The Way of Least Resistance

Our Wu-Wei Dao syllabus at the Academy of Traditional Fighting Arts contains physical prerequisites for grading. The first reaction I tend to get from more mature students is one of horror.  I guess that is understandable: the older I get, the less I like the idea of having keep up with 20-somethings.  I guess I feel a bit like some ancient police sergeant having to do an obstacle course in under a certain time. There are the usual arguments I face - like "I'm learning martial arts skills - not training to be an MMA fighter, a law enforcement officer or soldier.  Why the heck do I need some kind of physical test?" And the answer is: "You don't." We have plenty of students who train in our non-grading classes - in particular my Chinese arts class.  There we don't have any gradings at all.  I teach certain techniques and coach students in developing their skill in these techniques.  And all of this is done without any reference to a particular p...

Introduction Initially I had included the subject of "tests" of "chi" (meaning "spirit" or "breath" - spelled "qi" in Pinyin, "ki" in Japanese and written 氣 in hanzi /kanji) in my previous article ; it arose out of the same "stream of consciousness" and should accordingly be read subject to that discussion. However I chose to put this subject into a separate essay because I think it deserves its own focus. "Chi/ki tests" are perennial favourites in martial arts circles. They range from cheap parlour tricks to drills that actually require some real martial skill (a skill that is however explained in vague, mystical or supernatural terms). In this article I propose to deal with the latter: In other words, I want to focus on two fairly common "chi/ki tests" that actually do require some skill. In so doing, I hope to: explain what these tests are actually "measuring" (ie. wha...