"Mind Over Matter" by Shi Ming

Has anyone read "MIND OVER MATTER" Higher Martial Arts. By Shi Ming, translated by Thomas Cleary.

If you have not, I recomend it highly. It's a hard read, however it discusses some real good topics concerniing Chinese Internal martial arts.

Caution: Shi Ming is obviously a scholor and didn't write the book for your average joe on the street. (look forward to re-reading it twice just to understand what he's talking about)

Anyone who has read the book got any thought on the contents?

Paul
Michigan

I have a video from china about a high level master of tai chi in bejing park that pushes many people over by holding thier wei chi with out touching them of coarse but his name is shu ming is this the same man?

http://www.kungfuUSA.net

Could be, I don't know. His Bio on the back of the book reads "A board member of the China Martial Arts Society and the Beijing Martial Arts Society. "what ever than means I don't know"

Also say's he was featured in a PBS special hosted by Bill Moyers titled "Healing and the Mind"

The book appears to be interesting essay's or recorded lectures given in a university format.
He discusses refinement of conscious in a martial sense, penetrating power (in reference to Chi) and
Yin and Yang theory in martial arts (titled "The last to overcome others") plus other things of interest.

Not a bad read, wordy yes, hard to plow through? maybe. but the book has some interesting nuggets of info..

Shi/Shu Ming died within the last couple of years. He was a proponent of telepathy, ling kong jing, and other nonmaterialistic manifestations of qi and shen. He was featured on the PBS series "Healing and the Mind" produced by Bill Moyers several years ago. He was a taijiquan teacher, but I don't know his lineage or "style". He taught a handful of neigong exercises designed to loosen/relax the spine, sacrum and hips, and by one account seemed to place as much emphasis on these exercises and accompanying meditation as on the taiji form itself.

For what it's worth.

I have been told by a friend that Shi Ming was a student of Wei Shuren, the Beijing Yang style master. I have not been able to find independent confirmation of this (seeing as I don't know chinese or nuthin :)), but I thought I should tell you guys anyway. BTW, wuijidude, how do you know what Shi Ming taught? Do you have a friend in Beijing or something?

This expalains a lot.

Most of the material in the book is based/centered around expanding the general consciousness of the mind in a martial context.

For example, there is a chapter on conditioned reflexes and what the types are:(he defines different types of responses such as offensive attacks (jabs, combo's etc, usally being conditioned reflexes and most defensive measures as being reflexes of conformity.

He makes a good case when he states:" reflexes of conformity are faster than conditioned reflexes due to leakages in conditioned reflexes.

He defines leakage's as unwanted movements. For example: a dip in the shoulder right before you jab or a stutter in your step before you move to attempt a throw. If you think about it, all of us have leakages in some fashion. Some have twitches, some tilt their head to the side before the launch an attack, etc etc.

What he say's is that reflexes that conform to the attack are faster because they don't have that leakage( extra movement): In short they just react/respond to the movement thus conform to the opponent.

This is what my Sifu meant when he said "There is speed and then there is quickness. Speed relates to how fast someone can throw a punch, quickness relates to how fast someone can recoginize said person is about to throw that punch and then respond to it. It's somone's experience that allows him to see the leakages of another's movements.

Shi Ming in his book expalained the concept it in a more scientific way than my Sifu did.

Most of the book is like this, however there wasn't anything on mental projection or telepathy etc,

just interesting commentary of this sort.....

on that healing of the mind when they showed the man pushing the needle through his calf muscle and the qigong master pointing her finger to pass chi through his leg is my qigong teacher yan chu feng. That was filmed in bejing park and featured my teacher along with shu ming and xiao quan, she now lives with me in bufalo NY. we have a picture of me and her doing the same demonstration on our website. do you have a copy of the tape or just a book by him?

http://www.kungfuUSA.net

Dingo:

Yes, I do know people in Beijing.

You may be able to find more information on Shi Ming's specific spine exercises from the Bulgarian Georgi Denichin (tradytj@hotmail.com).

Some idea of the focus of Wei Shuren's teaching (Shi Ming's lineage) can be found in Jarek Szymanski's translation of a brief excerpt from his book, which can be found at http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/spiritSt/xinyi/
taijiquanWSR_new1.htm

John Fung represents himself as a disciple of Wei Shuren, actively teaching in Australia. He makes some interesting claims at his website, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/TaiChi/
Content.htm I don't know anything about Dr. Fung other than the information he presents at his website.

My own opinion is that there was (perhaps still is) much more to the Yang family's "internal" martial skills than has been generally written or taught. Hints of the Yang family's neigong practices come out from time to time. Douglas Wile and Stuart Olson were among the first to present aspects of these in the English language. There appears to be a lot of material we're missing out on.

Wujidude: wrt Wei Shuren's book, I have a copy, and even though I cannot read it at all (being unable to read chinese...yet :)), just the diagrams make very interesting reading. As for your point about there being more to the Yang family's martial skills than is commonly written or taught...oh my god yes! There's the neigong, the yifa (intention methods), the heng-ha and hu-xi breathing methods, a multitude of methods of practicing fajin (shaking pole - dougunzi - practice, practicing with a partner, etc..), and my knowledge of Yang style is still 'outside the door'! God knows what treasures are locked on the other side :-)Before anyone asks, my knowledge of this is due almost entirely to conversations with another member of KFO who goes by the name of 'Wish for peace' - hopefully one day I will be fortunate enough to learn them. Oh, and btw: thanks for the e-mail address, I'll contact him like you suggested. Thanks once again.

Earth Dragon:

I only have a copy of his book. Judging Shi Ming by the context of his book, I figure your Sifu had one intellegent teacher: Most of what I wrote above was either a break down or a summery. You have to have a real martial foundation in order to understand what he's talknig about. (in my oppinion).