The new documentary by Jon Braeley, Chen Village, is a beautiful and fascinating journey inside the birthplace of Tai Chi. I bought the DVD through amazon.com and eagerly watched it a few nights ago when it arrived.
Shot in high definition, the documentary includes interviews with westerners who have traveled to Chen Village to study, and it shows a disciple ceremony in which Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang accepts new disciples.
Chen Village (Chenjiagou) is located in Henan Province. It's a very poor village with 3,000 residents. It's estimated that 2,500 of them practice tai chi, and 85% of them have the Chen surname. You see parts of the village here that you haven't seen before. When you think of the birthplace of Tai Chi, you might think of beautiful Chinese buildings, and there are a few that meet the description, but Chenjiagou is a dirt-poor farming community. It just happens that they are the best in the world at their art.
The documentary features Chen Xiaowang, his brother and principle of the Chenjiagou tai chi school Chen Xiaoxing, Chen Ziqiang (son of Xiaoxing) and Chen Bing (a nephew of Xiaowang and Xiaoxing). It's exciting to watch, considering I have met and trained with three of the four, and Chen Xiaoxing stayed in our home for a week. It's also fascinating to see the school since I received a certificate in 2005 as a recognized instructor connected to the school.
I didn't know until seeing this DVD that Chen Bing now runs his own school, and he has built it with foreign students in mind. Some students have been reluctant in the past to travel to Chen Village because living conditions are not very good compared with our standards.
I was disappointed but not surprised to hear Chen Bing say that foreign students are usually trained differently than the Chinese -- not as tough because they can't take it, and most of them, he says, are interested in the health aspects more than the martial aspects. Are you listening, people? They don't consider us to be very serious because we focus on the wrong things.
Chen Ziqiang is interviewed, talking about how only one in a hundred students -- even those from the Chen Village -- are able to persist long enough to become really good at tai chi. I've been teaching now for a dozen years and that is something that becomes clear very quickly when you teach -- the fact that for every 100 people that come through the door, only one has the determination and passion to achieve their goals.
The interviews with the western students are very interesting. They find themselves in a very simple environment when they stay at the Chen Village -- a much slower and far less technological lifestyle. A few of the comments go a little over-the-top, as you can imagine from people who are dedicated enough to spend a year or two living there. One student actually breaks down and cries when he speaks about his devotion to Chen Xiaowang. I understand the devotion, but I tend to look at these masters as people who are the best at what they do -- like Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, all worthy of tremendous respect. I don't look at them as gods. Nancy watched the documentary with me and strongly objected to the disciple ceremony where the disciples were kneeling and bowing in worship before Grandmaster Chen. I didn't react as strongly because I understand why they're doing it, but it was fascinating to see a ceremony like this after hearing about it. When you become a disciple it's a very serious relationship, supposedly like being admitted to the family, and yet there is a master/student relationship that is very strict, and let's face it, the culture is not what we are accustomed to. Americans by nature don't like to kneel and prostrate themselves before anyone (we reserve that behavior for our relationship with invisible beings), but in the context of the situation and the culture, it's something that you do.
Chen Bing is shown at his school demonstrating a form, and as usual, he's breathtakingly impressive. There is a little video of Chen Xiaoxing practicing with some students, and Chen Xiaowang does a short demo, too.
As I heal from the lung problem that has plagued me this year, I have one goal -- to travel to Chen Village and give it my best effort to train like the Chinese. I've taken a week off of practicing as I gear up for this medical procedure at the Cleveland Clinic next week, but watching this documentary made me want to bounce off the walls. I just can't wait to get over this thing and start building my strength and practice HARD again. It's nice that Jon Braeley has produced such an inspirational film.
I highly recommend this DVD to anyone with an interest in Tai Chi.
I received a very nice email this morning from a good man in Rio who suggested that I've been having breathing problems due to performing chi kung improperly.
I certainly appreciated his concern and the fact that he reached out, and I understand he has good intentions (he has worked with chi kung for 30 years) but -- it will come as no surprise to those who know me -- I couldn't let this go by without a challenge. Don't blame me. I'm a stickler for facts and critical thinking.
Here's another way to look at it. Perhaps my condition hasn't gotten a lot worse because I do chi kung properly.
In my reply to this nice guy in Rio, I asked him if he could supply me with any clinical evidence to back up his theory. I prefer, of course, peer-reviewed trials, preferably double-blind but at least something that can be duplicated by other medical trials.
I would like to issue this challenge to anyone reading this. Can you supply me with valid, objective clinical trial evidence, peer-reviewed, that suggests you can be harmed by chi kung?
Because you see, I don't think there's any way you can become ill or experience the onset of any type of physical problem by practicing chi kung, whether you are doing it properly or not. Okay, you might do a squat or low movement and injure a knee, but that's not what I'm talking about. After all, if you can develop serious medical problems by doing chi kung wrong, millions of people who buy chi kung DVDs and practice at home should be in the hospital.
I'm not interested in anecdotal evidence. That isn't true evidence. It's highly subjective and often, people will tell an acupuncturist or chi healer that their treatments work when, in fact, they don't.
I've heard stories--anecdotes--of people who went to a tai chi class and did chi kung. Suddenly they felt weak, dizzy, tingling, felt pain somewhere, began crying -- you've probably heard these stories, too. And I don't doubt that it happened. I simply believe the people who reacted this way brought some heavy emotional or physical baggage with them into the class--emotional or physical illnesses that can easily be disguised when people don't know you well.
There is nothing dangerous at all in the breathing, calming, centering, even moving exercises of chi kung. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Can't happen, unless you practice in a room where people are exhaling the flu bug into the air, or you're in a cold, damp place and susceptible to a cold. Or if, by calming down, you suddenly experience a flood of memories of childhood abuse or something. But that isn't caused by chi kung, is it?
A lot of us buy into this myth when we first study chi kung. I was told early in my Hsing-I training that if I practiced certain fist postures incorrectly, the corresponding organs in my body would be damaged. Now seriously. What's amazing is that modern, college-educated folks will buy into that crap just because a "teacher" or someone who appears to be in authority tells them its true. Or they read about it in a magazine article that is sloppily written and poorly sourced, relying on anecdotes, personal exaggerations, or evidence from sources with a financial interest in perpetuating the myth. We carry the problem forward by repeating it because, by God, we're in the internal arts, and to be in the internal arts means you must be mystical, right? You HAVE to believe in this stuff.
Wrong. You have to believe in the truth, in something real, in something that is backed up with real evidence that can be repeated and can stand the test of a double blind inquiry, which greatly reduces the ability to cheat either by the doctor or the patient.
Let's face it, we all get older, little things go wrong, we deal with them or get them fixed. Tai chi masters die young and old. They grow feeble and pass away. They develop diabetes and heart problems and clogged arteries. Their joints go bad (even Chen Xiaowang has had knee surgery). Chi healers develop cancer just like everyone else, and sometimes they pass away at relatively young ages. Anyone remember Jane Hallendar?
Last year, for no known reason, my heart developed additional electrical pathways and began beating strangely. Chi kung didn't fix it, but Dr. Michael Giudici at Genesis Medical Center in Davenport (a genius, by the way) did. Unfortunately, while on the table, I aspirated into my lungs. The stuff from my stomach triggered pneumonia in the lungs, and I was improving through January, teaching classes, making videos, but I was coughing my head off 24 hours a day. I fought to get stronger cough syrup but they don't like to prescribe it, so by February, the coughing had torn something in my left lung. I've been coughing up blood since that time (not every day but sometimes 3 or 4 times a day) and now we realize it isn't going to heal without extra help - cauterization at the Cleveland Clinic. One lesson from this is to be a strong advocate for yourself and if you need something stronger, don't let the doctors keep it from you.
Conditions like these happen to chi kung practitioners, they happen to wonderful people, they happen to bad people. They happen to Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists and athiests.
"It" happens. And it has nothing to do with chi kung. How you deal with it shows what you're made of. And I see myself competing in tournaments next year.
If you can show me that chi kung can be harmful and create this type of problem, and you have evidence that would stand up to peer review and would be published in a reliable medical journal, please send it my way.
Otherwise, please stop perpetuating the fantasy, in your own mind and in the minds of others. That does more of a disservice than anything you can possibly do. You might as well believe that an invisible being is going to fix you. That makes just as much sense, and works just as well from a placebo effect.
I'm just sayin.' :) If you have evidence to prove me wrong, bring it on.
