Morgan from Leeds asks
In the arts of kaimen and daoyin, why are the repetitions either in 3s or 4s?
When we trained with Chee Soo we always used three repetitions for exercises that don’t have a left and right section, an example would be cobra stance and some eagle and frog stance exercises.
An exercise such as dragon, leg triangle etc the exercise is performed on the left and then the right, and gets repeated twice on each side, first during the sequence and then the same again during the extension. That is the recommended quantity. I personally don’t recommend practising any Kai Men or Dao Yin exercise repeatedly but rather I suggest you vary the exercises and especially if you are a fairly new student. Say two Kai Men only per day, followed perhaps by some Tai Chi Form and then the next day two Dao Yin, followed by some Tai Chi Form, or, if you prefer, the Tai Chi form first and the Kai Men or Dao Yin after.
More repetitions of the same exercise can be done by students with many years experience under their belt. But caution is needed. Too many repetitions can cause injury.
A very experienced student of mine once rang me to say he would not be attending class that week. I asked if the reason was their work hours, but he replied that he had a bad back, due to practising the cobra exercises every day, I had only taught them the previous week! The lesson here is to increase the repetitions only if you are a seasoned practitioner and then pay attention to your body and stop as soon as you feel enough is enough. Never push yourself to do just one more. Learning to understand how you feel and then to stop pursuing repetitions before overtraining is all part of the learning process in our arts. Remember the arts are ultimately a journey of self discovery.
My personal preference is to practise the Tai Chi form, something I have done daily with an odd exception for the last 45 years. Adding a few Kai Men or Dao Yin usually 2 or 3 time during the week and occasionally replacing my Tai Chi form practise with a longer Kai Men or Dao Yin session i.e. 5 or 6 different exercises, practiced by repeating them 3 or 4 times as explained above. Once a year, usually in December, I give a Kai Men and Meditation course and during these often we practise some of the Kai Men exercises with a greater number of repetitions, the maximum repetition we do are 10 i.e. 5 each side or as in the case of cobra etc where there is only one side 6 would be the limit.
As I said the arts to me are a journey of self discovery. Once after a few years training, when I was already an instructor, Chee Soo who had been waiting for some training suits to be made, which took a very long time. Students were complaining they had paid but had not received their suits yet, so Chee Soo decided to deliver them himself. When he arrived at my house we had a cup of tea and a chat and as he got into his car to continue his journey he said “Do you know why I have practised the arts these last 60 years?” I stared at him blankly but with great expectation. I had no idea what the answer would be. Was I about to be given a great secret? I felt myself tingle in anticipation. Chee Soo stared deep into my eyes and said “Because you are learning about yourself, no one else, just yourself”. Then he got into his car and drove off to turn round to travel back in the direction he had came from and gave me a wave as he passed. A great grin spread across his face, probably because he noticed the look on my face, me basically thinking, what the £$&$ is that supposed to mean?
As with many other things he told me over the years I came to realise the wisdom in his simple words. Chee Soo could pack such splendid knowledge into one elementary statement. How fortunate I was to be able to train with this remarkable man for 21 fascinating years.
The only fitting statement is ‘Thank you for the training, Master’.
© Copyright 2018 Howard Gibbon – all rights reserved
