I believe in the stories of old that probably every Traditional Martial Artist believes (to one extent or another ). Stories about a handful of fighting monks taking on armies, stories of beings achieving immortality or even my favorite story of all the Journey to the West.

If I am to believe that EPIC stories like those are true then really basic stories about taichi being the “Grand Ultimate” art should be true and easily proven… unfortunately that hasn’t been the case thus far. Why? If you ask me it’s because most taichi schools have taken out a necessary element of forward progress, that being constant testing (ie. competition). Taichi competition does exist, but not to the extent you see in BJJ, MMA, Judo, Kickboxing, etc.

How Do We Change This

I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this. My thought is making a style of taichi push hands competition which opens up it’s borders to other arts and makes itself entertaining to all. Put simply my solution is platform moving step push hands with rules that make it inviting to other arts.

Here’s a video of what platform push hands looks like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNXnxCpjUNM

Here’s a picture of a platform from a school in Taiwan that wants to promote platform moving step push hands:

Why?

Put frankly because I’d like more people to practice with! That and tai chi really is the grand ultimate in an area of MMA. Similar to the way BJJ is what everyone practices for a ground art, I believe taichi could be something everyone practices to dominate clinches and the space leading up to a clinch.

Also, with rules that open the competition up to other arts, taichi players would get a chance to feel what other arts have to offer taichi and other arts would have a chance to feel what taichi has to offer them.

Think soft can overcome the hard? PROVE IT on the platform!

When, Where, How?

Again, this is just a dream of mine. It would DEFINITELY require the help of others. But I thought a cool when and where would be would be Disney World this November 5th in conjunction with KungfuChampionship.com. What would be even MORE awesome is if we could get some of the players from the group in Taiwan to join the competition.

There’s the dream. What do you think?

I’ll recap what I talked about in the video. When doing push hands a lot of people will let pressure come in and onto their center. If they’re more advanced, they’ll be able to take that pressure and direct it into the ground. From that point a person might try to push back, turn and throw the weight off or just hold it there. There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing those things, but if they’re all a person does they’re missing the chance to exercise another essential tai chi skill.

Protect Your Center

As soon as you try it with a partner you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. When even the slightest of force comes in towards your center immediately start to redirect it off and away from your center. It’s best to initially train this at a slower speed before working up to combat/competition speeds. Once you become adept at this you’ll find that people tend to throw themselves off balance because they’re not protecting their centers while attacking, they’re really off balance while they attack and/or they’re surprised by the feeling of not being able to ever touch your center.

So many things to practice so little time!

What I wrote last week was a reflection of who I was last week (after that experience). What’s below is a reflection of who I was 2 weeks ago (before that experience). What I write from this point forward will be a reflection of who “I” am at that particularly slice of time.

Enjoy!

—

All the world knows beauty
but if that becomes beautiful
this becomes ugly 
all the word knows good
but if that becomes good
this becomes bad 
the coexistence of have and have not
the coproduction of hard and easy
the correlation of long and short 
the codependence of high and low
the correspondence of note and noise
the coordination of first and last
is endless 
thus the sage performs effortless deeds
and teaches wordless lessons 
he doesn’t start all things he begins
he doesn’t presume on what he does
he doesn’t claim what he achieves 
and because he makes no claim
he suffers no loss

From Red Pine’s translation.

The first section of this passage is basically saying “Without THIS there’s no THAT.”

There’s no good without evil.
No happy without sad.
No up without down.
No yin without yang.

It’s something so obvious it seems like it doesn’t need to be said BUT if a person REALLY understood the dichotomy of this (yin) and that (yang) one would (theoretically) come to the same conclusion as the sage in our story.

thus the sage performs effortless deeds
and teaches wordless lessons 
he doesn’t start all things he begins
he doesn’t presume on what he does
he doesn’t claim what he achieves 
and because he makes no claim
he suffers no loss

thus the sage performs effortless deeds

I’m still at a loss to what an “effortless deed” is, but it sounds like some fly ass shit. Does that mean I that I shouldn’t try to perform? Does it mean that I understand that my performing is effortless when it’s in accordance with (my) nature?

and teaches wordless lessons 

What the hell are wordless lessons? I’m getting this lesson from words. Does that mean it didn’t come from a “sage”? This was the last bit that he wrote before retiring from the city life. Did he “realize” something and let everything go to let these be his last words before (what he believed was) “sagehood”?

he doesn’t start all things he begins

I don’t even know where to start on this one! (Hmmm… But I’m beginning this now and didn’t start it…)

he doesn’t presume on what he does

I can dig this one. There’s a few definitions of presume, but what I take from this line is that he isn’t attached to what he does and perhaps doesn’t make assumptions on the results.

he doesn’t claim what he achieves

I look forward to being able to one day internalize this, but I can’t right now. Claiming my achievements are an important part of completing the short and long term goals I have in life. I’m certain that I will get to a point in life where I can completely let go of all of the competitiveness and ego around claiming what “I” have done and what “I” am responsible for. Not yet though! I think it’s dangerous to try to take on attributes of “sages” before one’s time. Sagehood wasn’t built in a day!

and because he makes no claim he suffers no loss

That sounds baller as hell. Suffering no losses! But, you just have to reread the first section of this passage to know that if you “suffer no losses” you also “enjoy no gains.”

All this “daoism” stuff is tricky . Can someone enjoy the fruits without the labor? Sure! I do it all the time at the grocery store. Your life and your surrounds is a garden. One that can be cultivated with daoism (or any number of religions or philosophies). Through proper cultivation one can enjoy freedom. Laughing when something’s funny and crying when it’s sad.

The more one internalizes the dichotomy of THIS and THAT the more one understands that the “gains” and “losses,” the “beauty” and “ugly,” the “good” and “evil” and “this” and “that” are one.

So perhaps the “effortless deeds,” “wordless lessons,” “not starting what one begins” and “suffering no loss” has more to do with a state of mind than what is physically manifested in one’s reality…

Or not! lol

Questions? Comments? You know what to do.

I was going to do this project where I posted my own commentary on each passage of the Daodejing every Friday. Then I had an experience that made me not want to do it… TOO LATE! I had already told my senior student about the idea and he wants to see it happen. So here it is… happening.

If you follow the link above it will take you to the first post on this website which happened to be the first passage of the Daodejing. He it is again (Red Pine‘s translation):

The way that becomes a way
is not the Immortal Way
the name that becomes a name
is not the Immortal Name
the maiden of Heaven and Earth has no name
the mother of all things has a name
thus in innocence we see the beginning
in passion we see the end
two different names
for one and the same
the one we call dark
the dark beyond dark
the door to all beginnings

Casey’s Commentary

There’s only one way. Your way. My way. Trying to make your way my way. Trying to make my way your way. The beginning and end are the same. There is no beginning, there is no end.

Couple More Thoughts

My cryptic commentary is a one of the reasons why I didn’t want to move forward with the project. Last week I wrote a detailed analysis of the second passage. The next day I had an experience that made me not want to say anything else about this stuff! lol I’ll edit and post what I wrote last week, but the following commentaries will be short.

Also, something I’ve realized is that the Daodejing is a sacred text for being virtuous. (Dao = Way = How to, De = Virtue, Jing = Sacred text.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr5HiB8vzeA

This is a process that started when I was 6. SIX! And has stayed ever present within until now, 25 years later. I’ve been utterly consumed with becoming Mr. Miyagi-like figure for over 25 years!

Me and Martial Arts

What I wrote above was probably more than enough about me. If you think so skip to the next section.

Even though the seed was planted 25 years ago and has been growing since then, I didn’t get to try martial arts until I was about 10. First tai chi classes with my mom, then karate classes at a local YMCA. I really started getting serious about martial arts in high school when I was old enough for mom to let me walk to the local school on my own. I trained hard while in high school (as hard as you can with homework, school and other activities). I was reintroduced to tai chi near the end of high school (1997), fell in love with it and decided that THIS was the martial art I was going to train for the rest of my life. THIS would be my foundation.

I practiced tai chi with Shelton (my original teacher at the Chinese Kungfu Center), Eddie and Chris (old “kungfu brothers”) as much as I could. Then in 2002 I got to meet Master Henry Wang. It was only a one week seminar, but I absorbed one of his seven principles like a sponge. “Center.” I could easily spend 3 years teaching someone center. Ask my senior student. Shortly after that seminar, my passion for Chinese culture and martial arts took me to Taiwan.

For the first 4 months in Taiwan I went to 228 Park (Peace Park) everyday at 6am to train push hands under Zheng Laoshi’s instruction (one of Huang Xingxian’s students). “Living the tai chi dream” only lasted so long. Marriage, work and other hurdles of life eventually knock me off track. When I got back on track (2005), I found a second martial love… Brazilian Jiujitsu!

I LOVED BJJ! I LOVE BJJ! Probably more than the martial art itself is the BJJ community! I trained 5 days a week. Drank beer with these guys on the weekends. Traveled abroad and competed with them (Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines). Met AWESOME people (therealgeeza is one of my heros). Made AWESOME friends (Sincliza is hero friend). It was awesome. It was also a lot of fun being a newbie again. This is where I’ll segue to marketing…

It was my desire to share my martial arts with my mom that led me to YouTube (where I now have millions of hits.) It’s also thanks to therealgeeza who recorded this clip and emailed it to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye8_m0XVKgo

Now that video has 26,000 views! I’ve never used those views to drive people to my martial arts website (didn’t have one at the time) or to sell anything but… it’s essentially marketing (marketing that makes me look like a cocky BJJ player that got taken down by someone half his size!)

Me And Marketing

I’m going to begin by saying I view marketing like a kungfu. Those of you who know, marketing along with anything else that can be practiced IS a kungfu. By definition of kungfu! From Wikipedia:

Kung fu or gongfu or gung fu (功夫, Pinyin: gōngfu) is a Chinese term often used in the West to refer to Chinese martial arts.[1] Its original meaning is somewhat different, referring to one’s expertise in any skill achieved through hard work and practice, not necessarily martial.

Marketing is a kungfu. Just like comedy is a kungfu, archery, cooking, singing, racing horses, breakdancing, the list goes on and on and on…

Everything I approach in life (since I was 6 anyway ), I approach like kungfu. Like Daniel-Son in karate kid. I look for my teacher (not A teacher MY teacher). Heck! She doesn’t know it formally, but I even adopted a teacher for learning Chinese through an internet discussion forum. I decided that she was the best for me and did whatever she said to me or others when it came to learning Chinese (I ended up adopting other teachers as well.) I have an economics teacher too! (And friend!) If he tells me to read something. I’ll read it!

Wait… we were suppose to be talking about marketing right? So marketing. My first “teacher” was Don Lapre (you might remember these late night videos.) I thought I was going to learn how to place tiny classified ads to make over one million dollars. Instead I got a dose of marketing! I actually learned a TON of stuff from the materials he sent me. I also, unknowingly at the time, learned about the up-sell. Shortly after purchasing that program, someone called me to sell me something for $500? $1,000? I can’t remember. It was easy to say no at the time as I was… 18? 16? and didn’t have the money.

What I’m pointing out here is that, I wasn’t 6, but I identified something I wanted and took a small action towards it. The problem with sales and marketing is that you get A LOT of bad information from A LOT of people (not just the sellers and marketers, but friends and family). Martial Arts can be confusing, but it’s not THAT confusing.

Anyhow, I was WAY too interested in tai chi at the time to waste too much of my time on trying to make money. Shortly after that I decided I was going to be a Shaolin Monk anyway. What was a Shaolin Monk going to do with a million dollars? Burn it to stay warm?

So Don was the beginning of my marketing kungfu journey. I didn’t really pick it back up again until I left Taiwan in 2007. 2007 also happened to be the year I peaked in BJJ (so far, I look forward to beginning my training again.) Remember that video above? I went from that, to this in under 2 years:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N17UR1TC9s

Why? Because I took it seriously and studied it like a kungfu. I guess it kind of helped that this actually was a martial art…

When I got back to the US I was lost (I didn’t want to leave Taiwan. Marriage problems. ) I tried college. That was a waste of time and money. While surfing the internet (late 2007), looking for a “way out” I stumbled upon a video by Frank Kern. (I wish I could show you the actual video, it was just text and him talking.) What stuck out about this video is how laid back and funny he was. I’d watch these types of videos all the time but I was never compelled to give away my email address. I did this time.

Then I got a series of emails and videos about… marketing online. I remember being really interested! Until I found out how much it cost. Maybe it was $1,000. Maybe it was $2,000. Whatever it was, I didn’t have it. That’s OK. I kept following him, reading his stuff, looking for other people (teachers).

Then I ran into Jason Moffatt! He was in videos with Frank Kern. He seemed cool like Frank Kern (actually, he seemed cooler than Frank to me). So I started following Jason.

I learned A TON of stuff about internet marketing from Jason. He would openly share stuff in live videos, give out free tips and… here’s a secret, you can learn pretty much everything you need to learn (to start making some money) by watching what “they” do (the marketing “greats,” if you decide to start studying this stuff like you study martial arts, you’ll know all the greats, just like you do in martial arts. )

One day I decided that I was going to buy something from Jason. It was some $400 membership program. I figured it would… unlock something for me. I scrimped and scraped and saved and bought it and… I actually can’t remember what I learned from the program! lol One problem was that I wasn’t REALLY interested in making money yet. I was having so much fun learning and playing with all the tools people were telling me about (autoresponders, squeeze pages, etc.) plus I had learned so much from Jason for free that I didn’t even mind paying the $400 (even though I was “broke”). I actually look forward to buying more stuff from Jason, perhaps private surfing lessons.

I owe A LOT of my “internet marketing success” to what I’ve learned from Jason. I might not have learned anything from the $400 membership site BUT hanging with him, learning, scrimping and saving to get the $400 and paying the $400 was a learning experience all by itself! I’ve gotten WAY more than the $400 return on that EXPERIENCE.

Here are some of the things I’ve done or gotten that are DIRECTLY RELATED to what I’ve learned from Jason Moffatt:

• Raised over $3,000 online for charities
• Won a Macbook Pro worth over $2,500 from a contest organized by Tim Ferriss (the one I’m typing this on!)
• Won an unreleased car with free gas and insurance for 6 months
• Sold $600 in t-shirts
• Won a contest to the MOST AWESOME MARKETING EVENT I’VE EVER BEEN TO!

All thanks to Jason Maffott (a marketer, an INTERNET marketer) and pursuing that $400 dream! I won’t explain how I won all of the contests, but I’ll explain the last one. I made a video using screen capture software (got that idea from Jason) and asked my email list (which I learned how to build from Jason) to vote for me.

Actually, if you find anything valuable on the “Marketing Arts” page that was made FOR YOU, you can thank Jason too! (Or not. ).

Oh! I forgot to add that when I was in San Diego for the Kung Fu Championships event, Jason bought me a smoothie! Yum!

Do you think I got a return on that $400 investment? It wasn’t clearly visible at the time but I stuck with it and it worked out. It really all started with that original $40 (or whatever it was) investment with Don Lapre.

Think about how much you’ve invested in your martial art. If you’re like me it’s EASILY tens of thousands.

This is all leading to…

Master Joe Polish

I told him I was going to call him “Master Joe.” This is always what I’m thinking when I target someone as a teacher. Something I didn’t mention above is that the laptop I won (back in 2008) and the contest I JUST won (two weeks ago) were both from Joe Polish. That’s actually how I discovered Joe Polish. When I won his laptop he sent me some “free” audio’s. I listened to them, they were AWESOME and I decided to sign up for the $30/month program and vowed to NEVER stop receiving them. No matter what! Never EVER! (That’s how valuable I found the information on the free CD). Then I bought his marketing program as well.

This is all while I don’t have a business or product of my own to market! lol I was learning this stuff because more and more I realize that it’s what I needed for a successful business. More than a business plan, the best mouse trap or a cool storefront, it was marketing. It wasn’t until recently that this idea sunk in as deeply as it has and I STILL don’t have anything to sell! (I’m working on that! )

Anyhow, long story short, I REALLY like Joe Polish’s marketing STYLE and Frank/Jason’s STYLE I started with Don, bounced around quite a bit with other books and programs, found Frank, to Jason to Joe.

In Closing

My final point about this marketing as a martial art post is that you have to find a marketing style that matches you’re personality/spirit/(martial) style. I think too many of us have a picture of a cars salesman, high pressure sales, unethical sales or a type of marketing/selling that you wouldn’t like.

What’s awesome about marketing (much like martial arts) is you don’t have to use the techniques you don’t like! For example I generally don’t like punching and kicking, so I don’t spend much time studying martial arts with punching and kicking (although I think I’ll one day go to Thailand and study Muai Thai when I get the chance… )

What you have to do is sift and sort through all of the marketing teachers, coaches and techniques out there and start trying ones you think you might like. I tried to introduce you to some cool people you could learn from that I met at the marketing seminar on the Marketing Arts page.

This isn’t some slick setup for affiliate commissions (yet! ) I honestly want to help martial artists find a marketing teacher suitable for them. Whether you want to teach your martial art full time, part time or as a hobby, mastering marketing will allow you to attract the kinds of students you love teaching.

Thanks for reading this super long blog post. I wrote it when I should have been packing, sleeping and getting ready for a flight. Please head over to the Marketing Arts page and/or subscribe to my blog if you want to learn more about tai chi push hands and follow my adventures as a teacher and student of tai chi.

Casey

Looks at this! Blog posts for 2 weeks in a row! We’re on a roll. Looks like it’s going to work out well having Shane in charge of the videos and me in charge of the blog posts.

My First Experience Judging

This was only my second experience with an ICMAC tournament and I experienced it as a judge. I was worried about the rules for push hands kind of sucking but… they’re not so bad. What’s just as, if not more, important as the rules is the head judge. It’s up to him/her to set the pace and tone of the matches.

The acting head judge for most of the matches at this event was Sifu Justin Meehan. I thought he did a really good job of letting people freely play without being too focused on the rules. I’ve seen videos of push hands tournaments that seem to be micromanaged which would make them totally not fun.

Justin let me act as head judge for a few matches and even though it isn’t rocket science it took some getting used to.

A Larger Push Hands Community

The reason I’m investing the time and energy into attending these competitions is because I want to see MORE push hands competitions done on a larger scale. Cruising around the internet you’ll see a lot of opinions on the state of tai chi, reasons why there shouldn’t be competitions in tai chi and anything other than solutions.

Sometime I feel like I’m alone in my thinking, but push hands seems like the ultimate sport! It’s nonviolent, you need little to no gear, you need very little space, people of all sizes and ages can play and it’s enjoyable right from the first day.

I really don’t see any reason why the push hands community couldn’t be as large as the other martial arts (judo, BJJ, taekwondo, etc.)

Baby steps.

My senior student (and roommate and best buddy) Shane has been harassing about doing regular posts to the website. Looks like it’s finally going to be a reality! We’ve decided to split up the work (him doing the videos, me doing the blog posts).

I’ll let today’s video speak for itself. What we’ll do is create videos and content based on the interactions we get on the blog, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

So comment! (Somewhere )

Here it is!

The forum is open to any and everyone. There are more than enough forums out there that discuss tai chi, various martial arts, internal vs. external, etc. I don’t think there are any that focus primarily on push hands. Now there is one. I also made a introduction video because… I think it makes it feel a little more human when you can see the face and hear the voice behind the person who sets something up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLTLqfarYvA

See you on the forums!