For The Development Status of Martial Arts Transmission in Yongchun County after the Epidemic Part 1 click here.
A Casual Conversation at the Pengxiang Martial Arts Hall in Yongchun County, Fujian Province,
Interviewee: School Owner Zheng Xiaorong
June 22, 2024
Part 2
Special thanks to Sifu William Wain-Williams of the Monkey Steals Peach web project, and Sifu Xu Lanyu, vice chairman of Fuzhou Wushu Association, who helped to arranged for this interview.
Q: Did Mr. Zheng inquire about any information related to Phoenix Mountain?
A: I haven't had much contact. I have seen the name Phoenix Mountain in a boxing book, but I haven't understood it in reality. The mention in the manual is also very brief and one-sided, with some special movement names, but very few. This place has not been found, and the relation to Crane Fist has not been found for the time being.
[Phoenix Mountain is related to the ancient folk stories about the White Crane Immortal, who battles a Buddhist monk for the right to stay at a mountain called Phoenix Mountain, conjuring animals and sending cranes to battle dragons or snakes. This type of street folk story telling was the medieval version of TV shows. Ed.]
Q: In the process of modern promotion, what is the most difficult concept for students at home and abroad to teach?
A: The problem of modern people stems from the influence of the entire social environment. Most people are very utilitarian; they don't think about the profound aspects of learning things, they only think about it one-sidedly. You learn a few sets of forms, and you don't think of the point, the true value; just learn the form don’t think about it, and feel satisfied. In the past, some visitors didn't care about a lot of internal things, but they wanted to learn three or four routines in one or two days.
In fact, the most important aspect is within. For example, many of our old-timers have forgotten all the routines after reaching a certain age, but the basic requirements are still in their minds. When my master was in his eighties, I asked him: “Can you teach me that routine again”, but he would say he forgot it; yet when asked about some basic requirements, he remembered all clearly. Then we have a saying that is to summarize the mentality: “When the practitioner is first introduced, there is just focus external appearance, or how to beat up people. However, the most critical core is the soul.”
In the past, this mentality was summarized in the learning stage of being able to hit people first, then there was the structure and forms, then it would move to learning to control the hard and soft, similar to learning the tone and rhythm of singing. Then it enters the natural state of improvisation, which is the highest state, called without self, and there is no fixation on forms. But as soon as you fight, you can immediately react and show everything you have ever learned. Therefore, some elderly Crane people, when performing a form for you, may temporarily form some movements at will, or compose special stances, but these are not strict routines. Therefore, martial arts are not static, and we will have a different understanding of our personal practices as we grow older.
Q: That sounds like the saying “Discard the fist poems, learn the boxing spirit, forget the shapes, and get the soul of boxing”?
A: That's similar enough. If today's children are training the form like morning gymnastics, they are ok, but when they are fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, or thirty or forty years old, they go down such a road, they feel the need to grow in culture and deeper learning. If you are still in the rough, aggressive mental attitude of your twenties when you are in your fifties, then your martial arts path will be over. If you can't get past to the next level, there will be a situation when you reach a certain age and can’t lose face. When you are in your fifties and still begging someone to teach you, one or both sides will lose face. By then cultivation is not enough, and often these people can only stand on the edge of the real martial arts world and watch from the sidelines, and neither could they move on. So two White Crane practitioners can perform the same form with the same movements, but the posture and demeanor embodied by the two are different.
Q: Mr. Zheng mentioned that there are some more distant branches of Southern kung fu, and their Sanchin hands do not turn their wrists. For some, it is because of the different strategies of their systems, and some others may not have received this practice because their ancestors were outsiders to Fujian. Some online interviews with Okinawa Goju Ryu karate people said that their ancestor, Fuzhou's “Ru Ru Ko” originally came from the northern capital. Maybe there were some details of Sanchin that weren’t shared with him?
A: There are various training methods mentioned in the boxing book, so it can't be said that there is a problem with their inheritance. Last time, I had a conversation with Karate Doctor Lu Jiangwei, and he brought Jin Boqing, an education director in Okinawa. They told me that they have various forms in UechiRyu, but there is no posture that is like our Sanchin hands, and it cannot be said that he is wrong, nor can it be said that he has not passed on the lineage, because the existence of this form of straight wrist Sanchin is recorded in the old manuals. In fact, Sanchin can exist in many forms; it is freeform, just like how you mentioned about forgetting the shape and getting the soul of the system.
Q: Did you witness the extinction of other local sects in Yongchun County?
A: It's normal for arts to meet extinction; it's a phenomenon of natural laws. Martial arts schools emerge suddenly or slowly, and then die out in the same way. For example, there is a place called Dongping in the township next door, and there were some other schools that were different from us, but now they are gone. They can't even remember its name. With the progress of society and the cultural trend, the people who develop and receive cultural inheritances gradually disappear, so it is normal to say that the dying of the kung fu genre is not surprising.
Q: Does Mr. Zheng have any explanation of the meaning of San Zhan?
A: San Zhan is the mother of the White Crane of Yongchun. That is to say, all the boxing techniques, all the basic requirements are in the three battles. After practicing the three battles, you can practice other routines. Fujian saying, “Learn three battles until death”; this is not an exaggeration. We've had a few boxers who are still gesturing with their hands when they're dying in bed. The important thing about the three battles is that a lot of inner knowledge is reflected in its practice.
The textual explanation of the three wars in detail has three postures, that is, the head, body, feet, and steps must be stable. The other is to pay attention to the meridian. The meridian is the north-south line of the ancient clock and compass that is mentioned in Feng Shui. White Crane Boxing is very particular about the meridian. My personal understanding is that it is the principle of the midline of the human body, and this line has many key points. Therefore, when practicing the three battles, it is necessary to keep the center of the meridian and protect the middle line.
Q: The meridian concept is extracted from the heavenly clock of the I Ching, may I ask if the White Crane Boxing borrows some other concepts from the I Ching, such as the four seasons, the four animals, and so on.
A: Yes. The White Crane will borrow terms from the I Ching to chart the human body. For example, the Yongchun White Crane has three planes (triple eight trigrams), divided into upper, middle and lower, for different heights of the body, and the different directions of the trigrams are used for the directions of the body. Contents of the Book of Changes are used to communicate and integrate ideas of martial arts, but not in a very esoteric manner. These terms should not be obsessed about.
Q: Is there a saying about heaven, earth and man?
A: I haven't heard of it. The Heaven-Earth-Man battle is a San Zhan routine of the Five Ancestors Fist.
Q: I heard that the Weng Gong Ancestral Hall is the oldest surviving Crane Boxing martial arts gym in modern times, have you heard of any martial arts hall that is older than the Weng Gong Ancestral Hall? What happened to cause them to disappear?
A: Weng Gong Ancestral Hall is considered oldest because after the completion of the national examination in Nanjing in 1928, Zhang Zhijiang, Chairman of the National Examination Committee, awarded the seven White Crane boxers who took the martial arts exam a teaching appointment for the Hall on behalf of the national government. At that time it was called the Fujian Branch of the Central Guoshu Museum, and later the martial arts hall was transferred to the Weng Gong Ancestral Hall, so it was directly called the Weng Gong Ancestral Hall Martial Arts School. At that time, the Central Guoshu Museum officially recognized as a gym, so according to the legal level, it was the first Crane Boxing martial arts gym recognized by the government.
There have always been many private “halls”, but they have not been recognized by the government. If I come to your house and you call your relatives and friends to come over, ten or twenty of them will be called one “hall” for one month, second “hall” for the second month of study, third “hall” for the third month, and so on. Many local family heirs have been teaching countless “halls” since ancient times.
Q: Does Fang Qiniang currently have any known descendants?
A: Fang Qiniang has no known descendants, despite searching. The legend at that time was that Zeng Si married her and brought two children here, but we have not found the family tree. Because her husband's surname is Zeng, we now have some local boxers with the surname Zeng who think that Zeng Si is an ancestor, which is their conjecture, but there is no basis for it. Most of them can't be supported by genealogies.
Q: But they have family trees, right?
A: Yes, but they can't find Zeng Si's name. Therefore, the real situation of the White Crane Fist is also speculated by various legends.
Q: Did Fang Qiniang's students find it? For example, twenty-eight heroes, five tigers before and after, etc.
A: Students have descendants. Uncle Zheng Li belongs to our big family, that is, it can correspond in the genealogy. Zheng Li was amongst the first five tigers, and the five later tigers included Zheng Chong, his descendant. I don't know how the other families trace their genealogies. Peng Xiang is the name of our family hall, so our martial arts gym is also called Peng Xiang.
The interview will continue in part 3…
