Interviewer:
Sifu, you teach us Wing Chun and you also teach Noi Gung. Can you explain these and how they relate?
Sifu Zopa:
Yes, definitely! Wing Chun is a martial art. There are a few versions - varying along a number of dimensions. Some versions are truer to the Wing Chun principles than others. Noi Gung is training our intrinsic power - our life essence. This life essence is a result of a number of things in its development and maintenance. In expression it’s a product of how we employ our skeletal structure, our soft tissues, and our mind. It entails principally appropriate relaxation and alignment. First this is trained in a stationery position then later maintained in motion, then still later, trained in motion against attacks. Both alignment and relaxation are features of Wing Chun and are enhanced by appropriate noi gung training.
Interviewer:
I believe there are different versions sifu?
Sifu Zopa:
Of Noi Gung? Yes. There are a few versions - again, varying along a number of dimensions. One of these dimensions is legitimacy. In other words, is it the real thing or something some-one devised to sell? Some people claim to teach “Wing Chun Chi Gung” but this is nonsense. Another dimension version of noi gung differ along is effectiveness. In other words does it work? The art of Tai Chi Chuan is a well known example of a Noi Gung training system. Beautiful and enjoyable and in the hands of a properly trained expert quite effective, but way too complex for my liking and involving too much redundancy and too many techniques. In original Tai Chi Chuan there were very few techniques - only a handful. This is my personal preference. I do like good Tai Chi Chuan but much prefer our art for practical fighting. Tai Chi Chuan is wonderful for relaxation I must say. Yes, I like Tai Chi Chuan.
Interviewer:
So the two can be distinct? Noi Gung and Wing Chun?
Sifu Zopa:
Yes. They can be quite separate. Some-one could train Wing Chun without training Noi Gung. Or vice versa. In fact, the majority of Wing Chun trainees don’t train Noi Gung. Noi Gung incorporates Hei Gung or training what is more commonly known under its Mandarin pronunciation “chi”. Seeing our art is a Southern art and the language of the art is Gwangdongwa we ought to be consistent in using that language. Noi Gung for gung fu also involves training our methods of powering our Wing Chun strikes. Noi Gung is wider than Hei Gung. Hei Gung is part of Noi Gung. In one sense you can train Hei Gung without Noi Gung but you can’t train Noi Gung without Hei Gung. Many people use the terms interchangeably. Hei Gung can produce a sort of noi gung but it isn’t the same sort of power as our martial art power.
Interviewer:
Sifu, you often repeat short phrases your sifus used in training. One you use is “Yi Hei Jing”. Can you explain this?
Sifu Zopa:
Yes, it’s similar to Yu Ma Sau, Yiu Hup, which you’ll know I say a lot. It’s like that in that it focuses our attention on the necessity of bringing together, of unifying, several aspects of our training. In the case of Yu Ma Sau it’s unifying the bodily structural components - faat yu, faat bo ma, faat sau. In the case of Yi Hei Jing, it refers to unifying training our mindset and attributes, training our hei with all that implies and training our jing - or expression of energy. The expression Yi Hei Jing summarises to a great extent the scope of Noi Gung training. We have to train our Yi, we have to train our Hei and we have to train our Jing. Yi Hei Jing means our mind teamed with our essential energy gives us expression of power. There’s a legend that Bodhidharma trained Sil Lum monks in this. Seeing what passes for Sil Lum in the versions coming out of the “new wave” from the PRC today though I think if this legend was true that the training method must have been lost. They seem to simply be wushu to me. The old versions of arts descended from Sil Lum are far more powerful and far better as martial arts than the fancy modern material. It really lacks true power from what I can see - killing power.
Interviewer:
Can you tell us a little about the mind, sifu?
Sifu Zopa:
Mind has different aspects according to the Chinese writers. Yi is the mind in the action of generating an intention. People talk about “intent” in martial arts. Well, Yi is that mind that generates intent. There’s a lot more I could say on the different concepts of mind but I’ll leave that for now.
Interviewer:
Sifu, a lot of your knowledge could be described as esoteric. How is it that few martial artists seem to possess this knowledge?
Sifu Zopa:
(Laughs). Let me put it this way: There’s an old Chinese story about a fish who meets his friend the turtle and asks him where he’s been for the last few days. The turtle replies he was on the land walking around. The fish quizzed him as to what this “land” was like and what is “walking”. He asked did beings move in the water there as they did where he swum. The turtle chuckled and explained that only some of the water there could be swum in as it was all not deep enough but also there were places where there was deep water in which one could swim and places where there was air and ground. The fish was perplexed. Both terms “air” and “ground” meant nothing to him. He asked was walking like swimming? The turtle replied that it both was and yet it wasn’t. The fish could understand that walking entailed movement of the limbs - like his fins in swimming. However, he couldn’t grasp the notion entailed in walking at all. When the turtle tried to explain what some of the creatures were like there on the land with some walking and some flying the fish was further perplexed. The fish asked about flying so the turtle said it was somewhat like swimming but also different and that it occurred in a different medium - the air. The turtle also explained it required different movement patterns. These were with wings not fins though and did not involve body wiggling. The fish couldn’t comprehend this at all! Similar yet different? In a different medium? He felt the turtle was making up a fairy tale and imagined that in the place the turtle had visited that things must be similar to where he swam. How could it be otherwise? All fish could see their world and verify their experience. They’d all agree with him, surely? They all swam. They were all brothers in the water. All swimming was the same - all fishes equal, surely. All members of the same family! No, this turtle was making up a story. The fish had no experience, no reference point, you see. He thought all was as he had experienced it. How could it be otherwise? He was an expert swimmer and knew that it was the only means of locomotion. Even the older fish, master swimmers, famous throughout the water world had told him this. They must know! Even though he heard otherwise from an eye witness who himself had walked on the land, he denied what he could not, did not want to grasp. He could not concede that experience could be otherwise than his. Later, the fish swam past a crane and was caught. The crane lifted off into the air and flew over the water to its nest, dropping the fish on the ground beside it. The fish, by now almost dead, realised that what the turtle had told him was true. He had seen and experienced flying and now lay on the ground. As he gasped his last breath he realised he had been a true fool, denying what had not been in his experience, refusing to believe he was not possessed of the truth. Many, probably most, martial artists are like that fish! But I think maybe most don’t ever even really get to the final stage the fish got to! They limit their world to what they want to believe. So, you see, even at this very basic level, the mind can make a big difference!
Interviewer:
Thank you, sifu.
Sifu Zopa:
A pleasure.