An Explanation of the Martial Variety

One day the Zen master Nan-in had a visit from a foreign scholar of eastern religions who came to learn about Zen. Nan-in gladly met with the visitor, but when they sat down together, the scholar proceeded to talk about his immense knowledge of eastern religions. After much listening, Nan-in suggested they have tea. He poured the tea into the scholar’s cup until it was full, but then he kept right on pouring. The tea then cascaded over the sides of the cup onto the saucer. Soon the saucer was full, and it spilled over onto the table and washed down onto the floor.

“Wait, what did you say you had tonight?” my boss asked as I was walking out the door.
“Er… Capoeira. Have you heard of it?” I replied, certain he hadn’t.
“Yeah, Brazillian martial arts. Originated from slaves. You do that?”
“Um, well no. This is my first time. At least… formally,” I admitted. He smiled.
“What? Where have you done it informally? South America?” he joked.
“Well, no. Acutally, I’ve studied Shaolin Kung Fu,” I paused to watch the look on his face, “And well, at one point my school shared our studio with a Capoeira school. We’d play around together every once in a while,” Wow, he most totally think I’m making this up as I go, “Anyway, gotta go! See you next week!” I said as I hurried out the door.

The story of why a Brazillian martial art is somewhat familiar to me sounds surreal enough in my head, that having voiced even part of it outloud made me feel uneasy. It’s not something that one can quickly explain. I left out the beginning of the story, the part that my Sifu had actually taken some Capoeira before he met and trained in Kung Fu with Master Yang in Boston. I left out that Northern-style Longfist, one of the two Kung Fu styles he learned and would later teach, is a long-range fighting style, that combined with Capoeira’s beat and dance-like motion, worked well for training, a fact he brought with him to Washington when he opened his first martial arts studio. That’s what I’ve been told at least.

At fourteen I received my yellow belt and I had the much-anticipated chance to choose what style to focus on for my rank. “You’re young and have lots of energy,” my Sifu told me, “Choose Longfist.” And as what any fourteen year old would do, I followed my friends. Nearly all my peers had chosen the showy spinning kicks of Longfist over the short-range movements of White Crane, and despite my inclination for the latter, I went for Longfist knowing how futile traning can be without the availability of partners. And so began my time in Longfist Level 1.

So classes began and being the slacking adolescent I was, I slowly trudged through the box steps rhythms, the cartwheels, kicks, and sideways back monkey fall dodges for nearly two years. Not that it wasn’t fun; there is a certain satisfaction to matching the steps of your partner, exchanging kicks, missing the point of contact by inches only to go, again and again ’til you were covered in sweat and forced to stop because you had dodged the wrong way or felt the tap on your shoulder that meant your turn was up. I was just bad at it. It took forever to overcome the awkwardness of my stepping, to get the timing of my kicks, to know which way to dodge when an attack came my way without ducking and closing my eyes.

As time passed, we advanced to sit in The Circle. There we would all sit in a circle formation to form a ring and a constant beat of a Chinese Lion Drum would play in the background. Two at a time we’d go up, greet, and box-step to the rhythm as we exchanged kick and dodge inside the Circle. It left you little place to run and the spectacle of it, combined with the music and jeers of your classmates, was a highlight of class time.

The higher ranking students were always fun to watch. They’d goof off more, less paranoid about their face, jump kicking, monkey crawling, and playing tricks. I used to be timid and hated The Circle. I had to be practically pushed in, but I got by. After much work and much time, I passed the first level. And with a new belt came a new decision, this time I chose the White Crane route and haven’t left it since. Longfist was cool, but it wasn’t my thing. I would revisit it in class exercises and participate in the ocassional Circle round, but that was that.