This year, I’m being honored by a martial arts magazine (which shall remain nameless) in its ‘Hall of Fame’, as “Martial Artist of The Year”. This is remarkable to me as I have always thought of this Magazine as the Anti-Christ of martial Arts. It seems, though, that the folks over there are coming around, although one wonders why somebody didn’t think of this twenty-five years or so ago, when I was at the spearhead of the whole martial arts explosion. Well, better late than never. And, a rocking chair is a perfectly acceptable place from which to enjoy the fruits of one’s youth. Actually, I’ve been working on these folks for some time.
A writer there, name of Floyd, approached me a couple of years ago to do an article, and I took it upon myself to educate the people there a little through him. I spent some hours acquainting Floyd with the differences between kung fu and Karate, showed him some dazzling Northern Shaolin moves, and gave him a couple of my books to read. He became fascinated with the inner teachings of kung fu, even to the point of taking some lessons from Rob Moses. The editors of the magazine jumped in, greenlighting a whole series of articles examining what must be for them ‘alternative’ approaches to The Arts. Sort of like PC people going over to Mac.
I find all this to be a very good sign. For years, people have been coming up to me on the street or in Jerry’s Delicatessen, and telling me that my show was such an inspiration to them that they went out and studied Karate!! I always shook my head in wonderment. Didn’t they notice what the name of the show was? At the beginning their excuse would be that they couldn’t find anyplace to teach them kung fu. Well, that was true to an extent, though you’d think they could have tried harder. Things have certainly changed since then. And I’m not talking about the dojos that hung up a sign saying Karate-Kung fu. The Art is definitely spreading.
The misconceptions about kung fu abound out there. That it’s a system purely for defense, for instance. We all know you can kill people with this stuff. On the other hand, that it’s purely for combat, when the deep, underlying purpose is, as I say in my handbook, Spirit of Shaolin, “To improve the texture of moment to moment existence”. In other words, to make you feel better.
But, people have a way of rearranging the truth to suit their own preconceived biases, which is to say, prejudices. A philosopher named Bertram Russell put it nicely when he said, “Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day”.
Rob Moses, incidentally, has been honored himself, by The United States Marshal Arts Hall of Fame, as “Founder of The Year”, for his radical new system, which he calls “Nine Psalms Praying Mantis”. Actually, I get in on these honors, too, as Rob lists me as a co-founder, though I had very little to do with it, aside from providing my moral support and in-absentia inspiration. Rob is putting together a video to introduce the system, and I am involved in that, to the extent of sharing some of my expertise in filmmaking. That ‘other mag’ is doing a series on the system, though they changed the name to “Nine Palms”. They are afraid, apparently, that the word Psalms might be too spiritual, or something, for their readers’ tastes. But, they’re getting there.
Rob and I have been working together for twenty years. Though he has been my trainer and teacher, I have managed in passing to infect him with my own radical ideas about kung fu. Well, not that radical. All I’ve done is to take the differences between Northern Shaolin doctrine and all the rest of the styles (I’d have to add “As I see them) and exaggerated those contrasts. Putting extra emphasis on individual progress as opposed to competition, substituting freedoms for disciplines. Searching for the inner truths, the advantages to health and longevity, as opposed to fighting skills. Not that I’m against knowing how to kick butt, but it seems to me that the Masters of a two-thousand-year-old philosophy should have better things to occupy their time than beating people up.
Rob’s Nine Psalms system takes a quantum leap from there. Abandoning forms and rules to discover an incredible release in working out. A renewal of childlike fun, and a beauty that is breathtaking. When he walked me through the system (me, who is supposed to be the inspiration for it), I was transported, supercharged.
I guess you’re never so far along that you can’t continue to evolve.
