Meet the Instructor- Jian Xiong
How many years have you been practising Taijiquan?
I started a couple of years before I had my first son who is 10 years old now. So it must have been around 12 years now. That makes me feel like a mere toddler as far as Tai Chi age goes. But ever since I started, I’ve never stopped practicing on a daily-basis. But if I can speak with full honesty, I didn’t get in touch with the true essence of Tai Chi until I met Master Li Lian during my visit to Beijing and started training with him in Easter, 2007. There is a saying in Chinese: ‘When the student is ready, the master will appear.’
What stimulated your interest?
In my early thirties, I grew a strong desire to find out more about spiritual side of life and to search for deeper meanings in life. As a result, I took up Yoga and went on a 6-month trip to Kerala, south India to train to become a Yoga teacher. When I returned to China my home country in 1998, I had a strong desire to be connected to the spiritual and philosophical traditions of China and so I was naturally drawn into Tai Chi since that is one of the richest legacies from the Chinese culture. Also since I had some highly spiritual experiences through my diligent practice of Yoga, I had a strong desire to explore deeper into the connection between body, mind and spirit. Tai Chi being graceful at physical level and philosophical at mental level easily absorbed my attention.
What does Taijiquan mean to you?
To me, Taijiquan is a way of life, an art of living. To call it an exercise in no way does it justice. People like discussing about art of this, art of that, but hardly do they talk about the art of living. Some people spend hours daily in pursuit of meaningless things. But if you ask them to allocate time daily for a bit of Tai Chi practice, they are always too busy for that. What is the biggest asset for us in life? Our house, our car, our job, kids? External things come and go, but our very life is the only base for us to enjoy all the good things in life. If we don’t look after it through self-nurturing, who will? Doctors, therapists, friends, relations, or various health-care organizations?
What is the most important aspect for you?
This is a bit like asking ‘what part of your children do you love most’. All aspects of Tai Chi are important, but perhaps some aspects are more important than others to a certain stage of one’s training. I think at beginners’ stage, more attention should be paid to the physical side. You have to put in a lot of time in developing the flexibility, the strength of the legs and lower back (Yao Tui Gong), being centred, being rooted and correct alignment through footwork (Xing Gong) and standing postures (Zhuang Gong). To speak for myself, at my current stage of Tai Chi development, I’m concentrating more on the internal side of Tai Chi, trying to build up more internal power through the Ding Shi (practicing the form by holding each posture) practice taught by Li Lian and Zhuang Gong (standing postures). Now I realize that the beauty, grace and power of Tai Chi come from within rather than without.
Do you have any personal goals in Taijiquan?
It’s almost impossible for me to define any personal goal in Tai Chi because Tai Chi is infinite, you can never plumb the depths. That’s also the beauty of Tai Chi – you can be learning and exploring for the rest of your life. But I do have personal ambitions for my Tai Chi practice and teaching: I want to see people’s lives touched and transformed through doing Tai Chi with me.
I’ve also recently started working on some Taichi-related translation projects - I’ve set myself a goal: I want to translate all of the books on Tai Chi by Master Li Lian and Great Grandmster Wu Tu Nan from Chinese into English and get them published in the west. It would be a great shame if true knowledge on the subject remains constrained to Chinese-speaking Tai Chi community excluding the rest. True enough that there is already tons of books and information around on the subject of Tai Chi (in English); but the trouble is there is too much wrong and misleading information around and not enough genuine information.
Who or what inspired you?
In real life, my master Li Lian is a true inspiration for me. He does not ask for anything for sharing his abundance of knowledge in Tai Chi. He does not hold anything back from anyone who has shown a sincere desire and will to learn and practice. His humility, simplicity and genuine knowledge of Tai Chi forms a contrast to many other self-named ‘masters’ or even ‘grand-masters’.
The life and teaching of Zhang San-feng (the Taoist adept who is widely-accepted as the fore-father of Taijiquan) also inspires me. His teaching was very much about how to break down the barrier of the physical body to gain ‘immortality’ or spiritual enlightenment. For this end, he taught Taijiquan, meditation and various alchemy practices. He also performed many miracles the same way Jesus did. Through studying Zhang San-feng’s life and work, I came to understand that Taijiquan is not an end on its own, but a means to the end.
What do you make of Taijiquan’s current popularity?
I hope I don’t sound too arrogant to say that Taijiquan is not popular enough and meanwhile it’s popular in the West in the wrong way. A lot of people just treat Tai Chi as a trendy exercise which they attend once a week so that they can go around telling people that they are doing Tai Chi. A lot of those who have got into Tai Chi are merely concerned about learning fighting techniques or winning medals at competitions. Few practitioners are truly concerned about exploring Tai Chi in depth. Tai Chi is becoming more and more popular among the elderly over here because doctors and experts have told them that practicing Tai Chi prevents them from falls and can help with their heart conditions. But what about younger people? Do they think Tai Chi has got no value for them because they haven’t got all these conditions yet?
As a teacher, how do you feel about the martial aspect of the art?
It’s important to understand the martial aspect of Tai Chi as a form of internal martial art. But at the same time, it’s also important to distinguish Tai Chi from other forms of martial art, the external forms. Tai Chi’s martial efficacy does not come from learning the martial applications of the postures, but from developing the internal Chi power and the awareness of the practitioner. I myself am not into developing martial power through my Tai Chi practice so that I can beat someone up or win numerous medals at competitions. Developing Chi power simply makes me feel more in touch with the essence of life itself, or the source of life, if you like. I once got asked by some potential student: ‘Is your teaching more health-oriented or martial-oriented?’ Why exactly do some people feel the need to make such division and compartmentalization in everything including Tai Chi? You cannot isolate one aspect of Tai Chi from the other. If you are practicing Tai Chi correctly, both your health and martial power are going to benefit at the same time. And the benefits don’t stop there; you are going to be a more balanced, more content and more resilient person through persistent practice.
What are your views on competition?
Tai Chi is an art, an art of living. How can you set up competition for that? Taijiquan as a martial art is internal rather than external. How can the judges sit there and judge what’s going on inside the competitor by merely looking at the external movements and postures?
Few of the true Tai Chi masters in China feel the need to join competitions to prove their power. Neither do they feel the need to achieve any rank in the official Dan system.
What direction would you like to see Taijiquan going in the future?
I’d like to see Taijiquan treated more seriously in the West. I definitely like to see more classes set up not only at a few village halls or sports centres, but at local authority venues and companies so that staff and workers can access Tai Chi more easily. But meanwhile I’m very much concerned with the standards of some of the classes offered. Not only that some of the instructors out there are not qualified enough to teach, they are also giving out the wrong information. I recently came to see a flyer distributed by a guy who has set up some Tai Chi classes locally and to my horror he claims in the flyer that Tai Chi was invented by Zhang San-feng after he practiced needle strikes on condemned prisoners! I’d like to take this opportunity to warn all of those who’ve set themselves as instructors to take responsibility for what they impart to their students. For me personally, teaching Tai Chi is not simply about teaching a few movements and postures and showing off a few striking techniques; it’s about passing on a divine art that’s been jealously guarded by generations of Tai Chi masters in China. [End]
