A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting by Sam Sheridan

Author:Sam Sheridan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Sheridan, Martial Artists, Sam, Boxing, Martial Arts & Self-Defense, Sports & Recreation, General, United States, Biography & Autobiography, Sports, Martial Artists - United States, Biography
ISBN: 9780802143433
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2006-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chen taught the short and long forms, and his attitude was that students should learn the short form all the way through, and then perfect it—instead of trying to get every posture perfect before moving on to the next. That way, you could start to derive the benefits of the form more quickly. Everything came from the short form; everything could be learned by learning the short form, although Chen laughed and said, “For fighting, you have to hit the bag and lift the weights, too.”

When I talked to Master Chen’s son, Max, who was preparing for the Golden Gloves, he said he just used the short form as a type of relaxation, of moving meditation. I was reminded of the ram muay and wai khru, the traditional, slow-moving dances that we had done before muay Thai fights. These had been moments of relaxation and could be considered moving meditation. But Max and his sister, Tiffany, didn’t think that tai chi had given them a big advantage in boxing or san shou; they thought it was just “good for you.” Master Chen said his own children didn’t have the maturity to understand what he was talking about, but they would learn it. They were pretty good, tough kids, although I never got a chance to work with them. Tiffany loved boxing and was training at Gleason’s, the most storied boxing gym in the world, while Max was more interested in the san shou and, someday, K-1.

On some nights, there was “form application,” applying the moves of the short form to actual self-defense and fighting, and on those nights Master Chen had everybody put on boxing gloves and punch the wall, again focusing on mechanics, on slamming and retraction.

He did hit hard as hell, I have to admit. His hips and body coiled and uncoiled, and he had a kind of snarling yell, shockingly loud, as he punched the wall. It was all about mechanics, pivoting, winding up, punching through, and impact. I almost never got it quite right, but he smiled and laughed and showed everyone again the differences. They were subtle, but they existed, and they allowed the seventy-year-old man who weighed about 140 pounds to hit the wall like a much heavier person. The fingers activating, the toe, the compression, the sinking and exploding, all the myriad details flowed together.

In the end, the sum is greater than the whole. Tai chi is about the generation of power, hitting terribly hard and moving smoothly and uncoiling perfectly. But there is something more, something greater.

Master Chen had been a student of Cheng Man-ch’ing’s, a man Robert Smith called the “Master of the Five Excellences” and one of the most legendary tai chi practitioners in history. According to Smith, Cheng had been dying of tuberculosis when he met Yang Cheng-fu, the greatest tai chi practitioner in the world. Tai chi reversed the tuberculosis and completely healed him. It’s not quite levitation, but I wouldn’t turn it down.

I was with Chen for

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.