some writing

"Co-exist of opposition" which is a funny phrase to me, I do not want it to call Yin Yang even it might be the same thing afterall, I feel like the it would have too strong sense of pre-conception culturally which is not the issue I am dealing with.

What is "co-exist of opposition"? Why am I interested in this topic?

Maybe I should try to start with my experience of learning TaiChi. I leart both Yeung's and Chan's style Taichi, I learnt Yeung's Taichi like most people, learning the form, very detail about every little thing, without knowing why but just remember, try very hard to remember. Until I learnt Chan's style Taichi, my sifu flipped my world around about martial arts. Taichi is about possiblity, also, it is about 順(:shun, means along)/逆(:yik, means against). These two Chinese words means a lot, in terms of body movement in Taichi, it refers to the outward rotation and inward rotation. Generally, people use them to describe life, such as life goes smooth and good or difficult. Refering it back to martial arts, Taichi fights when we goes smooth as well as in difficult, a punch can strike along or against. In this point of view, the whole Taichi routine is a practice of 順shun逆yik, moreover, gather and expanse, open and close, lift and sank and etc, it's seems to me, eventually, it is about the co-exist of opposition.

Like a simple right punch, you would need your left hand go backward, it's like a balance or co-ordination.



Tao De Ching, Chapter 2:
天下皆知美之为美，斯恶已；皆知善之为善，斯不善已。
It is because every one under Heaven recognizes beauty as beauty,that the idea of ugliness exists. And equally if every one recognized virtue as virtue, this would merely create fresh conceptions of wickedness......
(http://www.cycnet.com/cms/2004/englishcorner/translation/200704/t20070402_529882.htm)

At this point, if we take away the value of judgement, not talking about good or evil (Tao De Ching also suggest the idea of value is only given by human, nature does not has any judgement on good or evil), but the concept of opposition. Fighting would be about pushing these two edges, and the routine of Taichi is about the space in between, but still knowing the possibilty of reaching to both ends.

I found that this opposition also exist in the form itself. In many martial arts, the most important displine is learning not to be a violent person. It is like learn the skills of violent but meanwhile not to be violent.


With this lens of opposition, I found that I can perceive the world with this single idea. Even in terms of our dancing bodies. It is very interesting to me that how a idea can be re-located in different perspectives.

In last fall term, while I was in Hollins, and praticipated in the martial arts club. We were practicing the Brazilian Jiu jitsu, I also found the idea of co-exist of opposition in this form. It is different from the usual standing martial arts form, it was designed to fight on ground, instead of fight in a distance, it encourages pratitioner to get as close as you can without losing the contact point. I would say, this is also a extreme violence form of martial art, but in certain sense, you need to be very close/intamate. The name Jiu jitsu, Jiu in original Japanese means soft or tender, jitsu means skills. How interesting that a form that looks so violent came from the skills of soft/tender.