Natural movement/XingYi animals/Morris

[GrahamB]

With the discussion of the importance of learning the basics for a significant amount of time before putting into practice vs getting your feet wet earlier on, that's been going on, on the forum, I wonder what people here think about the following Steve Morris article about what he means by natural movement.

http://www.morrisnoholdsbarred.co.uk/07WTFcheetah.htm

Point 1.

I've always held similar views about the XingYi animals to the views expressed here by Morris, to the general derision of certain quarters. Each one of the 12 is designed to capture the character of the animal in question, and that's what you're trying to express (in human terms), not so much a specific 'technique'. The next logical step therefore is to actually observe the animal in question itself, as the ultimate authority on the art.

Or as Morris puts it:

And the other obvious way to get a sensibility of movement in action (survival mode) is to look at animals. My personal favourite is the cheetah.

When you look at the following clip of the cheetah, watch the total body in action. There are no passengers, except maybe the fleas--and they're probably helping as well! Although he's limited by his endurance, the cheetah's movements are continuous irrespective of his failures. He can change direction and pace, and match his movement to his quarry. He's not thinking about this; he's responding to the need to survive. He's not stopping. The conclusion is the capture and the kill, and until he's resolved that, he'll persist until his energy system fails him. In other words, no staccato movements, no stopping and starting over after a referee's decision (was it an ippon or wasn't it?), and nothing done for show. He doesn't care what he looks like (but it happens to be beautiful, that's the economy of nature) he's just trying to get the kill.

If you want to learn from this, then you've got to look at the clip and empathise with the animal. You need to feel what he feels, at a kinesthetic level. Form a visual impression, and ask yourself the question: do I move in a total way? As a human, am I doing anything even remotely equivalent to what this animal can do? This is what the Chinese would have been on about with regards to the animal systems. But it's become very stylized and formalized--wearing the skins and feathers of an animal that has been defanged, declawed, and castrated (which is an old expression of mine which I see somebody over on KU has picked up on and started to use). Wearing the skins and feathers is only any good if it helps you to get inside the animal and take on his attributes and energies at all levels, mental and physical. This is how you touch your own primal drives, original mindset, energy systems, movement patterns, skills, tactics and strategies. Everything you need is already there in blueprint form. And it's right there in front of our eyes, but oftentimes we can't see it because we're looking at the wrong examples, or even in the case of the right examples, we're not seeing what the Chinese would term the essence, or the essentials.

Put a child in a situation never previously encountered, and he responds in these natural ways without instruction. But as adults we get caught up in this irrelevant detail, which is misguiding and often wrong.

So look at the clip and try to take in the sense of it. And then look at yourself on your camcorder, or look at your teacher, and ask yourself: where's the animal? Stop seeing what you want to see and see it as it is.

And OK, not everybody's a cheetah by body type. But even a rhino when pissed off, you watch him move. He doesn't stand there rooted like an inanimate lump. He fucking moves. And so should you.

Point 2.

What I also thought was interesting was this:

biomechanics that do not contradict the inherent reflex and behavioural patterns of the body that have evolved over millions of years to solve physical problems.

You can enhance the wisdom of the body, but if you try to replace it you'll get something inferior to what nature has already designed and bequeathed to you for survival. And that's what has happened in karate. It's a bad replacement for nature; a very bad replacement.

Leaving karate out of it, could the same thing be said for the complicated methods of IMA? Or are we involved in the process of refining 'natural' movement patterns?

Anyway, it's a good article, and at least you get to watch the sheer awesomeness of a cheetah in full flight at the end

[BruceP]

natural movement patterns? LOL

what do natural movement patterns have to do with what you currently practice?

do you bind yourself externally to stretch yourself internally? or vice versa? are your steps natural?

is your movement free and easy and without thought? do you subscribe to someone else's ideas about how your body should align/contort? or do you let your body teach you what it really already knows?

if you embark on emulation, you've already lost the essence of mind/body intuition. nothing wrong with that, of course...

[Josealb]

[Bhassler]

natural movement patterns? LOL

what do natural movement patterns have to do with what you currently practice?

do you bind yourself externally to stretch yourself internally? or vice versa? are your steps natural?

is your movement free and easy and without thought? do you subscribe to someone else's ideas about how your body should align/contort? or do you let your body teach you what it really already knows?

if you embark on emulation, you've already lost the essence of mind/body intuition. nothing wrong with that, of course...

Fong Ha, a Yiquan and taiji guy, said something to the effect that "we spend all this time standing so we will finally know when we are comfortable." Couldn't the same be said for animal forms and martial forms in general? That is to say, the form is a rough outline of the general area/patterns where natural movement exists (with "natural" being defined as those patterns that utilize the whole body in coordination, including both soft and hard tissues). Of course, a person has to move beyond emulation in order to have anything of use or value, but emulation is often a natural starting point for learning, especially learning with an expressed intent like the ability to fight. Even if I am able to throw the form out the window and move from a purely intuitive, natural, and mechanically optimal standpoint as you suggest, wouldn't that first require that I change a mindset and start to emulate someone else (you) from the standpoint of shen or yi?

Nice to see you posting again, Shooter. A long time ago, on the original eF, you posted a bit on optimally structured sparring, and one of your side-notes had to do with taking a person's spontaneous untrained reactions as a starting point for application work and martial practice. I'm finally starting to understand what you meant and how the process works. Just wanted you to know that every now and then something a person posts on these things can make a difference, even if it takes a couple of years to sort it out. Check back in another couple of years and I'll have the skipping thing sorted out-- I've got as far as walking but haven't determined why skipping is better.

[CaliG]

I remember when I first started learning my teacher's form I'd try to overcomplicate things and my teacher would always say it's just natural movement.

I believe what Morris says 100% because when it comes down to actually using it in a real situation, for example getting jump, your body is only going to do what's natural there's no time to think of a game plan.

Btw, here's another thread from Morris's video section.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1981&p=32501#p32501

[affa]

do you bind yourself externally to stretch yourself internally? or vice versa?

would you mind riffing on this a little more? by "external" do you mean:

according to somebody else's standards?
according to the external (i.e. "gross") elements of locomotion (as opposed to "internal")?
according to the relational demands of your environment (i.e. external circumstances)?

etc. etc.

[Pandrews1982]

natural movement patterns? LOL

what do natural movement patterns have to do with what you currently practice?

do you bind yourself externally to stretch yourself internally? or vice versa? are your steps natural?

is your movement free and easy and without thought? do you subscribe to someone else's ideas about how your body should align/contort? or do you let your body teach you what it really already knows?

if you embark on emulation, you've already lost the essence of mind/body intuition. nothing wrong with that, of course...

I agree with Morris's take on animal movements etc. From reading Shooter's post I'm nto so sure if he understood exactly what Morris is getting at. I can only really give examples form my own practise of xingyiquan but I'll try to explain what I try to do.

The adult mind/consciousness is coloured by sociological rules imposed upon it by the physical world in which we interact, in order to survive we don't need all the information we create, we overcomplicate things classify things, name things put them in boxes which we use to further "understand" our reality. As a young child we don't have the same capacity of thought or the same process of memory so we are not yet able to classify everything around us or rationally explain everything away, a book is just a thing to a 2 year old a table is another thing and so on. A young child may experience the same "things" again and again before they remember what they are and how the reacted the last time they encountered such a "thing", each time they do this without prior recollection they have to use natural movement and intuition to navigate the "thing". The example a lot of people may be aware of is often shown in health and safety videos for manual handling, an adult wants to pick a box up from the floor so bends at the waist and puts their back out, a young child who has never picked a box up before comes over and naturally takes a low stance keeps the object close to the body and lifts from the knees, this is the only way the child could possibly lift the box and its the safest and most efficient use of the body. This is using the unconscious or unthinking part of the mind which is what Morris is talkign about, animals also use this kind of thought though they have adapted certain strategies which emphasise their way of survival. In xingyiquan at least (I know other arts also have the same view) it is the unconscious mind we want to use but we also try to overlay the strategy of an animal in order to give an edge to our fighting, it is this which is the "Xing" of an animal. literally tranlasted Xing can mean shape, the deeper concept is that Xing is the shape which an animal fits into nature, the survivakl strategy which it has evolved over milions of years.

Just as a side note, I know some people aren't clued up on evolutionary biology or even believe in evolution. Evolution does not produce the ultimate creature which adapts perfectly into its habitat, evolution is just like us, it does what it needs but no more. A tiger has evolved to live in forest and hunt smaller prey but it is not successful each and every time, in this way the tiger survives but it doesn't kill all its prey. Also over specialisation leads to weakness when there is change (something MA could take on board too, you need to have general technique and special technique or cross train different aspects of fighting). What I'm trying to say is one animal XIng isn't a fits all solution, some animals are naturally good against certain other animals but poor against others. Humans without tools or weapons are relatively poor against other animals, wolfs, big cats, snakes, crocodiles etc would easily kill you no problem which is why animal strategy often beats a straight forward thinking human weighed down by their conscious mind etc. In Xing Yi animals usually have a big advantage against 5 elements fighting (5 elements is bland stright forward techniques, animals uses strategy and technique) and some animals have plus points and minus points. If you are good at one animal you'll likely kick the crap out of a 5 elements fighter but against another animal you may not fare so well. Good at two or three or more animals and you can change to find one which may have a better strategy than your opponent. Its not just a case of top trumps though (he plays tiger I play monkey, so he plays chicken and I bring out Eagle etc.) its more complex, you adapt with change but so does your opponent

Anyway an example of one animal being good against another is Monkey vs Tiger. Monkey is quite a good strategy against tiger, tiger is direct and powerful but monkey is evasive and quick I'm sure most of you have seen this before:



Anyway in xingyi we attempt to use the nature, strategy or character of an animal not the "external" movements or an "emulation" of that animal. If you like snake you don't try to mimic a snake you take on board the nature which allows it to be a successful predator, e.g. a python waits for its prey to come in close, in xingyi she xing you allow the opponent to get close or strike. When close the python bites the prey hard, in she xing you take a strong grip, hold or wrap. Then the python winds around the prey conforming to its shape but always getting tighter slowly, in she xing you allow the opponent to determine the movement but you slowly clamp down trapping them up and smothering them until they are thrown, choked, locked or in a position where you can strike at will and they cannot. All this is not done by "pretending" to be a snake you use the snake's mindset to overcome the opponent.

As morris says it is "enhancing the wisdom of the body" not replacing it with an imitation of the animal. I see what Shooter is gettting at though, at the foundation stage a martial art has the requirements of a specific body method (shen fa). IMO the shenfa should have been developed and evolved so as not to impede the natual biomechanics of the body. E.g. standing on one leg with the other raised high behind you while trying to grab an opponent's ankle is just crazy and is unlikely to be a feature of practical martial arts though could be a feature in gymnastic wushu. Once your shenfa have been established you use this as the framework or "coathanger" which you hang the different xing of the animals from. To be able to use animal strategy means you already have an idea of the biomechanics of the human body, to emulate an animal goes against the biomechanics of the human body because our bodies do not have the same physiology. Xingyiquan has a system of buidling a foundation then introducing animals, henan xinyi I believe has less emphasis on using foundation techniques but has other foundation practices and slowly introduces animals into the training, either way you can't just jump in and expect to be able to fight with an animal strategy first time.

Now to go deeper. At first you need to understand the basic movements of the animal and how they are interpreted in the art, this helps the new student get a vague understanding of how the strategy or xing works. Slowly through practise, experimentation and observation of the real animal in action a greater depth of understanding is taken on board in terms of how the xing works. even at this stage the practitioner may be able to intellectualise the strategy but needs the conscious mind to tell the body how to use it, the goal is to "internalise" not just the movements. So the result is an unconscious use of an animal xing/strategy put into the context of the human body's natural movement patterns. In this way one movement can be performed first as a simple movement (Wu Xing/5 elements) without strategy, the same movement may then be given an animal xing e.g. Eagle, but equally the same movement could be performed with a different animal xing e.g. Chicken. I.e. Pi Quan in Wu Xing is a straight forward splitting attack, Eagle and Chicken (and all the other animals) have splitting attacks but they are done with different emphasis and technique, they are still Pi Jin (Splitting force) but have different xing/strategy.

Once you have got a good grip on understanding the Xing of an animal you can do any movement of the human body with the character of that Xing, some people may call this flavour or style or whatever. As such this can be expanded upon, you don't have to stick with your 10 or 12 or however many animals you can go out and find others, research them and create your own Xing. This is really difficult to do because you have to really understand how the animal thinks and acts this is where you have to be harsh and not just emulate but look for the deeper understanding of the strategy. This may be considered to be a relativelty high level Xing yi practice.

In my opinion at the deepest levels you are completely wrapped up in the xing of the animal, this is almost like a shamanic trance where you have taken on the character of the animal so much so that you can't distinguish where you're consciousness ends and the animal xing begins. I've often gone into a "zone" when practicing and had the "no thought/no mind" feeling but only very very rarely and for only very short amounts of time have i also had the feeling of having the Xing over the top of the no-mind, of course as soon as i realised this I was thinking again and lost it, usually ending up with a fist in my face There's also more advanced stuff beyond the animals but I've never done that (not yet at that stage).

I'm not saying this process is easy, or that I can actually do the deeper levels (i know I'm not there yet and it will take a long time for that), or that it is the best way for everyone. I know guys who practice external japanese arts who have similar ideas about using animal strategy so it is not just a "soft style" thing, hard or external movements can also be given the character of an animal. A soft arm or a stiff arm can still do a tiger claw swipe with the same character but the results will have different effects.

Anyway that's my extremely long two pence on the matter, I know people will probably disagree with some (or maybe all) of what i've said but this works for me and I've seen it work with others and that's good enough for me. Thanks

Edits: added a bit of clarification on a few points and a little extra info

[Josealb]

Lots of theory but not that complicated in practice. From the most shallow to the most deep, with a snake as an example:

Act like a snake (physical imitation)....think like a snake(strategy, go for small targets, wrapping, etc)....move like a snake(train coiling, folding, loosen up the shoulders and joints, etc). Its just a matter of training the quality of movement (the last one) and then applying the correct intent (the middle one). And polish.

The whole xing thing should come out on its own after the intent kicks in. To start from there and think its the holy grail of the subject is getting it backwards. Just my personal opinion.

[edededed]

Regarding xingyiquan and me, I still need to work on my wuxing myself...

[canard]

meh - never been sure why i would want to act/intend/think like anything other than me. surely as soon as you do, you limit and confine your own nature?

[GrahamB]

meh - never been sure why i would want to act/intend/think like anything other than me. surely as soon as you do, you limit and confine your own nature?

Well, philosophically speaking you could also argue that if you look to examples beyond yourself, of things that you can't do, and learn from them, to make that intuitive leap, then how are you going to get beyond your own limitations? Sometimes it helps to take on another viewpoint other than your own self-centred one.

Things (people/animals/whatever) other than you may have mastered something you haven't - if you can take inspiration from them, and use them as a stepping stone, then maybe you can gain that skill too?

I think the idea is you absorb then transcend. Animals are unfettered by our big thinking brain, and also in a battle for survival all the time that stops them becoming delusional about ways to do things - for example, if a Zebra decides it would be a good idea to run straight toward a pride of lions to scare them off then it's out of the gene pool pretty quickly. Hence animals have strategies and methods that tend to 'work' in nature if they are to survive. As human beings we are also part of nature, but enjoy the privileged position of being able to delude ourselves in our 'civilised' world to a greater extent without anything 'nasty' happening to us.

The answers probably are all within yourself, but there are different techniques and methods available (in animal focussed martial arts, for example) to help uncover the gems hidden in the darkness. A means to an end. Acting/intending/thinking like things other than you are just examples of those techniques. Similar techniques are also available in other non-martial activities, such as the previously mentioned shamanism.

[Wuyizidi]

What do we mean by natural? There are so many issues here, here's my first attempt at sorting them out:

First, what is natural?
What people usually mean by that is what we can do without learning. You touch a hot surface of stove, you instinctively withdraw your hand. Something flies toward your eye, you immediately close it. No one needs to teach you that. Commonly we define sources of behavior in two ways: nature vs nurture. Most of what animals can do, no matter how incredible (swim thousands of miles to a location they've never been before to spawn) are hardwired in their DNA. Much of what we do is not.

Recovering original nature
Given the structure of the human body, there are certain ways of moving it that are more efficient than others. Not all types of golf swings produce the same result right? One issue is that, man's level of existence has always been largely defined by his tools. Until industrial revolution, those tools are very primitive, and most of the power needed to do any task is generated by the human body. Today, for most of us, machines provide most of that. So most of us are not very physical, not in touch with how to move in the most effective, efficient manner. In that sense, yes, there are natural ways of moving (using the whole body instead of just the right hand/arm) that are far better.

In that case then, we still need training to recover that original nature right?

Reinforcement
This leads to the other issue - how did we lose that original nature? The answer is habit. If you repeat something often enough, each time training your neuro pathway to react in the same manner to the same stimulant, eventually, you can do that without much conscious thought. This is what we mean by 'second nature' right? So if in some typical situation, a heavy weight needs to be lifted, the response of a person living in a primitive society is to just go directly at it himself, whereas one living in modern society is to reach some button. So much so that person in modern society have to be reminded, if he were to attempt it himself, he needs to 'lift with the legs, not with the back". Lots of things we do today are learned instead of instinctive. We only have problem separating them because we learned from a very young age.

Behavior under emergency
The whole issue of habit - reinforcement, leads to what's mentioned in a post above, about how when you are in a real fight, the only thing that can come out is what is natural to you at that moment. It's really "the only thing that can come out is what you can do without thinking", because there's not much time for conscious thought. If you just learned a new skill the day before, no matter how simple, most likely you cannot do at that moment. But a skill, even if it is highly sophisticated, if you have been practicing that for ten years, to a point when that is your default reaction to a punch, you can do as if you are born with it.

Is anything truly, 100% natural?
Within this whole fighting issue is another issue about psychology of fighting. Anyone who has played sports even in high school level can tell you competing in an actual game, in front of thousands of people cheering for or against you, is very different from practicing. General Cheng Chongdou (contemporary of Qi Jiguang) said in battle, with the emotions running so high, most people can only utilize a small fraction of what they know. Most people fall back to just the most basic skills they know. That "if you can use 50% of what you know, you will be invincible". Does that means we should just practice the most basic things? No, this is the same reason we practice high kicks - we want to elevate what we're capable of doing, so our 50% is so much higher than other people's 50%.

We can never really separate the mind and the body. The truth is, most of our moments are learned (even walking, which involves over 200 muscles), and even if we have done them all our lives, those movements can be inhibited by the mind. We see gymnasts, skaters fall all the time during competition right? Those movements they practiced tens, if not hundreds of thousands of times, so why do they fail? Because the mind rules all. If fighting/sports is really something completely natural, something we can do without any thought, then no one, certainly elite athletes, would ever 'choke' in a game right?

Does natural = best?
Also implicit in this whole argument is that natural is perfect, natural is the best. Any attempt to alter it give us suboptimal results. Earlier we have demonstrated that even if this is the case, learning is still necessary to achieve it. Even Tiger Woods is not born with perfect swing, in fact he practices that harder than anyone else. Otherwise, no one needs to practice, ever.

Now we need to examine that assertion, is what is natural the best response/behavior for all situations?

What is your natural reaction when you find yourself seconds away from ramming into the back of another car? You break right? What if you are the other driver, you speed up right? But in professional auto racing, you do the opposite. Drafting results in dramatic energy efficiency for both cars. What is your natural reaction to bodily fluids? Fear, disgust, discomfort? If you see someone with horrible skin disease, do you go close to them, or away from them?...

The examples are endless. In many cases, doing something truly high level involves suppressing what is natural and doing the opposite: when a fast punch to the face comes, our eyes remain open and look at the fist instead of blinking; instead of contracting, tightening up, we open and relax; instead of moving away from it, we greet it; instead of holding our breath, breath shallowly, or hyperventilate, as we naturally do under stress, we breath in strong, deep, even, long, smooth breath; instead of struggling directly at the point of impact, we move another part of the body...

Internal training
In the examples above, we can see that mental training is a big part of what makes new reactions possible. This involves overriding your instinctive emotional reaction (xin: big force coming toward me - do not want), and the natural sequence of responses that follows (mental - yi: move away from the big force, physical - qi, li: activate stress response, tighten up, run away, etc). So that's part of reason we call it internal martial art right? To make the type of physical skills we're seeking possible, we need to change our mental reactions and states in radical, important ways. It doesn't matter how good our hand-eye coordination is, if we're afraid to get close to other cars traveling at 200 mph, we cannot be good race car drivers.

External and internal martial art's approach toward "natural"
Here we have one of the biggest difference between training approach of external and internal martial art. People say "external martial art reinforces natural abilities, internal martial art changes it". Our natural behavior is try to beat the other person using superior speed and power. So in external martial art training, we try to make people stronger, faster. Look at Baji and Thai Boxing, the two most aggressive styles within that. Basically, their approach is, I don't care what you do, I'll make myself so strong, so hard, my blows will destroy whatever stands in my way. This is why conditioning is so paramount in external martial art right, it's a crucial part of what makes it work. Look at what happens when even elite boxers get a little slower, little weaker as they reach mid-30's, like Roy Jones, or Mike Tyson, all of sudden they start to lose nobodies all the time right?

In internal martial art we train to increase power and speed to, those attributes are still important, but they are not the only things that make our skills work. We also look at other aspects (we call them internal) of force, manipulating them to our advantage. So that even if we are a little bit slower and weaker, we still have chance to beat them. As mentioned under previous bullet, instead of just reacting instinctively, only with bigger speed and power, we want to react in a totally different way. And with sufficient training, we want replace our default behavior (natural, instinctive response) with a set of new ones (new nature).


Wuyizidi.

[Ian]

words

o__0"

[GrahamB]

Wuyizidi, I tend to think of 'natural' in this context as using the body in the natural way it was intended by mother nature, in alignment with gravity, (the way animals do instinctively when healthy and in their natural environment) rather than as 'natural responses' to stimuli.

[shawnsegler]

There's a lot of correct contexts for the word natural. As always it comes down to how much abstraction you're capable of handling and turning into something that's functional.

I tend think of natural in this context as "spontaneous"...and a number of other things, but spontaneous tops the list for me.

I just think it's hard for a lot of people to wrap their minds around learning "spontaneity" or "intention" or whatever.

Best,

S