BLACK BELT: The Monkey (I Tuan)

Element: Space, Emptiness, Void

The developing Sage, the Monkey, snuffs out the candle in the temple of our analytical intellect, and only the pure possibilities of a Black Void remain. Speculation and theoretical guessing of any sort are abandoned as the Monkey opens himself to the immediacy of merely being.

Image

A White circle drawn and colored with Orange, Purple, Blue, Green, and Brown divisions. Blackest ink is spilled and the carefully drawn circle and fine paper are obliterated with a barely heard chuckle.

Commentary

The Monkey combines the attributes of all the previous animals. Where each previous animal represented a characteristic sort of physical and mental attitude, the Monkey combines each of the five separate animals into a single whole. In this respect, the Monkey is not so much a hidden sixth animal of our Kenpo system as he is its composite expression, just as the fist may be seen to be the combined expression of its separate fingers. The Kenpo system embodies a kind of evolution for its practitioners in that the maturing Monkey evolves from the synthesis of Tiger, Crane, Leopard, Dragon, and Snake attributes. And, ultimately, the Monkey becomes the Sage. The system attempts to isolate and develop the separate abilities each of us share in varying degrees. When these basic five pieces have been explored and developed at some length, they are again fused together into a new and complex animal one which has been broken down and then reassembled with discipline, strength, and a better understanding of himself and his world. No two Monkey stylists are alike. The difference between Monkey stylists and other more specific animal stylists is much more pronounced.

Each individual has preferences and attitudes which make them an individual, and these differences find room for their fullest expression in the Monkey. However, there are still features, both tangible and intangible, of the Monkey stylist which overshadow individual interpretation. The most tangible physical aspect of a Monkey stylist is his versatility. Being a composite, the Monkey may draw on any one or combination of the five animals in a given situation. However, Monkeys seem to emphasize low crouching foot sweeps and climbing an opponent's attack (actually climbing a leg or sliding down an arm) and often use jumping attacks which begin low and suddenly leap into an opponent.

More specifically, the Monkey is a Tai Chi Ch'uan Iron-Palm stylist. Loose jointed, rag-doll-like movements in which the power transfer is from rooted feet through hips and shoulders then to hands or feet are emphasized. Characteristic strikes are the traditional five Iron-Palm hand forms: Dotting (wrist flick, snapping fingers, and thumb forward), Cutting (vertical angular chop or willow-palm also delivered with a wrist snap), Slapping (whole hand strike with palm and extended fingers delivered with a wrist snap), Falling (back-hand strike with fingers extended and wrist snapped into impact), and Stamping (Iron-Palm strike with heel hand and characteristic wrist snap at impact). The Monkey also has some peculiar hooking ape-hand blocks in which the arms are nearly fully extended and the hands are hooked at the wrist to trap and control incoming hand and foot attacks. Versatility, low crouching sweeps, Iron-Palm strikes, and hooking ape-hand techniques capture the tangible elements of the Monkey's style.

The combat theory and intangible components of this style are not so easily indicated. In combat, the Monkey stylist is a thinking fighter who adapts to situation and circumstance. He is primarily defensive and always sneaky. He usually adopts a mirror-image theory of force in which the fury of his attack or defense is directly proportional to that of his opponent, the principle of equal force. The Monkey strives to blend Oak and Willow Tree theories of combat into his flexible style. When overpowered, the Monkey bends, absorbs, and avoids (the Willow); advantages are crushingly pressed when open (the Oak). The Monkey borrows his combat theory from the three major philosophies of ancient China: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. From Confucianism stems the Monkey's firm regard for courtesy, discipline, respect, and generally ritualized deportment.

Also from Confucianism comes the concept of the Unwobbling Pivot. This is a key component of Point-Circle combat theory which calls attention to the necessity of maintaining a stable center for our dynamic sphere; the idea of a rooted Ch'i flow. From Taoism comes the concept of animal components of the human personality and the emphasis of vitalism. Taoism is also the source of the Yin/Yang dynamic harmony of opposites. Oak and Willow, Sticking and Running Hands are aspects of this balance. Give and redirect when attacked, and take and fill when the opponent withdraws. From Buddhism come the concepts of "presentness" Doing-What-You-Are-Doing-While-You-Are-Doing-It, and the corresponding notion of Wu Hsin, No Mind. The Monkey thus fights a Point-Circle style with himself as the mobile unwobbling pivot point of his personal dynamic sphere, adopts a Give-and-Take Yin/Yang attitude of defense and attack, and strives to lose himself within and be one with his situation. The Monkey's Tai Chi Ch'uan style is as much meditational as it is a theory of combat. For the Monkey, the mind comes first, the body later; the body should follow the mind as a shadow follows an object.

The mind must imaginatively move the Ch'i and the Ch'i then moves the body. Physical movements are to resemble the unwinding of a spring: the mind feels the tension and triggers the catch, the unwinding is automatic. The Monkey stylist is Relaxed, Fluid, Rooted, and fully Present to his situation. Relaxation under stress can only be gained through extensive meditational training to control physical and mental processes, or by frequent exposure to mock-stress situations. Calmness is the product of experience. Fluidity comes from balance and grace, from practice. The Monkey stylist must at first be consciously aware of which leg is full (weight bearing) and which empty, and how this emptiness and fullness smoothly and successively induce one another.

Only later does this feeling become intuitive. Rootedness for the Monkey is practiced through the mental imagery of Sinking. Here, his imagination lowers his feeling for his center of gravity to successively lower and lower levels: from chest to Tan Tien, from Tan Tien to thighs, to knees, to ankles, to heels. The heels are the roots of the Monkey's Oak and Willow, the bubbling Ch'i spring. Presentness means total commitment to the Here and Now. An old story tells of a Monkey relentlessly chased by a Tiger until the Monkey was forced over a cliff and barely managed to catch and hang on to a stubby branch to keep himself from falling to his death. With the Tiger growling and slashing from above and the bush slowly pulling from the cliff face, the Monkey still has time to notice that the bush has the best darn berries he's ever tasted. The Monkey does not train, he practices at and is his art. His art is a continually changing and creatively personalized expression of how he sees himself in his world. Rigid formalisms of classical styles no longer constrain him, he is his style.

He is a constant physical/mental koan to himself, a puzzle whose object lies not in its resolution but in its being lived. He is a composite creature and a consummate fighter. His trained mind is nevertheless as open and receptive as that of the beginner's; the difference being that the world doesn't so much intimidate and impose itself upon him as it did the beginner, but that he and world are seen as one. The world does not force itself upon him, nor does he seek to dominate it. There is no self and no world to conflict in this fashion, rather there is only a singleness, a wholeness whose meaning and truth lie in experience and action.