A Martial Arts Journey

By Paul Brecher

Paul Brecher spent many years on a martial arts journey searching out andtraining with different Instructors, Sifu's, Monks and Gurus on a quest to find theanswers to life’s mysteries. His quest into the martial arts led him into the healingarts and the spiritual philosophy that flows through them both. This is the story ofhis journey.

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Published in London by

JEDZAK BOOKS

PO BOX 13219

LONDON NW11 7WS

ENGLAND UK

British Library Cataloguing in publication Data

A catalogue record for this title is

available from The British Library

ISBN 0-9542425-1-3

Layout and design by Simon Edwards©

A Martial Arts Journey By Paul Brecher

Published in London by

JEDZAK BOOKS

PO BOX 13219

LONDON NW11 7WS

ENGLAND UK

British Library Cataloguing in publication DataA catalogue record for this title is available from The British Library ISBN 0-9542425-1-3

First Published 2003

layout and design by Simon Edwards

Copyright © 2003 Paul Brecher

Paul Brecher asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmittedin any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, electrostatic, magnetictape, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrievalsystem, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Introduction

Chapter One - Training with Sifu Tan in Singapore

Chapter Two - Meeting a Datu in Sumatra

Chapter Three - Training with the Chinese Doctor in Bali

Chapter Four - Training with Guru Made Sudira in Bali

Chapter Five - Meeting the Maharaja in India

Chapter Six - Meeting the Dalai Lama of Tibet in the Indian Himalayas

Chapter Seven - Training with Chen Fei in Australia

Chapter Eight - Training with Erle Montaigue in Australia

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Introduction

I spent many, many years on a martial arts journey searching out and training withdifferent Instructors, Teachers, Sifu's, Monks and Gurus on a quest to find theanswers to life’s mysteries.

My journey into the martial arts led me into the healing arts and the spiritualphilosophy that flows through them both.

I learnt many things which I have written about in my other books, 'The Principles of Tai Chi' and 'Tai Chi Directions' and 'The Way of The SpiritualWarrior' and 'The Secrets of Energy Work' and 'Tai Chi Fighting and Healing' andnumerous articles for magazines. These are all on my web site www.taiji.net

This book does not contain techniques like the other books, instead it is aselection of a few of my experiences from my travels, some of the people I metand the adventures I had along the way.

All the things that I recount in this book happened a long time ago and I am surethat the people and places have changed a lot since then. I have also changed a lotbut these experiences help to shape who I am today. I hope that this book of mytravels will be an enjoyable read and useful in some way to others on their ownjourney.

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Chapter One

Training with Sifu Tan in Singapore

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Singapore was a strange place, I had been expecting to arrive in a colonial outpostamongst a sort of old world Chinese shanty town but it was in fact a bustlingmetropolises with sky scrapers and a hi-tech, futuristic atmosphere. It had theworlds most advanced underground system with all the station platforms made ofmarble and the trains were always on time. Suddenly London with its antiqueunderground seemed like an old world shanty town in comparison.

Sifu (teacher) Tan's number one disciple formally introduced me to his martialarts master. Sifu Tan’s house was on one level, and open plan. A pleasant breezewhispered through the house, dispelling Singapore’s stifling summer heat. In thelarge front room where I waited there was a large Chinese shrine covered withstatues of Buddha’s and Taoist sages. Incense smoke drifted up past a painting ofDa Mo, one of the legendary founders of the Shaolin Temple martial arts school.Da Mo’s baleful, intense eyes glared down at me in a foreboding way. I laterlearnt that Sifu Tan had painted this picture himself.

The disciple returned with Sifu Tan, and Sifu Tan’s wife brought us some tea andthen left the room. We were in big hard backed, carved, wooden chairs and SifuTan was reclining in his rocking chair.

We all sat in silence drank some tea and Sifu Tan puffed on his cigarette, drankhis brandy and looked at me from behind his hard eyes. Behind him was aweapons rack containing a huge array of tasselled martial arts weapons, spears,staffs, battle axes, halberds and swords, walking sticks and Buddahs spades.

Sifu Tan was about fortyfive, of medium build, and calm, calm like a tiger restingin the shade. There was no disguising the phenomenal coiled power that radiatedfrom him. He said that I could ask him any question I wished, so I went straightto the point and asked him what was the essence of martial arts. He told me it wasTai Chi Chuan.

For over a decade I had been training the hard external styles of martial arts andso with all the arrogance and dismissivnes of the ignorant and ill-informed I saidthat Tai Chi could not be the answer because it was not effective for self-defence.It was simply a slow motion health exercise for the elderly.

Sifu Tan smiled and asked if I would like to join him in the garden. On the wayout into the garden his disciple leaned across to me and said Sifu Tan would notrespect me if I held back, it was then that I realised I had just dismisivly insultedSifu Tan and also agreed to trial by combat.

I attacked with full force, I steamed in with a left jab followed by a right hookpunch to distract him from my follow up main strike, a jumping right roundhousekick to his left temple. I had intended to part his head from his shoulders and was

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very surprised to find not only that he wasn’t there, but that I was flat on my backon the ground feeling slightly dazed.

My previous ten years of martial arts training seemed suddenly inadequate. Butnon the less I catapulted myself into another attack and once again found myselfon my back again staring up at Sifu Tan. His lightning fast pounding palm strikesto my head spoke very convincingly about the effectiveness of Tai Chi as amartial art for self defence.

Sifu Tan raised one eyebrow as if to say would I like to make it best of three ? Isaid I thought perhaps it was time to go back into the house for some more tea.

When we were once again seated, and drinking tea, Sifu Tan told me a little abouthis own experiences. When he was nine years old, whilst wandering in the thenjungles of Singapore, ( much of Singapore island was now a highly developedcity state ) he had come across a Shaolin monk who was hiding in the ruins of anold temple. The monk, whose name was Seckoh Chun, had fled mainland Chinato escape from his many enemies in China’s secret societies who's fighters he haddefeated.

During the day, he would help the monk rebuild the temple and, because trainingin the martial arts was still illegal in Singapore, he was taught the Shaolin TempleMartial Arts System at night. Sifu Tan said that after having learnt the ExternalHard Styles of Northern and Southern Shaolin, he went on to learn the InternalStyles of Hsing-I Chuan (Form-Intention Boxing) and Ba Kwa Chang (EightTrigram Palm Boxing).

He learnt the Yang Family Style of Tai Chi from Yang Chen So and the ChenFamily Style of Tai Chi from Chen Xiaowang. I asked him how many Forms heknew all together, he said that he knew over forty, but only needed one.

Sifu Tan offered to teach me Tai Chi, I assume it was because I had not held backwith my first attack (which demonstrated my respect for him) and also because Ihad made a second attempt (which demonstrated my perseverance). There was noformal initiation ceremony we just drank more tea and this seemed to confirm theagreement.

When I say we drank tea I mean the disciple and me, Sifu Tan drank his brandyand smoked his cigarettes. Even though it was bad for his health he still had moreenergy and raw power than any other Martial artist I had ever met. In combat hewas as fast as lightning and he was as sharp and decisive as a sword. But hesmoke and drank like there was no tomorrow.

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The first thing Sifu Tan taught me was The Original Thirteen Postures of TheYang Family Style of Tai Chi and The Original Thirteen Postures of The ChenFamily Style of Tai Chi and The Shaolin Five Elements Chi kung Method. Itrained in Sifu Tan’s garden with his other students for many hours every day, Iwas honoured to be his first non-Chinese student. Sifu Tan taught the moves,there meaning and applications and then returned to his armchair and the seniordisciple took over running the class.

Learning Tai Chi turned out to be very different from my previous training, it wasimportant to be Sung, this means having no unnessecary tension in the muscles ormind. There was just a slight flex in the tendons as a result of ones posture andmovement. The emphasis in Tai Chi was whole body power, not just the localpower of the arms and all movements were circular and fluid, rather than linearand stiff. Most importantly the movement had to always come from the LowerDan Dien energy centre in the belly.

One of Sifu Tan's students was a devout Tibetan Buddhist and he took me withhim to a Buddhist temple to meet with his Tibetan Lama who was visitingSingapore. The Lama was very calm and impressive in his robes and with hisshaved head and wise eyes. It was through this meeting that I would later get anintroduction to meet and study with other Lamas in a monastery in the Himalayas.

Sifu Tan always stressed that one should have a moral way of life because thegreat internal strength developed through the Tai Chi training ment that a strikecould cause extreme internal damage to an opponent. The Tai Chi way of strikingwas called fa jin which ment an explosive release, fa, of internal power, jin.

Sifu Tan was very powerful, on one occasion after striking down a martial artistwho had come to his house to challenge him he had then picked him up andthrown him over the garden fence back out into the road.

I asked Sifu Tan how fa jin worked, he showed me how the power comes fromthe legs and the rotation of the waist/hips/belly, flows up through the body, and isreleased through the hands ‘Like a bullet from a gun’ he said. I was still doubtfulthat it would work in all circumstances. For example, what if a person with aknife tried a slashing or stabbing technique? Sifu Tan went in to the house andcame out a moment later with a big kitchen knife. He gave it to me and said Ishould try to stab him, I lashed out with the blade, he easily deflected it, moved inand hit me with fa jin.

Learning from Sifu Tan was always like this, an intense and interestingexperience. There was however one aspect of the training that unnerved me morethan the physical knocks and scrapes. This was when Sifu Tan became inhuman.It would happen just as he was about to demonstrate a martial arts application, he

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would change... By ‘change’ I mean that having decided to give a demonstration, he would put hisdrink down and come out of the house into the garden. He would casually take afew puffs of his cigarette, meander over in our direction and with the cigarettestill casually hanging from his lip he would, with a wave of his hand, indicate thathe wanted me to attack him.

As I attacked, he transformed into an unstoppable, ferocious force, like a bird ofprey at the end of its dive, or a cobra striking with its fangs. It was the memory ofhis eyes that lingered, long after my field of vision had been blacked out by hispounding palms, for like his painting of Da Mo, Sifu Tan suddenly acquired amenacing, baleful glare, but at the same time it was like he was not there at all.

Immediately after his demonstration of the application, he would, once again,return to himself and give me the raised eyebrow expression indicating, did Iunderstand it now ? he would then go back into the house and sit down in hisrocking chair and carry on smoking and drinking quite as if nothing hadhappened.

I lived in Sifu Tan's house and ate with him and his family and realy enjoyedbeing immersed within Chinese martial arts culture. I have good memories notonly of the training but also of the atmosphere. The ash from the incense sticks onthe house altar, the rickshore driver peddaling Mrs Tan back from the market andthe heat and humidity of Singapore and later in the year the afternoon monsoonrains.

In the evenings students came to Sifu Tans house for training sessions in hisgarden near the big stone table which always had a pot of hot tea and cups on itfor us all to sip whilst training. After training we would all have dinner together atthe big round table in the centre of the house. That evening the talk was all abouthow Sifu Tan had recently been attacked with axes by two other martial artists.He had defeated them but would not talk about the incident. His unenviableposition as an undefeated fighter made him a target, for whoever defeated him, byfair or foul means, then ranked as number one.

A year of daily practice had past and Sifu Tan decided it was time for me to startlearning the first form of the Chen Family Tai Chi Style. This Form had not onlythe familiar slow movements, but also fa jin movements. fa means to release, andjing means internal strength, so a fa jin is an explosive release of internal force.The slow movements build up the energy like drawing a bow and the fa jinexplosive movements are like releasing the arrow. This is what one uses in TaiChi moves to make them more effective in combat, so for the next few months,this form was the centrepiece of my training.

Myself and the other students would be waken up at five o’clock each morning bylow flying fighter jets taking off from the nearby military base, drink tea, and thengo out into the garden to train till eleven. Some times it was Sifu Tans veryserious smokers cough that woke us up.

Sometimes, when training in the garden at dawn, I would see Sifu Tan sittingcross legged on the in front of the altar. His body was as pliable as rubber andextremely flexible. Once, he came out into the garden and told me to put him intoa wrist lock, I tried, I turned his hand one way and then the other, but which everway I turned it, I could not lock his arm. He seemed to have no joints at all.

Practising Tai Chi under the palm trees in Sifu Tans garden as the sun rose was amagical experience ( apart from the mosquito), watching the sky subtly changefrom black through deep purple to blue, the gentle shades of pink and orange thenblending in to form the morning’s sky. As the world came to life with the noisefrom radios, TV’s, traffic, and the hustle of the city, the energy would change andlose some of its purity and clarity. By eight o’clock the Chi of the natural worldhad retreated to the jungle and the chaotic energy of man had re-asserted itself.

After myself and the other students had finished our evening training session withSifu Tan we would drink tea together, and occasionally have the opportunity toask him questions about the martial arts.

Sifu Tan emphasised that the most important thing about martial arts training wasnot so much which style one learned as the internal principles one wasdeveloping. Three of the most important principles were correct posture,spontaneous action and Connection.

He said it was important to know all the rules and applications but not be limitedby them. One must go beyond them and develop spontaneous action, so that youdon’t know what you are going to do, or once you have done a move, what it was.Your body knows the moves. Let it do them, let go, be fluid and natural, and thatway you can react spontaneously.

The Being Connected Way of Moving, he added, meant that the whole bodyworked as a single unit. When you hit the opponent with one part of your body, itwas as if you had hit him with your whole body weight. The technique usedwould eventually seem effortless to you, but would have a devastating effect onyour opponent. The way the body moved when one had developed beingconnected was like flowing water, or like a whip made of chain. As the wave likewhipping movement went through the chain, link by link the power would betransferred throughout the body.

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As well as Tai Chi and Chi Kung, we also did a lot of Pushing Hands training.Sifu Tan used to tap his ear and say that you do not feel or see an opponent’sintentions, but hear them. You must listen for their energy. On one occasion, Ithought I sensed an opportunity to break through his defences and to strike himin the solar plexus. But he had set me up and so as soon as I made my move I gothit.

The process of learning Tai Chi involves not only the movements and theirapplications, but also, of course, the internal principles. Sifu Tan would firstintroduce these ideas with a few enigmatic, almost poetic words and let us try tograsp what he meant. Once he stopped me and said, ‘Be like bamboo’.

I contemplated this, and even went over to the bamboo and watched it, but couldnot understand what he meant. Later, he explained in his usual way, which meantI attacked him and got hit. But this time it was different, because instead ofhitting me once, he used a combination technique and hit me several times. Thiswas achieved by taking my incoming force, rebounding off it and returning it tome. It was as if I had compressed a spring, let it go, and it had released itself atme.

What was happening was that to execute a simultaneous block and strike to myfirst punch, he had rotated his tan tien to one side, creating a torque in his body,which he then released. This resulted in another simultaneous block andcounterstrike to my second attack. This rebounding happened several times, but itwas all one fa jin movement. I had attacked, and scored nought. He had counter-attacked, and won the match.

As the training continued, it dawned on me that the faster and harder I tried to hithim, the faster and more potent the counter-strike was. So from then on, when hesaid to attack, in the interests of self-preservation, I did not use full force.

Sifu Tan’s ‘real’ job was as a building contractor, overseeing the construction of ahuge new Chinese temple dedicated to Kuan Yi, the Goddess of Mercy. Hisgarden had huge ceramic dragons in it ,they were all in pieces and wouldeventually be assembled on the roof of the temple. Myself and the other studentswere constantly asked to move these dragons from one place to another, to getthem out the way, or was it martial arts weight training ?

Sifu Tan, his family and many other students and myself were all sitting at thelarge round table, having dinner. Sifu Tan’s tea cup was empty, so I filled it up,and left the pot pointing straight at him. The light atmosphere changed, and theconversation suddenly stopped as all heads turned to look at me. I felt a cold chillrun down my spine, Sifu Tan was staring at me with a menacing glare, his eyeswere like Da Mo in the picture.

Just in time, his disciple interceded and explained to me that in SingaporeanChinese martial arts society, pointing the teapot at someone was a directchallenge. Sifu Tan generally had a very relaxed manner, but I had obviouslyoverstepped the mark this time. Sifu Tan gave me one of his raised-eyebrow looksand said that a senior student had once come back to challenge him, the studentwas not only defeated but also made to kowtow (bow down , forehead on theground three times) as well. I apologised profusely, and the meal resumed.

The weeks went by and the temperature and humidity in Singapore climbedhigher and higher. Lee, one of the other students, had been wandering around oneof Singapore’s huge, air-conditioned shopping malls and caught a chill. He was awell-built man with a braided ponytail. He was usually in good spirits, laughingand joking, but this chill had developed into a fever and had brought him down,so after that evening’s training session Sifu Tans disciple took him to see theChopstick Doctor. I went along as well. We drove past an old, disused cinema andwandered down some side-alleys where we came across a small group of peoplewaiting to be treated.

The Chopstick Doctor was a pleasant old Chinese man with most of his teethmissing. Nonetheless, he had a reassuring smile and a pair of very old, worn,wooden chopsticks. The person in line before us put the traditional red envelopeon a ledge, as had the other patients, each giving whatever he thought wasappropriate. The Chopstick Doctor diagnosed the problem, he then began hischopstick technique.

While Lee stood there, the old doctor rapidly began poking the chopsticks intodifferent acupuncture points on Lee’s back, legs and arms, rotating and twistingthe sticks to re-balance and regulate Lee’s chi energy flow. Within a few minuteshe had finished. Lee put his red envelope on the ledge, said thanks, and we left.The old Chopstick Doctor gave us a warm smile and moved on to the nextpatient. On the way back to Sifu Tan’s house, Lee said he felt nauseous. Thatnight, he had disturbing dreams and the next morning he was well again.

So training continued and when we had all developed to the appropriate level,Sifu Tan introduced us to the Tai Chi Internal Principle called ‘Being Connected’.He explained ‘Being Connected’ in his usual abstract fashion, by saying oneshould imagine that one’s whole body could move through the air as if it wereunderwater.

He then exaggerated ‘Being Connected’ in the Chen form and it was obviousthere was something profound going on but I could not work out what it was andwe were left to try and work it out for ourselves.

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After many days’ intensive training, no matter how hard I tried, I still could notunderstand how to become ‘Connected’, but one evening Lee suddenly‘Connected’, and started grinning broadly. Whatever it was, he had now got it - Iasked him what it felt like, but he said he couldn’t explain it and just carried ongrinning. I was even more determined to master it, and went on training aftereveryone had gone inside.

I carried on with the Chen form, but it had been a long day, and I was veryexhausted, and I did not have enough power to maintain a high level of intensity.I therefore slowed the pace of my movements, mentally and physically relaxingvery deeply, when suddenly I felt as if I was moving through water, and my bodyseemed to have no joints at all. I felt someone close by and turned to see Sifu Tanstanding by the house, he had been watching, and seen me ‘Connect’. He gave mean imperceptible approving nod.

It was the annual festival of the Warrior Buddha’s birthday and the whole of SifuTan’s martial arts school went to Kota Tingi in Malaysia to meet other majormartial arts schools for a huge celebration. We students had been training forweeks, and I was honoured to be chosen as one of the Dragon Dancers. When wearrived at the Malaysian Chinese temple complex, we began the Dragon Dance, tothe accompaniment of gongs, cymbals and a huge drum dragged along on a cart..

The dragon was over thirty feet long, and very beautiful.It had green and goldscales, huge teeth and wild, staring eyes. It leapt high, slunk low and cavortedaround and around the temple. One of the other martial arts schools had broughttwo lions with them, and so the lions and the dragon all danced together. We werewaiting for the priests in the temple to finish their prayers and meditations, so wecould all begin the long parade to the five Chinese villages nearby.

There was an ecstatic, highly charged energy in the air as the priests emergedfrom the temple, clouds of incense smoke surrounding them. Their robes had Yin-Yang symbols on them, encircled by the Eight Triagrams of the I Ching. They allseemed to be in trance states. Some carried incense bowls or boxes containingholy objects others had spears piercing through their cheeks.

The parade set off from the temple, led by the village elders and the priests, theirfeet tracing the Yin-Yang symbols in the dust. The procession stretched behindthem, banners fluttering in the breeze, drums beating as everybody danced andchanted.

At each village we came to, the dragon would dance three times clockwise aroundthe main village altar as a good luck blessing. Everyone was smiling and merry.We went from village to village and must have walked many, many miles beforewe returned to the temple.

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Everybody said their goodbyes but, before we left, I accompanied Sifu Tan andhis disciple into the temple. Sifu Tan was going to consult with the temple oracleon some important matters. We entered a room filled with statues of meditatingBuddha’s. There were also statues of Huang Ti (the Yellow Emperor, the firstEmperor of China), and of Lao Tzu, the Taoist sage, and Confucius. There wasalso, of course, a large statue of Ta Mo. Here and there were statues and carvingsof dragons, some with ferocious talons in defiant postures, others with a sublimeexpression, reaching towards heaven. All these different images were unitedtogether in the swirling incense smoke. I felt as if I had been transported to therealm of the immortals, one in which the supernatural seemed, well, natural.

One of the priests who was an oracle met Sifu Tan and they talked in hushedtones for some time. Then the oracle stepped towards the altar and entered into atrance state as a spirit entered him and spoke through him, answering all of SifuTan’s questions.

The spirit which possessed the oracle picked up a paint brush and wrote someChinese characters on a sheet of rice paper which it handed to Sifu Tan. Then, thespirit left and the oracle began speaking in his own voice again and seemedinterested to find out what had happened whilst he had been gone. We all litincense sticks and placed them on the altar, thanked the oracle, and left.

Outside, in the late evening at sunset, the air cleared my head and I was backonce again in the real world, almost. Because for me at that time in my life themodern world of cars, fast food, and mass communication and the mysterious andancient world of spirits, dragons and immortals dancing on the rings around themoon were merged into one another.

The link between the modern world and the ancient world, the normal and themysterious, the physical and the spiritual for me was Tai chi. I was glad I hadfound it or maybe it had found me.

Apart from this special trip we used to go to to Malaysia quite regularly to train atone of Sifu Tans martial arts schools. One memorable occasion was when theywere holding a selection process to see who would be sent as a representative tothe South East Asian full contact tournament. The school was in a town calledJohor Baru at the very tip of the Malaysian peninsula.

We arrived in the afternoon and as we drove into the compound, one of theinstructors came over to talk with Sifu Tan. They went inside and I went to watchthe local students train. There were about twenty all going through the rigours ofa Shaolin Staff Form. The movements were very effective but seemed disjointedand abrupt, lacking something. Everybody stopped as Sifu Tan strode out to themiddle of the training ground and took a staff from one of the students. We stood

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back expectantly, as he clearly meant to give a demonstration of how this formshould be done. He began going through the moves and though he performed thesame series of movements as the students, it all looked subtly different, and aftera moment I saw that he was putting Tai Chi into the Shaolin. He was ‘Connected’and the form now had a fluid, dynamic power to it. When he had finished, thestudents just looked at each other and shook their heads.

All training now stopped so that the process of selecting the representatives couldtake place. There was a painted circle on the ground about twenty feet indiameter. Everybody stood around the circumference and the process began.There were only two people in the ring at any one time. The one who stayed onfor the next fight was the one who remained standing. There was one fighterwhom Sifu Tan told me to watch carefully. After he had knocked out a few otherfighters, I could see why, he was Connected. He did not have a big build butbecause he was Connected, he only had to hit his opponents once to knock themdown. Of course, he was chosen to be one of the representatives.

A few days later back at Sifu Tan’s house after one of the evening trainingsessions we had another opportunity to question him about the martial arts. Iasked him about Iron Palm and Iron Shirt training. He said that the Internal IronPalm training was better than the External Iron Palm training, because it did notfade away if one stopped training. I asked him what Iron Shirt training consistedof for the rest of the body. Sifu Tan said that there were two aspects to thetraining, the External and the Internal. The External aspect mainly involvedhitting oneself with a variety of objects almost all over the body.

To begin with, one should slap almost every part of the body with an open palm.After a few weeks of this, one could then fill a sausage-shaped cloth bag withdried beans and hit oneself with that. After several months, the beans could beexchanged for small pebbles, then later the pebbles for larger stones and then thestones for rocks. Eventually, one could use a wooden stick or steel rods.

The result of this kind of training was that one’s defensive Chi increased, and thebody became as strong as iron. Also, a person would become used to taking ablow to almost any part of the body so that, during a fight, he could concentrateon hitting the opponent and not be distracted by his attacker’s blows.

The Internal Iron Shirt training involved various Chi Kung still and movingpostures, combined with different breathing techniques and leading the Chi todifferent acupuncture points in a certain order through various meridians. Sifu Tanexplained that it took about two hours a day, every day, for two years to get to agood level.

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Sifu Tan had been doing Iron Shirt training for decades and his body looked as ifit was covered in layers of plate armour. Sifu Tan agreed to give a demonstrationand sent somebody to get a wooden chopstick from the kitchen. The studentreturned and Sifu Tan took the chopstick from him and placed the sharp end intothe depression at the base of his throat, holding it there by pressing the palm ofhis left hand against the other end. Then, with his right hand, he slapped the backof his left hand. This should have made the sharp end of the chopstick puncturehis throat, but instead the chopstick broke and splintered into several parts.

I few days later I was fortunate to see a demonstration of Iron Shirt Chi Kungfrom some of Sifu Tan’s advanced students, who were now instructors in theirown right.

The performance was in a large hall and it was full to capacity,the demonstrationsof Iron Shirt strength were done with a certain theatrical flourish to the applauseof the audience.

First an A shaped ladder was put up, then a bed of nails was held up for thepeople in the front row to inspect, yes the nails were very hard and sharp ! Thebed of nails was put at the bottom of the ladder and one of the instructors wearingonly his black training trousers lay on his back on top of it. Then the biggest,fattest, heaviest student started to slowly climb up the ladder. He reached the top,bent his knees in preparation for his leap, took one look down at his target, gave abig grin to the audience and then jumped.

He fell about fifteen feet and landed with his heels in the solar plexus of the proneinstructor on the bed of nails and then stepped off him. The instructor did notmove, there was a nervous silence from the audience and then suddenly theinstructor jumped up and laughed to the great relief of the audience who joined in.He showed his belly and his back to them, not a mark .

Next another instructor knelt down and rested the side of his head on the top of astool, two other instructors walked on to the stage carrying a sledge hammer and alarge concrete block which they placed on top of his head. With a massive overhead swing the sledge hammer was swung down onto the concrete block whichshattered. I thought that the instructor who’s head had been under the block wouldhave had his skull fractured by the force of the blow. Alarmingly he did not move,a hush of concern came from the audience, had something gone wrong ? And thensuddenly he jumped up, gave a big grin and nonchalantly and bowed to theaudience.

There were many other demonstrations of Iron Shirt power involving theinstructors taking blows from members of the audience to vulnerable parts of theirbodies.

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One visiting Sifu had some students smash him in the belly with a log whilst achair was smashed over his back. His belly received the force of the blow whichhe used to shatter the chair as it hit his back.

However the grand final was the highlight of the evening. The bed of nails wasonce again placed below the ladder, one of the instructors lay on his back on it.Then a huge concrete block, that was bigger than him, was lowered on top of himand another instructor lay on his back on top of it and another concrete block wasplaced on top of him !

Ten of the biggest of Sifu Tan’s students then lined up, the largest one at the endof the line. Then one by one they climbed up to the top of the ladder and jumpeddown on to the top of the instructor, concrete block sandwich beneath them. Bythe time the last and largest student had landed I did not think that there wasgoing to be anything left of the instructors beneath the concrete blocks but it wasnot over yet, out came the sledge hammers again and the top block was smashedto smithereens and the instructor who had been under it was lifted off, still in onepiece. Then with a few more overhead swings of the sledge hammers the secondblock was shattered and the last instructor got up off the bed of nails and then to abig round of applause all the instructors and students bowed to the audience.

When I finished my training with Sifu Tan I thanked him for his hospitality andfor introducing me to the essence of the martial arts, Tai Chi. I had not beencharged for the Tai Chi lessons, or the transmission of Tai Chi’s true meaning andapplication so, just before I left, I gave Sifu Tan a red envelope, the traditionalChinese way of making a gift of money. Sifu Tan took it and gave a nod of hishead as a gesture of recognition of my offering. He took the money out of theenvelope and gave it back to me. But kept the red envelope on the altar and saidthat what he had imparted transcended money. When I left, Sifu Tan did not saygoodbye. He just smiled and said, ‘Practise! Practise!’.

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Chapter Two

Meeting a Datu in Sumatra

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From the city of Medan, in Northern Sumatra, I travelled through the highlands inantiquated buses that seemed to be held together by the luggage racks that hadbeen welded onto their roofs and sides. These were partly for luggage, but theyseemed mostly for outside passengers to hang on to. We eventually arrived atLake Toba, which was in the crater of an old volcano and took a ferry across thelake to the small island in the middle, called Pulau Samosir.

I rented a Batak house to stay in on the shore of the lake, these houses were singleroom wooden structures who's roofs looked like the prow of an upturned boat.The Batak are the tribes that inhabit north Sumatra, there were seven differenttribes, the ones in the area around the lake were called The Toba Batak.

One of the Batak houses in the village was made in to a little cafe for travellersand that evening I got to know the other people who were staying there. Peoplesaid where they had just come from and where they were intending to go next,always looking for out of the way places that had not been ruined by tourism.

This was a constant dilemma for travellers, wanting to go to an unspoilt placewere no one had been but by going there travellers changed it, drew attention to itand eventually tourism would follow and spoil it. So travellers would travel toanother unspoilt place and the whole process would start again. Travellers createdthe problem they travelled to avoid and blamed others for the results of the seedsthey had sown.

The next morning I drove around the lake on my motorbike, waved to fishermanin their dug out canoes and called out 'Horas - Horas' which ment hello in theirlanguage, they smiled and waved back.

That afternoon whilst walking along the lake shore I met an ancient Toba Bataktribesman who was sitting outside his house. He had a double tape cassettemachine on which he made copies of popular tapes for travellers. I was initiallylooking at what tapes he had but soon fell into conversation with him.

I asked him in a general kind of way about the land and the people. He told methat when he was young, he could go swimming in the lake and spear big fish justoff the shore. The women of the village would wash their hair and clothes in thelake, using herbs. But today, there are no more big fish because the lake ispolluted by their shampoos and detergents, and the petrol and fumes of the ferryboats.

I encouraged him to tell me more. He carried on in his broken English and saidthat when he was a boy, he met the first visitor from the outside, an Americantraveller who had great spirit and was liked by the islanders.

He took a great interest in their way of life and helped them with their rice crops.And at the new moon celebrations, he bought a buffalo that was cooked at a greatfeast and shared it with the villagers.

When he left Pulau Samosir, the islanders were sad to see him go. They thoughtof him as a good man and over two hundred people gathered on the shore to sayfarewell. Many years later, two more visitors, Australians, arrived on the island.They had the wrong attitude and when a hundred people gathered to meet themon the shore, they reacted badly. Instead of accepting the islanders’ hospitality,they wanted to pay for a place to stay and so introduced tourism to Samosir. Avery sad day he lamented, shaking his head from side to side.

An old man on the shore of one of the highest volcanic lakes in the world seemedlike a good person to ask about life’s big questions, so I asked him if any of theBatak people had mystical powers. He said that real holy men helped others, andthat mystical powers would lead a person astray. He said that the spiritualleaders, healers and wise men of the Toba Batak were called Datu.

He went on to explain that the Datu train in many things. They are Yoga mastersand know the indigenous martial art of Indonesia, Selat. They believe that thebody is the reflection of the Earth, the Sun, Moon, and Stars. Additionally, in theirmeditations they can travel to other planets. He said that the Datu also have theability to control the weather, they can gather the clouds and make it rain and theycan disperse the clouds to let the sun shine.

He told me that in each village, the new Datu is chosen from amongst thebrightest of the children. When they are old enough, they are sent naked with notools or help of any kind up into the mountains. Some make fire and burn wood tocook the birds they have caught. Some simply come down from the mountainbecause they cannot survive. The one who is chosen and who is taught all theknowledge of the Datu, is the one who did not burn the wood, or kill the animals,but who ate fresh young leaves, fruit and vegetables, the one who had lived withnature, not destroyed it.

Sometimes, he said, a woman in the village gives birth to a white-shelled egg. Itis common knowledge that this is the way that new Datus arrive in the world. Shetakes this egg to the old Datu, and he puts it in the rafters of his house to bewarmed by the fire’s rising heat. After a few days it hatches, and inside is a babyboy whom the Datu brings up to be his successor. ( Even though I had turnedtwenty I had never realy made a clear distinction in my mind between dreams andreality, between the internal world of symbol and myth and the external world ofhard reality so I never at the time questioned this obviously far fetched idea ).

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A Datu, he said, can sense the presence of another Datu by holding up his hand,palm outstretched. His palm itches when it’s pointing in the direction of theapproaching Datu. He understands both his spirit, and the spirit of nature. He cansit and meditate and, surrounded by the great trees, obtain sustenance from the air.

The old man said that when his back had been hurt in an accident, he had gone tosee the village Datu, who was renowned for his great healing powers. The Datutold him his back needed to be massaged, but the old man refused, saying itwould be too painful. So, the Datu held a piece of bamboo and massaged itinstead. The old man said it felt his back being massaged.

The Datu also had a technique for healing leprosy, he covered him with a herbbalm, then left him buried up to the neck near the lake for several days. Each dayhe was given a herb decoction, and the Datu would meditate and pray for theleper to be healed. The minerals in the volcanic earth would also aid the healing.When he was lifted from the ground, his leprosy would be healed.

The old Batak man said that his Datu knew when he was going to die. Nobodyelse believed him because he looked so healthy and well. The Datu said, ‘In twoweeks time, I will die’, and still no-one believed him. Two weeks later, he saidgoodbye to everyone, left the village smiling, and died peacefully meditating inthe forest.

The old Batak man seemed pleased that I was really interested in his people. I lefthim hoping that I might, one day, meet a Datu and it was only later that I began towonder if he had actually been one himself.

A less spiritual event happened a few days later on another motorbike trip thistime with another traveller called Phill high up in the mountains around the lakewe journeyed along small winding roads that were barely more than gravel paths.Phill was riding on his bike about thirty feet in front of me when his front wheelhit a deep pothole and twisted, throwing him over the handle bars headfirst intothe road and then the bike went over him.

When I got to him he was slipping in and out of consciousness, he was covered incuts and various types of bloody wounds on his arms and legs and there was a biggash in his head going all the way in to his skull just above his right eye.

We were miles from anywhere and had no medical kit with us, I had to act fastbut it was a hard decision to make. Phill's bike was a right off, he could not rideon the back of mine because he was not fully conscious and would have fallenoff.

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I could not risk us waiting there for help to arrive. No one new where we wereand it was unlikely that anyone else would be this high up in the mountains. Obviously I did all I could for him in the way of makeshift bandages but did notwant to move him about to much, who knows what internal injuries he wassuffering from that I could have made worse. So when he was in as good assituation as he could be I explained to him that I was going to get help. I don'tknow if he heard me or understood what I was saying but I couldn't wait I had toget help to him as soon as possible.

I set off at speed down the twisting winding mountain roads going as fast as Icould eventually coming to a small village, fortunately they had a health clinicand I told them to come with me, but they weren't interested, I tried to convay theneed for urgency to them, but they seemed unconcerned.

I got angry, I got aggressive, I got them to get their act together, to go to the carthat I had seen in front of the clinic and just when I thought that I had finally gotthings in motion one of them opened the car bonnet, no engine. Was there anothercar in the village ? were was it ? well will you take me there ? well were are thekeys ? well who owns the car ? were is he ?

Eventually I get them to go with me by car back up the mountain, Phill was stillthere were I had left him unmoving but still alive, we put him in the car and wentback to the clinic in the village. They wanted to leave him in a bed for a while, Isaid treat him now, he was regaining consciousness and was obviously in greatpain. I said morphine, you have morphine, give him morphine, give him morphinenow.

They put him on a large stone slab in the middle of a cool empty room andinjected morphine into the wound in his skull. And then with needle and threadclosed up all his cuts and gashes and then put him in a bed.I'm sitting next to him thinking what now when in walks the local school teacherwith her class of children and says she had heard that we were here and could herchildren practice their English on us.

Phill said through a morphine haze 'I can't handle this, I can't stay here', so thenext few days were a long struggle like walking up a down escalator. Getting usback to our huts on the shores of lake Toba, picking up Phill's smashed up bike onthe way, getting back to Medan and getting Phill to the nearest hospital.

He was going to go to a hospital in Medan but we met another traveller who hadbeen in a fight, been to hospital in Medan and instead of sowing together his headwound they had sown a bandage into his head. This was a few weeks ago and thebandage was still there !

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After that Phill said the only hospital that he was going to was in Singapore.Everything was closed in Medan for a holiday and trying to get tickets toSingapore was very complicated. I have a great memory of being in a side car ofa beat up ancient motor bike driven by a crazy Tobo Batak tribesman who had amonkey tail nailed on to the back of his helmet as we whizzed through theexhaust filled dusty free for all mayhem of the Medan traffic looking for a coupleof tickets to Singapore.

Phill got excellent medical care back in Singapore and then went back to the UK.

The motor bike accident brought up some complicated questions. What if I wasahead of Phil and it had been me who hit the pot hole then what would havehappened. Why was it him not me, I felt a bit guilty and lucky. Dose everythinghappen for a reason or is it all random and we just read meaning into things to tryand make them make sense ?

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Chapter Three

Training with the Chinese Doctor in Bali

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Bali, beautiful beaches, friendly people, great food and a fascinating culturebecause it was the only Hindu island in the whole of Muslim Indonesia.

Bali was not only a paradise island were I could sit on the beach and get a sun tanbut also was a deeply spiritual place. A live volcano in the middle of a junglecovered island, with the most interesting temples and local arts and crafts.

In the jungle near Ubud with its population of over-friendly monkeys, hungry forpeanuts from visitors, I went to meditate in the Hindu Monkey Forest Temple andfound harmony in the ancient spiritual vibration of the place.

Instead of going back to Ubud through the forest I went the long way roundthrough outlying villages and rice paddies , a Balinese man called down from thetop of a palm tree to watch out as he macheted the coconuts which came crashingdown around me, by a small waterfall some incredibly beautiful Balinese womenand girls were bathing, quite unconcerned about their nakedness. I was quiteyoung back then and so was surprised, excited and embarrassed all at the sametime.

A man sitting outside his home called as I passed, “Hey, Mister, you want buycarving of Barong? You want buy carving of frog on surfboard? Where yougoing, huh?” I called back, in Indonesian, “jalan - jalan”, (walking -walking). Henodded, and smiled. In this part of the world one did not have to be goinganywhere in particular - it was OK just to be wandering around: ‘no hurry, noworry’, as the locals put it.

Much further on I heard the melancholy, mystical music of a Legong band, thensaw a large group of people dressed in formal sarongs all chanting and praying, afuneral was in progress, and I watched from a respectful distance. A group ofabout thirty men arrived carrying between their shoulders on long bamboo poles alarge platform, upon which was a pagoda-style structure containing a huge redwooden bull - the whole thing was hung with flowers and religious symbols. Theplatform was placed on a pyre, and a body wrapped in white cloth was exhumedfrom a nearby grave. It had been temporarily buried whilst this cremationceremony was being prepared.

The corpse was put inside the hollow bull, the pyre lit, and the relatives griefintensified as the fire spread to the pagoda, bull, and the body within. As I walkedaway I contemplated the idea of their spirit ascending with the smoke to a higherrealm, while his ashes would be embraced by the earth, nurturing new growth.

I left Ubud and went back to the coast with its volcanic, black sand beaches and aday or two relaxing in the sun. One evening, a few travellers and myself weredrinking tea at sunset on the beach with Benny Tantra.

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Benny was a local Balinese artist who sold his hand painted T-shirts to tourists. Afew of his designs featured Balinese mystic symbols, so we started talking aboutthem, and spiritual things in general. I said that I practised Tai Chi and wasinterested in finding out more about energy and meditation. Benny said that he,too, did some special exercises, a type of Chinese Internal Chi Kung. He waslearning this from a great healer who lived a little further along the coast. Wouldit be possible to meet him? I asked. No problem said Benny.

On the way there the next day, Benny told me a bit about his teacher. His namewas Miow Su (Teacher Miow) and he was half Balinese and half Chinese, andwas thus known as either Miow Su or the Chinese Doctor, rather than Datu,because he was not Indonesian.

One day, many years ago, he had started to develop healing powers which hedescribed as gifts from the gods. His skills soon became renowned, and peopletravelled great distances to visit him. When we arrived at his house, we had towait outside his room because he was healing. Apparently he healed people nightand day, and meditated rather than slept.

We entered his home and found him sitting cross-legged on the floor next to a lowtable with a cup of tea on it. Incense floated up from the many altars around thesmall room and out through a hole in the roof. Miow Su had built all the altarshimself, one for each of the world’s religious and spiritual ways. Anybody whowished to say a prayer and make an offering of incense, flowers or money to hisown god or gods could do so right there. He never asked for payment and anymoney he did receive, he gave to his family.

Benny and I lit incense, gave offerings, and then sat near Miow Su. He radiated aserene happiness and I was content to take in the scene whilst he and Bennychatted in Balinese. I was curious about all the altars so, with Benny translating, Iasked Miow Su. He explained that people used different words to describe thesame thing, but they were all essentially different ways to the same place.

Miow Su then asked how he could help me. I was not sure, so I just asked him ina vague way what he could tell me about myself. He made me sit cross-leggedwith my back to him. He then placed his hands on my upper back and breathingdeeply, slowly rocked me backwards and forwards. I felt a glow of humanwarmth flow through me and a sense of well-being that I had never experiencedbefore. I felt his energy enter into me and I saw his smiling face inside my head.

He then told me who I was, where I came from, where I was going, how I felt andwhat I thought! Though his diagnostic techniques surely were extraordinary,Miow Su’s healing techniques were more familiar.

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He would use acupressure massage on his patients, place them in a certainposture, put his finger on the relevant acupuncture points and then channel his Chienergy into them. He would also prescribe Chinese herbal medicine.

I was very impressed and eager to develop abilities similar to Miow Su’s. So withthe necessary respectful approach I asked him if he would take me as a student.He agreed to share his knowledge with me however he made it clear that I wouldonly benefit from what he would teach me if I had good intentions.

I returned to visit him daily and slowly I learnt his complex system of InternalChi Kung breathing techniques. Miow Su told me to practise this exercise for halfan hour, three times a day; at five o’clock in the morning, midday and midnight,every day for one hundred days. It was essential that I abstained from any sexualactivity during this time and was not to eat anything for at least one hour beforeand after doing the Chi Kung.

I lived in a hut on the beach for one hundred days, I practised the Internal ChiKung exercises at the three allotted times and during the day I practised the TaiChi. As the days went by my energy increased and I had many mysticalexperiences.

Miow Su was always serene and in tune with the spirits. A man once came to askhim for advice because his life was beset by tragedy. His brother, who was a goodswimmer, had drowned and his father had committed suicide in mysteriouscircumstances. Why was his family suffering such ill-fortune? What could he do? Miow Su closed his eyes and entered into a meditative state for a few minutes. Hethen told the man that one of his ancestors had murdered a man, and that the spiritof the victim was seeking revenge. If he meditated every day, was charitable andbecame a vegetarian, then the spirit would be appeased and the tragedies wouldcease.

Miow Su practised special chi kung breathing exercises but he also smoked verystrong Indonesian cigarettes. He was a healer but was harming his own health. Itreminded me of Sifu Tan back in Singapore who cultivated his martial artsinternal power and also chain smoked.

Back at Bennys bamboo beach hut Benny told me some disturbing news about hismother. She had suffered considerably because someone was jealous of her.Benny explained that he gave the money he made to his mother so that she couldenjoy a better standard of living and this had caused the jealousy.

He said it all began when his mother started to feel excruciatingly painfulcreeping sensations along the front of her body. Nothing seemed to help and dayby day, it got worse and worse until she would scream uncontrollably. It started

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every day at midday and would last for about half an hour. His mother said thatthere were things inside her, crawling around. Benny was dubious, so she pulledup the front of her shirt and Benny indeed saw things crawling underneath herskin.

He took her to the hospital on the other side of the island where they gave herblood tests and every possible examination, but could find nothing wrong. Bennyunderstood that what was happening could not be treated by modern medicine,and that he would have to seek help elsewhere.

Benny said to me that he thought his mother had been cursed by a Liak , they arejust as powerful as Datu, but they owe their powers to their association with evilspirits.

He took all his savings and went up into the hills to search for a particular Liakwho was reputed to be the most powerful in Bali. When Benny found him theLiak told Benny to look at the outstretched palm of his hand, a flame appeared inthe Liaks hand it was hot and bright but did not burn him.

Benny persuaded him to come down from the hills to help. He returned to hismother’s house and the next day at dawn, the Liak appeared. The Liak beckonedBenny to come closer and to hold out his hand. The Liak then took from his belt aKriss dagger. It was made of white gold and had a wave-shaped blade. The Liakplaced it on Benny’s outstretched hand and told him to follow the Kriss. Bennydid not quite understand what the Liak meant, but suddenly the dagger started tomove and led him across the garden to a spot by the front fence where his motherused to stand and talk to her neighbours.

The Liak sat down on that piece of ground and began very carefully to removeeach blade of grass, one at a time. After removing all the grass from an area abouta foot square, he began removing the earth, piece by piece, and carried on until hehad gone down about ten inches. There was a small leather parcel. Bennyunwrapped it and found that it contained a black stone around which had beentied a piece of his mother’s hair.

The Liak asked Benny if he just wanted the curse ended or if he wanted it sentback to the person who had put it on his mother. Benny just wanted the curseended, so the Liak reached into his pouch on his belt and took out a white stoneand a gold needle. He put the gold needle between the hair and the black stoneand then put the white stone over that area of the black stone and wound themtogether with a bit of twine, then wrapped them up in the leather. He put theparcel back in the hole and carefully replaced the soil, and then replaced eachblade of grass, so that the area appeared exactly the same as before. ‘It is done’,he said, and left.

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Benny went back into the house and waited with his mother. It was approachingtwelve o’clock, at midday nothing had happened - the curse had been lifted.

I asked Miow Su if he had ever had any problems with his Chi. He said that a fewyears ago, he had got into the habit, whenever he had a free moment, of goingdown the road and playing snooker. He of course always won, but had to stopbecause the Gods told him that as long as he didn’t use his powers for personalgain, the flow of Chi would be unlimited, but that if he abused his powers theywould be taken from him.

The last time that I saw Miow Su he took me through a door behind one of thealtars and into a small room. In this room was his own private altar, on it weremany items, but he drew my attention to one small statue of a Buddhist Monkand, surprisingly, said in English, ‘Ta Mo from Shaolin. Ta Mo my Teacher.’ Thathe spoke in English was not nearly as surprising as what he said, because Ta Mo,the renowned founder of the Shaolin Temple Martial Arts School died a thousandyears ago.

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Chapter Four

Training with Guru Madé Sudira in Bali

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Having completed Miow Su’s Chi Kung training, I made my way along the coast.I came to a stretch of beach that felt just right, moved into a wooden hut andcarried on with my daily training. One lazy afternoon, I was sitting in the bambooporch of my hut with some other travellers. One of them was strumming a guitar.

A Balinese man came over and asked if he could have a go and after playing afew songs, he glanced over at my notepad, pointed to the Yin Yang symbol andasked me what my interest in it was. He said that he was also developing hisenergy and that his Guru lived just down the road, would I like to meet him ?

As it happened, the Guru, whose name was Madé Sudira, ran a cafe, so naturallythe first thing we did was to have dinner. In Bali, there is a special type of clothwith a chess board pattern of black and white squares. This is a holy cloth thatadorns statues of Gods and is hung in temples, but Guru Madé Sudira used it fortablecloths in his cafe.

There was a small group of people round the tables, a few travellers, some ofGuru Madé Sudira’s students, both locals and westerners and his family. Heserved ‘Yin Yang’ rice - plates of half white and half black rice, and a ‘fiveelements’ dish containing food of five different colours and after dinner wasfinished and the tables cleared, everyone sat on straw mats on the floor, in a largecircle.

Smoke from the incense, and the ghostly sound of a Balinese Legong bandplaying nearby, created a special atmosphere. It seemed as if the markers betweenthe real and the imagined were no longer fixed. I was invited to demonstrate whatI could do, so I stood in the middle of the circle and performed one set of SifuTan’s Chen and Yang Thirteen Tai Chi Postures. I pointed to the Yin Yangdiagram I was creating with my hands as they moved through the incense thickair. I said ‘ Tai Chi - Yin-Yang.’ Guru Madé Sudira pointed to the chequeredtablecloth and said, ‘ Bali - Yin-Yang ’

Then I went through the first form of the Chen Family Style of Tai Chi. Mymovements seemed to fall into the rhythm of the strange, other worldly music, itwas like I was part of a religious ritual. I finished the form and then Guru MadéSudira performed some Silat, the martial art of Indonesia. His movements werelike a shadow, flowing across the ground.

I was asked to demonstrate something else, so I did Tai Chi Pushing Hands withanother traveller. Guru Madé Sudira came up to us and said in his broken English,‘This fighting’. He then reached out and grabbed the forearms of the two of usand dug his fingers into certain points. We both immediately felt the effects. ‘Thisstop fighting’, said he grinning.

How did he know about these points and why were his hands so strong. He said hedid ‘Ener-Chi massage’ and that ‘Martial Arts, Meditation and Massage. Same same!’.

Guru Madé Sudira's teaching was always informal. He would do massagewhenever there was an opportunity, encouraging his students to practice it on eachother and on anyone else who happened to walk into the cafe.

Even his youngest son, who was only about six, was already quite proficient. Themassage system itself was unlike anything I had encountered before. It involvedplaying the tendons as if they were guitar strings at specific points on the body.The vibration generated, balanced the Chi throughout the corresponding meridianand it was not unusual to get quite spectacular results as the energy was releasedinto the body. The recipient would sometimes leap into the air as if he had justbeen electrified.

Guru Madé Sudira also taught me a system of bone and joint manipulation andvarious breathing exercises, synchronised with certain hand gestures to strengthenthe hands for massage. I was struck by the similarity between these, and the handgestures used by martial artists, Tibetan Buddhist lamas, and Balinese dancers.Although the activities were all different, the purpose in each case was the same -to activate the Chi.

Madé Sudira was a Balinese Hindu Guru and he taught Indian Yoga to hisstudents, both external Hatha Yoga, and internal Kundalini Yoga. I found that theHatha Yoga emphasised my Yin meridians, and was a good counter-balance to theTai Chi, which emphasised my Yang meridians.And that the Kundalini Yoga hetaught complemented the Chinese Internal Chi Kung that had been taught to meby Miow Su the Chinese Doctor.

Guru Madé Sudira had attained levels of ability that defied rational explanation ,on one occasion Guru Madé Sudira asked me to put my hands on his head. Hetold me that he was going to breath with his head. He began breathing deeply andquite remarkably, I felt the bone plate of his skull move in and out about an inch.He was a truly gifted man, with his dark beard and almost constant grin, and eyesthat gleamed like diamonds.

Guru Madé Sudira also had the ability to leave his body and return to it at will.The year before, he had inadvertently become involved in a feud with anotherpowerful Datu. He was challenged and accepted. At the appointed time, and aftera period of preparation and meditation, Guru Madé Sudira had put on the facemask of Darga, the Balinese God of Destruction, then had lay down, and appearedto go to sleep. In the village over the hills, the other Datu had done the same.Neither of them moved for three days, and then Guru Madé Sudira ‘woke up’.The other Datu never did, and his body was cremated a few days later.

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I was keen to learn Guru Madé Sudira’s technique for leaving the body. When Iasked him if he would show me how to do it, he asked me to wait a momentwhilst he rummaged around at the back of the cafe. He returned a few minuteslater with a book made of pieces of bamboo which had been carved in Sanskrit,he had received it from his Guru who had received it from his Guru before him.

After referring to the book, he drew me a few little diagrams. The first was aneight-petalled lotus flower with a Yin Yang in the middle. Each of the petals wasassociated with a direction, a God, a colour, a sound, a number and a power. Henext drew a profile of a person and marked up the front, back and centre of thefigure the various energy centres which the Hindus call ‘chakras’, and showedhow each point was associated with a different aspect of the first diagram. Thepoints were marked as spinning Yin Yang diagrams.

He explained how on one single breath the Chi should be spiralled around the fiveYang element points up the back, and the five Yin element points up the front, therelevant number of times. This would set off a chain reaction and activate theseven chakras located up the central axis. Last of all the crown chakra on the topof the head opens to release the spirit.

Guru Madé Sudira offered to demonstrate. He went into the full Lotus positionwith his back against the wall and signalled for me to watch closely. He held hishands in a special mudra (hand sign), inhaled, moved his head and eyes in acertain way and then slumped against the wall slightly.

I guessed he had gone. There was a line of heat haze ascending from the top ofhis head. I followed the line up to his indistinct form shimmering above me.

He came back into his physical body, opened his eyes and indicated that I shouldtry, so I did as he had done and went through the sequence. I thought it had notworked, so I opened my eyes, and, looking down, I saw my physical bodysprawled on the ground and Guru Madé Sudira looking up at me with a twinkle inhis eyes. He went over to my collapsed physical body, twanged certain tendonsand then, bit by bit, I merged back into my body, until I was looking out of myown eyes. I still could not move my arms, so he twanged some more tendons andthen I felt my spirit hands fit back into my physical hands as if I was putting on apair of gloves. I felt a little disorientated, but was very happy to be back insidemyself.

Learning from Guru Madé Sudira was never dull. Every lesson had deeper anddeeper levels of meaning, some things I understood but much of the time I wasquite perplexed, for his lessons raised more questions than they answered. Forexample, once he pointed to a candle and I thought he was going to talk about 'thelight of consciousness’.

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Instead he just put his index finger into the hottest part of the candle flame andwas just holding it there. He grinned a mischievous grin and said, ‘power ofprotection’. Then he removed his finger from the flame and placed it on myforearm. As he exhaled, my whole arm up to the shoulder went red hot.

On another occasion, Guru Madé Sudira, some other students and myself were allmeditating in a circle when a large hornet began buzzing us. This particular typeof insect has a powerful sting, and we were all unable to relax. Guru Madé Sudiramumbled something under his breath then stood up, reached out and grabbed thehornet. He then walked outside and let it go flying off. He came back in and satdown, we asked to see his hand, not a mark, not a sting. ‘Power of protection’, hesaid, ‘stop hornet sting, stop snake bite, even stop arrow and machete! ’.

Out of the eight yogic powers that he had, he wanted us all to master this onefirst. So he got us all to hold hands whilst sitting in a circle and then took usthrough a very long and complex meditation. At the end of this process he told usthat whilst we still held hands we would all have the power of protection. Toemphasise his point he came round to each one of us and tried to stab us in theforearm with a short sharp steel barb, even though he was using great force thepoint did not puncture the skin.

His teaching methods were often unconventional. One day, we were all sitting onthe floor of his cafe whilst he explained how the Sanskrit word ‘Om’ worked,when suddenly he went into the full Lotus posture and rolled onto his head. Hecarried on talking whilst sitting upside down on his head as if this was completelynormal. On another occasion a most bizarre and strange event occurred. An oldman known to Guru Madé Sudira was dying, in fact he was virtually dead butcould not die. At the request of the mans relatives Guru Madé Sudira went to visithim to find out what was happening. As soon as he saw the old man he knewwhat had caused the situation, it was his time to die but he could not leave hisbody because he was trapped inside it.

Guru Madé Sudira had warned him years earlier not to undergo The GoldenThread Ritual that caused this condition but obviously he had not heeded thewarning. It was explained to me that an alternative way to gain the power ofprotection, rather than meditating for several years under the guidance of a Guruor Datu, was to pay a vast amount of money to a Liak to perform The GoldenThread Ritual.

This involved the inserting of incredibly fine threads of gold into the personcreating a mesh under the skin all over the body whilst performing certainreligious acts and reciting prayers. The result was a body impervious to attackfrom any edged weapon.

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The old man told Guru Madé Sudira that what he wanted was to be allowed toleave his body when it died and not be trapped inside it whilst it rotted anddecomposed. So to grant his wish Guru Madé Sudira went out in to the jungle andcame back some time later with special plants that he had collected.

He asked the old man one more time if he definitely wanted to be released, theman said he was sure. So Guru Madé Sudira tied the various plants into a bundleand then gently brushed them over the skin of the old man. The golden threadsslowly emerged and when the last one was out the man lay back and left his deadbody.

Towards the end of my time with Guru Madé Sudira he told me that there was aholy mountain by the sea, with a temple on it. He had meditated on top of themountain, left his body and seen a power stone which he had gone to find. Hesaid he wanted me to have this gem as a protective talisman. I accepted it andthanked him.

I put this in a pouch around my neck together with the red thread that the DalaiLama had given me. These two talismans later disappeared, I took this to meanthat my development should not be dependent on external items but rather oninternal energy.

The last time I participated with Guru Madé Sudira and his students was anouting to that very temple on the holy mountain by the sea. The temple was calledPulaki and had been there since ancient times. It had many courts, terraces andarches upon which clambered hundreds of monkeys. Guru Madé Sudira wasknown to the gateman who admitted us to the inner courtyard. From there wemade our way up a steep flight of stairs and emerged onto a terrace on a ridgeoverlooking the sea. We seated ourselves round three intricately carved pillars.Behind them were two more pillars, and behind those, nothing but the vast seaand endless sky.

We meditated for a while, then Guru Madé Sudira pointed to the first row ofpillars and said, in his broken English, ‘three in Bali Hindu is Brahama, Siva andVishnu. For Christians is Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Is same same. Chinese sayShen, Ching and Chi, Buddhists say Buddha, Sanga and Dharma. For everybodyis same same. One, two and three’. Pointing to the second row of pillars he thensaid, ‘One and Two, Mother and Father, Heaven and Earth, Yin and Yang, allsame same’, and pointing finally at the emptiness behind the last two pillars hesaid, Who knows ? , Different people look for different things, find differentthings but it is same thing. Everybody one family, we all here together.

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Chapter Five

Meeting the Maharaja in India

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India must be experienced to be understood, some of the extremes it contains arealmost beyond description. Travelling around the country I saw not only greatpoverty and human suffering, but also the vibrancy and spirit of a people whoseancient culture is as diverse as their landscape and wonderfully crafted temples.

The first major city I visited was Calcutta, here all my senses were severely overstimulated. The city was congested beyond belief, the roads being full of everyconceivable form of transport - buses, lorries and cars, bicycle rickshaws, humanrickshaws, and horse drawn carts. There were no road markings, no traffic signs,no traffic lights, and no rules, everybody was shouting, ringing their bells, andhooting their horns, and pushing and shoving from lane to lane in all directionstrying to claim a right of way that didn’t exist.

Indians in western suits contrasted with yogis in loin cloths, and men and womendressed in simple white sheets or beautifully coloured saris. Shops sold heavilyscented perfumes, and exotic spices. But all of the people, suits and saris alike,shared the muddy streets with the holy cows. The ground was full of cowexcrement and human excrement, sewage and garbage, and all walked through it,many barefoot. Pavement cafes displayed their food, dead dogs lay rotting in theroad, the flies buzzed around both.

Beggars of all deformities squatted in any available corner or opening and at nightpavements and the railway station platforms became beds for the thousands ofhomeless. The crush made it seem as if in the whole city there was standing roomonly. Whenever I gave a few rupees to some wide-eyed beggar child, out ofnowhere would appear another twenty.

In contrast to the cities I had an opportunity to see the rural life of India when Iwent to Rajastan, a province in northern India famous for its textiles and craftwork.

When I was in Rajestan I was fortunate to become friendly with one of the localMaharajas and his family and stayed in his palace. This Maharaja was both a manof great power and wealth who was held in high regard by his people and also avery learned man in relation to traditional Indian medical and mystical andspiritual matters.

One of the main highlights of my time with him was when he took me to meet'His people' who lived in villages out in the desert. The Maharaja some of hisother friends his body guards and myself all set of in an open top jeep across thepink deserts of Rajestan. On the way from one village to another we passed a herdof forty camels being herded by tribesman with a big sticks and a pink turbans.

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The Maharaja said that the colour of the turban indicated that he was anagriculturalist, each class had a different coloured head dress, the warriors wore aspeckled red turban and the elders turbans were yellow.

Along the way we also passed women carrying produce to market, they wore themost beautiful saris in incredible bright colours. The glowing blue, red, pink andorange material contrasted with their dark skin and ivory and gold jewellery.

As we drove along people put their hands together in a prayer like gesture andbowed to the Maharaja as we passed by. They immediately recognised himbecause his huge moustache that reached to his ears and black wrap around sunglasses made him quite easy to distinguish.

One fellow came up to him bowed several times and spoke to the Maharaja in asort of chanting ritualised way. He was saying to the Maharaja that his greatgrandfather was greatly respected by the people because of all his good works.His grandfather was also very giving and generous and so was also loved by thepeople. And his father was held in high esteem because of the contributions hemade to the villagers. The Maharaja acknowledged the mans formal request andnodded to the bodyguard who gave a big bundle of rupees to the villager.

The Maharaja not only helped his people financially but also brought many itemsfrom them directly for his palace. Each villages specialised in a different craftindustry, carpets, embroidery, jewellery, carving or weaving.

We visited many different villages, the one we stopped in for lunch had lowbuildings with white walls thatched roofs and the floors made of hardened cowdung. There was a separate round stone building for cooking in, its interior wallswere decorated with a stylised fire symbol.

The women who were sitting next to the fire on the floor preparing the food werein a yoga like posture. The Maharaja explained that the women always sat in thatparticular posture to protect their liver from the heat of the fire.

Whilst the women were preparing the food the men were making and smoking‘Bedis’ a type of cigarette made from a rolled up leaf. Whilst we ate the Maharajaasked me if I noticed anything unusual about the jewellery the women wore. Itwas very beautiful and made out of intricately crafted silver and seemed to me tobe a wonderful type of decoration. He pointed out that they were wearingbracelets, anklets, necklaces, belts and head-dresses, this was not just forappearance but served a medical purpose as well by regulating the seven pulseslocated on the wrists, ankles, waist, neck and head.

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As we left the village we walked through the cropfields and were shown the wellsand underground water storage facilities paid for by the maharajah. He pointedout that the bushes between the fields were not just boundaries but were in factspecific types of medicinal herbs grown by and used by the villagers.

At the end of the day we left the villages and made our way back to theMaharajas palace. The pink coloured desert was now turning red in the setting sunand as herds of gazelle bounded out the way I thought that I was fortunate to havehad a chance to see the traditional village life of India.

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Chapter Six

Meeting the Dalai Lama of Tibet in the Indian Himalayas

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On a bus winding its slow way up into the foothills of the Himalayas. As the busascended the air became cooler and cleaner and because I was sitting on the roofof the bus, the views became more and more spectacular. I had to be careful notto get to absorbed by the views or I would forget to lie down flat when we passedunder the power lines and telephone cables which would have decapitated me.

Behind me were the arid, roasting plains of India, and ahead of me I could see theawesome, snow capped, sky-scraping peaks of the Himalayan mountain range -and somewhere up there on the Himalayan plateau was the legendary, forbidden,unhappy land of Tibet.

Macleod Gunj is a village built high up a mountain, many Tibetan refugees hadmade their home here after fleeing to India to escape the Chinese invasion of the1950s. The Dalai Lama the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people now lived inexile in this flourishing community. It was a colourful, living spiritual centre forthe Tibetans, they had built a large monastery and there were many TibetanBuddhist Lamas, monks and nuns on the mountain.

In Tibetan Buddhism it is believed that High Lamas are able to choose where theyare going to be reincarnated when they die. Most decide not to take the option ofmoving up to a higher spiritual plane, but instead return to Earth so that they canhelp others along the Way. The Dalai Lama himself had already reincarnatedfourteen times.

Macleod Gunj had two parallel main roads, called Up Street, and Down Street.Between them were several rows of large prayer wheels, turned continuously bypassing Tibetans. They say as long as someone, somewhere, is turning a prayerwheel, then the world itself will continue to spin.

I stayed in a small room built on the roof of a house and every morning as the sunrose over the Himalayas and every evening as it set over the plains of India, Iwould practice my Tai Chi.

The local Tibetan children would frequently join in when I was training, laughing,joking and imitating my movements. Word soon spread to other travellers inMacleod Gunj and in no time at all I was giving two classes a day. I became awell known fixture and was commonly referred to as Mr Yin Yang.

I had gifts for specific Lamas and letters of introduction from Sifu Tans disciplein Singapore, so one morning, I set off to visit the monastery. As I made my wayacross the mountain and through the woods, I exchanged greetings with thesmiling Buddhist monks whom I passed on the way.

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The Lamas were wise and compassionate, and radiated such harmony and serenitythat I was left dazed after spending any time in their company. Those Lamas whodid not speak English, had interpreters, and I spent many months studying theTibetan Buddhist system in greater depth.

Everything was always explained with a determination for there to be no room forerror or misunderstanding. For example in one class about meditation it was madeclear that the mind should not be active. It was then also made clear that weshould not be thinking about not thinking for this would be activating the mind. Itwas then further pointed out that we should not get concerned about whether wewere or were not thinking about not thinking for this would also be activating themind !

One evening as I trained my tai chi on the flat roof outside my room at sunset thesky was awash with rainbows of light. Colourful prayer flags, which were strungfrom the trees, fluttered gently in the breeze and high above me, giant eaglesspiralled on the updraughts. Occasionally, one of these great birds would swoopdown over my head to grab at the food offerings left out on the roof for them bythe Tibetans.

I finished my training session with a few standing Chi Kung postures and apassing Tibetan Buddhist monk, who had noticed me from the street, came up tothe roof. He showed me the Tibetan versions of the postures, and indicated thatenergy from the Heavens descended to the head, and energy from the Earthascended up the legs into the belly, and that they both combined in the heart. Thiscompassion energy was then radiated throughout the world to all those in need.This was the Buddha’s Middle Way, the Path of the Heart.

During the months that I had been staying in Macleod Gunj, the Dalai Lama hadbeen away. Then, it was announced that he was returning from Geneva where hehad just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Word rapidly spread around thevillage and there was joy and expectation in the air. I noticed a steady stream ofTibetans, old and young, all making their way from the village, through thewoods to the Dalai Lama’s palace. I joined the flow.

Gathered in a large clearing on the hillside next to the palace were hundreds ofmonks and lamas, all clad in maroon robes, and behind them hundreds of Tibetanfamilies with their children. Brightly coloured prayer flags fluttered in the breezeand a deep, resonant chant began to emanate from the group.

I stood on the edge of the clearing, under the shade of some trees. The monks andlamas were seated crosslegged in a semicircle, focusing on a large, white incenseburner which was about ten feet high. The white smoke rose up into the clear,blue sky. Some of the monks were holding religious artifacts like the Vajras, a sort

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of double-headed spear symbolic of the Thunderbolt of Enlightenment and othersplayed bells, gongs and conches. All together there must have been about athousand people on the hillside.

I asked what the gathering was about, and it was explained that the chanting ofmantras and prayers was to generate the positive energy of compassion, and thiswas carried by the incense smoke to the Dalai Lama in Geneva and to the wholeworld.

Over the next few days, preparations were made for the Dalai Lama’s return.Colourful decorations were hung across the roads and from the houses and trees.An electrifying feeling of expectation grew as the days went by, until finally themoment arrived.

Hundreds of Tibetan refugees had come down from the neighbouring villages andgathered in Macleod Gunj, holding flowers in their hands. The Dalai Lama’s carwas flanked by open-topped jeeps filled with monks and advisers. As they droveup the crowd-lined, winding mountain roads and through Macleod Gunj, theywere showered with flowers by the cheering crowds.

That night, the Tibetans had a massive celebration in the village square.Everybody was drinking chang, a potent Tibetan beer. Huge drums beat and agiant circle of brightly dressed Tibetan women danced around and around, therhythm of their feet stamping the ground matching the beat of the drums. Flagswaved in the wind and small groups of people were spiral dancing in the centre ofthe circle. The festivities went on late into the night.

In the light of the early morning I saw some beautiful Tibetan girls walking by, inbright and colourful costumes, heading towards the Dalai Lama’s palace. Otherpeople were also going that way. I learned that they were from a Tibetan dancetroupe and were going to give a performance for the Dalai Lama. The palacegates were wide open and everybody was invited in to watch. So, in the innercourtyard, I sat and waited for the performance to begin.

Suddenly there were clashing gongs, beating drums and whirlwind maskeddancers. They spun and glided as the trumpets blew and the dance developed intoa play.

There was something apart from the colour, music and drama of the dance thathad me captivated, the configurations of the dancers seemed to be in geometricformations, like the mandalas in the monasteries. The whole performance wasgenerating an energy field that drew the onlookers in, until we becamemesmerised by it.

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Later in the day, I heard that the Dalai Lama was opening his doors to anytravellers who wanted to talk to him. So I wandered through his garden to thesmall dwelling where he was holding audience. An aura of serenity surroundedhim and he had a wonderfully warm welcoming smile. We talked for a while andhe gave me a red cord necklace with a special knot in it which is symbolic of thethread that holds the universe together.

I was glad to have had the opportunity to meet a man of such great virtue andcompassion. I heard a rumour that he believed that the time for Dalai Lamas wasover, that he was the last, and would not reincarnate after his death.

The months went by and I have many happy memories of drinking ginger tea onthe roof, chatting with other travellers and Tibetans whilst watching the sunsetover India and, later at night, watching shooting stars whiz across the crystal clearsky. The Milky Way shone as brightly as daylight, and the concentration of themonks and lamas chanting their daily meditations seemed to make the wholemountain glow with energy and serenity.

There were many strange and magical things happening in Mcleod Gunj. Onenight, during a full moon, while I was asleep, I floated out of my body and, likethe eagles, flew about the mountain at great speed. The air was cool and fresh.Above me, the full moon in a bright, starry sky and below me, the forests andravines of the mountain were rushing by. Did I realy leave my body and flythrough the sky or was it just a dream ?

During this time the owners of the house on whose roof I was sleeping had givenbirth to a daughter. The baby was born with the Sanskrit word ‘Om’ written onher tongue. This is the first word of the famous meditation mantra 'Om-Mani-Padme-Hum' (The Jewel In the heart Of The Lotus). Another strange thingconcerned a traveller who had caught an illness, and was bedridden. It becameknown to the lamas and so, that evening, all the lamas sent out healing energy tohim, and the next day, he was up and well.

On a clear cloudless day a mist started forming in the pine forests on thesurrounding slopes, it kept low to the ground and crept around the town beforedisappearing down the mountain, the strange thing was that it was bright green.Whether it was just pollen being carried on the wind or something else I will everknow but the next night I was to experience the most intense and disturbingphenomenon of my time in Macleod Gunj.

I was sitting on my bed meditating, the door and shutters of my room were closedand I had only one candle burning to provide light. The stillness of the night wasshattered by the sudden howling of all the dogs in the village and on themountain, as if they were trying to ward off an intruder. The howling stopped as

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swiftly as it had begun and then an eerie whistling wind descended from theHimalayas. It went charging through the village from house to house, as ifsearching for something or someone. It tore the roofs off houses and smashedflower pots and shattered windows.

I felt the presence of another person on the roof outside my room. A momentlater, the door opened and shut quickly as a girl slipped in. She was one of thetravellers in my Tai Chi class. She came over to the bed, sat down and startedjabbering about various fears, worries and anxieties she had. It was clear to methat her mind had been disturbed by the wind, and I said so. I then told her to bequiet and stay still, because when she had come into the room, the chaotic coldwind spirit had come in with her.

The room temperature began to drop and the room started to go into shadows andalthough the candle flame remained the same height and did not waver, the roomcontinued growing darker and darker and get colder and colder.

I started to do special Chi Kung breathing to stop my bones shaking from thecold, and told the girl that the spirit was feeding off her fear and that she shouldclear her mind. She did so with an effort, and the room started to get brighter, andthe temperature to return to normal. I suggested she return to her room whilst thewind was elsewhere and went back to my meditation.

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Chapter seven

Training with Chen Fei in Australia

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In Sydney I read a martial arts magazine in which a Chinese Tai Chi teachercalled Sifu Chen Fei was interviewed. Sifu Chen Fei was from Swatow City inthe province of Kwang Tung and had learnt his Tai Chi from Chiang Yu Khuenand Tung Ying Chieh who were both students of Yang Chen Fu. He also studiedwith the son of Tung Ying Chieh, Tung Fu-ling.

I managed to find out where he lived and went to pay a visit. I found him sittingin his garden, on the table in front of him were several old Tai Chi texts inChinese. Sifu Chen Fei was eighty nine and still practised and taught his tai chievery day.I introduced myself and explained my martial arts experience so far, heasked to see my Tai Chi, I showed him the first Form of the Chen Style.

I then stepped back, out of his way, and watched as he demonstrated his fastversion of the Yang Style Long Form. He leapt and bounded around the gardenwith great balance and agility. He was an amazing old man with great posture,speed and smooth movement.

The next day, I began to train with Sifu Chen Fei. I was most interested to learnthe Yang Style Two-Person Fighting Set, the Large San Sau. He said that to beable to do it properly, it was necessary to understand the Yang Style Long Form,so he insisted that I first learnt that.

Sifu Chen Fei was surprised at the ease with which I learnt the Yang Long Form.I was able to do this because I had already learned the Thirteen Postures of theYang Style, which are the essence of the Form, from Sifu Tan. I did not mentionthis to Sifu Chen Fei, though.

After I had learnt the Yang Style Long Form, Sifu Chen Fei showed me how toput the Chi Kung Breathing into it. This Reverse Lower Abdominal Breathingwas synchronised with the hand movements to increase the flow of Chi.

He then showed me special Chi kung exercises to develop the Yin and Yang SilkCocoon Reeling Energy. This type of energy had a spiralling quality to it whichresulted in greater Chi flow and increased internal strength when it was put intothe Tai Chi. These Yin and Yang Silk Cocoon Reeling Energy Exercises were verysimilar to the Thirteen Postures of the Chen Style which Sifu Tan had taught me.

From Sifu Chen Fei I learned The Yang Style Long Form and Yang Style LargeSan-Sau two person fighting form, the Da Lu and single and double PushingHands with fixed and moving step.

Sifu Chen Fei said, " Our emphasis should not be on taking another’s life, butrather on how we live our own lives. Better to try and develop a calm mind, soyou are not ruled by your emotions. "

Chapter Eight

Training with Erle Montaigue in Australia

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I left Sydney, and made my way up the coast, there were some beautiful beachesand the weather was warm and sunny. I had bought with me the martial artsmagazine in which Sifu Chen Fei was interviewed. When I read it again itoccurred to me that the person who was doing the interview was asking veryintelligent relevant questions. His name was Sifu Erle Montaigue and he was thehead of the World Tai Chi Boxing Association and had been practicing tai chisince 1968.

I telephoned Sifu Erle Montaigue and said that I was a travelling martial artist andwould like to meet him. We arranged to meet the next evening, at a small cafe onthe beach. I was sitting outside, drinking tea, the sea was like a mirror reflectingthe pastel colours of the sunset sky as I considered the questions I wanted to askhim.

Sifu Montaigue arrived, accompanied by one of his students. They strode towardsme, their expressions hard and determined. It suddenly dawned on me that theythought they had been invited to a duel. I went straight over and introducedmyself and they soon realised that I was not challenging them, but just wanted tofurther my knowledge.

Sifu Montaigue had a big build, big beard, and long dark hair - he was a giantbear of a man. He introduced himself and his student and we went back to mytable, and while we drank more tea, I summed up all my Tai Chi experiences todate, and then began asking questions.

Sifu Montaigue spoke very directly, and answered all my questions happily. I saidI had heard that, as well as Yang Chen Fu’s Yang Style Form, he also taughtanother style of Tai Chi which contained fa jin. I assumed this meant he did theChen Family Style. He said that this other style he taught was not the Chen Stylebut Yang Lu Chan’s Old Yang Style.

I had thought this style to be lost, so how did he know it ? He explained thatYang Chen Fu, who was Yang Lu Chan’s grandson, knew the original form butafter teaching it for a few years then decided to alter it. He simplified the form atleast three times and in doing so, he took out all the fa jin and the acrobatic andmore martial movements. So today when people say that they are practising theYang style it is one of the new simplified version created by Yang Chen Fu thatthey are doing.

What many people did not know was that he had an older brother called YangShao Hu, who had kept the original form and did not alter it. He taught it to onlya very few people, one of whom was his second cousin, Chang Yiu Chun, whomSifu Montaigue had learnt it from when Chang Yiu Chun was in Australia.

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Sifu Montaigue asked if I would like to see Yang Lu Chan’s Old Yang Style LongForm ? I nodded enthusiastically. We went over to a quiet, grassy area by thebeach in the shade of some trees.

The Form was more detailed than the Yang Style I had learnt from Sifu Chen Fei.It was a great form, the way of moving was like the Being Connected Way ofMoving that I had learnt from Sifu Tan but with the greater attention to postureand detail that was the hallmark of the Yang Style.

He then asked me to demonstrate the San Sau fighting Form I had learnt fromSifu Chen Fei. I began it using the martial applications I had been shown. Whenthe opponent advances, I retreat, block and then step forward to counter-attack.The opponent then steps back and blocks, then steps forward to counter-attack.

Sifu Montaigue stopped me and said that Yang Chen Fu had also altered the SanSau. It should be done in a different way, when the opponent retreats, you alsoretreat, but when he comes forward to attack, then you immediately fa jin forwardand get your attack in first!

To show what he meant, he asked his student to step forward into the centre of theclearing and then they disappeared in a blur of explosive movement as they wentthrough the San Sau, doing full contact simultaneous fa jin counter-strikes. Liketwo colliding tornadoes, they hammered against each other.

The two of them then showed me how the Pushing Hands should be done the OldYang Style way. It was exactly the same way that they had done the San Sau. Thisadvanced way was took a while to get used to but its effectiveness could not bedoubted.

We returned to the cafe, and ordered some fresh tea. I had noticed that, whilstSifu Montaigue had been demonstrating Yang Lu Chan’s Old Yang Style Form, hehad moved his fingers and hands in lots of little extra arcs and jabs which werenot present in Yang Chen Fu’s Form.

Sifu Montaigue said that this was the dim mak strikes and that Yang Chen Fu hadreduced the emphasis on dim mak when he changed the form. As he got olderYang Chen Fu stopped practising and teaching the dim mak and fa jin and theoriginal forms that he had learnt from his father. Instead he concentrated ontraining and teaching his own simplified slower style that was more concernedwith the health benefits of tai chi.

Sifu Montaigue invited me back to his house the next day for lunch and to begintraining. I was very enthusiastic to learn his style because it had all the bestaspects of all the things I had learnt so far and a whole lot more.

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However there was something else apart from what he was teaching that had a bigeffect on me and that was his friendly hospitality and good humour. He said ‘Justcall me Erle’.

Erle not only taught an excellent martial arts system but was also a healer. He didnot smoke or drink and explained that for a person to have good health, goodmartial arts ability and to be able to develop great healing skills just doing the TaiChi and Chi Kung was not enough.

If you wanted to have the whole fruit you had to have all the segments. So it wasnecessary to not only train Tai Chi and Chi Kung every day but also to have agood healthy diet, think the right thoughts and have a lifestyle that was as close tonature as possible.

Over the years I learnt the whole of the Old Yang Style System from Erle, itsempty hand and weapons forms its training methods, martial arts applications andinternal principles. He believed that once a person had learnt a move, it was his. Itwould be the same move, but everyone would do it in the way that was a uniqueexpression of the individual.

Erle was physicaly big and powerful but radiated great peacefullness and hismartial ability had a perfect blend of internal force and sensitivity. He said aperson should have a yin - yang balance in their lives, be a fighter and a healer, intouch with ones true nature as well as the healing power of nature.

I realised as the years went by that what Erle was teaching within the forms andtraining methods was how to use the energy within to change ones life for thebetter.

The power of the martial arts was not about having power over others but powerover oneself to cultivate a balanced healthy way of life.

Erle's philosophy was that its not about philosophy, its about experience. We donot have teachers, but guides who enable us to become our own greatest teachersand to find the answers within ourselves.

To me Erle Montaigue is clearly a master of Tai Chi but he said he did not wantpeople always looking to him, he wanted people to look to themselves. He said ‘You should not call anyone else your Master, you should be your own Master’.

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About The Author

Paul Brecher BA FAcS MPCHM began training in the martial arts at the age often and is now the Senior Instructor for the World Taiji Boxing Association inLondon. He is also the Principal of The College of Chinese Medicine in London where heteaches Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine and Traditional ChineseDiagnosis.

He has made numerous appearances on television, been interviewed on radio andin the national press. And his books 'The Principles of Tai Chi' and 'The Way OfThe Spiritual Warrior' and 'Tai Chi Directions' and 'The Secrets of Energy Work'and 'Tai Chi Fighting and Healing' are all sold worldwide.

Paul has his own practice in London where he treats patients with Acupunctureand Chinese Herbal Medicine if you would like to make an appointment please call 020 8 264 8074

If you would like to study Taiji with Paul please visit www.taiji.net or if youwould like to study Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine then please visitwww.thecollegeofchinesemedicine.co.ukwww.thecollegeofchinesemedicine.com

Paul can also be contacted at

PAUL BRECHER

PO BOX 13219

LONDON NW11 7WS

ENGLAND UK

paul@taiji.net

Telephone 020 8 264 8074

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55

A Martial Arts Journey

By Paul Brecher

Paul Brecher spent many years on a martial arts journey searching out andtraining with different Instructors, Sifu's, Monks and Gurus on a quest to find theanswers to life’s mysteries. His quest into the martial arts led him into the healingarts and the spiritual philosophy that flows through them both. This is the story ofhis journey.

Published in London by

JEDZAK BOOKS

PO BOX 13219

LONDON NW11 7WS

ENGLAND UK

British Library Cataloguing in publication Data

A catalogue record for this title is

available from The British Library

ISBN 0-9542425-1-3

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