To
Sink your Center is the first principle in the Five Principles of Combat. Which
are:
1)
Sink
Your Center
2)
Stay
Within Yourself
3)
Don’t
Meet Force with Force
4)
Take
Only What is Given
5)
Flow
Like Water
As I have discussed Sinking Your
Center before, I am not going to go over it except to say that it must be
done first for any of the other principles to be effective.
Stay within yourself has two
connotations: one physical and one mental. Staying within yourself is the
ability to pay attention to what you are doing, not what is happening to you,
which is the mental aspect. The difference between what you are doing and what
is happening to you, many do not understand, and this is why they have trouble
when they fight. The difference is basically one of mental state. One state
says, “What am I doing that is allowing him to hit me?” The other state says,
“I am getting hit!” Understanding how these two different thoughts function in
the body is vitally important to understanding staying within yourself.
What am I doing that is allowing him to
hit me? This is a thought that allows you to stay within yourself. It keeps you
in control of what you are doing, even though you are still getting hit you are
taking responsibility for it. Asking yourself “what you are doing” keeps you in
control, allowing you to make the necessary adjustments to keep from getting
hit. It is important to note that this attitude keeps out the fear factor as
well. For example, let’s say your opponent is extremely fast and/or big. By concentrating
on what you need to do to get those qualities, fear does not have a chance to
enter your mind and paralyze your mind and body.
When you ask yourself, “What am I doing
that is allowing him to hit me” makes you constantly improve your technique. If
you are getting hit, obviously you are not doing the best technique you could
be. This may have nothing to do with the mechanics of the technique, rather the
timing and sensitivity of it. Everything has to be right when dealing with the
bigger, faster, stronger opponent and all to often, unfortunately, that is
exactly who you will be dealing with. By paying attention to what you are
doing, you will have the opportunity to cover openings in your defense, develop
sensitivity to your center, and take advantage of your opponents weak
areas.
The other state of mind that says, “I am
getting hit!” will paralyze you with fear. It takes control of the fight and
gives it to your opponent. For he is the one you are focusing on, and the fact
that he is hitting you. You can not stay within yourself if you are thinking
about someone else. You can not make the necessary adjustments to keep from
getting hit, because you are not thinking about that. You are thinking about
the pain of impact and fear. This will cause your mind to freeze and along with
it, your body. Never, never be so concerned with what your opponent is doing
that you come outside yourself.
The mental aspect of stay within yourself
deals with paying attention to what you are doing, so that you can constantly
improve your technique as well as being aware of your center and not allowing
it to rise up to your chest or head. The physical aspect of stay within
yourself has to do with all the physical movements that keep your center down
and prevent you from reaching with your technique. Before we talk about staying within yourself physically, we must
define reaching as it applies to fighting. Reaching is extending the technique
to the point
that it causes your center to move and lose it’s root. Reaching is an all to
common problem and is made worse by the fact that some have taught their
students to reach by either skipping or falling into the technique. To prevent
reaching you must be aware of two things: your center, and the length of your
technique from your center. As all, properly thrown technique comes from your
center. You must know where your center is and how far it is from your center
to the end of your technique.
Staying within yourself physically means
that after you have sunk your center, you must ensure that it stays down by not
attempting to go beyond the length of the technique being used. The length of
the technique is learned by repeatedly throwing the technique to the point just
before reaching occurs. This is a fine line; the one that separates total
victory from complete disaster. But it must be mastered to master the concept
of staying within yourself. Knowing where the line between complete extension
of a technique and reaching, is vitally important. Especially when dealing with
systems that specialize in causing their opponents to reach, like: Tai Chi,
Judo, and Shuai Jiao.
To stay within yourself, you must
understand the proper mental attitude of “what am I doing?” and the physical
discipline of controlling and extending from your center. Without these
abilities, you can not stay calm enough or move efficiently enough to do what
comes next, which is “never meet force with force.”
Never
meet force with force, the
principle that the art of Tai Chi has taken to the ultimate understanding. The
truly great thing about this principle is it is not a mystery to understand.
Doing it, however, is another story. The reasoning behind this principle is
quite simple in the face of the realization that there is always someone
bigger, faster, and stronger. Trying to go toe to toe with a larger opponent
who can generate much more force is not wise and very painful. Even if you
could go toe to toe with the opponent, why would you want to take the abuse if
you do not have to. This is where never meet force with force comes in.
To effectively avoid or yield to the
incoming force of an attack, development of listening skills or sensitivity
must take place. “Listening Jing or energy is not done with the ears, but rather with the skin. You
use your sense of touch to pay very close attention to the opponent’s motion
and energy. Listening is done with skin of the entire body. Any part of your
body may be touched or attacked during a fight, and almost any part may be used
for an attack” (Yang pg 102). The ability to listen is developed through
various training drills contained within the internal arts. Tai Chi’s “push
hands” drill is an excellent place to start training sensitivity as well as
BaGua’s “soft hands” drill. The goal of
these drills is to teach how to listen to your opponents energy or intention,
so that you can avoid and move around it.
To move around the force, footwork must be
trained. Not just the strait line footwork of many linear styles, but angular
and circular footwork as well. Strait line footwork is fine for attacking, but
for defense it does nothing to move you out of the line of fire, it only delays
the inevitable. For this reason, many systems have developed angular and
circular stepping methods, with BaGua having the most advanced footwork system
of any fighting system. Angular and circular stepping allows you to feel the
force move out of its way and counter immediately.
To illustrate how important footwork is to
fighting skill, I would like to share a story that my former teacher, Bok Nam
Park, shared with me about one of his students in Korea. After the passing of
his teacher Lu Shui-T’ien, Sifu Park became very well known for his skill in Ba
Gua. Hearing of Sifu Park’s skill in Kung Fu, a man came to Park’s school who
wanted to lean the martial arts, but thought the traditional Korean systems did
not have anything to offer him. Sifu Park took the man on as a student and
taught the man Ba Gua circle walking and pivot stepping. The man trained daily
for hours at a time just doing footwork. Soon he became untouchable during
sparring, due to his excellent footwork. Many of his fellow students did not
enjoy their sparring time with the man due to his ability to disappear like a
ghost, then reappear and strike, all because of footwork. There is one other
thing you should know about the man. He had no arms. I can think of no other
story that better illustrates the importance of footwork and never meeting
force with force.
Never meeting force with force is
primarily a defensive tactic but it can and should be used offensively as well,
along with the principle: Take only what
is given. What does it mean to take only what is given? No fighting stance
or defensive posture can cover all of its openings or weaknesses at once. This
may not be just inherent in the physical posture, but how it is used as well. For example, the typical
American Kickboxing stance gives its opponents rear leg sweeps and a large
variety of throws. On the other hand, traditional Karate, with its deep
stances, does not often give the rear leg sweep. However, because of the linear
movement and thought patterns involved in Karate, they give openings to the
rear which are easily reached by circling behind. Taking what is given is a
matter of learning to see the openings or (what is given) and then take
advantage of them.
You must also understand that when an
opponent attacks you, he is giving the most you are going to get from him. When
your opponent attacks, he is completely open and vulnerable to counter attack.
When your opponent commits to an attack, he must do so both mentally and
physically. Which means, physically, he must open up and extend, and mentally,
he is focused on offense and he is not paying attention to defending all the
openings he just created. A good example of this would be the typical reverse
punch that all systems have. When the rear hand extends forward, that side of
the body is completely open for the length of time it takes to throw the technique,
giving you that time to attack. By learning the proper application of never
meeting force with force you will increase that time even more, which in turn
allows you more time ti take advantage of what is given. While the opponent’s
arm is physically extending and opening up his body, his mind is narrowing its
focus to the target of attack. Even if he wanted to, it would be more difficult
for him to pay attention to his openings, causing him to give more than he
wants, but he has not choice if he wishes to attack.
Learning to see what is given during his
attack requires bravery and a calm of mind. That is why the best way to learn
the principles of never meet force with
force and take only what is given are
best learned in slow sparring, where fear of injury is not a concern.
Another part of take only what is given is
the concept of “closest weapon to closest target.” Basically this means
whatever target is closest
you hit with
whatever weapon is closest to the target. An example of this would be if you
are throwing jabs at your opponent’s head, but he has his hands up protecting
his head. Rather than target his head, which is being protected, the closest
weapon to closest target principle would have you attack the radial nerve on
the inside of his forearm with a jab. Your jab is the closest weapon to the
closest open target of the radial nerve.
Learning to use the principle of closest
weapon to closest target takes some time to learn to see, but once learned will
quickly increase your fighting speed and efficiency. Understand that fighting
speed and absolute speed are two different things. Absolute speed is how
quickly you can move from point A to point B. Fighting speed is how quickly you
can hit someone with enough force to do damage. Absolute speed is good to have
but not absolutely necessary. If you take the time to develop good technique
and fighting principles, you can develop tremendous fighting speed with only
average absolute speed. This I can testify to personally, many have commented
to me how fast I am when I fight, but the truth be known I only have average
absolute speed. By following the five principles of combat, I appear to be much
faster than I am.
Sink your center, stay within yourself,
never meet force with force, take only what is given: these four are the
foundation for the fifth principle “Flow
like water.”
Flow like water for anyone who started
training in the martial arts after the death of Bruce Lee, have heard that at
least once or probably more, and may have gained superficial understanding of
it. To flow like water you must understand the characteristics of water. Water
always takes the path of least resistance, i.e., never meeting force with
force. Water always seeks the lower ground, i.e., sink your center. Water will
flow on the outside until it finds an opening to come in, i.e., take only what
is given. Water will take on the shape of its container, i.e., stay within
yourself. But there is more to water than these four things.
The characteristics of waters ability to
flow has many fighting applications. Water can gently flow around a rock,
slowly wearing it down and turning it into sand. On the other hand, water can
be so pressurized that it will cut right through the rock. The main characteristics
from water that you want to take on is the continuous flow. Never stop throwing
technique, you will either wear away your opponent’s defense and turn it into
sand, or you will cut right through it with your continuous pressure. This
continuous flow or pressure can be learned in the forms of a fighting system,
but will only learn to be applied through sparring. Not tournament point
sparring, rather continuous sparring where a flow of technique can be developed
and utilized as they would be in a real fight.
Water also takes on the shape of it’s
container. Before I had attached this particular characteristic to the
principle of stay within yourself, but it is much more. Let me paraphrase what
Bruce Lee to explain: “Water is soft, water is hard. It is liquid, a gas, a
solid. If I pour it into a cup, it becomes the shape of the cup. If I pour it
into a bottle, it becomes the shape of the bottle. Water is the most adaptable
thing in the universe. It has no form that it might assume all forms. Be water
my friend! Be water my friend!”
You must be adaptable like water. You must
be able to respond with the appropriate technique no matter what it is. You
must have no-form in your form. By this I mean you must not have a formulated
plan of attack (I am going to do this, then he will do that, and I will follow
through with this). The reason being,
rarely does the opponent do what he is suppose to, which completely throws off
the plan and it does not work. You must be able to see what is happening and respond
correctly with what you have.
Bruce Lee wanted everybody to learn as
much as possible so they would be able to adapt to what is needed. Another more
traditional way is to completely learn what you have been taught so that you
can respond appropriately to any situation with it. This is where your form has no-form. This is a high level
of training for it requires you to thoroughly understand the principles and
theories that your fighting system is based on.
To reach a high level of flow like
water, you must train until you can use all you basic techniques in any
situation. A good example of this is western boxing. They have about five
punches, two blocks, and a little footwork. They are not a fighting system
overflowing with technique, but they work those few techniques to the point
that they can use them in just about any situation. Few people enjoy their
sparring experience with boxers, even if they win. Many Asian masters have
commented that their most difficult opponents have been western boxers. Why?
Because they know what they do so well that they can use it in any situation.
Boxers understand no-form form and
flowing like water.
Water has many characteristics that we, as
martial artists, must seek to emulate. It is soft, powerful, adaptable, and
flowing. Flowing like water is the sum of five principles of combat. Those who
choose to use these five principles will appear to flow around their opponent,
choosing when and where the fight ends. Flowing like water has been the goal of
fighting masters since the beginning. From what needs to be done, to when it
needs to be done, with only enough effort to do the job. In essence, flowing
like water is the art of effortless power or doing without doing (WuWei).
I would like to close this section with an
excerpt from an article on the Sabaki Challeng from Black Belt Magazine, August
1990. I chose this article not because it is about me, but because it is a
description of what someone sees when they watch the five principles applied.
“The middleweight match pairing Enshin
stylist Shingo Asayama of Japan, against Shaolin stylist Michael Martin of
Ohio, was a delight to watch, because Martin actually did in the ring what so
many Kung Fu fighters just talk about: he harmonized with his opponent’s
movements and directed Asayama’s force back at him. For example, when Asayama
grabbed Martin’s arm and pushed, Martin simply yielded to the push, twisted and
hit Asayama in the face with a spinning elbow strike. Martin was disqualified
for the illegal blow (he had earlier hit Asayama’s face with another elbow
strike), but he was nonetheless impressive. He did not seem to think about his
techniques, but instead reacted instinctively to his opponent. His match was in
stark contrast to most of the fights which featured straight-in, toe to toe
action.”
“Be water, my friend! Be water, my
friend!”
