Ving Tsun Kung Fu: Focus On The System

There are thousands of Moy Yat Ving Tsun practitioners, but very few of them will achieve the caliber required to become a legitimate Moy Yat Family Sifu. It takes around ten years of dedicated training under one’s Sifu and literally thousands of training hours (10,000+).

The Sifus of the Moy Yat Family put an extraordinary amount of work into passing down the Ving Tsun system. Grandmaster Moy Tung has spent his entire adult career dedicating himself to the art of Ving Tsun under his Sifu, Moy Yat, who did the same with his Sifu, Yip Man. Sifu Moy Sup Tung of the Austin school continues that tradition of hard work, dedicating himself to his Sifu, Moy Tung, and the Moy Yat Family by passing the pure, unchanged Ving Tsun system down to his students and grandstudents. Because of the dedication of Sifus, the Kung Fu that is taught today is the same as the Kung Fu that was taught to Moy Yat by Yip Man.

In order for the Ving Tsun system to continue to be passed down to future generations and preserved in its purest form, it is important to remember that the focus of our school should always be on the Kung Fu.

During the course of your training, you will encounter distractions. One of the most common is the temptation to socialize. Talking during class should be kept at an absolute minimum out of respect for the Ving Tsun system and to avoid disrupting the focus of other students. The Ving Tsun school is a place of study, not a social club, or a networking opportunity for students to build their own interests outside of Kung Fu. 

Another common distraction is the tendency of students who are young in their Kung Fu to compare their progress to others’. Seeing other students playing more advanced forms or working on chi sau can be exciting, but it can also distract by making you want to skip over your current training to “advance” through the system more rapidly. It’s good to be excited about what you’ll learn in the future, just be sure to stay focused on the Kung Fu that your Sifu wants you to work on at the moment. Everything else will come in time.

Remember that your Sifu is passing the Ving Tsun system down to you. The details that he teaches have been acquired over the course of decades of study with his Sifu and the Kung Fu family. It’s these details that combine to make up the Ving Tsun system; they’re very important and students should pay careful attention to them. If Sifu gives a detail in class, it should spread through the school like wildfire, with students putting effort into actively focusing on that detail until it becomes ingrained habit.

While details should be shared between students, it is never a student’s job to teach another student. Only Sifu, or people he has specifically trained to instruct the system, should be teaching. This ensures that the system is being honored and passed down pure and unchanged.

Do your best not to fall for any distractions you may encounter inside or outside the school; stay focused on your Ving Tsun. To show respect to all the dedicated work of your Sifu and the Sifus that came before him, all you need to do is show up to class on time, wear your uniform, pay attention to what’s going on around you, train consistently, and represent the school well. This Ving Tsun work ethic will serve you well in all areas of life.

About Conditioning... Part I

by Sifu Vyvial 

and Mary Ceallaigh

Traditional Ving Tsun kung fu techniques are based on the natural law of the body's structural power and don’t rely on physical strength. This makes the study of Ving Tsun great for people of any stature, as can be seen in the diversity of our students in the Moy Yat schools around the world.  We also train our kung fu habits through the challenges of various methods of endurance conditioning.  

Why do we do this conditioning stuff?  Because comprehensive embodiment through a variety of conditions increases our capacity to respond easily & quickly in many circumstances.  We are also exploring our training of the relaxation response that is so essential for the flow of self-defense and life in general.   Conditioning works with the truth that the human body is built for survival and will adapt to better handle sweat, stress, pain, temperature changes, emotional surges, and just about anything you can throw at it. Through challenging conditioning, you will build mental toughness, fighter's fitness. 

Physiologically the body starts to last longer, meaning we physically adapt and our muscles fail later and later until we surpass perceived limitations and are training at a new level.

The newbie student wants to know WHEN the delayed onset muscle soreness cycle (DOMS, more about that in Part II) or emotional triggers are going to lessen – and sifus will tell you it’s more about HOW we commit to stay in the process, and arranging your lifestyle to support this transformation  with good self-care, self-discipline, communication with your sifu, and the application of wisdom.  Training as a beginner in the new postures and movements of our Ving Tsun kung fu system will create soreness for sure, but once your consistent training has built up a foundation in your deep tissue and joints, you WILL be at another level and have to challenge yourself in order to feel any soreness!  In the meantime, keep in mind that the best response to post-training soreness is continued training and movement.  It will actually move you through your Ving Tsun conditioning much faster than erratic practice.  If a student doesn't experience any sweating and aching in class and/or post-training soreness, it means that effort must be intensified in horse stance and everything else.  And you can find a way to do that from the inside out.

LONG MUSCLE DEVELOPMENT

The long angular muscles developed in traditional Ving Tsun training assist the free flow of biodynamic energy.  These sinewy muscle groups are the muscles that already exist in typical female anatomy - and they tone the body into a healthy, open conduit for chi energy, fortifying the immune system and strengthening the internal organs.

These Ving Tsun muscles are flexible and characteristically relaxed compared to the lumpy, tight muscles of Calvin Klein models or developed in bulk-up weight-resistance training or hefty physical labor.  Bulky muscles are tense and inflexible, restricting the flow of power in the body, and even completely blocking it.  Typically, new students with or without muscle bulk will use strength and tension-based movements during their early Ving Tsun training until they realize that this is counter-productive to the flow of real kung fu based in the power of the body structure and joint movements - a realization that may take a year of training to arrive at, as old habits are hard to break.   

Until learning this, the student’s sparring partners will not be able to experience the receiving end of “soft force” when training with this student.  (And all is not lost – there are personal training benefits to being on the receiving end of a muscle-bound or hard-force training partner, as it creates an opportunity to practice one’s own commitment to “soft force” in response, which is a likely situation in the world outside the studio). 

RELAXATION FOR WARRIORS

Ving Tsun training emphasizes the primacy of relaxation, and it applies equally to both the body AND the mind. The relaxed toned body is healthy and permits power to flow through it unrestricted.  But the mind must also be reconditioned towards an alert relaxation.  The value of aligning the mind and the body has long been known in Eastern cultures for purposes of physical healing, spiritual liberation, sexual harmony, and long-term vitality.  And today mental training is being reexamined as perhaps the only real permanent cure for stress and the many ailments and addictions that accompany stress.   Some examples of mental training that we do in class are Siu Nim Tao, the 5 minute single punch meditation, and breathing practices - all developed to train the mind to unite with the body, which is basic to self-defense conditioning.   Siu Nim Tao will warm you up and cool you down, as needed.  If you do nothing else on days you are not in class, do Siu Nim Tao.

SWEAT

One of the signs that we are working new ground is sweat.  Each student has their comfort level related to sustained endurance in certain postures or movements, as well as dealing with  environmental factors such as air temperature/circulation. Everyone comes to class having had a particular kind of day, at a certain level of hydration, and having recently eaten certain foods - the lighter and water-bearing foods being helpful for intense training. 

In Chinese Medicine, the water element is what we orient to during transformation and harvest.  Sweat is part of flow. Water's Yin energy is held in the kidneys, and its Yang is in the bladder.  When conditioning, you will notice an increased capacity to release the kidneys’ stored water through salty sweat rather than through the bladder. In Chinese medicine, the kidneys are revered, as they contain the root energy of all your organs and spark the energy of the whole body.  Sweating detoxifies the liver and the whole body, which is a great health benefit.  

VING TSUN STANCES

Horse Stance

The basic standing posture of the Siu Nim Tao form, called Horse Stance or Goat Holding Stance or Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma, is one of the primary exercises used to enhance the endurance and strength of the legs and the power center (dan tien) awareness of the belly, as well as the mental training of the mind learning to accept the new sensations and new center of this posture.  Called "Horse Stance," this standing practice emanates from the hip joints and creates a unique training for the knees, calves, and ankles that is carried into Ving Tsun body motion, and is often quite strenuous during the early years of training.  It not only busts the bronco-rider of excessive ego and creates the humility required for a peaceful warrior - it also works with the internal life force or biodynamic "Chi" energy.  Life force moves into the legs as the students learns to sink this energy into the ground.  Students might start learning this by standing for only 10 minutes at first, slowly building up the time to an hour over the course of several months, according to individual conditions. This stance tones the nervous system of the entire pelvic floor, and aligns the prostate, uterus, and ovaries, which increases sexual vitality and general health.  Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma deepens your roots so that more energy can be unleashed into the circulation to express Ving Tsun with great power.

Low Horse Stance

The strenuous Low Horse stance or Jin Ma training has long been a tradition of Chinese martial arts, considered essential for full-spectrum vital energy mastery, as it develops Yang and rejuvenates Yin.  Jin Ma is phenomenal for training posture balance in all sorts of conditions, and was originally practiced for seafaring fighting legs on boats.  It brings enormous speed and grace to the feet when crab-walking and rising up from the floor.   To seriously cultivate your Jin Ma, you need to deeply relax in the process while also maintaining good body structure, and concentrating the muscles that support you in the seat and pelvis. Working Jin Ma into your daily life can begin with 3 minute stays, adding an extra minute every few days, according to individual conditions.  

"We practice for perfection."  ~ Sigung Moy Tung 

For the next week, orient your mind & body to have kung fu habits throughout your endurance conditioning.   Keep bringing your attention back to the moment-to-moment process, and your endurance will naturally increase.   Most of all, enjoy developing your purehearted strength and dynamic mobility, the essence of Ving Tsun kung fu training.

The Acorn & Siu Nim Tao (part II)

by Sifu Aaron Vyvial 

and Mary Ceallaigh

"The purpose of Ving Tsun Kung Fu is to lead you to be free and relaxed. This can never be achieved if you are tied physically and emotionally to techniques. You must free yourself from dependence on mechanical expression
 and trust your body, your kung fu to protect yourself..."  Grand Master Moy Yat

In the view of eastern wisdom, a student is an acorn sprout that is connected to both the past and the future, with commitment as its taproot.  In Ving Tsun, this root is also experienced as the horse stance.  Different students may have different learning styles, and any given individual's practice on any given occasion may fluctuate according to a variety of conditions such as weather, diet, hormonal cycle, biological cycle (circadian and lunar), metabolic state, etc.  Some students may fluctuate more than others, but eventually, every acorn that sprouts and grounds grows a stabilizing tap root that can endure much and stabilize itself.

A Sifu who teaches students to cultivate their Siu Nim Tao may have the opportunity to see the process of a human version of a whole new oak tree unfold within their own lifetime.  As to the students who may not commit to practice, the acorn laying dormant for whatever reason, the Sifu understands that everything has its own time and that it is all connected like the oak's unique root systems of many hundreds of miles in length.  Students find Siu Nim Tao as part of a long journey, and teachers parent the moment as it is, varying student-by-student, body-by-body, mind state-by-mind state. Teachers teach Siu Nim Tao, and trust the inherent process in each student, regardless of outcome.  Like the story of the elderly master who was planting a little oak tree:  A neighbor saw her as he passed and said, ‘Old woman, do you know you won’t have a chance to see that tree grow?’  ‘Yes,’ she replied with a contented smile. ‘I know.’

Longevity & Fertility: The steadfast oak can grow to an age of many centuries, leaving little acorns with the capacity to multiply into many worlds.  On our earth at this moment are some ancient oaks still standing in Britain and northern Europe that are well over 1000 years old.  Like that, the authentic martial artist embraces the secrets of aging well (and the fact of dying).  The elderly martial artist has a vitality, luminosity, and lucidity that outlasts many a peer, and graces their last breath.  

Preciousness:  Each acorn nut holds one fruit seed, unlike the seed-pods of other great trees like the pine, tamarind, and banyan which contain many seeds.  Each time you practice Siu Nim Tao, you experience preciousness, because you are the acorn in action.

Sustainability: The oak outlasts all trees. The more a student understands Siu Nim Tao and the path of the Ving Tsun Code of Conduct, the more that sustainability is cultivated in body and mind.  This deepens the practice of skillfulness so we understand the necessity of living the kung fu life, both as individuals and in committed partnership.  Practicing self-cultivation and relationship just like we practice Siu Nim Tao, life gets renewed rather than depleted.

Variability:  Each oak tree's production of acorn fruit can vary strikingly over a given area. Most years, only a few acorns are produced.  Many new acorns are eaten by birds or later by animals on the forest floor (or, in the case of the human tree, the conditioned self-sabotaging habits of individuals).  Like other trees, the oak tree has its super-abundant years, which remain mysterious to modern science.

Synchrony:  Amazingly, oaks across long distances have highly synchronous years of abundance, this is known as "acorn synchrony."  In Ving Tsun kung fu, a family style system and a pure form from the heart have made geographically distant schools into a closely-knit world family. 

In your own home life, experiment with cultivating a daily practice of Siu Nim Tao form each morning and evening, as recommended by our Great-Grand Master Yip Man.  Even just a quick 3-minute flow each sunrise and sunset will change your life for the better, and make you strong. 

Time For Meditation? 108 Luk Dim Poon Kwan Forms

Kingsley's meditation was superb this day

A quick time for meditation?  With the start of the new year, this might be a good thing to try. Take a moment, maybe while playing siu nim tao, or maybe just lay down on the floor.  Slow down your breathing, clear your mind, relax, and let the stress melt away.

Then ask your self what your new year's resolution is. Be very specific and honest with yourself. Is this something you can accomplish? If so, then how? What will you do, how will you prepare, where will you be, what will you look like? Visualize everything from the preparation, the execution, to the completion. Imagine all the steps as you plan to do them.  Completing your goal should be something you can already feel and taste if you have done this exercise correctly.   Setting a goal and completing that goal can be very rewarding. It can also be motivating towards setting future goals.

 We kept this in mind during this morning's workout. Our workout today consisted of completing 108 luk dim poon kwan pole forms with our heavy quan dim wood poles that are 9' long and 6+lbs.  It took about 3 hours to complete 108 good, clean forms but we completed the challenge and it's now that much harder to let any Kung Fu training defeat us.

 Performing challenges such as 1 hour long siu nim tao, 10,000-20,000 punches, 108 forms non-stop, etc. will not only affect your physical training but it will really boost your mental game. If you can defeat your inner wuss and complete these challenges, no matter how badly your mind wants you to quit, what can defeat you in your training? You have challenged yourself against the worst you could come up with and still come out alive.

--Vyvial Sifu
we are all alone in this together

Also, I would like to welcome 4 new people to start today at the Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy in Austin: Joshua, Rhian,  Don,  and Cesar. These guys are off to a great start for 2012!

Some footage we shot today during class

Bai-Si Ceremony and Old Man’s Tea

Bai-Si Ceremony, Outdoor Students and Old Man’s Tea

The practice of drinking tea is a long-standing tradition in China. Legend says that Chinese Emperor Shennong discovered tea when a leaf from a camellia sinensis tree fell into a pot of water that he was boiling.

One can drink tea at many times during the day such as morning, during meals and even before bed. Chinese tea is normally classified into five categories: oolong, green, white, red, and post-fermented. Tea is considered one of the “seven necessities” of Chinese life, along with rice, oil, salt, vinegar, soy sauce, and firewood.

I grew up watching kung fu movies from the 70’s and in every movie you would always see the Kung Fu Master accept a person into his inner circle only after being served tea by the disciple. There was usually bowing involved as well. In modern times, this custom has mostly vanished from western martial arts schools, but the practice has stayed alive within the Moy Yat Kung Fu Family.

The custom of a todai (student) offering tea to a sifu is known as the bai-si ceremony and should be considered one of the most important ceremonies a kung fu practitioner can be invited to perform. The ceremony is what sets the disciple apart from the "outdoor students". Historically, a sifu would share 100% of his kung fu secrets only with disciples who had earned the opportunity and demonstrated that they could be trusted with this knowledge.

Outdoor student vs. Disciple

What is an "outdoor student"? Many traditional Chinese martial arts were taught privately as family styles, and classes were taught within a sifu's home or a family's hall. Only the trusted disciples (those who went through the bai-si tea ceremony) were allowed in the indoor areas for training or "Kung Fu Life". The "outdoor students", not yet having the trust of the family or sifu, would wait to train outside in the courtyard.

These distinctions continue to hold true in the modern kung fu school. Normal clients are the"outdoor students", and those who wish to take their kung fu to the next level are invited to participate in the bai-si ceremony and become "indoor students" or disciples.

The Ceremony

A todai who has been invited to perform the bai-si ceremony will kneel before the sifu who will seated before him (or her). He will recite a school code, kuen kuit, or maybe even just explain why he wants to commit himself to the sifu and the kung fu. If the sifu accepts, the todai will kowtow, bowing three times with his head touching the floor. This is considered the highest sign of reverence. The todai will then be handed a cup of tea to drink by someone who is assisting. Another cup of tea will be handed to the todai who will bow again and offer it to the sifu. If the sifu accepts the todai as an "indoor student" or disciple, he will accept the tea and will drink. This confirms the ceremony, and the todai will offer his "kung fu father" a gift such as lucky money in a red envelope to end the bai-si.This is just a basic, simplified explanation of the ceremonial process. There are many variations of the bai-si, and some ceremonies may last for many days.

A disciple who completes the bai-si ceremony becomes like a son or daughter to the sifu and the sifu will even bestow a kung fu family name. My sifu was a disciple of Moy Yat and was given the name Moy Tung, meaning Moy East or "Man of the East". When I became a disciple of Moy Tung, I was given the name Moy Saup Tung or Moy 10 Tung.

It is important to keep in mind that a discipleship does NOT mean blind obedience; it truly means mutual loyalty between the Sifu and the disciple. The disciple pledges to continue training hard, learning everything the sifu teaches while maintaining the integrity of the school and the kung fu. In return, the sifu pledges to completely pass his kung fu knowledge to the disciple to the best of his ability. That said, loyalty does demand some obedience and supplication - that is the nature of relationship between master and student. However, it must remain positive and must not be abused by the master.

The bai-si should not be taken lightly, for it is a big leap. Although I have students who are considered inner-circle, I have not yet had a student perform a bai-si ceremony with me. I never thought I was ready for the responsibility, but my kung fu and my students' kung fu have grown to the point where it really should not be put off any longer.

****

I can remember that Sigung Moy Yat loved his tea. If I recall correctly, he drank oolong, but maybe it could have been jasmine. I learned a few years ago, while visiting my kung fu uncle, Miguel Hernandez, that in Sigung's later years, he drank Shau Mei tea. Which is a type of white tea that he called "Old Man's Tea"due to its strong, bitter flavor.

A few months later, I was in Boston’s Chinatown eating Dim Sum at China Pearl with my Sifu and Sigung Bak Moy Bing Wah. There were a few types of tea at the table but I noticed that a special tea was brought for Sigung Bak, I tried a cup and it had a really strong bitter taste. When asked what type of tea it was, Sigung Bak replied that it was Shau Mei.

So I finally had my chance to try Sigung’s “Old Man’s Tea”. Now it is a taste to which I have grown accustomed, and now I drink it every night before bed. Could it be perhaps that I am getting old?

Tea was very important to Sigung, and the bai-si ceremony carries a lot of meaning. The last person to bai-si as a "Grand-Special Student" to Sigung Moy Yat was my kung fu brother, Barry, who is a sifu in Richmond, VA. The tea ceremony is a traditional element of Chinese kung fu that I am glad to see live on, even after the death of MoyYat.

--Vyvial Sifu
We are all alone in this together.
Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy