Sword Dance
a
brief survey
"When sorting out
timber for a house, that which is straight, free from knots, and good of
appearance can be used for front pillars. That which has some knots but is
straight and strong can be used for rear pillars. That which is somewhat weak but has no knots
and looks good is variously used for door sills, lintels, doors, and screens."
Likening the Science of
Martial Arts to Carpentry,
The Book of Five Rings [trans. Cleary]
What is Sword
Dance? What constitutes a Sword Dance
done well?
Early
History
We can trace
Chinese Sword Dance back as far as the first Han Dynasty through historical and
pseudo-historical accounts. Although
early histories are not entirely reliable, we have no reason to doubt the
existence of this art form. There are
numerous examples of longswords dating to the periods referenced.
The first Sword
Dancers were soldiers and assassins. A
well-known early account tells of an assassin Xiang Zhuang using a Sword Dance
to try to get close to the emperor Liu Bang. His intent was, of course,
nefarious. Xiang was foiled by the loyal
general Xiang Bo, who joined the performance and matched the would
be assassin’s timing and position to keep him from the emperor. Peter Lorge notes
that Zhuang could not simply push past Bo and still maintain the pretense of
being an innocent performer, and thus the assassination was prevented.[i]
Women in
Martial Arts
Although Sword
Dance may have been largely the domain of male soldiers until later eras,
simply because fewer women participated in war, one of the first named martial
artists in China is General Fu Hou. Her
tomb from the late 12th century BCE was excavated in Anyang in 1976.[ii]
By the Tang
Dynasty, the participation of women in Sword Dance is well documented,[iii]
and this may have contributed to the rise in popularity of nuxia. [iv] These tales of female knights errant in the
Song and later dynasties have become an indispensable fixture of contemporary wuxia,
not least because of Jin Yong’s Lotus[v]
in the contemporary era. It’s hard to
find a high budget sci-fi, fantasy or action series that does not contain a
strong female hero in the mold of Katniss Everdeen. Today the best fencer in US history is Mariel
Zagunis,[vi]
and the “finest living grappler” is Kayla Harrison.[vii] The skills of these women was hard earned,
and their accomplishments great, such that both can be called “peerless”.
Because so many
women took up martial arts in the modern era, initially predominantly modern
Wushu in China,[viii]
where women have always had a role in warfare for millennia, and in the heroic
literature for centuries, it may be that Sword Dance is now often considered a
primary domain of women. Yu So Chow,[ix]
the daughter of the great teacher Yu Jim Yuen,[x]
was famed for her Sword Dances. She even
made a film called “Black Peony” which title may be a play on the Wudang White
Peony Temple.[xi]
Figure 1
Yu So Chow as "Agile Black Peony"
When Bow Sim Mark
completed her decade of wudang training with Fu Wing Fay one of the first jobs
she took was as a Sword Dancer and choreographer at the Miramar Hotel in Hong
Kong. It was a good way to make money,
and scratch her opera itch, while continuing to develop her internal sword
technique.[xii] Unlike teaching, where most of the master’s
time goes into the students, performers get to train all day, every day.
Figure 2 Bow Sim Mark performing Sword Dance at
the Miramar Hotel in Hong Kong
Martial
Arts & Performance Arts
It’s no surprise
then that her daughter was winning medals in international competitions at an
early age, and her son became one of the four Kungfu crossover stars with a
global reputation. Her art intersected
choreography and exhibition in much the same way as Yuen clan[xiii]
and the Lau.[xiv] Bruce Lee also came from an opera family, and
at one time he was the “Cha Cha King” of Hong Kong,
an achievement this great fighter was proud of throughout his life. Is it possible this is a reason he became Ip
Man’s most famous student? The
connection goes even deeper in that many Wing Chun schools now trace their
lineage to the Red Boat Opera Company[xv]—Sammo Hung made a movie about this called Prodigal Son
(1981). So we
can’t say there is no connection between martial arts and dance and
theater. In fact, this connection
stretches back to antiquity, and perhaps beyond.
Martial dance is
part of many traditions including the Māori people, whose warriors
reputation for ferocity may be unmatched.
Capoeira is a martial art routinely practiced to live
music as a form of martial dance, integrating acrobatics, like contemporary
competition wushu. The martial intent
had to be hidden because the art was practiced by oppressed peoples. War dances are a staple of many traditional cultures
from Ukraine to the Zulu, the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt, Scotland
and the Philippines.[xvi] Aspects of dance appear in prizefighting, and
we’ve seen a few Capoeira techniques showing up in mixed martial arts matches
in recent years. The most famous example of dance in combat may be the “Ali
shuffle”.[xvii] Even Bruce Lee adopted this technique to
demoralize opponents with his blindingly fast footwork. Ali himself called his own footwork a
dance. Watching his skip steps in the
ring, it’s hard to disagree. So it’s no wonder Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard are
considered the two greatest boxers of all time—their footwork and balance was
next-level; significantly better than everyone else.[xviii]
Fencing, like
boxing, is a rhythm sport.[xix] It all comes down to timing and
distance.
Figure 3 Bow Sim Mark fencing with her daughter
Chris Yen
Modern
Sword Dance
With modern Sword
Dance, at one end of the spectrum you see dancing with a sword in hand. The dancers are typically classically
trained, and in many cases very good.
They may even execute sword techniques better than most martial artists,
because straightsword is a finesse weapon, requiring grace and precision and
excellent posture. In my experience,
professional dancers tend to train harder than most martial artists, but it’s
still not martial art.
At the other end
of the spectrum you have martial artists who play
music while exhibiting routines. This
became popular in recent decades, promoted by famous practitioners like Bow Sim
Mark and others for martial forms beyond straightsword, and today you see it
across styles. But most martial artists
are merely using the music as a backdrop, and not matching the form to the
music in the manner of choreography.
Therefore, it is not true martial dance.
Sword Dance at a
high level requires matching the movement to the music—to the timing, the tempo
changes, and the feeling of the song. It
requires control and adjustment of distance because performances take place in
a bounded space. Most importantly, every
movement and each technique in the set of techniques that comprise a movement
must have martial application.[xx]
I’ll say it
again because it’s so important:
“Every movement in a true Sword Dance must have martial application”,
otherwise you “break the art.”
Ideally, one
should be able to apply those techniques.
For this reason, true Sword Dance is one of the most difficult art forms
to do well. It has the same rigorous requirements as other fine arts, but a
broader scope. There are simply more
dimensions.
Is it good for
anything other than performance?
Arguably, it is. Floyd Mayweather
is considered the greatest technical boxer of all time, and when you look at
his victories, it becomes immediately apparent that his ability to “mess with
his opponents’ timing” is a key to his success.
He’s simply a better “dancer” like Ali and the Sugar Rays—all of these boxers have greater control of timing and
distance.
Controlling
the Tempo
“Controlling the
tempo” is just as important in fencing—it’s one of the main ways you set an
opponent up—introduce a lull and then strike with lightning speed. Alternately, up the tempo to get the opponent
flustered, tense and twitchy, then parry with authority when they overcommit
and riposte cleanly and calmly. Feints
to get the opponent accustomed to a pattern, in order to
break the pattern and strike a half beat before or after. These are just a few of the most basic
examples.
An accomplished
Sword Dancer who practices the real art is simply going to be better equipped
to contend with straightsword, which unlike sturdy single-edged blades are not
durable. Straightsword depends on
finesse as opposed to brute force, and this is especially true in unarmored
combat where one has nothing to protect oneself but the sword.[xxi]
Controlling
the Space
If you’ve ever
pushed hands with a true master, you’ll note that one of the basic things they
do is “control the space”, often in subtle ways. This guarantees them superior
leverage and is a key reason younger, stronger players cannot contend.[xxii] Even lesser masters, if savvy, will employ
this technique.
Dance, better
than any other art form, teaches you to control the space because you work to
hit the same spots on the practice floor every with repetition, and maintain, close or increase distance with other performers. In performance this is even more crucial,
where hitting the mark corresponds with lighting. In film productions, where the budgets can be
hundreds of millions of dollars, missing a mark can cost thousands or tens of
thousands.
With martial
dance, which is exhibited in a variety of settings, often informal, you also have to adjust the steps and distance to adapt to different
spaces you may be performing in.
Sometimes, in the Chinese art, the audience can be very close. You need
to adapt to the space to avoid cutting them!
We’ve had performances with children in the audience sitting one foot
away from flashing swords!
It was only by
controlling the space and matching the tempo that Xiang Bo could forestall
Xiang Zhuang indefinitely and preserve the emperor. It was only by coming close to the partner
with the sword that the fight depicted in Fig. 4 could be convincing.
Figure 4 Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000),
Choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping
Choreography
One school of
thought maintains that we should preserve the forms, as is, never making
changes over subsequent generations, even as the martial environment changes
around us. We might call this “the
Orthodoxy”. In contrast, the idea of
“embracing the heterodoxy” means we should be open to different ways of doing
things, and continually seeking to improve and refine the arts.[xxiii] However, changes to martial forms cannot be
undertaken lightly[xxiv]—this
is a domain that requires what we sometimes call “a true master”, a person who
occupies a place at the pinnacle of the art and can thereby push it forward. Yu Chenghui[xxv]
was such a master and revived the wudang longsword, which had been lost for
generations. Yuen Woo-ping is another
such master who advanced the art of fight choreography in both Asia and the
West.[xxvi] Li Jinglin and Li Tianji were true masters who advanced the sword art in
their generations. [xxvii] Bow Sim Mark is another such master who routinely choreographed new
performance routines and martial forms, and like her teacher Tianji, and his teacher Jinglin,
advanced the sword art in her generation.[xxviii] She was equal to her teachers[xxix]
in internal technique, as a student who had “mastered everything they could
teach”, but she mastered it while still young, and thus had the potential to
surpass. By the time she went to study
with Tianji at the Beijing Institute for physical
culture, she had a couple decades of hardcore, daily Fu style waist training,
and significantly greater flexibility, so could simply do more.[xxx]
Figure 5 Bow Sim Mark in side
split
Figure 6 Bow Sim Mark demonstrating Advanced Sword
at 40 (circa 1978)
She had the
shoulders of her teachers and their teachers to stand on. As she once explained, her sword art was the
product of three generations of improvement.[xxxi]
The art of
choreography trains the practitioner to think creatively. Being able to fight creatively provides a
significant advantage—hitting an opponent with something they’ve never
encountered before and are thus unequipped to deal with. This is a quality we see in greats from
Muhammad Ali to Bruce Lee to recent MMA phenom McGregor. [xxxii] True masters must be creative so they can
push the art forward with new methods of movement, applications, and
expressions of technique. This holds
true for any art form.[xxxiii]
To remain vital
and relevant, the arts must be advanced in every generation.
Wushu
Theater
The best fight
choreography is narrative, in that it contains its own story arc within the
series of movements that comprise an extended fight sequence.[xxxiv] This is also what Bow Sim Mark meant by
“Wushu Theater”: telling a story entirely through martial movement.
Wushu Theater is
often conflated with traditional Chinese opera, and thereby dismissed, but it
is distinct from Opera in that all movements and techniques must have real
martial application. Opera, by contrast,
is so stylized that the movements lose most of its martial value. Still great training, as evidenced by the
Seven Little Fortunes, but not quite the real thing. The main critique of the Shaw Era, and
perhaps the pre-SPL era in Chinese Kungfu films in general, is that the
movement was so stylized it was “Opera”.
But this Opera
influenced choreography, of which Yuen Woo-Ping may be the greatest exemplar
notable early for his groundbreaking leg grappling sequences, wowed
generations, created the international fan base, and paved the way for the
newer, more realistic action that was possible with the post-Matrix camera
tech.[xxxv] Smaller, lighter cam finally allowed brash
young action directors to “get inside the choreography”.
Nevertheless, the
development and preservation of choreography in Chinese Opera and Sword Dance
provided the foundation for complex action choreography integrating narrative
arcs. Where William Hobbs[xxxvi]
was an outlier in Western Cinema, in Hong Kong Cinema, such choreographers were
not uncommon, and there are many greats.
True Wushu
Theater has even stricter requirements than film choreography, which can be a
mix of real and embellished[xxxvii]
This new art form
has been widely misunderstood.
Figure 7 Bow Sim Mark as White Snake, based on the
famous Chinese Opera.
The distinction is that every technique she employed in her performance was
real.
Application
vs. Performance
One of the most
effective techniques in Wudang fencing is the “wrist cut”, which comprise the
majority of the basic techniques in the modern “Essentials of Wudang” (Wudang
Basics) manual that comes from Li Jinglin’s student
Huang Yuanxiu.[xxxviii] The most effective of these involves pressing
the blade into the opponent’s tendon and drawing the blade across the limb by
turning the waist to cut—it can look quite elegant but would be determinative
if applied for real, taking away the use of the opponent’s sword hand and
ending combat.
This is
considered “more gentle” than other straightsword
applications, which I will not discuss in detail here for fear of shocking the
reader. [xxxix]
Suffice it to say
that the real application of sword is brutal, ugly, and taking human life is a
terrible thing. When I asked Bow Sim
Mark why so many of her traditional wudang Sword Dances were set to sad music,
she replied “The sword is heavy”. This
carries a double meaning in the sense of the inertia (weight) the internal
practitioner puts into the blade, and the gravity of the martial intent, which
both she and the Zen Sword Saint[xl]
reduce to “taking human life”.[xli] Thus we love Sword Dance because it provides
a domain for a beautiful & peaceful expression of this exquisite art, which
our goal is to preserve.
Conclusion
To apply martial
arts well, the movements and techniques must all be second nature, coming out
of muscle memory b/c there generally isn’t time to think. When the movements can be done without
thought, it allows the practitioner to consider other dimensions, such as
strategy and physical cues from the opponent (foot position, body alignment,
breathing, etc.) The most celebrated
boxers have been able to incorporate showmanship, giving a little something
extra, to the delight of spectators and fans.
This can arise out of greater natural ability, but it will only be
lasting where it arises out of superior technique. High-level Sword Dance requires the
practitioner to perform at that level–not only executing the movements
correctly and well, but conveying the meaning of the movements, putting feeling
into the sword, matching the music, controlling the space, and commanding the
attention of the audience. Sword Dance
is an exquisite art and an exceptional method of training for both boxing and
swordplay.
By
J. Michael Nuell, January 2023
Figure 8 Bow Sim Mark in “swallow tail
balance" with double swords—
in later years she performed traditional wudang Sword Dance with two
longswords,
then switched to longsword and fly-whisk because two
weapons of equal weight was not challenging enough!
[i] Lorge, Peter. Chinese
Martial Arts from Antiquity to the 21st Century. Cambridge
University Press. 2012. pp. 62-63. Excerpting from Sima
Qian, Records of the Grand Historian and Ban Gu, History of the
Former Han Dynasty.
[iii] Ibid. p. 104, 131The great poet Du Fu
lavishly praised Lady Gongson’s Sword Dance. Lorge speculates that her movements must have been
consistent with real fencing in that the audience of aristocrats would have had
some knowledge of that fencing.
[iv] Altenburger,
Roland. The Sword Or the Needle: The Female
Knight-errant (xia) in Traditional Chinese Narrative.
Peter Lang AG. 2009. “Xia”
means “knight errant” and “Nuxia” refers specifically
to the genre of wuxia involving female knights.
[v] See: Condor Heroes, Jin Yong (aka Louis Cha)
[vii] Harrison is the first American to win
Olympic Gold in Judo, and one of very few athletes in the history of the games
to win gold in multiple games, first in 2012 then in 2016. Currently, she is participating in
professional MMA and absolutely dominant with an
undefeated record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayla_Harrison
[viii] It is not unlikely that contemporary
Wushu, which could focus on grace and speed, as exemplified by the Northern
Shaolin form, women had a domain not based in raw size and strength where they
could exceed anyone with enough hard work.
Unarmored combat with swords and internal arts in general are two such
domains, where technique, strategy, balance, timing
and footwork are pre-eminent. The distinction of external boxing is that
greater size and strength are generally determinative. Wing Chun is said to have been developed by a
Shaolin Nun to counter this advantage.
Modern attempts to downplay the importance of the origin myth are
immaterial as a
characteristics of the art in general is the neutralization of
size/strength advantage. The point of the myth is that it can be wielded effectively
by a “woman against a man”, which connotes a likely smaller/weaker participant
prevailing against the bigger/stronger, empty hand or with weapons. There is a
reason double dagger is predominantly taught to girls.
[xi] The Buddhist White Peony Temple
in Inner Mongolia is distinct from the Taoist sites in the Wudang Mountains in
Hubei province. 五當 vs. 武当. It’s
unclear to what degree women may have been excluded, especially in the
neo-Confucian Imperial sponsored temples, but chauvinism in the martial arts is
undeniable, and persists even to this day.
A straightsword in an unarmored context is one of the best equalizers in
martial history. A woman can be just as
quick and fierce as a man, and it doesn’t take much strength to wield a light
blade such as a poignard or flexible jian. Fans of modern fantasy may recall that Arya
Stark’s blade is called “needle”, re: The Sword or the Needle.
[xii] Anecdotally, as a teacher of jian, I’ve found women and girls to have more natural
aptitude for this weapon. There are many
reasons for this, which I may treat in a future article.
[xviii] Both Ali and Leonard say the actual
greatest was Sugar Ray Robinson, and credit him as their true teacher, but much
less footage Robinson exists, so his greatness is often lost to modern fans of
the sport.
[xx] These qualities are present in extant war dances
of “primitive” cultures, by which we mean advanced pre-industrial
cultures. Surviving Polynesian War
dances are an exemplar. The feeling is
expressed not only in the body language but in the face which is trained to be
a terrifying mask. This is a basic
example of psychological warfare, such that we can see that theater cannot be
separated from even warfare. Anyone who
has made a serious study of military strategy knows this to be the case. #HungerGames
[xxi] For this reason, the extant Wudang sword
arts have a principle of “preserving the sword”, which extends even further to
“edge preservation”. Real wudang fencing
never goes force against force, but counters force with circular motion,
utilizing the same core principle as Tai Chi.
The main point of failure in swords is the tang, and this and the
surrounding components of metal swords will degrade over time with use. Swords are distinct from knives in having
“action”, which can be understood as the ability to multiply force using the
balance and weight of the blade. Unlike single-edged swords which can used softer,
more durable metal for the back, which does not need to hold an edge, the
blades of normal straightswords are weaker than
sabers. No straightsword should be thought of as durable, even the stiff swords
over 2lbs. This is the cost of the versatility that makes it them the king of cold weapons.
[xxii] When I pushed with Xia Bohua, then a senior citizen, he would just laugh as I
essentially unbalanced myself. He didn’t
have to take it seriously because I was not his student
so he had no “skin in the game”. Pushing
with Sifu was not as entertaining since there, any relative lack of skill did
not bring delight. In both cases I was
unimaginably lucky to even be in the room.
[xxiii] This is a hallmark of Bow Sim Mark’s son,
Donnie Yen, who, after a decade of rigorous,
grueling basic training in traditional Shaolin “went his own way”. He was qualified to do that, and the result is
that his martial art is distinct—no one else looks quite like him. There is a story told of the time he was sent
to train with Beijing team alongside Jet Li, after having gotten in trouble for
fighting. The coaches are said to have
used him to needle the elite team members into working even harder with some
form of “He’s not even competing and refuses to do he movements in the right
way, so why is he stronger and faster than you?”* Like his mother, he wanted to keep the
Chinese arts current and vital, and so integrated techniques and concepts from
an array of non-Chinese arts. He was also famous early on for innovating a
new form of the “no shadows kick”.
* It’s hard
to know the veracity of the legend or it’s effect, but no one can deny that
something spurred on that now legendary class
that inspired a generation.
[xxiv] When Wushu was formalized as the national
sport of China, they brought together the greatest masters to create the first
generation of compulsory forms. This is
where the Advanced Sword form derives from, arguably still the most technically
challenging. (This form comes from
before the integration of gymnastics in contemporary wushu, which technical
aspects occupy a different domain of pure athletics as opposed to fencing
exclusively.)
[xxv] Yu was also a movie star, famed for his
drunken sword in Jet Li Shaolin Temple (1982) and his longsword in Yellow
River Fighter (1988). One of the last films he made was The Sword
Identity (2011), which explores the idea that sword technique derives from
rod. This is a notion many take seriously, and famous practitioners from Musashi Miyamoto to Bow Sim Mark to Zhou Xuan Yun hold that
a “stick can be a sword”—what matters is technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_Chenghui
[xxvi] Here it’s a slightly different
domain. Where Yu and Mark are considered
true masters for their movement and technique, Yuen’s true mastery is in the
field of fight choreography and the corresponding action direction specific to
that field. The famous fight scene in
the training hall between Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi
has a lot of “Hollywood” and also some real fencing.
For instance, you’ll notice that when the girl is on the defensive, she has to block and gains no advantage (“right of way”) for a
riposte. But when she is able to make
proper circular counters (parries) as in real wudang fencing, it shifts
advantage and gives her the opening to counter-attack.
Yuen makes a clear distinction between counters executed with the edge for
extra traction and stiffness, as against the heavy bronze rod, and the more
desirable “edge preserving” wudang counters that use the flat, which has more
surface area to control an opponent’s blade.
He also faithfully displays the real wudang principle, explicated by Li Jinglin, of “inviting the opponent in” and “letting their
weapon get very close to your body.”
Those who know the art recognize that Yuen has a deep understanding of
wudang fencing, even where the requirements of the genre (cinematic) call for
much embellishment. Yuen’s approach to fight choreography has influenced and
advanced all modern action cinema, just as Yu and Bow Sim Mark influenced and
advanced contemporary wudang.
[xxviii] Her snake hsingyi
appears to be a creation adapting movements from Dragon Palm and Shaolin snake.
These are no-nonsense techniques I’ve routinely validated in sparring—no one
can counter it because they’ve never encountered it. She actually called
it “baby snake” because the movements are so simple, and had the children
perform it. It is a bagua/hsingyi fusion form in the tradition of the much praised Fu style bagua/taichi fusion form called liangyi. Most men will reject this form because snake
is considered feminine, but traditional snake was one of the secrets that gave
Bow Sim Mark’s sword that extra sinuosity others didn’t have. Where the best bagua
players correctly use the root of the spine to generate motion and force, Bow
Sim Mark could use the whole spine.
[xxix] She was formally a disciple of Fu Wing
Fay and his great friend from childhood, Li Tianji,
but began her Shaolin training in youth under Deng Kam To, and learned sword
from Fong Nam Yue, a woman who lived as a man and had a formidable reputation.
[xxx] She also had to work even harder because
she was a woman in a male domain. See: “Ode
to a Pomegranate Flower” by Wang Anshi. This Song Dynasty poem forms the basis for
the modern Chinese idiom of women in the workplace and other male dominated fields, and gives the name to the swordplay ideal of the
“single drop of red”, which will be explicated in a future essay. For now, suffice it to say that there is a
deep cultural connection of women and jian in China,
from Tang and Song dynasties onward.
Notes
on Figures 5 & 6: Her flexibility allowed her to do an
instant “level change” into a front split and thrust her blade up into the guts
of a charging opponent, one of her signature performance movements. Only women
can go fully down in the front split—men can’t get the same perfect root
because we don’t have the right hips.
The leaning
thrust in Fig.6 on the left Is followed by a wave counter, slice, then drawback
counter that leaves the fencer ready for a forward jumping thrust. Because she
could lean back so far, she could get an extra foot of range compared to other
internal sword masters. (The wushu
competitors have similar flexibility, but these are young athletes and not
high-level internal masters. Mark is the
only true internal master I know of who maintained that level flexibility, not
only though middle age, when most masters stop training, but into her
70’s!)
The leaning
thrust in Fig. 6 on the right is set up by a cross-step chop that can be used
to bind the opponent’s sword, press upward during body turnover, then a
backhand ankle cut, nearly impossible to parry. The fencer never turns their
back on the opponent and maintains blade-on-blade contact throughout the body
turnover. Thus
there are applications beyond the simple surface-level backbend thrust, as with
many movements in Wudang.
These
movements come from “Advanced Sword”, the first compulsory wudang sword form in
the then new sport of Wushu. It contains sequences from the best of the best,
including Wang Zi-Ping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Zi-Ping)
and Li Tianji.
It was the most technically difficult sword form to date,
and may still be in that the trend since has been toward simplification,
replaced competitive Wushu largely with increasingly technically difficult
gymnastic elements, more suitable for Olympic competition. Bow Sim Mark published a manual on the form
in 1980 featuring two-person work with the young Donnie Yen. It’s a squarely modern fencing form with
sophisticated point-fighting.
Traditional forms from earlier eras typically have only basic point work
and are more heavily oriented on cuts.
Notice also
that Figure 6 is not high-speed photography—Master Mark had to hold those
positions. She explained that to be able
master techniques in internal art, the practitioner had to be able to execute
them slowly as well as quickly, and hold every position in the movement, especially
the balance positions, for an indefinite period. As a famous contemporary
Taoist Wudang master put it: “Bow Sim Mark is strong!”
[xxxi] Li Jinglin ⇒ Li Tianji ⇒ Mark Bo-Sim
[xxxii] Although a problematic figure, no one can
deny this Irish Pugilist’s mastery of showmanship. When McGregor turns his back
on Diaz in the ring, again and again and again, it has meaning. He’s expressing scorn and disrespect—you
should never turn your back on an opponent, but he’s doing it not just via the
action, but with body language that explicates the meaning of the action. There is an element of pantomime
(showmanship) in McGregor’s movement. In
the science of theater we might call this
“gesture”. He is conveying information
to his audience and opponent. And Wesley
Snipes, a celebrated actor is very well regarded in Karate circles because he
trained hard, anyone could look at his body and see he could take punishment
and hit hard. His movement was
disciplined, strong and rooted. Like all
real masters of any level, his movement was clear. And he brought that extra something
that even most martial artists don’t have.
[xxxiii] The principle holds also in every domain
of human endeavor, including mathematics. Every advancement in mathematics is
the product of creative insight, and this is why we
still remember names such as Euler, a towering
figure in his field, even by modern standards.
[xxxiv] The most brilliant example may still be
the training hall sequence from
Crouching Tiger, which has its own narrative arc, and explicates the
martial principle that strategy is preeminent—more important than youth or a
better weapon. This idea is a reflection of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, of Musashi Miyamoto’s Five Rings, and we see it in
modern domains such as prizefighting with Ali’s “rope a dope”, which he used to
defeat stronger opponents, and in the history of insurgency in the 20th
century.
[xxxv] Woo-Ping, of course, also choreographed
the Matrix, which again set the martial world on fire.
[xxxvii] A polite way of saying fake. The requirements for cinema are different
however, where suspension of disbelief is facilitated by editing and, more
recently, computed generated imagery (CGI).
More importantly, in the cinematic medium, the audience requires
spectacle. Wholly realistic martial
films such as The Duellists (1978) may gain
immortal reputations, but they are rarely blockbusters. Cirque du Soleil has dipped their toe into
this domain, but there the martial art is secondary to the acrobatics and
dance, so not true Wushu Theater. The
same is true of the Shen
Yun dance repertoire, which can have a martial flavor because they
interpret the Classics such as Outlaws of the Marsh and Journey to
the West, and perform a version of the Mulan legend, and can be confused
with true Wushu Theater.
[xxxviii] Huang Yuanxiu. Essentials
of the Wudang Sword Art. The Commercial Press, LTD, Shanghai, 1931. [trans.
Paul Brennan, 2014] Those interested can also check out Brennan’s translation
of “The Sancai Sword Manual of Xu Yiqian”, but
understand these manuals only scratch the surface.
[xxxix] Pressing the blade into the flesh is a
natural function of wudang straightsword, where all movement comes from the
waist. Because the arc of the
waist-driven cut is circular, but the blade is straight, it naturally presses
into the opponent’s flesh to cut deeply.
[xl] Musashi
Miyamoto. Historical accounts credit him with prevailing in over 70 duels, each
comprising a life or death struggle against an experienced opponent wielding a
razor sharp sword.*
Most of Musashi’s duel can be assumed to have
been conducted without armor, such that even small mistakes can be instantly
fatal. In Musashi’s
case that was the misfortune of every opponent.
A European mythical referent is Cyrano, but we can see how in Japanese
and Chinese culture, sword is integrated not just into culture but religion,
such that Musashi is regarded as a Zen saint.
Parallels in Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism are sword wielding Arhats. Manjushri is sword wielding
bringer of mercy (bodhisattva) who vanquishes illusion (maya) with his
sword. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi
*Musashi himself, like Bow Sim Mark, could also do it with a
stick. In his most famous duel he cut a tree branch to
match the longsword his opponent was using, charged him with the sun at his
back, and killed him with a strike to the head. This is one of the ways to
identify a master—it doesn’t matter what they’re holding in their hand.
[xli] While it can be common for young men to
glorify violence, the application of this art can be thought of in a technical,
dispassionate way, similar to how a surgeon approaches
their profession. This has been
explicated in literature including Chabon’s Gentlemen of The Road and
the Aubrey/Maturin series. Understanding
of physiology would have been a requirement in the age of sword, but even for
the Sword Dancer it is necessary to have a basic comprehension, and vital to
understanding the meaning of the movements in order to
express them truly. It is possible that
coming to understand the martial use and application of the sword can have a
sobering effect, over time diminishing any tendency toward fantasy by
reinforcing the reality. This was certainly true my own case, beginning as a
teen fantasizing about swordfighting, who by way of
one of the great teachers, came to learn the real art of swordplay and thereby
found peace. Amituofo! 阿弥陀佛
“Shantih,
shantih, shantih.” शान्ति शान्ति शान्ति
