The performance has ended and the theatre is emptying. It's not going very quickly. The audience was comfortably spread out throughout the auditorium, but now they are standing in line like sheep, waiting to exit one by one through the door. A narrowing leads to congestion, a delay to a traffic jam. At least, that's how it works with theatregoers, sheep and cars.

More cars lead to more traffic jams, which call for more roads, which in turn encourage more cars. This self-perpetuating phenomenon can be mitigated by driving closer together when a traffic jam threatens to form, rather than braking and increasing the distance between vehicles, as is customary. Cars equipped with thick rubber bumpers all around would offer a solution. Just like bumper cars at the fair. No one would be afraid of tailgating. A narrowing of the road would compress the traffic flow, causing cars to accelerate.

Traffic like water: if you squeeze the end of a water hose, the water sprays out with more force. Traffic like air: if you purse your lips, you hear a higher tone.

Chi behaves like water and air. Compression makes it flow faster.

The transition areas between the three fundamental body cavities determine the speed of circulation. They function as valves. If they are closed slightly, the speed increases. If so much tension builds up in the intermediate areas that the valves are effectively closed, circulation stops.

IIn the straight sections of one of the longer channels of chi, the zu yang ming meridian, circulation flows easily. This can be compared to traffic on a straight road, or water in a canalised river.

However, curves create turbulence and possibly stagnation. Nevertheless, chi finds its way where it cannot go. Ants never get stuck in traffic jams.

Study the winding path of the zu yang ming channel at the level of the collarbones, in the transition area between the upper and middle cavities. And do the same for the one at the bottom of the rib cage, between the middle and lower cavities. A third sharp bend in the meridian can be found at the bottom of the lower cavity, at the level of the groin.

You can read more about the curves in the clavicular and groin areas in Four Gates.

To be continued …

Imagine an earthworm with only three compartments. Rotate the whole 90 degrees, add limbs, and voilà, the energetic functionality of a human body in a reduced form. Three fundamental cavities are separated from each other and connected by intermediate areas with a regulating sluice function. The top of the structure is formed by the fontanelle, the bottom by the perineum.

Between the chest and abdominal cavities lies the respiratory diaphragm, which ensures dynamic physical interaction between the two. The diaphragm is a closing muscle plate that is primarily responsible for breathing through rhythmic alternation of contraction and relaxation. At the same time, its constant movement provides an essential stimulus to the functioning of the abdominal organs. Two of the most important blood vessels – the aorta and vena cava – and the oesophagus pass through the diaphragm.

There is no single structure comparable to the diaphragm between the head and chest cavities. When we refer to a ‘throat diaphragm’, we are referring to the body parts related to the complexity of the swallowing function: the upper oesophageal sphincter, tongue, palate and epiglottis, as well as the jaw and jaw muscles. The body parts involved in speech also belong to this diaphragm-like structure.

Chinese medical and martial traditions recognise a functional centre in each of the three cavities, called 'dan tian', 丹田. Just below the centre of the abdominal cavity lies the 'lower dan tian', xia dan tian, 下丹田. In the centre of the chest cavity is the 'middle dan tian', zhong dan tian, 中丹田. And just above the centre of the head cavity is the 'upper dan tian', shang dan tian, 上丹田.

In most chi kung traditions, in Eastern internal martial arts, as well as in Buddhist meditation techniques, the lower dan tian plays a crucial role. Beginners are advised to anchor a large part of their attention in that area – in posture and movement, in success and failure, during training and in everyday life. Advanced practitioners are advised to return to the instructions for beginners time and again.

The pelvic diaphragm, of which the perineum is the superficial part, closes off the bottom of the abdominal cavity. The top of the cranial cavity is formed by the fontanelle, which is still open and soft in newborn babies.

The three dan tian are located on the central axis of the body. This is the imaginary line connecting the fontanel to the perineum, just in front of the spine. It connects seven points that are essential for chi kung practice. From bottom to top: the centre of the perineum, the lower dan tian, the centre of the diaphragm, the middle dan tian, the centre of the 'throat diaphragm', the upper dan tian and the centre of the fontanelle. The central axis is called chong mai in traditional Chinese medicine. We will return to this later in this chapter.

To be continued …

Transport your thoughts to the origin of existence, to the beginning of the unimaginably long process of evolution. The very first life forms consisted of a single cell, without a central nucleus. Single-celled organisms with a nucleus would not appear until two billion years later. A tiny lump of life, surrounded by a wafer-thin membrane, separating and connecting the outside world and the inside world, and in the middle a nucleus.

While Western medical and biological sciences investigated the material and biochemical properties of cells in order to shed light on the mystery of life, Eastern empirical science focused on a fundamental life function found in all living beings: pulsation. It is the rhythmic alternation of tension and relaxation, of contraction and expansion, the succession of inhalation and exhalation, the dynamic ability to adapt to ever-changing environments and circumstances. Pulsation can be found in all their body parts, all their organs, tissues and cells.

The fundamental phenomenon of pulsation is captured by the Chinese character chi, 氣. Without chi, matter is lifeless. Without matter, chi cannot manifest itself.

Chi is the central theme in Chinese natural sciences, traditional medicine and martial traditions. Developing sensitivity to chi is a prerequisite for every practitioner of the aforementioned disciplines. But where to focus? Develop sensitivity to what? As a student, one may have the misconception that chi is an extraordinary quality, a mystical property that can only be perceived with a special sensitivity. The reality is simpler.

When a party, a training course or a public transport network is organised in an exemplary manner, this largely escapes the notice of those who is involved in it. Good organisation seems self-evident. A well-functioning liver or healthy teeth do not attract attention, and in such cases it is quite normal to be barely aware of their existence and flawless functioning. Only when the chi is blocked, only when the level of chi is low, and this manifests itself as pain, fatigue or discomfort, does it become apparent to the consciousness. Chi is therefore not a mysterious quality. It is the background noise of well-being. To perceive chi, one need look no further than everyday life.

From a single-celled organism to a sea anemone is a giant evolutionary leap. The complexity of an anemone or jellyfish is incomparable to that of microscopic pioneers of life. What remained the same, however, is the unambiguous rhythm, the archaic pulsation.

As single-celled microorganisms evolved, they grew larger. Having a centralised organisation was no longer enough to withstand the challenges and dangers of the environment. The larger whole was split into smaller parts, each with a degree of autonomy.

A large country with a single central capital can easily take concerted action when circumstances require it. For a decentralised country, this is not a given. It takes time and tact to get everyone on the same page. On the other hand, local autonomy leads to greater sensitivity and a more finely tuned ability to adapt.

An earthworm exhibits a combination of both. Its body consists of a multitude of virtually identical segments, each pulsating around a local centre. An orchestration creates an accordion-like movement of the whole, a rhythmic interplay of all parts.

The segments of the earthworm, or metameres, are separated from each other by thin connecting pieces called septa. These separations enable the segments to pulsate individually and, from there, to produce a collective peristaltic movement.

The septa are permeable to bodily fluids, blood, nerve pathways and the long intestinal system. The latter bears a strong resemblance to the external form of the earthworm. Pulsation of one propels it through its environment – which is also its food source. Pulsation of the other propels that same environment – or more precisely, the part that serves as its food – through it.

Two in one. An outer worm and an inner one hidden inside.

At the front of an earthworm’s body is its mouth. This guides the body’s crawling movement through the soil, which it leaves ploughed. The same mouth allows soil into its intestines, which is then digested and excreted through its anus, located in the very last segment.

to be continued …

Dear reader,

For several years, we put a lot of time and energy into finding a new house. The old house in Amsterdam was too small to live there any longer, and for my changing health it was better to leave the city behind and find a place in more rural, green surroundings. We were always aware that this is no easy task in this day and age. Needless to say, the supply of houses is tight and the rise in prices seems to have no limit. Nevertheless, we adopted the motto 'the one who perseveres wins' and nurtured confidence in a successful outcome.

After a period of fruitless searching, in order to give things more momentum, we sold the house in Amsterdam and temporarily rented in Dalfsen. That seemed the perfect base for a further quest in the east and north of the country. But despite all the effort we put into the search, we failed to find a new house we could afford. It is a strange sensation to realise that we cannot continue in the Netherlands.

In the last few months, we took steps to swap the Netherlands for Portugal, my partner Raquel's country. We found a piece of land, with a simple house, which will be rebuilt. As it stands, we will move there next spring, and take on the challenge of building a new life in Portugal, with all that entails.

Although I have little idea whether the TREE TIME articles are read and appreciated, I have enjoyed writing about them for the past year and a half. In the coming months, I will try to continue doing so unflinchingly and with regularity. I hope the upcoming contributions to TREE TIME can continue to pique your interest.

kind regards, Peter

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'The week begins and ends with music.' On Mondays and Fridays, a music video appears under Notes. And midweek a video or article on 'thinkers and doers'. This material comes from what I came across and collected over the years in research for lessons and training, later in developing a museum and now in preparing to write articles.

Unlike the publication of a new post, you will not receive an automatic e-mail announcement of these 'musical notes' and 'thinkers and doers notes'. The Notes can be found on the TREE TIME homepage, as a button in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

During my high school days, the content of the lessons we were offered largely passed me by. My life revolved around music. One fine day, a friend had played a tune on his guitar, and I was immediately sold. I got a guitar and joined a teacher living nearby on a weekly basis. And what a teacher it was. A seasoned jazz man who instilled in me a love of Django Reinhardt's playing. And that of Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery and the other guitar heroes. While my classmates were listening to Abba and Pink Floyd, I was trying to play jazzy chords and riffs my own. Not that I was overly talented, but music nevertheless filled my teenage years.

In those years, attempts were being made in The Hague, my home town, to pull jazz out of the doldrums. Every Sunday, a concert was organised in a tiny theatre in the city centre of The Hague. Together with my best music friend, I made sure to be there as often as possible. We knew someone in the organisation, who invariably matched us inside and made sure we could sit in the wings at the back of the stage. As young fellows, we looked up to Billy Higgins' back and saw his feet playing the hi-hat and bass drum. We saw and heard up close Dexter Gordon and Ack van Rooyen and guitarists like Wim Overgauw and Joop Scholten. 'Jazz in Pepijn' would partly form the basis of North Sea Jazz, where we could also sneak in for the first few editions.

We formed a band, which had varying line-ups, and while classmates had weekend jobs, we filled the time with rehearsals and performing regularly on Saturday nights in music bars or clubs. No pop music for us, but Miles Davis, Jaco Pastorius and Tony Williams.

An even deeper connection with music grew. I must have been eighteen, participating in weekly rehearsals of the Indonesian embassy's gamelan orchestra. My ears found little grip and structure in this musical culture, and precisely because of this, it unfiltered did its job and came in. Later, when I moved to Amsterdam, I joined Ernst Heins' gamelan group for a period. Playing the mid-Javan gamelan in the evening in a quiet and sparsely lit Tropen Institute or Asian department of the Rijksmuseum was an unforgettable experience.

While several of my music friends, who did have the talent in abundance, pursued their path in the music world, I dropped out step by step. After quite a few wanderings, I found my niche. I studied shiatsu, Chinese and Japanese acupuncture and qualified in martial disciplines and chi kung. I had turned left at a crossroads, while music, had I continued with it, would have taken me on a path to the right. Listening to music remained my best daily habit, as did attending concerts at Amsterdam's Bimhuis and elsewhere. But music and chi kung practice were two separate worlds. That's just how it works in a society where all things are strictly defined, delineated and thus lose their interconnectedness. Nevertheless, I did find rhythm and timbre, melody and interplay in chi kung. Even more than I had ever been able to experience during my music years.

All this led me to find employment in a previously non-existent profession, that of chi kung instructor. It brought me into contact with people from the most diverse backgrounds and I was able to teach in several European countries. Over the years, I also regularly received invitations to teach within conservatoires and my classes attracted many singers and instrumentalists. The worlds of music and body control and self-defence thus steadily approached each other again.

The last years of my career as an instructor took me to Germany. I was asked to give clinics within an organisation where many medics and paramedics were affiliated. The initiator of this organisation, Chinese physician Jiao Guo-Rui, who died in 1997, had called his style of approach 'yang shen gong', a classical Chinese term translated as 'nourishing life'. Professor Jiao had been in close contact with grandmaster Wang Xiang-Zhai. In the last years of his life, he had been his personal physician as well as a student. I in turn had studied Wang Xiang-Zhai's tradition and style, the I Chuan, for the twenty-five years.

So now I brought my chi kung experience to the German cities I was invited to, and let myself be freely influenced by the liberal and liberating thought of 'yang shen gong'. 'Nourishing life' is by no means limited by the practice of circumscribed Chinese exercises. It includes good conversation, the daily stroll, cooking for others, writing a poem or story, or reading, and of course making or listening to music.

Fifty years have passed since the Sundays when we sat backstage watching and listening in wonder to Han Bennink and Rob Agerbeek. That's how long it took me to finally realise separating things doesn't make life any better. Chi kung cannot be done without music any more than making music without a body.

How the week began on Monday, June 30, with ...

And how the week ended on Friday, July 4, with ...

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HIDDEN TIME. How long can you still lounge before boarding starts? You look around. The large round ceiling clock is encased in a white bag. Nothing to see on it. And further down the departure hall, the other clocks are also enveloped. Strange, precisely at this place, one of Europe's major airports, where the high mass of precise timekeeping is performed. The advent of the train in the late 19th century forced the synchronisation of clocks across the country. Factories and offices brought time further into alignment. Previously, it was lived through reflexive seasons and the rhythm of day and night. It got light, it got dark and in between, somewhere in the middle, the sun was at its highest point. Step by step, the 'approximately' was replaced by 'exactly', which was much needed, because a plane lands here at Schiphol Airport every minute. Punctual.

SCHIPHOL, 29 July 2025. According to the spokesperson, the first clocks were capped back in 2012. 'Because of rising maintenance costs.' The spokesperson could not say what amounts are involved. He did say that it is very complex to keep the clocks running. ... If one of the 87 clocks is stationary, you can't just replace the battery. ...'Repairing the clocks costs money. Replacing them too,' said the spokesperson. 'Covered clocks at an airport, where people still like to know what time it is, are of no use. Schiphol has therefore now decided to remove most of the clocks permanently. 'In places where time is crucial, think transfer zones or gates, they will return. In other places, they will disappear. 'Covered clocks add nothing to the quality and travel experience we want to offer passengers.' nu.nl

LOST TIME. The plane will take you to Milan Malpensa this time. MXP in aeroplane language. No matter where you fly to, every trip is - apart from the destiny airport code - completely interchangeable. The welcome and security chat, the drinks and food, the newspaper or a brief uncomfortable nap. The resolution of the experience of travelling between Amsterdam and Milan is negligibly small. You step out of reality at Schiphol Airport, only to re-enter in Malpensa. As a rule, travelling by plane is smooth, you gain time. Or is the time between take-off and landing just totally wasted, a cut from your life?

'Welcome, please stay seated and still keep your belt fastened', the taxi music, then as fast as it goes through the jet bridge, down the long corridors, briefly going to the toilet, washing hands, perfume cloud from the duty free, luggage belt, customs - you can dream it all, you can go through it with your eyes closed. The time under a copy machine, the boredom. Then the train to Milano Centrale, and if you're lucky, and you are, immediate connection to Genova and La Spezia.

DREAMED TIME. You doze, it was also early rising this morning. The lowlands of Lombardy, the bridge over the Po, your attention flickers. The inexorable sequence of events blends with the cadence and directionality of the train. Wagon follows wagon, like one moment does the previous The arrow-shaped time that - like a needle -threads events together like beads. Without a needle and thread, everything would happen simultaneously. Present, past, future, there and here - everything would happen at once, like emptying a bucket by turning it upside down.

Perhaps you are now dreaming like Zhuang Zhi once did. About a butterfly, fluttering around without any hurry, carefree, knowing that her life will last only a few weeks. Or is it that butterfly, that is dreaming. Dreaming that she is you, nodding off on an Italian train? You open your eyes. Those must be the hills of Liguria.

SCATTERED TIME. After Genova, you are clearer in your head again. The train follows the coast, misty soft light, pastel-coloured villas, vineyards on the slopes. And then, unannounced, a staccato alternation of light and dark. A tunnel followed by views of a wonderful Italian fishing village, followed by another tunnel, and yet another village, even more beautiful than the first. I don't know if you know, this is iconic Italy, the Cinque Terra, at the top of every self-respecting bullet list. You must have been here to experience the tranquillity and authentic life. During the half-minute - the interval between two tunnels - you have a good view of yet another village and the crowds of tourists in the narrow streets and around the small harbour. On the paths connecting the Cinque Terra villages, there are regular traffic jams. Of travellers, of vacationers, of seekers of emptiness. There are time slots for walking from one village to another, and everything you would have liked to do spontaneously has to be booked long in advance. Surely, the etymology of 'holiday' must really be sought in the notion of emptiness. Emptiness of worries and emptiness of time pressure. Anyway, these dilemmas have nothing to do with you now.

BORROWED TIME. In La Spezia, you have an hour. It is now late afternoon and the train to Aulla will leave a bit later. Outside the station you find a small park. And what suits you nicely, there is a free bench. The dull rhythm of airport, plane, station and train is still under your skin, and how good it is to simply sit and look around. You don't know anyone here, no one knows you, you have no obligation, and the train to travel on is not here yet. Was it long ago that you had nothing to worry about and didn't get nervous about that? Was it long since you could observe freely? There to your left, an old man approaches, shuffling along. A friendly old gentleman, grey, slightly stooped. For a moment freed from the compulsive restlessness of doing, you can see beyond the limitation of the single moment. You see today's old man and you see the young fellow he was yesterday. Why creating separations and denying the one the naughty pranks and dreams and the other the wisdom? You see young in old and old in young.

ELAPSED TIME. In Aulla, a small nondescript town in the Magra valley, you are picked up. A vital, tanned man is waiting for you outside the station, leaning against a jeep, that has clearly been through a lot. He introduces himself to you: no, he is not Italian, but actually he is. Originally from Switzerland, he has lived here most of his life. You hit the road and that road leaves the sleepy town, into the hills. Your driver seems to be able to dream the route and does not skimp on speed. There is nothing to do but trust his steering.

If you look from the side at his hands, which loosely encompass the steering wheel, it is clear that they have been doing labor. And if your eyes discretely wander down, you see that he is driving a car with no shoes on. When he notices your searching eyes, he smiles. 'The other day I was stopped, routine check, by the carabinieri. I don't think they had experienced that before, a barefoot driver. 'That's not allowed, signore, please, shoes on behind the wheel.’ I complied, but you just drive much better without them, you have much more feeling with the car.'

Meanwhile, you drive through wooded hills, here and there a village, a group of talking people, a river, a bridge, trees, trees everywhere. 'Yes', he says, 'earlier, longer ago, this region was much more inhabited. Like in so many places in the world, families migrated to the city. In the village where we live, it is quiet in winter, there are few of us living there. Yes, in summer, then they come, from the city, to the family house. Ferragosto, the holiday. And as soon as it ends, back to the city. Their heart is here, but yes, there is nothing to earn.'

The jeep turns a corner, the narrow valley widens and a wide view presents itself. In the distance, steep slopes rise out of the green hills. The peaks turn soft red by the light of the early evening. 'Those are the peaks of the Apuani’, he says, ‘you can't see it from here, but on the other side, just below the summit, are the marble quarries. Michelangelo got the white marble there, for his David, and other of his works. In a straight line it's not far, Carrara, Massa, that's where the money is made. That marble is shipped everywhere. This here is another world, the mountains are in between. This land is called the Lunigiana, the land of the moon. It was always a forgotten part of the wealthy Toscana, and in fact it still is. Look there’, and he points ahead, towards a wooded slope, ‘there were terraces there not long ago, barley and vegetables, fruit trees. The Lunigiana emptied in the last century and the fields and villages depopulated.'

We drive on for some time without talking. The road gets narrower and even more winding. The evening sun is no longer able to peep over the hills. The green becomes dark green. 'Look', he says, making a broad gesture from left to right. 'Chestnuts, all chestnuts. The whole region is covered with chestnut forest, planted long ago. That used to be an important part of life for the people here. In autumn, chestnuts were collected, and dried. Chestnut flour, chestnut bread, chestnut biscuits. Yes, it is still done, but not on the scale of back then. What did they have? Wild boar, chestnuts and porcini. Many of the chestnut plots were abandoned, and rewilded. You'll see tomorrow.'

Dusk has set in. The winding road and your empty stomach don’t combine well together. Then your driver says: ‘there it is, that's Casola.’ You see a medieval village, glued against a hillside. And there lies Il Convento.

The jeep turns right into a dusty path, which after a short time is crossed by a small river. The driver does not hesitate and steers the jeep through the splashing water. A sharp turn and then steep uphill and we stop in front of the old monastery. He switches off the engine, we open the doors, get out, the engine hums and ticks. It is silent.

TWISTED TIME. Throughout history, in all cultures, trees held a special place and it is no different today. Yes, yes, surely you mean in the form of lumber and Christmas tree plantations? Ireland and Portugal were covered in oak forest, all of Europe was once one big forest, and look at it now. And just signing petitions to save the forests in the Amazon and Borneo, while here the continent was stripped of its trees long ago. Of course, there are forests allowed on this continent, as long as the trees stand nicely in rows next to each other and quickly provide straight lumber.

Our society worships youth. Fresh cheeks, tight body, youthful attractiveness. Everything possible is done to avoid wrinkles and, above all, to preserve the body as untouched as possible. Imagine what it would be like: on all billboards, in TV advertising, old wrinkled faces and aged bodies displayed to advertise products. It could be reality, in a distant future, old age and weathered bodies as an ideal to be pursued.

That is exactaly how we observe trees. An ancient lime tree, a rare old specimen, a fence around it, a placard with his history and what he has witnessed. That tree as a curiosity. In regards to trees it is all about old age, weathering, twistedness. Tell me, you wouldn't go to all the trouble, make a long diversions to go and look at a youthful spindle, straight and lean, with soft flawless skin, and translucent leaves.

How can you become as old as that linden? Definitely not by standing out much, or by trying to be useful.

Carpenter Shi went to Qi and, when he got to Crooked Shaft, he saw a serrate oak standing by the village shrine. It was broad enough to shelter several thousand oxen and measured a hundred spans around, towering above the hills. The lowest branches were eighty feet from the ground, and a dozen or so of them could have been made into boats.

There were so many sightseers that the place looked like a fair, but the carpenter didn’t even glance around and went on his way without stopping. His apprentice stood staring for a long time and then ran after Carpenter Shi and said, ‘Since I first took up my ax and followed you, Master, I have never seen timber as beautiful as this. But you don’t even bother to look, and go right on without stopping. Why is that?’

’Forget it—say no more!’ said the carpenter. ‘It’s a worthless tree! Make boats out of it and they’d sink; make coffins and they’d rot in no time; make vessels and they’d break at once. Use it for doors and it would sweat sap like pine; use it for posts and the worms would eat them up. It’s not a timber tree—there’s nothing it can be used for. That’s how it got to be that old!’

After Carpenter Shi had returned home, the oak tree appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘What are you comparing me with? Are you comparing me with those useful trees? The cherry apple, the pear, the orange, the citron, the rest of those fructiferous trees and shrubs—as soon as their fruit is ripe, they are torn apart and subjected to abuse. Their big limbs are broken off, their little limbs are yanked around. Their utility makes life miserable for them, and so they don’t get to finish out the years Heaven gave them, but are cut off in mid-journey. They bring it on themselves—the pulling and tearing of the common mob. And it’s the same way with all other things.’

‘As for me, I’ve been trying a long time to be of no use, and though I almost died, I’ve finally got it. This is of great use to me. If I had been of some use, would I ever have grown this large? Moreover you and I are both of us things. What’s the point of this—things condemning things? You, a worthless man about to die—how do you know I’m a worthless tree?’

When Carpenter Shi woke up, he reported his dream. His apprentice said, ‘If it’s so intent on being of no use, what’s it doing there at the village shrine?’

‘Shhh! Say no more! It’s only resting there. If we carp and criticize, it will merely conclude that we don’t understand it. Even if it weren’t at the shrine, do you suppose it would be cut down? It protects itself in a different way from ordinary people. If you try to judge it by conventional standards, you’ll be way off!’
Zhuang Zi - translation by Burton Watson

TIME LINE. You wake up early. Everything in this monastery breathes history. The robust stone walls, the ruins of what was once a chapel, the pavement of the forecourt. You don't know it, so I whisper it in your ear: this was once a refuge for pilgrims on the road to Rome. Sure enough, all roads lead there, and the closer you get to the eternal city, the more all those roads have come together, like the tiny veins converge in the large central vein of a leaf.

UNSPECIFIED TIME. This morning at breakfast, you met the wife of yesterday's jeep driver. The latter, incidentally, turned out to be the owner of the old monastery. Found as a ruin and rebuilt into what it is today. Ah, that's where the penny drops - those working hands, you had noticed them during the drive. And so this woman is the owner as well. Her gaze is intense, her appearance earthy. 'I wasn't born here either,' she told me, but by now I belong here. I ended up in Italy at the time, by chance, in Pontremoli, as a member of a theatre group. Do you know Pontremoli? It's not far from here, also in the Lunigiana. Inside the castle, steles are on display. Strange, intriguing statues from prehistoric times, all excavated around here. That's how long the Lunigiana has been inhabited.

Deciding to stay here, we drove through the Lunigiana, without a defined plan, looking for a place to settle down. As if by chance, we found the Convento. Half in ruins and completely overgrown. We took a walk around the area, came into the old chestnut forest and that made it all clear. This was without a doubt the right place to stay.'

‘To get into the old chestnut forest, you also have to know where to enter. In the past, when this whole area was more populated, there were countless paths running through the woods, over the hills, from village to village. Paths used by porcini pickers in autumn, and chestnut gatherers. Now, if you walk into the forest, randomly, just from somewhere along the road, you won’t come far. Brambles, prickly plants, tough bushes, there is no way through. Go there and have a look. I can't go with you myself today, but my children are here and can show you the way.'

Just as Harry Potter had go to King's Cross, platform nine three-quarters, where he had to pass a wall in a rather unusual way, all in order to travel to Hogwarts, the entrance to the ancient forest is located at an unexpected place.

FORGOTTEN TIME. In the stone wall that surrounds the monastery you find the door, colourless and inconspicuous. The two young people are already there waiting for you. The door opens with some creaking and squeaking and you are standing on a narrow forest path. That path follows the outside of the monastery and then dives into the dense foliage of the forest. When you turn around after walking for a while, you see the hushed village in the distance. The sounds of the world - a power saw, the knock of a hammer, a crying child - fade away and are absorbed by the silence.

At a fork in the path - you would have walked right past it - the young man says: ‘straight ahead it continues to the convent of Codiponte, we turn right here.’ Near the fork is a huge chestnut, with a hollow base, from which a large number of stems have grown. You remain standing, is it your imagination? Looking through your lashes, it seems a forest spirit, with a tangled bunch of hair, a wild beard and open mouth, a silent scream. An ent from the Lord of the Rings, Treebeard. Is this the guard at the entrance to the ancient forest? No, your fantasy is to vivid. Still, you don't dare take a picture of this bizarre apparition. The two young people have moved on and you now walk a little faster to catch up. They certainly haven’t notice anything about your imagined encounter with the old tree.

For a few more minutes, you walk on. The conversation is hushed. I know, the atmosphere of the place where you stop is hard to describe, so I won't try. The three of you sit with your backs against the trunk of one of the forest masters. The sun can barely penetrate the thick foliage, the light is dappled and green. This time is the time of the trees. How long you sat there?

On the way back, as you pass the guard, you give a hidden nod of your head, as a sign of respect, After all, you never know. But the young woman saw your furtive gesture, your gazes cross. She smiles and winks. Would she know the guard too?

As you approach Il Convento again, you pick up the conversation again, at the same point where it had died down on the way out.

THE TIME GONE BY. Now that I have retold your journey, or inspired you to make it soon, we can talk further. I know the road that starts at Aulla well. I remember the hundred curves up to the small medieval village. And the first night's stay at Il Convento. That was 1999. The following morning we took a walk and - was it a coincidence, was it the magic of the wooden door - we found the ancient forest. We sat leaning against an aged chestnut tree, silently, was it an hour, was it longer? It was clear, this was the right place to organise an annual chi kung summer school. The first one in 2000 and about 15 more would follow in the years after.

TREE TIME. Participants came from all directions: Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, America, Italy and, of course, the Netherlands. At least once during each summer school, in the afternoon, once the heat of the Italian summer had calmed down a bit, we gathered at the wooden door in the outer wall of the monastery. Squeak open, everyone through, squeak shut again. Gaily chatting, we then followed the same narrow path on which you, with Shirin and Aaron, the two young people, walked. At the level of the fork and the guard, the carefree chatter had invariably lost its volume, and when we finally reached the oldest part of the chestnut grove, it had fallen completely silent. Not because it was so agreed - we were probably absorbed into the time scale peculiar to trees. Talking then becomes more laborious, actually redundant. Tree time, exactly, that the right term.

For some, chi kung practice in the ancient chestnut forest consisted of sitting simply, with their backs against a tree. Others lay down for a moment on the soft ground and fell into a deep sleep. And there were, of course, some who practiced chi kung in a more recognizable form. But all experienced a naturalness, an effortlessness. Like when it rains and you don't have to make an effort to get wet. Being present is enough.

TIMELESS. Shirin and Aaron's parents, Martina Weber and Marcel Müller, who have rebuilt the Convento over the years at an unruffled pace, provided warm hospitality year after year. They offered the perfect conditions for intense chi kung study. The first time I visited them, their children were small. Now they are adults and the initiators of a recurring summer festival in and around Il Convento.

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The Zen Buddhist tradition of China and Japan has produced a simple illustrated tale: 'The Ten Pictures of the Ox ' or also 'The Taming of the Ox'. The author is the Chinese Zen master Guo-An Shi-yyuan, called Kakuan in Japanese, who lived in the 12th century. It is drawn and written allegory of the challenges the Zen practitioner is bound to encounter on the spiritual path. The situations depicted through the ten drawings and their short accompanying texts were and are easily recognised.

But not only the practitioner of meditation can draw inspiration and encouragement from the tale of the little ox herder and the giant ox. The chi kung practitioner can also benefit from the colourful description of the stages of inner cultivation. All kinds of difficulties that may arise in fathoming posture, breath, habits, and emotion are reflected in the process of taming the ox.

In the first picture, you see a little boy, an ox herd. He has lost his ox. It is his responsibility, his job, to be with the ox all day long - to lead it to juicy grass and drinking water, to take good care of it in everything and to bring it back to the stable in the evening. But now he has not only lost the ox - he has even forgotten WHAT he has lost. Without clearly knowing what he is actually looking for, he has set off on his journey.

In picture two, the boy makes an important discovery: for the first time, he sees traces of the ox. He has not yet discovered the ox itself, but he now has at least an idea of what he is looking for. This first encounter with the ox, even if it concerned only his traces, makes a great impression on the boy and gives him strong motivation to continue the quest.

Finally, after long searching and sleuthing, the boy finds the ox. He sees him in all his colossal size and imposing strength. The ox is stubborn and recalcitrant, but if he could tame him, he would become a powerful companion. But then again, how on earth can you learn to master this primal force?

The fourth picture shows the boy accepting the challenge and actually starting to tame the ox. He pushes and pulls and tries to impose his will on the mighty animal. If he wants to go left, the ox goes right. OK, then it goes to the left, but then the ox walks to the right. When he stops, the ox just keeps on moving, imperturbably. In desperation, he pulls the ox behind him with all his might, it now stands motionless still. No, this is clearly not the right method to tame an ox. This is no way to approach this primal beast. The boy sees that he has to learn to listen and that impatience and force-feeding will get him nowhere.

Step by step, he understands what he should and should not do. Instead of trying to dominate the ox with willpower, he starts making contact. Physical closeness and a growing mutual trust gradually begin to bear fruit. It is a demanding and time-consuming process, but the path of taming the ox has been found.

Then, in the sixth picture, you see the boy sitting on the ox's back, cross-legged, making music, with no fear of falling off. The ox is no longer an opponent to fight or a force of nature to overcome. The boy sits quietly on his back and the ox willingly carries him home.

Home again. The boy sits on the pavement in front of his house, on the threshold of his door. The ox is gone. The boy realised that the ox and himself were never essentially separate. Taming the ox was necessary to fathom himself. It brought him back to himself, brought him home. In fact, the phases of searching, finding, fighting and following were all aimed at recognising his own inner power and urges and taming them.

The archetypal eighth picture is an enso, an empty circle. In the seventh picture, the ox had already disappeared - in this picture, so has the boy. If the chosen discipline was already relative, not of absolute value, in the larger perspective, so are the person and his life path. The boy returned home, even though he had never really left it. He came to an insight that had been within him before his search. A circle came full circle.

In the penultimate picture, you see a stream, a flowering tree, birds singing. Look carefully around you, you don't have to go far - indeed you don't have to go anywhere at all. All around you - and inside you - is life. The origin of things is always here, close by.

Picture ten shows a fat, happy monk. A free spirit, a homeless wanderer - at least someone who lives without excuses and complications. Without boasting any particular philosophy or humanity, he shares his food with others and helps where he can. A cheerful Samaritan. A good-humoured market trader. If you are lucky enough to have met him once, it makes you think. You may realise that you have lost sight of your ox and that you should go and find it.

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One of the renowned masters of the I Chuan 意拳 / Da Cheng Chuan 大成拳 tradition is Guo Gui-Zhi, from Datong, Shanxi, in northern China.

Guo Gui-Zhi started his martial training at an early age and soon proved talented. Due to a serious medical condition, he came into contact with Professor Yu Yong-Nian, who instructed him in the practice of 'zhan zhuang chi kung', the foundation of I Chuan. The 'zhan zhuang' had not only proven itself as a key to martial application, but could also be used therapeutically. Professor Yu had been instrumental in introducing it within hospitals in the post-war years. Guo Gui-Zhi's 'zhan zhuang ' practice resulted in a recovery, which motivated him to continue training under Professor Yu. The latter put him in touch with his own teacher, I Chuan founder Wang Xiang-Zhai. After the latter's death, Guo continued training under another top student of Wang Xiang-Zhai, Yao Zong-Xun.

Master Guo Guxi-Zhi's school is based in Datong. He also attracted many foreign students and was invited several times for trainings in Europe and Canada.

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As you read this, there is no horizon. The letter your eye now falls on is super sharp, but slightly to the left, or slightly to the right, towards the edges of the screen, the world is already blurring. And still a little further away from the letter your eyes are now gazing intently at, there everything even seems to have disappeared. The space to your left and right, the space behind your back, and those above and below you - towards the ceiling and floor - you lose sight of them while reading. The concentration required to catch the letters with your eyes reduces your three-dimensional surroundings to a dot. Spatial awareness contracted into a tiny dot, like the one at the end of this sentence.

With the greatest ease, and often the greatest pleasure, you lose yourself, while reading, in this dot. Like a magnet, it draws your eyes to it, demanding all your attention. The physical spaces behind you and those to your sides come to fallow. Nadir and zenith? Spatial awareness is scaled down, as long as you keep peering at the letters.

Losing contact with one's surroundings in such a way was a death sentence in the wild life of our ancestors. Reading in the wild, with all the lurking danger, was like making love and getting drunk without the protection of four walls, a risky activity.

Break away from reading and letters for a while. Look out the window, or take a short walk as a pause. With your eyes freed, the small yellow zone unfolds into a landscape. As if stage curtains are pulled aside. The vision may not be as sharp as reading letter and dot, but the view is wide. It extends from the corners of your eyes to diagonally behind you.

And the space all the way behind your back? To look there, you have to turn around. A hare, a pigeon, or a sheep does not have to do that. With eyes on the side of the head, they have panoramic vision. Without having to turn their heads, they are prepared for danger from any direction.

Predators' eyes are at the front of their heads and their gaze is sharp, seeing prey from a great distance. To hunt or to be hunted - a panoramic vision or a sharp, piercing gaze. Those two traits seem to characterize the division of roles in nature. There are predators with both visual qualities, sharp and wide, but a predator with sideways sheep-like eyes has not yet been seen.

And humans? Does his vision tell the story of a hunter or a hunted?

However, the hunting instinct and murderous gaze can be reactivated by an irritating fly instantly.

But an opponent with a 360° vision is not easy to outsmart.

A martial art where you only have to deal with one opponent, who is right in front of you, and who also acts according to the prescribed rules, is not a martial art, it is a sport. Back and flanks, all directions except those where the eyes are focused, can remain unprotected.

A martial art that reflects daily life, preparing the practitioner to spread his alertness across six directions, requires soft eyes.

‘Soft Eyes’ is a concept used in many sports to relax athletes and increase their peripheral vision. Sally Swift, the founder of Centered Riding, advised riders to relax their visual acuity and pay more attention to the tactile interaction between horse and rider.wikipedia

ONE
Go to a quiet place where you have an unobstructed view. Stand up straight, your arms along your body, or your hands on top of each other on your stomach. Imagine you are standing on top of a dune on a clear day. In front of you see a ship on the horizon. Be aware of the free space in front of you. That is the first of the six directions

TWO AND THREE
Softening your gaze even more, the horizon will widen before you. Straight ahead of you is still the ship - from the corner of your eye, you can see the beach and row of dunes to the right and left. Without turning your head, you can see 180°degrees from the horizon. Be aware of the space in front of you, to your left and to your right: those are three of the six directions.

FOUR
If you turned around, you would see that the horizon continues behind you. But now, without turning your body, your head or your eyes, try to be aware of this territory. Your body is the centre of the compass rose. When you are facing west, your eyes see the semicircle of the horizon, from north to south. The horizon closes behind your back, to the east. The earth is round, the horizon is round, your spatial awareness is round.

FIVE
Imagine a small cloud directly overhead. This fifth direction. the zenith, turns your surrounding horizon into a dome. You are exactly in the centre of the dome, right below its highest point.

Your surroundings like a huge circus tent. A grand-café filled with talking people - close your eyes and the murmur of their voices surrounds you. A space like the Duomo in Florence, where you stand exactly in the centre of the mosaic floor, under the highest part of the dome. The sound of footsteps and the gentle chatter of visitors will trace the five directions for you.

Five directions within your field of vision, when was the last time that happened to you? With hard eyes, you won't succeed. With softness, you can perceive the whole vault - four cardinal points and the zenith at once.

It is no wonder that in a myopic world, a world where the horizon has been bricked away behind stone walls, words like 'firmament' and 'welkin' have fallen into disuse. While in the 1960s it was chalked on walls that under the pavement was the beach, now is the time to realise that the vastness and the horizon have obviously not disappeared. You just have to learn to see through walls and roof.

SIX
Finally, let your attention go to the ground on which, the floor on which you stand. The space under your body, does not stop at the surface of the floor. If zenith was the fifth direction, nadir is the sixth.

At the front of your body, imagine a two-metre space. Do the same on the left side and on your right side. Then behind your body a similar space. Also above your head, towards the dome, the zenith, two metres. And finally a two metres space under your feet, into the ground, towards the nadir.

Your spatial awareness takes the shape of a perfect balloon. Each of the six directions that define the balloon are equal. The size of the balloon is by choice. Standing under the big church dome, the space in any direction might be 30 metres, standing on the dune top as much as 100, or even extending to the horizon. In all cases, your body is the centre of the balloon. Or more specifically, the exact centre of the six directions is your belly, the lower dan tian, xia dan tian, 下丹田. Spatial awareness through six directions, the practice of soft eyes and finding and consolidating the body centre are interrelated.

To be continued ...

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'Opening and closing of the kua' is a central chi kung theme. Since it takes place inside the body and is therefore not always easy to recognise, it makes sense to magnify it and make it visible as a large external movement.

For an impressive demonstration of the 'opening and closing of the kua': the frog.

The explosion of force in the hind legs opens the 'kua' and the force passes equally through its left and right sides.

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TREE TIME #1

TREE TIME #2

TREE TIME #3

TREE TIME #4

WU CHI #1

WU CHI #2

KUA #1

KUA #2

BA DUAN JIN #1

BA DUAN JIN #2

BA DUAN JIN #3

I CHUAN #1

I CHUAN #2

CENTERED RIDING AND CHI KUNG #1

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… I still would return to China many times, but as a traveller I remain even more of an outsider than before. On a tentative last trip, I interrupt commitments and spend a few days at the Taoist Bai Yun Guan, the Temple of the White Cloud, in a suburb of Beijing. In a garden at the back of the complex is a stele, a standing stone, with an engraved drawing and text. It is the Nei Jing Tu, the 'Image of the Inner Landscape'. I had often seen reproductions of the stele's print, but now, in the quiet enclave of the monastery garden, I see in the wondrous image the essence of an entire culture. Simple in presentation, nimble and almost humorous, deep and fundamental in meaning. Mirroring in each other the outer and inner worlds…
An Inner Landscape - chapter 37. Family #3

To get acquainted, we shake hands. However long we hold each other: you remain you and I remain me. As boundaries, our skin is implacable. Through the palms of our hands and fingertips, we don't seem to get much further than each other's surface.

Through the openings of eyes and ears, the world does seem to be able to enter unhindered. That is pretence. The sound something makes and the light it reflects are merely messengers, not the thing itself. And once these touch the eardrum and retina, a conversion to an abstract neurological language follows, which seems to have little more to do with the perceived reality.

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The humans use Arecibo to look for extraterrestrial intelligence. Their desire to make a connection is so strong that they’ve created an ear capable of hearing across the universe.

But I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they interested in listening to our voices?

We are non-human species capable of communicating with them. Aren’t we exactly what humans are looking for? …

The Great Silence - Ted Chiang

Ted Chiang's gripping short story is set around the Arecibo Observatory in Porto Rico. In the dense rainforest, a group of parrots watches in wonder at man's efforts to contact another life form, which must be somewhere in the universe. Surely it cannot be that humans, are the only intelligent life in infinite space. A giant telescope has been built and is listening intently and continuously for a possible message, a hint - whispered or deafening - transmitted at the initiative of that other life form. Or sent in response to signals sent out by humans. For the telescope is used not only as an enormous ear, but also as an outsized megaphone. IS ANYONE THERE? Would someone pick up that cry and return a reply? ARE WE ALONE?

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Halfway through your daily walk in the forest, you suddenly hear a strange blowing sound. Then it is silent, but then you hear it again. You look around to discover where the sound is coming from. The dense greenery obstructs your view. There it sounds once more. Where the forest gives way to a single row of trees along the path, there is a freer view. And now you can see it: the blowing comes from the burner under a big yellow hot air balloon. What a thing, like a house so high! You take a picture, you can show it at home later tonight, as evidence to a good story.

But what do you actually see in that picture? A yellow hot air balloon. Or maybe lots of green plants, bushes and trees after all? Yes, the latter is definitely true. The photo shows a lot more green than yellow. A single balloon versus a large number and variety of plants. Also, the balloon is in the background of the photo and many of the plants - certainly the three oaks - are in the first row. Still, when you tell your story in the evening, it's undoubtedly only about that yellow colossus. The greenery merely figures, forming the backdrop, the wallpaper.

An hour after you took the picture, the balloon took off. Even later, you may have seen it float in the distance, heard the same sound of the burner a few more times, each time from further away.

The trees and plants, on the other hand, remained where they were. An hour after the take-off, and even now, you can safely assume, they are still there. If something does not move, it apparently does not stand out, and there is no good story to tell about it in the evening. Of all the walks you took in the forest, you can recall that one particular time when you saw the balloon. The memory of the trees and the forest, however - every walk you encountered them - has blurred into a soft background music. Pleasant, sure - after all, the proximity of greenery is the main reason for taking your walks - but within the construct of your memory, it is white noise.

The no-entry sign captures attention. You show this picture to someone and add: what do you see? Two rows of summer oaks, brambles and ground elder, drooping branches, a home and food for countless insects and birds, alternation between the light in the open field and the shade under the trees? No, no doubt the answer relates only to the road sign. Unlike the hot air balloon in the previous picture, it does not move, is as place-bound as the greenery around it. So that doesn't make the difference in perceiving or not perceiving. Perhaps the person you asked the question to will notice that the sign is bolted to a pole found on the spot. A winding broken-off branch of one of the oaks. But then again, there are so many of those in the forest, and they don't stand out at all. At least as long as there is no red-bordered road sign attached to them.

The phenomenon that the plant world does not seem to penetrate our consciousness properly is called 'plant blindness'. For our distant ancestors, who lived in wild nature, greenery was not a threat. At least not to the extent of many of the animals, which they could encounter in the forest. Green does not bite, jump out of ambush, or chase. Green formed the neutrality of shelter and it still does for us. Green does not intrude, as all red tends to do. The red border around the no-entry sign and the red chequered railway crossing with red warning lights in the picture below jump out and keep our minds busy.

Life requires exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. This phenomenon is found in both animals and plants, and both mechanisms are complementary to each other. What one gives, the other takes. What one exhales, the other breathes in to the full. Haemoglobin and chlorophyll, central to the oxygen-carbon dioxide carousel of animals and plants respectively, although very different in function, have a similar chemical structure. The first is built around a core of iron, the other around one of magnesium. From one, animals derive their red characteristic, the other makes plants green.

Sometimes I go browsing through a very old magazine. I found this observation test about the story of the ark. And the artist that drew this observation test did some errors, had some mistakes -- there are more or less 12 mistakes. Some of them are very easy. There is a funnel, an aerial part, a lamp and clockwork key on the ark. Some of them are about the animals, the number. But there is a much more fundamental mistake in the overall story of the ark that's not reported here. And this problem is: where are the plants? So now we have God that is going to submerge Earth permanently or at least for a very long period, and no one is taking care of plants. Noah needed to take two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, of every kind of creature that moves, but no mention about plants. Why? In another part of the same story, all the living creatures are just the living creatures that came out from the ark, so birds, livestock and wild animals. Plants are not living creatures -- this is the point. That is a point that is not coming out from the Bible, but it's something that really accompanied humanity.
The Roots of Plant Intelligence - Stefano Mancuso

The grass grows in between the tiles. 1. there were simply tiles and gravel 2. the grass grows annoyingly between them. Chronologically, however, things are different. 1. originally there was a lot of grass and dandelions, there were meadows, large grassy plains 2. first a few tiles were laid there, and then more and more, until the whole plain was covered. Now only a tiny piece of that is still visible. A tiny piece of the original landscape. And that's what you see in the picture above.

The two birds have found a great vantage point. They came flying in, perched down, are now sit high and dry looking around for a while, and will soon continue on their way. They will leave, the trees, of which you only see the crown, will remain. And tomorrow too, as well as all the coming year. They will outlive both birds and offer generations of their offspring the same exquisite resting place. What do you see in the picture? The actuality of the birds' resting pause or the long-term presence of greenery?

Yes, and how can you handle this image? Do you look at the cow first? Or do you look instead at the fallen willow? You can still feel the violence of the storm and hear the breaking off of roots and the splintering of wood. Even now that the tree lies there stretched out, the action echoes and continues to vibrate. And the cow, it stands dead still looking at it. This picture illustrates a plant blindness bow question.

A little blackhead. A green bush.

Go to a nearby forest or park. Find a quiet spot in the middle of greenery. Stand so that you have a good view of a healthy tree. Stand in the wu chi pose, or any other zhan zhuang pose you fancy.

View the tree from standing still. Empathy is usually easily developed by imitating the pose and gesture of the person opposite you. Observe the tree by standing still like her. Its leaves are fully unfurled to catch the sunlight in the best possible way. Spread your fingers, open your palms, relax your face.

Realise that half the tree, the entire root system, is not visible. If you are standing not too far from the trunk of the tree, it may be directly beneath your feet. Although you don't posses tree roots, you can let your gravity penetrate the earth.

Observe the delicate green leaves and reflect on the wonder of their ability to convert sunlight directly into life and growth. The breathing of a tree and your own breathing - however different in operation - complement each other, form two halves of one circle.

Practising zhan zhuang in the immediate vicinity of trees and plants gives you a lot of time and opportunity to reflect on a form of life, which is different from yours in really every aspect. It may even eventually rid you of plant blindness.

STAND LIKE A TREE?

The literal translation of 'zhan zhuang' is 'standing pole'. What inspiration can one derive from following the example of a stick hammered into the ground? Some authors point out that in the distant past in certain Buddhist monasteries, monks performed standing chi kung training on top of a sawn-off tree stump, for more challenge with regard to balance and alertness. In that light zhan zhuang might be better translated as 'standing on a stick'.
 
I know of no historical sources, which directly associate zhan zhuang with the life of trees. Sifu Lam Kam-Chuen, through his teachings and books, popularised zhan zhuang as 'standing like a tree'. Professor Jiao Guorui, who taught in Germany for many years, labelled the wu chi stance as 'Stehen wie ein Kiefer', 'standing like a pine'. How about a perfectly straight Douglas fir as a role model. A worthy totem for the dedicated practitioner of the wu chi stance!

Or did Jiao Guorui have more of a robust maritime pine in mind when referring to 'Stehen wie ein Kiefer'?

I would say, choose your favourite tree as a living example for your zhan zhuang practice. Besides, it is high time for us to cure ourselves of plant blindness. And exchange the chewed-out martial animal totems - bear, lion and eagle - for totems associated with fir, pine and beech.

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Without much effort, we can recognise ourselves in an animal. Just like us: two eyes and two ears, and a mouth that wants to bite and chew. Arms and legs, legs, wings, fins: an ongoing evolutionary family relationship. And then, that remarkable common animal restlessness. We, animals, always look for it in movement. When danger approaches, we run away. When we smell a tasty snack or a fragrant peer, we sneak closer. The solution to both getting what is missed and avoiding what is irritating, uncomfortable and threatening is in our movements through space. If you don't find what you are looking for here, you move there. And if you find something there you don't like, you move elsewhere again. This relentless restlessness marks the kinship between us humans and other animals.
 
How different plants are. Entrenched in the place where they once sprouted as seeds, they cannot avoid or obtain by moving. They will have to find a solution for every challenge they face - on the spot. An unthinkable task for any member of the restless animal family. Biologist Stefano Mancuso, author of 'The Revolutionary Genius of Plants' notes:

Whereas animals react to changes in their surroundings by moving to avoid those changes, plants respond to the constantly changing environment by adapting to meet it.

And renowned French botanical illustrator Francis Hallé says in an interview: ....

When I entered the Sorbonne in Paris, I was not really interested in plants, but rather animals, indeed like 99 percent of students, by the way. Today. I like animals, but I can't take them seriously because they move all the time. …. For me, trees are much more beautiful than animals. Animals are dirty, noisy, and when they die, they smell awful. When a tree dies, it doesn't smell bad because its molecules contain less sulfur. I wonder if our initial relationship to trees is aesthetic rather the scientific. When we come across a beautiful tree, it is an extraordinary thing. ….

TOTEM

Humans mirroring themselves in animals are soon tempted into anthropomorphism. A small cuddly dog, yet direct descendant of the dreaded wolf, is given a fashionable jacket. And in the raised beak corner of a grinning Donald Duck, the illustrator draws white teeth. Alternatively, the mirror game leads to zoomorphism, in which humans, out of jealousy, would all too happily appropriate characteristics of the animal. That possesses primal physical powers, flashy speed and fearsome teeth and jaws, without which civilised man is no more than a sucker.

The animal as icon, as totem. The Hague, my hometown, has the stork as a city totem. The Scheveningen neighbours carry two herrings in their coat of arms. The orange footballers mirror the lion. Runners take an antelope as their totem, swimmers a sea lion, thieves a magpie, and weightlifters an Asian working elephant.

In the martial arts, it is common to look for art in the animal kingdom. Martial animal totems therefore come in many guises. The grenadier's bear hat, a dragon on a knight's shield, Bruce Lee's praying mantis and General Yu Fei's Eagle Claw.

Tiger, crane, leopard, snake and dragon in the southern martial styles. The twelve Hsing I Chuan animals. The 'bear step' and the 'snake step' in I Chuan. But aren't we missing something? For the martial artist, animals certainly possess enviable properties. Traits you can imagine, imitate and perhaps one day call your own. But aren't there plants that can serve us as teachers and inspirations? Where are the plant and tree totems?

GREEN INGENIOUS

Plants are tied to the location of their original germination. Unable to dodge, run and flee, there is nothing left for them but to solve difficulties that arise on the spot. Plants developed an infinite range of self-defence mechanisms. Often without much on the outside, they creatively face off against aggressive munchers and grazers: bark, spines, thorns, scent, poison and intoxication. Our science has only explored and mapped a fraction of plant warfare and seduction techniques. Who said plants just stand there defenceless and ignorant of martial arts?

One wonders why plants hardly feature in martial heraldry.

Perhaps an idea to adopt the nettle as a martial totem?

SF weaponry?

Selective defence ...

Chemical weapons ...

Deadly to micro-organisms, therefore also a vital drug ...

Stand in a natural environment. In a forest or park, your backyard. Don't close your eyes completely, but give them rest, stand with eyes half closed Instead of standing, you can of course sit. Focus your attention on what smell enters your nose. At first, you may smell little, perhaps just your own skin or soap or sweat, or your clothes. But soon you will become aware of smells you did not notice before. Pick up the scents that air currents or wind carry with them, faint or strong.

When you look at an object, you perceive reflective light: a visual touch with the light waves as messengers. But the smell you breathe in through your nose is an essential part of that other. A fleeting part that separated itself from the whole. In French, the word 'essence' is used; the scent as the essence. Take ten minutes to identify with the world of smell. Breathe in your environment.

What can bring us close to chemical world of plants is navigating and orienting through the nose. Like plants, we live in a world of smell, although for most of us this is an understated - and discounted - reality. Scents are immediate, instinctive, unrelenting, and trigger memories. Much of the sea of scent we live in is of plant origin. A dizzying pallet. When a plant cannot travel any distance because of its roots, there is always the wind. It carries the plant's scents away over distances and brings the scents of others to it. The lack of a nose in no way prevents the plant from perceiving scents.

REGENERATION AND RESILIENCE

Parallel to the development of martial skills, the practitioner explores the paths of health and the art of living long. And to whom would you best turn for inspiration? The vast majority of animals are already elderly or deceased when a healthy oak or beech tree is only in its adolescence. The age of most animals is dwarfed by the age of many plants.

It is a true miracle that a starfish can grow a new arm after losing one. Doesn't that seem convenient to you? But a random tree loses branches throughout its life, and after a short time, they are all replaced by new ones again. Whereas an animal has life functions concentrated in specific organs, the plant is modularly built. All parts are replaceable and renewable. Even if the storm or a fire has destroyed the above-ground tree, the invisible root part is often still alive and kicking. And lo and behold, only so soon after the devastating fire, new greenery already reappears.

In US Utah, Pando grows. Pando is not a single tree, but a forest of more than 40 hectares of ratchet poplar. All 40,000 trunks share the same root system, and while the single trunk is born and dies, Pando as a whole is ancient, 14,000 years. Isn't that a fascinating example of regenerative power?

The practice is uncluttered. Find a suitable environment: a quiet corner in a city park, a balcony overlooking a tree, the dunes, your living room with plants in the window sill, a forest. Stand upright, with your arms along your body (wu chi zhuang). Your hands on your back, your hands at your sides, or both palms on your belly are other good options. Relax your knees, relax your gaze. Look at the greenery freely.

In our usual dealings with our bodies, our senses - especially our eyes - get a lot of attention. The hands, and our thinking, also get a disproportionate share of it. Consciousness is dragged to where there is a lot of activity. And where strong sensations occur, sensations of heat or cold, pressure, itching and pain. Consequently, some parts of the body receive little or no attention, others an excess.

Take the tree or plant in your immediate environment as an example. The plant has a modular structure, it is proportionally developed. All branches and leaves share evenly in burdens and pleasures. Even underground, where we cannot directly perceive the plant, the relationship between its various parts is egalitarian. All the root tips penetrate the earth simultaneously and evenly. Of course, there are obstacles to perfect radial development above and below ground: shade, a lack or excess of water, a rock, a severed branch, a column of gnawing caterpillars. That very fact shows that the vital power of trees and plants lies hidden in the collectivity of the parts.
The practice of standing chi kung attempts to awaken a similar latent collectivity within the practitioner's body. It is innate to us, but there are many reasons and circumstances for a profound disruption of the inherent power of oneness. The zhan zhuang practice opens access to previously neglected and forgotten body zones, the personal terra incognitas. Step by step, the whole body is brought back within the context of consciousness and breathing. The I Chuan tradition speaks of awakening 'huan yuan li', of the power of collectivity, of collective resilience.

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It takes a village to raise a child. But yes, a village, come to think of it. Of endless outdoor play, only the football cage remains. Before we realised it, the old familiar world had turned into a vast city, where everyone does their own thing. A childhood life surrounded by the variety of generations and ages was exchanged for growing up in a defined and single-minded family. Family, the homes of neighbours you could walk right in to, shopkeeper, postman and school teacher, a running troop of children - it was all taken for granted and seemed of little importance, until it just evaporated into a sentimental memory, and then terribly missed.

And just when it seems there is no one left from that village circle, there are the grandparents. If you are lucky as a child, they live nearby, and you see each other often. No need for a village as a backdrop, the wonderful age difference between children and grandparents is the crux. Where the stress of everyday life plays tricks on dads and mums and they often postpone the enjoyment of the wonder of children and push that into the future, grandpas and grandmas are free and available.

Samen naar de apies kijken, samen naar het strand
En als je geluk had ging je samen naar de brand
Samen op het ijs en met een sleetje in de sneeuw
Leuwentemmer spelen en m’n opa was de leeuw
Altijd als we samen waren hadden we plezier
Stierenvechter spelen en m’n opa was de stier
Mijn Opa - Annie MG Schmidt

Are grandmothers and grandfathers the last, remarkably, they were also the first to shape the 'extended family'. Long before humans started living in villages, roaming around in groups as hunters and gatherers. The role of grandmothers in assisting raising little ones in those prehistoric times has been the subject of debate, culminating in the formulation of the ‘Grandmother Hypothesis’.

First of all, the scientific mind wonders about the biological reasons why a woman, no longer able to bear a child herself, still lives for so many years after menopause. After all, nature is relentless, and does not like loose ends. Sweet grannies baking apple pie and reading stories to grandchildren hardly fit into serious evolutionary reasoning. But common sense immediately understands how logical and welcome grandma's contribution was within primal families - yes, crucial for the smallest children to survive the first vulnerable years.

Within the aforementioned hypothesis, there was no role for grandfathers. After all, they remained and remain fertile until an advanced age, a fact that did not give rise to any evolutionary suspicion as in the case of grandmothers. But be that as it may, both grandfathers and grandmothers did need to be fit enough at their age to be an active part of the circle that surrounded small children. Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman therefore suggests the ‘Active Grandparents Theory’.

What stands between a grandfather and a grandson, between a grandmother and a granddaughter, is the hinge of time. Where one looks forward and claims the future, the other leans back after the effort is done, filled with life experience and memories.

I don't need to ask you to walk forward a bit and observe how your immediate surroundings seem to be slowly approaching you. That is everyday experience. Perhaps you read the text Observing that I wrote and posted a few months ago? If so, you may remember the clip of the train driver's field of vision. The future thundered in unimpeded through the locomotive's windscreen.

And now walk backwards for a bit. You will see that the immediate surroundings recede. In the Observation article, this sensory experience was underlined and magnified by a clip filmed through the window at the rear of the train's rear carriage. The landscape slips away, the past disappears.

Walk forward. The foot rolls off. And it is from the forefoot and toes that you make the move forward.

Then walk backwards. The foot rolls off, but now starting at the toes, then the forefoot, the midfoot and finally the heel. Walking backwards plants the heel firmly into the ground.

On the inside of the foot lies a special acupuncture point. It marks the geographical centre of the foot, midway between the forefoot and toes, and the heel. It belongs to the no man's land between the forward and backward movements. It marks the hairline line between the infinity ahead and a similar unlimited space on your backside. The point is the embodiment of the middle of time.

Its name is Gong Sun: 'grandfather and grandson'. I take the liberty of extending the translation to 'grandmother and granddaughter' or simply 'grandparent and grandchild'.

Stand upright with your feet side by side, not in any special way. Look forward, at an object that grabs your attention. Be drawn to it, as if you would like to go there, to take a closer look. Lean forward slightly. The body weight passes Gong Sun and slowly collects in the forefoot and toes. Your body gradually becomes unbalanced and it won't be long until you have to start taking a step towards the aroused interest. Looking forward, desire and curiosity, leaning forward, weight on the forefoot, impatience and imbalance, and the final step. Let all that be symbolised by the life of the grandchild.

A child, absorbed in the game, ready to run away. A football defender or goalkeeper, standing alert in the front foot. A judoka on the mat, ready for action. A runner just before the start. Standing with the weight gathered in the heels, that's not going to be it, you'll be locked.

Then stand neutral again. This time with half-closed eyes. Pay no heed to what is in front of you. Forget any curiosity and future. Let the weight of your body flow back to your heels. Take it away from the front feet. Your back is slightly arched. Settle down where you are standing. The attention that first gathered in the areas in front of you and above you, will move to the areas below you and behind you. The high frequency of wanting to be in action and excitement is exchanged for the lower tonal range and calmness that belongs more to the life of grandparents.

Is it nonsensical to conflate the dimensions of time and those of space? Does this go totally against the stern logic of science? Research on a modest scale hints at how a physical activity - in this case walking backwards - does seem to affect a mental factor - short-term memory.

Henry David Thoreau had the dimensions of time and space intertwined when he noted:

… for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that ‘for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day.’

Now, for a third time. Stand upright and this time distribute your weight accurately across your entire foot. There is pressure in your heels as well as pressure in your forefeet and toes. Use the location of the Gong Sun point as a balancing point between the two worlds. The intention hidden in this central posture has both a forward and a backward component. The future ahead and the past behind are both in view, and both can be entered.

An important component in practising the Wu Chi posture consists of imagining a balloon that you prevent from dropping on the ground, by holding it with the inside of your knees. Here you need very little inward pressure, as the balloon hardly weighs anything. Holding a balloon will emphasise the inside of the feet. This, combined with distributing body weight between heel and forefoot, will bring the focus of your standing around Gong Sun.

It is mentioned in classical Chinese medical textbooks that Gong Sun is the master point of the Chong Mai, the soft structures in the vertical axis of the body. While the forefoot is connected to the front of the body - including visual perception - and the heel has a connection to the dorsal side of the body, standing with one's weight in Gong Sun directs attention and circulation to the centre of support, the embodiment of the here-and-now.

The 'chi' of 'wu chi' can be translated as 'extreme' or 'polar'. Already standing before you is the infinite space and unlimited possibilities of the future. And behind you the infinite depths of the past. 'Wu' is the negation of, the holding back to enter either of these two extremes. 'Wu chi' refers to the hair-fine line that separates and connects these two worlds: the elusive now-moment.

Within Chinese traditional internal martial arts, there is a remarkable training method: remaining in certain body positions for long periods of time. Not infrequently, such practices are viewed with a certain disdain. They are said to be static, detached from martial dynamics and actually naive. How could martial skill ever be trained by standing still? Yet the correct practice of zhan zhuang - the collection of standing poses - shows that reaction speed, sensitivity, movement coordination and resistance to stress can be honed through it.

One martial tradition in particular, I Chuan, is fully committed to the use of silent postures. The entire basis of I Chuan is laid by zhan zhuang practice. Zhan zhuang is translated in the literal sense as 'standing like a stick', but more vividly as 'standing like a tree'. An essential posture is wu chi zhuang.

‘Wu chi’ refers to unformed action. Before a defined action is selected to be performed, there are innumerable other actions possible. Before ‘stepping forward’ is selected and ultimately manifested, together with ‘stepping backward’, ‘stepping sideways’, jumping up’ or ‘turning’ and many more movement options it lays dormant and all have equal potential value. There exists a vacuum, a stage of stillness, where all these options have wakened up, but none of these have yet manifested.

The practice of the wu chi posture doesn’t include any particular movement, at the same time it includes the potential of all movements. Instead of focussing on merely ‘stepping forward’, one intends ‘stepping forward’ and ‘stepping backward’ at the same time. Plus ‘stepping left’ and ‘stepping right’, ‘sitting down’ and ‘standing up’, ‘turning left’ and tuning right. The wu chi practice lay in the area of pre-movement.

While standing still in the wu chi posture the intention (i) is preparing the body for action. All the qualities of movement are highlighted: the direction, the duration, the length, the strength, the intensity etc. without all that leads to an actual movement. The practitioner wants to move, has cultivated the strong intention to do so, but doesn’t show any of it.

Instead of a dull stand-off, a boring standstill, the wu chi posture includes a high internal dynamic. It shimmers with possibilities.

The wu chi posture resembles the stance of a marvelled child. Or the stance of an adult, intensely listening. Centred, grounded, balanced, the senses primed, optimally relaxed. The decision to move has not yet been made, and is repeatedly postponed. Yet the body is ready to spring into action at any time.

On the athletics track sounds ON YOUR MARKS: the body relaxes and connects with the ground. Than GET SET: the mind sharpens and alertness grows. With GO the athlete explodes into action and the accumulated energy is being consumed.

However, the wu chi training takes a different track. ON YOUR MARKS and GET SET remain the same, but on GO, the practitioner doesn’t sprint forward at all.

At the normally inevitable GO the practitioner returns to the deep relaxation phase of ON YOUR MARKS. And use that as a bedding for an increased mental sharpness at another GET SET. The GO phase is omitted - what follows is an ongoing alternation between ON OUR MARKS and GET SET, in ever-increasing intensity and refinement. The GO moment is closely approached and a lot of potential energy, chi, is built up. None of it is lost in the movement. The area of research of the wu chi zhuang is the seemingly empty space before the movement, the movement that, as long the wu chi posture is practiced, will never manifest.

Physically, the wu chi posture is left-right symmetrical. The intention to move is also equally divided between the left and right sides. At a GO command, the practitioner could move equally fast and equally powerful to either the left or the right. However, the GO command will not sound, and movement will not appear, but the circulation of chi will, in abundant measure.

Equally, the physical posture and distribution of intention is also perfectly divided between the front and the back of the body. When a GO command would sound, the practitioner could move forward or backward quickly and adequately. But there won’t be any GO command, and no physical movement to either the back or the front, but chi circulation to these regions is greatly enhanced.

And the same goes for the space above and the space below.
 
Imagine: you are standing still in the middle of traffic on a very busy square. All around are pedestrians, cyclists, cars, a bus and a tram. When the body is tense and/or the mind distracted, you will never be able to give the right response to potential collision. A cyclist comes from the right, a car from behind, the tram from the front. Your attention and intention to step away quickly must divide between six primary directions. The wu chi posture will give a clue.

If you don't like the image of a busy traffic square: get up early in spring or early summer and go into the forest. Stand with your eyes closed, upright, feet firmly on the ground, relaxed, ears pricked. The wonder of bird sounds will naturally connect you to the space around you. Bird sounds in front, behind, left and right, above, and perhaps near you on the ground. Your breath is elongated and still. There won’t be any physical move in any of these directions. From your body centre in your lower abdomen, the xia dan tian, sensual awareness, intention and chi will spread in six directions.

Remember the hide-and-seek of your childhood. After counting back, you stood there alone, wondering where your friends were. You looked forward, but equally well backwards. You looked left and right, up and down, tried to do all that at the same time. And with that you kept an eye on the whole environment, you were able to take action in every possible direction if necessary.

In the I Chuan tradition, we train in the wu chi stance for five or ten minutes. Five or ten minutes to refine sensory perception and train alertness, increase reaction speed, become more grounded, and build chi. But there are also days when we stand in that same wu chi posture for 45 minutes. 45 minutes devoted to high energy training.

Another name for the wu chi stance is ti cha zhuang. Ti translated as 'carrying' or 'lifting', cha as 'stabbing'. In silence, when practicing the ti cha zhuang you make these two opposing movements simultaneously: an upward directed lifting, and a downward directed stabbing. Both movements are limited to a bare minimum; in fact, they balance each other in such way that the result seems a silent pose. The intention is clear: no physical movement but a strong stimulus for chi circulation.

This is what the first stretch of the Ba Duan Jing series looks like. And not performed by a soldier from Yu Fei's army. Nor by any of the figures on the Dao Yin Tu. A jolly, round-bellied monk has his palms turned upwards and stretches his arms. As if he were lifting a slab of a system ceiling. It apparently takes him little effort, because instead of his face contorted with exertion, his smile could not be more generous. It is not rare to see a statue of this eccentric figure standing at the entrance of a Chinese restaurant, welcoming incoming guests. We are used to doing so with a single open hand gesture pointing to the door. But in the manner of the merry monk, the body in total extension, it can apparently be done that way too.

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The search for the origins of the Eight Brocade Series, the Ba Duan Jin took us to Yu Fei, general of the Southern Song Dynasty. The intervening 900 years have erased many traces of the direct connection between contemporary practice and that in Yu Fei's time. It is therefore not easy to distinguish reality from legend in the story of the Ba Duan Jin's history. Not that that matters much to the contemporary practitioner. A really good story sells itself and continues to be passed on from generation to generation. And the Ba Duan Jin is such a good story.

Every beginning is a continuation of what has proceeded. Yu Fei, too, had his teachers. It cannot have been otherwise, that he based his Hsing I Chuan and his Ba Duan Jin on older sources.

While constructing a hospital in 1971 in a suburb of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province in China, workers stumbled upon what would later become one of the most significant archaeological finds ever. The site of the find was known as Ma Wang Dui, the 'Mound of the Horse King'. Did the hill's name refer to its saddle shape? Or did the name refer to King Ma Yin (馬殷)of the kingdom of Chu (楚)? However, the Horse King was also a deity in the Chinese pantheon: was the hill sometimes dedicated to him at the time?

In 1971, workers in Changsha were digging out a space for a hospital’s air raid shelter in a hilly area called Mawangdui (馬王堆). The work was tough and dangerous, and landslides sometimes interrupted it. The ground felt unstable in one area, so they took a cigarette break before dealing with it, only to find that the sparks from their matches lit up gas seeping from underground. Locals recognised the ghostly blue fireballs as a sign that there was an ancient tomb nearby (decomposing material releases flammable gas), so contacted archaeologists. Under excavation team directors Hou Liang and Zhou Shirong, and with the help of students from local schools, the archaeologists began to carefully excavate the tombs.

So far wonderful ingredients for a Chinese Indiana Jones thrill: an ordinary suburb, a shrine of an old horse-king, a bomb shelter, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, a smoke break, sparling matches, old tales of blue fireballs.

The archaeologists claim that someone found a leaf deep under the in mud as they were digging. Despite being as old as the tomb itself, it was still green. It was a sign of what was to come. The workers had uncovered the three tombs of Mawangdui. The mistakenly named ‘King Ma’s Mound’ was in fact the Li family’s mound.
Xin Zhui, the marquise beneath the mound - Victor Max Smith

Three tombs from the Han Dynasty were found. The first belonged to Marquis Li Cang ( 利蒼), who had died in 186 BC, but this tomb had unfortunately been looted sometime in history. A second tomb, however, had never been entered and contained an abundance of the most exquisite objects. It had belonged to Li Cang's wife Xin Zhui ( 辛追), the Marquise of Dai. Her body was remarkably intact, lying in four coffins, fitting in each other like matryoshka’s.

The third grave had belonged to a man who had died young. He was probably the son of the noble couple. The most important find in here was a variety of texts - written on silk, wood and bamboo - including the oldest known versions of the I Ching, the Book of Change and Lao Zi's Tao Teh Ching. The discovery of these texts would give a major boost to the understanding of classical Chinese thought.

Also found in the younger man's tomb was a painting on silk depicting 44 exercises. This painting later became known as Dao Yin Tu. Dao Yin (導引)is a generic name for a multitude of traditional exercises to improve and maintain health. The meaning of 'dao' (導) is ‘leading’ and that of 'yin' (引) is ‘stretching’ or ‘pulling’. 'Tu' means 'image' or 'map’. The chi is guided into its natural pathways in an interplay of postural training and physical movement, of breathing and aiming through intention. Limbs and torso are stretched, and tensioned and discharged like an arc. Through a combination of techniques that guide the chi and techniques that stretch the meridians, thereby dissolving possible stagnations, chi circulation is promoted.

Large sections of the Dao Yin Tu had decayed and a group of specialists from a variety of disciplines spent a long time considering how the missing sections could be filled. The Dao Yin Tu contains only little text, so that provided little guidance. Furthermore, each illustration is a snapshot of a moving sequence, but it could just as easily be that the illustration depicts a static pose. The final reconstruction of the Dao Yin Tu is marvellous, but how did the researchers arrive at this result, and what choices did they make in the process of reconstruction?

If we take a closer look at the 44 drawn representations and juxtapose what we see with the experience we each have with chi kung, tai chi chuan or any other traditional martial or health discipline, a few things immediately stand out.

The Dao Yin Tu shows both men and women.

Some are barefoot, most are elegantly shod.

Some wear a tunic - common among Han Chinese people - others trousers - in vogue among the northern riding population.

And what kind of people are we dealing with: soldier, acrobat, peasant, civilian?

Some figures have bared upper bodies and appear to be engaged in breathing exercises. A few others are practising with a stick.

And does it concern a moving exercise or a standing pose?

And don't some of the drawings resemble parts of the Ba Duan Jin? But the Dao Yin Tu dates from 200-150 BC and according to the historiography, the Ba Duan Jin would only take its form around 1100 AD. How about that?

To be followed up soon ...

It is still early in the morning. In the distance, the sound of a locomotive coming on steam. The weather has suddenly cooled down after the oppressive heat of late summer. The smell of fog, coal, burlap sacks and rice.

I don't have to look for my black Fei He Flying Pigeon bike - I park it every afternoon or evening at the fixed spot I agreed with myself. Finding a black Fei He among a mass of other identical black Fei He's is not to be done, I concluded earlier this year.

My bag in the handlebar basket, bike unlocked, and on my way. There are not too many cars, all the more honking. Later, back in the Netherlands, the sound of a single horn brings me back to bicycles, autumn mornings and Hangzhou (read also Family #2). I blend into the stream of silent cyclists. First a stretch on the wide Huang Cheng Xi Lu, named after the city wall around the city that once stood here. Then turn right into the street that runs alongside the lake.

There are some small restaurants and modest shops where in early morning staff display their nemesis outside. Right along the street, on the pavement, quite a few bicycle mechanics are already waiting for patronage. A box of tools and some spare parts, a bicycle pump, that's all it is, but enough to fix the common bike repairs. The fog turns to patches here, between which a watery sun reports.

The road follows the shore of the Xi Hu, the famous West Lake. I cycle this road every working day of the week. My teacher in chi kung is called Luo Zhen and he runs a small training centre on the grounds of old Buddhist Ling Yin temple. To get there, I have to follow the northern shore of the lake, but halfway there I stop for a break.

An entrance gate, a ticket office, a small parking area for buses. Every day I pass by here, I see groups of Chinese visitors. They come for the grave and memorial of one of the historical national heroes, General Yu Fei. Could you compare him to Michiel de Ruyter, or Horatio Nelson? Over the centuries, Yu Fei's person became a model of incorruptibility; he is patriotism in person.

Yu Fei is born in 1103, during the Northern Song Dynasty. From the north, the Jurchen, invade the country and eventually the imperial court has to retreat to the south. There, the Southern Song Dynasty is founded, with Hangzhou as its capital. Yu Fei enlists in the army and quickly rises in rank. As commander, he leads campaigns against the Jurchen, who founded the Jin dynasty in the north.

Yu Fei is successful in defending the homeland, but at the court in Hangzhou not everyone is happy about it. There is a conspiracy against him and when he is called back to the capital, he is accused of high treason, imprisoned and eventually put to death. Soon after his death, he is rehabilitated and this temple on the shore of West Lake is erected to his memory.

The Southern Song will finally succumb. The Jin Dynasty of the Jurchen is overrun by another nomad-rider people, the Mongols. Led by their leader, Kublai Khan, a grandson of Dzhengis Khan, southern China is conquered as well. The Song Dynasty passes into the Mongol Yuan Dynasty.

During Kublai Khan's lifetime, a remarkable guest visited the ancient capital Hangzhou.

The second voyage again had Beijing as its starting point and followed the east coast southwards to Hangzhou (Quinsai), Fuzhou and Canton (Zaiton), South China's main port (Mangi). The northern part of the journey, crossing the Yellow River and following the Grand Canal to the Jangtsekiang, Marco Polo probably travelled more frequently. He reported that he had visited Hangzhou several times. Hangzhou was the former capital of the Southern Song dynasty, conquered by Kubai in 1276. With about 300,000 inhabitants, it was the largest city in the world in the 13th century. No other place gets as much attention in the book as Hangzhou and the neighbouring Western Lake. According to Marco Polo, the city is said to have a circumference of a hundred miles and contain 12,000 stone bridges. Wikipedia

Yu Fei not only goes down in history as one of the most skilled generals in Chinese history. He is also considered the founder of the Hsing I Chuan or Xing Yi Quan. This is considered one of the three Chinese internal martial traditions, alongside Tai Chi Chuan and Ba Gua Zhang. Yu Fei is said to have developed the Hsing I Chuan from various sources. As often happens in history, all kinds of things are not always rightly attributed to prominent historical figures and heroes. It is therefore up for debate whether the Hsing I Chuan tradition begins with Yu Fei.

The transmission of martial traditions generally took place without a written record. Knowledge and experience were passed on only within clans or families, or exceptionally to a confidant who had shown himself worthy of receiving the knowledge over a long period of time. Recording techniques and insights on paper certainly meant leaking vital information. Transmission took place in a practical and physical way, and was based on ingraining movement patterns through repetition. A theoretical foundation was in fact not an issue - or perhaps better said - theory was intertwined with physical practice.

We should also realise that the circles where the various martial disciplines circulated were generally illiterate. Only a small upper layer of Chinese society was proficient in the language, and that did not include the bulk of the military profession. During the 19th century, martial disciplines were recognised as valuable cultural and heritage in China. Doctors saw its value for preventive medicine. Political philosophers and activists saw its potential for education and strengthening discipline. For the first time, the techniques and history of the many martial disciplines were researched and described. However, many gaps remained in the knowledge of their genesis and lines of transmission. Legend and reality are often difficult to separate.

The fact is that a central training stance within Hsing I Chuan, the san ti shi - the triangle stance, may very well have had its origins in the use of stick and lance in Yu Fei's infantry. The 'open' san ti stance evolved over the centuries into the more 'closed' chen bao zhuang (read: tree time chi kung #3).

So let us assume that General Yu Fei was indeed at the root of Hsing I Chuan. For many centuries, there is no mention of it and it seems to have been lost. Until around the transition from Ming to Qing dynasty, a certain master Ji Ji-Ke, aka Ji Long-Feng, found a training manual by Yu Fei and gave Hsing I Chuan its current form. The style spread and one of the keepers of the tradition in the 19th century was Guo Yun-Shen. His disciple was Wang Xiang-Zhai and with him the I Chuan tradition begins with its range of standing training stances. Thus, according to this line of transmission, there is a direct connection between Yu Fei and the practice of standing chi kung.

Another tradition with which Yu Fei is associated is the Ba Duan Jin, the Eight Brocade series. He is said to have designed and deployed this series of exercises for the physical and mental resilience of his soldiers. The exact form in which Ba Duan Jin was practised during Yu Fei's time is not known. Between the early 12th century and the present, Ba Duan Jin has seen many imitations and has evolved in numerous variations.

To be followed up soon ...