Kung fu is more than technique and form

The martial arts you typically see in movies, tournaments, and dojos are cosplay. They are theater, which lack the essence. 

The martial arts that I do, the kung fu that I do, are about spiritual growth and living the path of life. Often, we see martial arts portrayed through competition sports demonstrations, where you are dressed in some outfit from some weird era that most likely never even existed. While they can still be done with good intentions, all those things are not the martial arts I practice.

The martial arts I practice are a way of life. Before one gets triggered by the statement about martial arts being a way of life, usually the next thing said is, “We don’t train for fighting.” So let me state unequivocally that martial arts are for fighting, but only because life has fighting in it. The martial arts I practice don’t mean winning fights or having an excellent record. Records are of little concern to me. I would rather have more losses than wins if it meant I had profound wisdom. 

Moreover, people confuse the pursuit of perfect form with the path of wisdom, as if great form is the highest achievement. These people become obsessed with form and are limited spiritually. 

A good example of this I learned was a dojo where I practiced for a few years. They were all obsessed with technical proficiency, without even attempting to marry it to a practical application in self-defense. So it became an obsession with technical proficiency, which somehow was a proxy for spiritual development, and it wasn’t long before they proved that they were spiritually constrained.

While I went on my own and began training during my hikes on the mesas of New Mexico, I often didn't do much of the form, but the spiritual intention and emptying of my mind became the primary practice. So while I did little typical "martial arts" training, I was still heavily and deeply training my intention and working on my heart.

In Chinese martial arts, there is often a desire to write about these different types of concepts like Yi, Shen, and such through forms and practices ad nauseam, and when you read the books, there isn't much in there that applies to life or that discusses the true training of intention. 

Admittedly, it's a complex topic and not easily captured in words, but I do feel the need to try to do that. When I often see "martial artists” wielding a machete and trying to cut brush or a small tree, I see someone who doesn't understand true intention, yet they could win a Wushu competition with a sword or look furious while doing partner training. They don’t have death in their hands. You can see what I am describing in the commitment of the cut when there is resistance. When I watch these people cutting, there is less follow-through as the blade goes through the material. Intention is particularly relevant in handgun training. While handguns are not my focus, when I was training with them, there was this type of trigger pull that, if done without proper intention, the bullet doesn’t hit the target, or if it is feeble, the bullet can actually get jammed or stove-pipe in the port. 

The Tai Chi Classics speaks on this, stating that when you attack, you are to have the viciousness of an eagle grabbing its prey. This is good, but how many dojos do you enter where they take you to that abyss?  Also, can you even recognize what that looks like?

Luckily, I had a grandfather who was very physical and not abusive towards me, but he did get into fights, and his example of viciousness was excellent. He could see something with authority and command, and I often don't see that in training in many martial arts. I'm not picking on one martial art; ironically, Aikido people developed that, but because of a pseudo-moral philosophy, they cannot adapt it to modern applications.

That is why living life, cooking, hiking, playing with animals, and playing rough-and-tumble full-contact games, like football, and even bullies, are essential to developing this intention. How else can you learn this? If not, how to stop a bully when you're younger, as I said before, many, many times, even though I talk about it a lot because it was a trauma I experienced, it also pulled the best out of me. 

Working with young men is also part of martial arts training. When I switched to working in healthcare in 2003, I found this path to be rich in martial wisdom. Battling disease and preventing disease are also part of this path, but often, those things are not included in martial arts training.

The things I'm talking about don't require one specific teacher, per se, and I don't even know if there is one teacher who can teach you all those things. That's why martial arts teachers are overrated. 

Recently, while working in Indian country, I met a couple of wise Native American elders. They are not martial arts instructors, but they convey much of what I'm talking about now, and maybe martial arts is a small part of that, or vice versa. I don't know another name for a teacher on the path of wisdom. I always thought it was martial arts, and then there was also religion. So maybe there's another path without a name that I'm still learning about.

Reading Carlos Castaneda this year has been helpful because he captures much of what I'm talking about. Some things are universally included in martial arts, like wisdom, violence, and working with youth. But some things are exclusively outside the martial arts path, like the chaos of life itself. When training in martial arts, don’t fall for the stereotype we see on TV; explore the parts outside of the controlled arena. 

Getting lost in infinity

Practicing martial arts forms on the deepest level manifests your cosmic kung fu training teachers. They train you. They are the cosmic ancient masters and their accumulated experiences are held in two different places, one in suspended animation in your DNA and second in the specific martial patterns. Once these are linked, the secrets can be unlocked through a deep visceral training of the ancient forms. 

After I was done with fighting highschool bullies, I realized fighting is not healthy. I ran to the Yin side to pursue the arts. I had grown up in an artistic household and thought this path would offer me the most out of life. It seemed an exciting choice and coincidentally not much different than martial arts with its physicality of moving the brush, charcoal, or chisel.

 Again, I heard those ancient voices but there were also voices of temptation like Lorelei whispering to travellers in the woods. I was soon coaxed into territories deeper than I could fathom, listening to the whisperings of lost souls whose threads were not connected to the ancient voices, my tether was cut and I was free floating in infinite space.

Floating in limitless space you brush up against those who are also untethered and there you can experience extreme connection but it is only temporary. Everything seems to fall apart and nothing lasts. Although this is true for much of the things found in life, there are however, some things that are rock solid and indestructible. Religions speak of such structures but, words can only be of little help. 

In martial forms, we walk with the ancient masters without form and our souls touch their footsteps. Those footsteps lead us to the energetic cathedral which forms the structure of the universe. This is indestructible and always changing.This is the place to reside. 

Chris Aloia, July 21, 2020

Martial Arts Restored My Self Respect

As I have mentioned in a few blog posts already, my parents were hippies from Brooklyn and moved to a working class town where there were no hippies, while I was in elementary school In the early 70s. I already discussed my first steps on the martial path but in this post I am going briefly review what I went through and then detail how I went about restoring of my own self-respect.

During that 5 to 6 year period of being bullied, I truly felt horrible about myself. I dreamed of killing my classmates often. I wanted nothing out of life but revenge and I thought of little else, my grades plummeted and I was put into Special Education, after the football players in honors class kept punching me when the teacher turned his back. People laughed at me daily; teachers were of little help; and girls stayed far away from me. To this day, I remember those kids surrounding me in the bathroom, while the head football player peed on my sneakers. They all just sat there laughing but that was the moment I said enough is enough!

Then I saw Bruce Lee's movie, Game of Death, and I instantly knew what I had to do, I enrolled in a karate class. Even though it sounds a lot like the movie Karate Kid, this happened 5 years before the movie came out in 1984. I got into weapons right away. I was also in shop class and I started making my own weapons, like wooden swords, a kai, which is a Japanese oar used in traditional karate, tonfas and many others. Even though, I didn’t see it at the time, it was an exciting period because  I was unifying my creativity, my physicality and my mind, as I began doing my own research. I started going to the library and bookstores finding the information I needed to solve my bully problem. School had a little value to me, no one there either cared or tried to uncover what was going on with me. I may have put up a wall I am not sure. Regardless, for the first time in my life I had a plan, it was plain and simple...fight back.

At 14 years old, I was the youngest person in my karate class, most of the people were in their 20s and 30s. When we sparred they knocked me on my ass. This was not a kid's class. I started training regularly and I would find peace of mind for the first time in my life, when I was doing the numerous katas I had to memorize in my backyard. I loved karate weapons but my teacher would not teach them to anyone until they were older. So I had to find access to weapons on my own. I made a lot in shop class or when my family went to Chinatown in Manhattan every now and again, I would go to the kung fu shops and buy Bruce Lee posters, nunchaku, throwing stars, etc etc.  I loved everything about karate and kung fu. It gave me a purpose and things really started looking up for me for the first time in my life.

Then one day after school, as we were all chaotically heading to the buses, one of the bigger football players, also wrestler, confronted me in the parking lot. I don't recall the details as I was pretty nervous, but I do remember that he made a move to grab me and I let go a round house kick to his head. All the students stopped motionless, and he hesitated and backed off. This was no small feat, no pun intended, because a few months ago, I was this kid who didn't do anything when a group of kids peed on his new sneakers, and now that little cry baby just kicked him in the head in front of everyone in the school. Luckily for me it shocked him so much that he left me alone that day. I really got lucky because a few weeks earlier he had beat up one of the larger hippie freaks, yes this was the era of the freaks and the jocks. Not only did this football player beat that kid up but he had hit him so hard that the hippie went into convulsions while he was unconscious on his back. I did not witness it but it was the talk all over the school for weeks and here I am kicking this guy in the head. Well, my luck did not last long, I soon became labelled as a fighter and being 130 pounds soaking wet, people were eager to test me and the football players smelled blood. So the stakes increased and on top of that my karate school closed down. My father also said we couldn't afford it. I cried and cried I still feel the pain of that closure. I did not have the luxury of withdrawing in my shell, I had to adapt to the new circumstances.

One of the very few positive moves my father made was to buy a home with a wood burning fireplace in it and he made me chop all the wood for it. I should mention that I was diagnosed with dyslexia and there wasn't much being done for people like myself in the 70s. If it had been today I would most definitely have been given Prozac because in my later years I was diagnosed with ADHD. So my father knew I was a handful and this "prescription" of chopping wood was perfect for me. My strength and power increased tremendously but I no longer had a teacher. I searched and searched, remember this wasn't the day when there was a karate school on every block. That school was the only school in town.

The karate school closure coincided with the rise in popularity of boxing, between Rocky movies, and Martin Scorsese's The Raging Bull, and famous fighters like Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns people were really into boxing in those days. Being Italian-American those movies of Italian boxers really spoke to me and one of my friend's brother was a boxer in the Marines.  He taught me a few moves informally. I began to train. I sold my karate and kung fu weapons for boxing equipment, a heavy bag, a speed bag and a jump rope. I began running and training daily. I developed a routine, I would come home from school and instead of practicing my katas, I began running, and training hard by shadow boxing, hitting the heavy bag, jumping rope and doing push-ups. I did this routine right up until dinner time. I knew that the football team trained hard and even had their own weight-training coach. So if I was going to fight them I would have to work as hard as them. As I started to train word got out, people saw me running around town throwing punches in the air. Since boxing was popular many people got into it. People began asking me to spar with them. I had my own informal sparring ring in my basement, instead of rope it had brick walls. I began sparring and sparring and sparring. I sparred as much as I could. I even had to promise my friends, who wouldn't spar with me otherwise, that I wouldn't throw any punches and they could try to hit me. We did that often and I got good at dodging punches, and I have the scars on my left eyebrow when I let them hit me as hard as they could until I bled-I had to imitate that scene when Jake LaMotta told his brother to hit him in the face in the movie the Raging Bull. I was Italian-American after all.

As my skills were improving and I started turning the tables on those bastard football players, I decided to enter the Golden Gloves tournament in NYC. Without any coach or anyone but my uncle and my dad in at my corner, I entered the ring against a seasoned fighter from Fort Apache Bronx Boxing Gym. They put out top professional fighters.  As soon as I stepped out when they called my name to fight, I was bombarded by lights and TV cameras. The ref made us touch gloves and bam bam, this guy was all over me and the ref stopped the fight within two minutes of the first round. I did not get knocked down but I was totally outclassed and overwhelmed.  

After that experience, word must have spread about me in my little town, and some old Irish guy, named Pat Finneran showed up at my house asking if I wanted to learn how to box. He was 72 years old and worked as a boxing coach in the Bronx. He was the first person to actually genuinely express interest in my well-being. He was the first person to show me why discipline is so important. He made me shuffle with my left leg leading up and down my driveway over and over again. We didn’t do all kinds of crazy drills, or 20 different punches. He simply made me shuffle in and out, with a left jab over and over again. He eventually added a right cross and a left hook and that was all we worked on for 6 months. After those six months no one was able to hit me or to last long with me. I totally outclassed everyone. I fought most of the football team members and beat them bad. The only one who I could not beat was the one guy who peed on my shoes. He was 6' 3" or 4" and around 200 pounds. He was captain of the football team and an all-star baseball player. I fought him 7 times and one time he busted a blood vessel in my eye but I kept fighting him. After those fights no one ever messed with me again. I was liberated and could say and do what I wanted and no one called me names or tried to bully me again.

After accomplishing that I felt like my self respect had been restored and with my new coach I signed up for the next golden gloves tournament but then I met a girl. It was my first girlfriend ever and I was about to graduate high school. I was on top of the world and I went to Pat Finneran and told him I didn’t want to fight anymore. Looking back at myself at that moment I feel terrible because here was a person who really helped me and I left him without so much as a thank you. I hope he knew how much he helped me in my life. When my second son was born I named his middle name Finneran.

Pay it forward

In my last post, I told the story of my first step on the martial path. I also explained that I am still on that path today. That means that I have been practicing for about 34 years and along the way there were many great teachers who have spent time explaining and revealing the martial path.  Learning martial arts has helped me a great deal in so many areas of life that an obvious next step is to want to "pay it forward." 

I finally had an opportunity to a few years after moving to Mississippi. In 2003, I started teaching a kid's kung fu class at a community center. I had a handful of students among them were these three brothers, who were pretty small for the their age. The fact that they were playful and funny made them a joy to teach. Their father was a small business owner and had them in all kinds of after school activities, like tennis and such. So I was really surprised to have them in my class. I figured they or he would value more mainstream activities. Never-the-less they enthusiastically embraced the class and attended regularly. The classes were seasonal with long breaks in-between trimesters and subsequent classes became less attended. 

A year later, the oldest of the three brothers saw me eating at a restaurant and approached my table and said, "you know, that stuff you taught me it came in handy." He thanked me for teaching and walked away. I was really blown away. There are only a few times in life when you get to really help someone and see the results. Having received that kind of acknowledgment was really special. Additionally, it reinforced how important it is to "pay it forward" and reveal the secrets of the martial path.  

My First Step On The Martial Arts Path and The Fallen Idols

In the early 70s, my family of five moved to a suburb of NYC from Brooklyn, NY. It was a small town made up of mostly white working class people. I didn’t know it then but that town was a haven for white people fleeing school re-districting. My father had a long beard and long hair; he was a hippie. My parents made hand sewn leather jackets. My father, also did Tai chi, smoked marijuana and was into organic gardening. We clearly did not belong there. 

My parent’s were raised Catholic but never brought us to church. In Brooklyn I remember kids asking me what my religion was and I answered “public.” I guess I thought they were wondering what school I went to as some of the other Italian-American kids on our block went to Catholic school. Being hippies they made every effort to keep our mind’s open. They took us to the Museum of Natural History and MOMA often. My father had Salvador Dali books on the coffee table, along with a copy of the I-Ching and Mother Earth News was always visible. Not going to church or anything created an emptiness in me. I felt left out. I felt like I had no identity. 

As the 70s progressed the pressure to conform wore on my parents. In a few years, we went from no sugar cereals and no TV, to eventually having a TV, and occasionally getting a box of Fruity Pebbles. We were all really excited to own a TV.  I remember my father often practiced Tai chi in our living room. He tried to get me to stand in a Tai chi posture and he would test my balance by pushing on me. I would topple easily. Along with feeling identity-less I also felt physically unstable. I was an insecure kid. 

After dinner, we would all go and sit on my parent’s bed and watch a few shows on TV. In those days there was only one small TV in our house and it was in our parent’s room. My father would watch the show Kung Fu with David Carradine and explain some of the principles illustrated in the show. 

I became enthralled with Kwai Chang Caine. The intro to the show showed Caine dodging spears, fighting an old blind man who can listen to grasshoppers. It also showed him as a vulnerable boy struggling to learn the ways of the Shaolin Temple. The superheroes on TV seemed too ridiculous to take seriously but Caine was someone to look up to. My father loved the show, which only increased its awesomeness and the show also supported his Tai chi and eastern philosophical interests. Without a religion or any other thing to call myself Caine quickly filled a void as a role model. I still can see in my mind specific fighting scenes from episodes and I also tried to reenact them with my younger brother. In one scene Caine fights a man with a long handled ax but holds it closer to the head for better leverage, which my father took time out to explain (maybe that is why it is such a clear memory). During this period my father actually participated in the family. 

Things soon started to change. The times were changing. Every morning all the school kids walked to the bus stop, gathering together to talk about all kinds of stuff and see who would be made fun of and who would fight. Back then we all had to fight. One day some older boy brought an adult magazine to the stop. There was a series of photos of David Carradine, the actor who played Caine, having sex with a woman on the dirt in what appeared to be a teepee with candles all around them. It was a pretty freaky image for 9 or 10 year old to see. I was quite disturbed by it. He was a real hero to me. He was the one that saved people. He healed them when they were sick, counseled them when they were troubled and fought for them when they were being unjustly attacked. I needed Caine now more than ever. 

As we crept closer to the 80s, my father cut his hair shorter, quit Tai chi and tried to be a yuppy. My parents even stopped sewing jackets. The only thing left over from the hippy days was marijuana and solo albums by Lennon and McCartney. My father became quiet and withdrawn. Life changed. Our family changed. I never fit in at school and was always made fun of. The kids at school were quick to point out that my parents didn't look like all the other parents and one kid told me that my parents were witches. As I went on to middle and high school, people thought I was Puerto Rican or Jewish. No one ever considered me white, and many kids often used the words weird, fag, and gay to describe me. As the kids grew older verbal abuse turned into violence and since I was very gregarious I was often the one who they sought out to publicly humiliate. 

The football team made it their mission to beat me down any moment they could. When the teacher turned his back in class or when I went to the bathroom, or just walking down the hallway they would be there smacking me in the head, kicking me in the back or just choking me until I screamed. They just couldn't deal with me, they didn’t know who I was. I belonged to nothing. I tried running away from home a few times but that didn’t help. I pleaded to my parents to help me and take me out of school. They made an appointment with the principal to discuss the bullying. They tried but I knew things would get worse because of that and they did. 

When I began high school I was extremely nervous. I knew it was going to be hell. It was 1979 and I had already dreamed of revenge and would often cry alone in my room. I often thought of showing up at class with a gun and shooting them at their desks. One day, the biggest guy on the football team followed me into the bathroom with a group of about 5-7 other boys. I can only see his face all the rest were a group of blurry laughing faces. He commented on my new white sneakers and peed on them right in front of everyone. I was devastated that was worse than the actual beatings. I didn’t know what to do.

Not long after that horrible episode, I went to a movie with a few friends. Some older guy recommended we see this movie called Game of Death, starring Bruce Lee. I had never heard of Bruce Lee prior to that and I had totally forgotten about Caine. I remember sitting in the theater and being totally amazed at how the 5' 7" Bruce Lee knocked down the 7' 2 Kareem Abdul Jabbar with a flying side kick, and by the blinding speed of his nunchakus in his fight against Dan Inosanto, a filipino martial artist. To say that my mind was blown was an understatement. I went home and broke apart a wooden red chair in my bedroom to make the red nunchakus Bruce wielded. I began twirling them and knocking my head multiple times because of my poor understanding of the proper knots to make them fly smoothly. 

With a whole football team against me, my father withdrawn into a pot smoking zombie and nothing to belong to martial arts rescued me. Thinking back I have to say that making those red nunchakus was my first step onto the martial path. 

It is now 2015 and although it is technically true that I have never stopped practicing martial arts, I have to also admit that I wandered off the true path often and I still struggle to stay on the path. My father is a bitter old man who still smokes pot everyday. David Carradine died in 2009 from some weird sexual fetish and here I am struggling to keep true to the path. Still not belonging to anything but martial arts. Martial arts truly saved me multiple times from those stupid bullies in middle and high school, some angry people on the street and most of all from myself. My own self destructive behaviors often got the better of me. 

We are all fallen idols in some way. One by one from my father to Carradine to Bruce Lee they have all fallen. It is a difficult thing to grasp because we want something pure and unadulterated to give us hope. Unfortunately, time and time again we see our heroes fail and we see ourselves fail. I have failed so many times and I still fail but I have learned to accept that it is part of the process. 

The most important advice I can give to someone is that they will inevitably fail, and their idols will fail but despite that heartbreaking reality they must get back on the path.