can result in some harsh lessons.” - anonymous

Needless to say, I’m keeping an interested eye on the white belt’s development.

[goatanddragon]

Some long-overdue photos from my first-degree black belt exam in August of 2016. I and all the visible red belts were testing for our black sashes; the black belts testing with us were testing for either their second- or third-degree black sashes.

[goatanddragon]

Don't let trivial things like where you train affect how you train.

The Dragon, lecturing on the merits of always performing as though the stakes are the highest they’ve ever been.