Читать книгу Chinese Internal Boxing. Techniques of Hsing-I and Pa-Kua онлайн

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Indeed, none of the internal arts has free sparring, which is a type of competitive fighting and which is avoided in learning the internal arts. Rather, we box mainly with ourselves, and by learning the skill there is no need to contest it. George Mallory, who died on Mount Everest in 1924, once explained why men climbed mountains ("Because they are there") by asking, "Whom have we conquered?" and answering, "None but ourselves." Internal boxing is essentially a method of transforming the self. The traditional Doctrine of Three Layers (San-ts'eng t'ao-li) discusses this process of change in terms of Taoist philosophy, wherein it is thought that one's original state (hsu, or emptiness) is filled by a seed-essence (ching) at birth, and that this life essence is so transformed into intrinsic energy (ch'i) and further into vital spirit (shen) through practice that one returns to the original state of emptiness (hsu). It advises the student to change essence into ch'i, ch'i into spirit, and then to restore to spirit the original emptiness. Put simply, the boxing is at once the tool and the product of this creative process. Because it is creative, it cannot lead to destruction. True enough, the old masters met challenges. But more often than not they sent the challenger away a friend—happy because he had been soundly defeated, educated but not seriously hurt.