10 Questions with Daria Sergeeva

How did you come to find I-Liq Chuan and why did you choose ILC over other martial arts?

It was in the beginning of 2004 when I met my teacher Alex Skalozub. I believe I am a lucky person because of the opportunities I have had in my life. I visited the KANON gym in Moscow with my friend and Sifu Alex was there training some students. The process caught my eye. So I started to come very often, talked with Sifu Alex, watching his way of teaching, his approach to students, his point of view of daily life. I felt that this interesting person can improve me, and bring me to a very high level in martial art and esoteric philosophy.  After few months I decided to become his disciple and I was accepted as his student. He is a very intelligent teacher and always gives new students the chance to start properly. I was very happy with being accepted as a disciple of Iliqchuan style.

In the martial world, master Alexander Skalozub is my Sifu. His teacher, grandmaster Sam Chin (Chin Fan Siong) – is my Sigong. I met my Sigong after my first week of Iliqchuan training. He comes to Russia twice a year. I met him at the May workshop that he led. I was a pretty new student with only one week experience, so I asked if I could help out during the workshop. I recorded everything he showed, 8-10 hours each day. So I saw all the information and demonstrations through the small “eye” of the videocamera. I remember my feeling very clearly:  I could not understand even one word of the grandmaster! But… after 5 months when he came back to Moscow in November I was already European Taichi Push Hands Champion. That was my first step on the way of competition life. And in November I could already asked questions about Iliqchuan and was able to listen and understand some things.

Iliqchuan has a very interesting approach to mind and body work. Everything is through recognizing and seeing the natural and looking deeply into the fundamentals of the processes. From the first lessons I learned how to direct my attention, how to unify myself, and to use myself, like a tool, for any task. My first wish was to be able to fight. But I “learned how to learn” first. Then I was able to fight. Then I was able to talk and listen to people and the environment. Then I was able to work better. When you can control your mind, you can control your body. When you practice martial arts as a way of investigation of your abilities and seeing Nature, then you can apply it to every moment of your life. Iliqchuan is called a Human art. This is way of life for me. No aggressive. Powerful. Soft. Relaxed. Very precise.

You have been in several competitive fights (against Sanda and Muay Thai fighters). Do you see a difference between a traditional MA training approach and training for competition? If so, how did you bridge the two training approaches?

In the olden days traditional martial artists very often tested their skills on the street but now, fortunately, the situation is different. You cannot just go to the street and fight with people – this is illegal in most countries. Instead you can go to competitions and meet strong opponents who want to kick your ass 🙂  So you can test your skills a little.

To be able to fight under different competitions you need to know yourself very well and have the right mental approach to  the training process. Also you need to choose the competition with rules that are compatible with your training process and allow you to manifest the skills of your style. It depends. If you have a choice, it is better to have experience fighting in competition. It doesn’t matter what kind of competition. Full contact fight or wrestling or doing the form of your style. For me (and for Iliqchuan students) going to compete is a part of the training of our mind. We go to see how our mind works in different stages of this process: when you make the decision to fight, then may be how your concentration changes during competition training, what kind of bull shit inside yourself will pop up before you go into the ring to fight, then during fighting, then what is in your mind if you won or what is in your mind if you lost – and what is in your mind during “post-fight party”. So for me, competitions create the conditions for me to see my own mind better.

For me, the approach of training will be the same as for traditional martial artist but with adjustments for different rules. More wrestling or more sparring under competition rules, increasing stamina a little because I may need to fight a few rounds. And more meditation…

After having studied ILC long enough to establish yourself as a respected instructor, what advice would she give to your younger self?

Thank you for this question. Thinking about this, I don’t have any advice for this girl. She has taken action in her life and I am just grateful to her for this.

What is it like training under her teachers Alex Skalozub and Sam F.S. Chin?

Any interesting/fun anecdotes that offer a glimpse into the training experience under these sifus?

Actually I wrote a lot of interesting short stories during my first few years of learning Iliqchuan under my Sifu Alex Skalozub. They are on our web-sites and had more than 1 million viewers 🙂 . May be I need to publish a small book of funny stories from this period of my life.

Ok…I call myself “Lucky Jar.” I eat from two plates. I drink from two sources. My jar has no bottom. When my Sigong or my Sifu teach or talk to me – my two eyes watch, my two ears listen. Becoming a reciever- that’s my job. To be “hungry-for-everything” – that’s my state of mind. To be “changeable-for-everything” – that’s the state of my body. To be “clear-of-no-doubts” – that’s the state of my heart. I try my best with these things. I am a stupid student mostly, but good enough for something :).

“First Zen” – story with my Sigong Sam Chin:

The first time I met grandmaster I asked him:

How many hours a day do you training?

I was very interested to hear his answer and concentrated hard.

I do not train. At all! – Grandmaster Sam Chin looked very serious. He make a long pause. My mind raced. I didn’t know how to respond to him so I just stayed still and silent like a stone.

Immediately grandmaster slapped me hard on the back and laughed loudly.

I train 25 hours a day. Every minute. – He says very quietly to my ear.

Later he taught me how to do it using my mind control with the breathing.

“Beyond The Words” – story with my Sifu Alex Skalozub:

Would you like a cup of tea, Sifu?

Yes, please. Use my small cup.

I walked to the kitchen and remembered that we had a coffee and milk too and decided to return and give my teacher the choice. I turned back to the room and before I open my mouth to say something:

Excuse me, we…

Yes, please, coffee with milk.

Later he taught me how to receive information through other forms of contact than verbal expression.

I-Liq Chuan is called the “Martial Art of Awareness.” How does one train awareness in the context of martial arts?

Awareness is the key to all doors. Seeing cleary. No reflexes or weakness which your opponent could use against you. No surprise from your opponent. All your movements will be born from direct knowing from the Present. In Iliqchuan we use 15 special basic exercises to recognize the 5 qualities of the Body Movement to Unify our Body and Mind. We use Iliqchuan Spinning and Sticky Hands to unify with our opponent and be able to apply Chinna and Sanda. All training should follow the right philosophy, concepts and principles. We have 6 physical points and 3 mental factors which we must maintain in all our practice, to achieve the “One Suchness Feel.”

Some people say that it looks like Tai Chi. What similarities do they share and what makes them different?

We should not confuse the art of Taijiquan with the principles of Taiji. Taijiquan and Iliqchuan are both based on the principles of Taiji. Both style use principles of “no-resisting and no backing off”, Yin and Yang. Both styles involve practicing relaxation, harmony and balance, using Chi energy flow and are very good for health.

I am not going to talk about other styles, I will just list a few examples from Iliqchuan then you can easily compare:

Absorb/Project, Condense/Expend, Concave/Convex, Open/Close, 3 Dimensions as a mechanism of body movement.

no reflex, no techniques

no “Push Hands” (but we can participate in “Taiji Push Hands” competition, in Sanda or Muay Thai rules, and so on)

Approach: Zhongxindao – the way of neutral.

What makes I Liq Chuan’s version of push hands different from Tai Chi’s version?

We do not have push hands in Iliqchuan. The Iliqchuan system consists of 3 parts. The first part is philosophy, principles and concepts with meditation of awareness. The second part is unifying mental and physical. That is the 15 basic exercises, the Iliqchuan 21 Form and the Iliqchuan Butterfly Form. The Third part is Unifying with the Opponent and Environment. That is Spinning hands, Sticky Hands, Chinna and Sanda.

Do you practice any weapons forms and if so, what’s your favorite and why?

I don’t do much with weapons forms. Instead, I prefer to take a stick or something and do some sparring exercises.

What do you enjoy doing outside of the martial arts?

There is no “inside” or “outside” of the martial arts – Iliqchuan Zhongxindao for me. Iliqchuan Zhongxindao is my way of life and shows me how to enjoy the life.

What is your future goals in martial arts? (for example: will you be building an Academy in Russia)

I am going to conquer the world!!!

My inner world of course. 🙂

We already did a lot to build the Iliqchuan school in Russia and Russian-speaking countries. Of course we will keep going and I will do my best as a disciple of my teachers to help to promote Iliqchuan all over the world.

Every year we do a lot of international events open to everybody, for example the International Iliqchuan Summer Camp in Russia. For 2 weeks, around 9 hours a day, anyone who wants to study martial arts in depth can come and train under master Alex Skalozub and me – together with iliqchuan students from around the world. And we run this every year.

I am very open to try new projects which will help us to share our skills with others, and show the beauty and uniqueness of Iliqchuan Zhongxindao. I have a lot of ideas in mind.

www.iliqchuan.com

Bonus Quesion: As a student that enjoys the art of combat, and who has personal experience in the ring and competition, who is your favorite fighter/athlete and why?

I like a fighters/athlete with both martial art skills and martial morality. For me this is important. If somebody has a skill but only behaves well “for show”, I don’t admire them. If somebody has a less skill but high level of martial morality, I will respect them much more. And I really love meeting people with a good balance of body and mind. And not necessarily in the martial world. The term “Kungfu Master” is applicable to any kind of skills. 🙂

But ok…when it comes to well-known sports fighters/athletes I like: Fedor Emelyanenko (spirit, calmness), Roy Jones (relaxation, free mind), Buakaw Por Pramuk (timing and spacing), Miesha Tate (persistance) and others.

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Thank you for the questions, thank you for listening,and my best wishes to everyone!

Daria (Dasha) Sergeeva

Thanks for Eric Ling for editing

♦

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Exercise For Projecting Force | Kuo

One of the things that I find painful to observe when I go to the gym is watching people do squats.  It’s a basic movement that gets butchered since our sedentary lifestyles have made us forget how to move from the hips.  Instead, what happens when people squat is mostly poorly coordinated movements starting from the knees.  Rather than try to explain this in text, I find that Kelly Starrett’s video post about squatting is easier to visualize:

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So, what does this have to do with projecting force?

Well, joint sequencing in a squat movement has direct carryover to projecting force.  One thing I often notice with people first learning absorb-project is that the hip-knee coordination is off.  The knees drift forward first, followed by the hips drifting forward, and ultimately resulting in a forward lean with the weight on the toes.  Starting the movement from the knees moves the knee into a suboptimal angle for bearing force, which in turn puts unnecessary shear stress on the knee and shifts most of the movement load to the quadriceps.  There is also a tendency to lose suction on the kua when initiating from the knees.  This manifests as the front of the body opening up and the mingmen closing; consequently, the shoulders move backwards as the body is moving forward, which is an inefficient movement pattern for projecting force forward.  Projecting by initiating with forward knee movement results in movement that is off-balance, not harmonized, skewed towards a yang-only energy, and stresses the knees more than necessary.

 If we stick to I-Liq Chuan principles

…and project and expand from the mingmen to initiate the movement, we get joint sequencing more like a proper squat.  The mingmen and hips move back first, which keeps the knee in a better position. The aligned knee position allows axial force transfer through the joint, which minimize shear stress.  With the force moving more through the center of the knee joint instead of shearing out, the quads don’t have to work so hard counteracting knee flexion (bending) and can thus be more relaxed.  Moving from the hips first also distributes force to the strong posterior chain muscles (i.e. hamstrings and glutes) in addition to engaging the quads, so we get  harmonization of the yin and yang muscles.

Johnny Kuo

[Originally posted 3/13/12, MindBodyKungfu.Com]

Blink and The Power of Words

I recently read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and found the book to be quite enjoyable. The premise of how the mind can perceive things in an instant has parallels to the mental aspects of I-Liq Chuan training. We train the mind to remain attentive to the moment such that we can truly perceive and flow with the present conditions.  One section of the book I found particularly interesting was the description of professional tasters.  Developing a highly refined sense of taste has mental training aspects of which I was unaware.  I had an interesting insight after reading Gladwell’s description of how professional tasters develop their skill.

You’d think that professional tasters are gifted with super sensitive taste buds, and to a degree that may be true. However, the extent to which a professional taster’s tongue differs from everyone else’s is probably not that big. The average person can generally tell whether they like something or not, and tell whether they think one thing tastes better than another. In this respect, the professional taster’s tongue is no different than your average Joe or Jane. However, if you put a twist on the taste test, the pros quickly separate themselves from the field of amateurs. Ask the average person why they like one thing better than another, and their answers will be all over the map and inconsistent with their actual taste preferences. The pro tasters on the other hand can tell you in excruciating detail exactly why they liked one taste more than another. In another example, if you gave the average person two of the same item and one different item and wanted the items ranked, he would have trouble differentianting which product was which. A professional taster could easily distinguish each product.

What gives the pro the advantage? First, it would be the extensive taste training (education and practice).  However, it’s not just the training that sets them apart.  We all eat and drink everyday and thus receive a fair amount of daily experience tasting things.  The other important factor would be that professional tasters learn specific vocabulary to categorize and grade different tastes. I found this fact to be utterly fascinating. By learning taste jargon, the professional tasters have a conceptual framework on which to develop their skill.  Just learning to describe tastes gives you a system for understanding flavors and really developing your attention to your tongue.

Sifu made it a point to us to pay attention to the words he used to describe the I-Liq Chuan system. Absorb-project, open-close, condense-expand, etc. all have specific meanings. Substitutions of terms are discouraged. This is a mild annoyance at first if you are used to using other terms, but there are compelling reasons to being so exact with terminology. The first I understood was that everyone learns the same terms so that discussion between practitioners is meaningful and has minimal confusion. If everyone uses a standard jargon, it is much easier for everyone to converse and improve each other’s understanding.

The other important reason didn’t dawn on me until reading Blink. Language affects your conceptualization of ideas. The vocabulary defines a conceptual framework for the system. Sifu spent a lot of time being specific with his choice of terms; that makes a lot of sense since language both defines the conceptual framework for learning the system and provides a vehicle for information exchange. The system starts you with specific vocabulary to lay the conceptual foundation for honing your skill in the art.

Johnny Kuo

[Originally Posted at MindBodyKungfu 2/11/11]

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Physics of Explosive Energy | Fajin

Johnny Kuo  |  I-Liq Chuan

Being a science sort of guy, I like understanding mechanisms of how things work. Tying in concepts from biology, physics, and neuroscience into martial arts training is something I can totally geek out to. In my mind, demystifying martial arts esoterica using science is a good thing. However, science is sometimes used incorrectly to justify certain principles and phenomena  Fajin–the issuing of power–can be understood within the framework of sound science; it does not have to reside solely in the realm of qi, magic, superhuman abilities, or hand waved pseudo-science.

Here’s my attempt to properly apply classical physics to the often mysticized fajin.

Momentum ( p = m*v )

According to Wikipedia, momentum can be understood as the “power residing in a moving object.” From the equation p = m * v, we can see that momentum (p) is directly proportional to the mass (m) and velocity (v). In other words, the amount of power you can impart into your opponent depends on your size and how fast you can move.

You have limited control over the size part of the equation. You can only practically add so much lean mass before you hit your genetic potential or have to resort to bodybuilding methods like massive eating, steroids, and high volume weight training. While adding a lot of muscle mass is possible, it has a practical upper limit if you want to live a normal life and get enough quality skill training time. Of course, it is also possible to add fat mass, but that carries significant downsides like health problems and lugging around extra non-functional mass in your day-to-day life.

Between the two factors, velocity gives greater results for training time invested and can be directly improved through martial skill training. Velocity is partially improved by physical conditioning to improve muscular tone and biasing muscle fiber composition towards fast twitch fibers. It is also affected by movement skill, which is what martial skill training should directly improve. Attentive movement drills develop proper body alignment and coordination to improve movement efficiency. Concentration on grooving proper movement patterns improves neuromuscular efficiency so that the body is neurally ready to move, and unnecessary tension from incorrect muscle firing patterns can be relaxed so that movements can occur with fewer hindrances.

An analogy to training velocity would be a car. The physical aspect of training is akin to putting a more powerful engine into the car. This improves the raw ability of the car to go fast, but it is not the only factor in car speed. The car has to drive well in order to go fast: the transmission needs to be maintained to transfer power from the engine to the wheels, the wheels must be balanced and aligned, and the driver has to learn how to control the car speed so that he is not doing stupid things like stepping on the accelerator and brake pedal at the same time. Training movement skill is the equivalent of maximizing the efficiency of the transmission, balancing and aligning the wheels, and actually learning how to drive the car properly.

To a first approximation, learning to move properly increases the velocity portion of the momentum equation. There are of course other considerations and complications that can be added to this simplified explanation. The most important consideration would be that velocity is a vector quantity. It has both magnitude (speed) and a direction. Having speed builds momentum, but that is not sufficient to be effective. The velocity and momentum have to be pointed in the correct direction to affect the target. You can generate all the speed and momentum in the world and still be ineffective if you can’t aim well enough to hit your target. To fajin effectively, you have to be able to generate power and you have to be able to aim the power to hit your target.

Another issue is how the velocity is generated. In most untrained individuals, the speed of attack is generated by having a long travel path. In order to punch, they have to cock their fist back to get enough spacing to get sufficient velocity into their punch. It’s like their winding up for their Popeye punch. While this approach can work, it suffers from slow execution and telegraphing the attack. The opponent has plenty of time to counter when he sees you winding up for an attack. Also, in close quarters, being able to draw back to get enough distance to achieve higher attack speeds is often not possible. The attack velocity must be achieved over shorter distances. To continue the car analogy, you have to get your car from 0 to 60 mph in 5 seconds over 0.08 miles of driving distance instead of 10 seconds and 0.17 miles. To get more acceleration and achieve greater velocity and momentum over shorter attack paths, we must consider force production.

PART TWO

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out fajin, but you might want to use a little rocket math to understand it. The force equation is a fundamental relationship for understanding how rockets get off the ground.  In the last blog post (Part 1), we left off mentioning how we need acceleration to generate enough momentum over short distances.  For our purposes, we can use the force equation to analyze how it is possible to generate enough velocity and momentum for a short distance attack.

Force (F = m * a)

Two things affect force: the mass of an object and the acceleration of the object. Bigger objects can impart more force (i.e. a sledgehammer hurts more than a BB), and faster acceleration correlates with greater force (it takes more force to go from 0-60 in 5s than 10s). To get the necessary velocity to impart maximum momentum, we need to consider acceleration. The faster the acceleration, the better the ability to achieve higher velocities over short distances and the greater the likelihood of generating higher momentum with an attack.  To get fast acceleration, we need to generate force.

When we discussed momentum, more mass was advantageous to having greater momentum. However, when considering force, more mass is not necessarily an advantage. Getting more mass in motion requires more force just to break the inertia of the mass. Adding more lean body mass in the form of fast-twitch muscle fibers is akin to adding a bigger engine which allows more force generation and greater potential acceleration. Adding fat mass on the other hand is equivalent to putting a heavier chassis on the car; it increases momentum but may end up reducing the acceleration potential since fat mass has no force generation and increases inertia. The last part of the physical aspects of force generation would be the ligaments and tendons, which act as the transmission gears of our metaphorical car. The gears have to be strong enough to handle force of the engine and transfer that force to the wheels.

All of the physical factors can be improved (more muscle, less fat, more resilient ligaments and tendons) through physical conditioning. However, as was the case in our momentum discussion, there are practical limits to the physical conditioning. Baseline effective physical fitness can be achieved relatively quickly, and more gains in acceleration potential are more likely achieved through skill training.

Force generation depends on the practitioner’s movement abilities. Efficiency in body movement and proper body mechanics have a significant effects on force generation. For the purposes of discussion, we can consider three trainable components of movement ability:

1. alignment
2. relaxation
3. joint coordination

One of the first things the practitioner should strive for is proper joint alignments. When the joints are positioned properly, less muscular exertion is needed to keep the body structure organized and the more potential muscular activation is available for force generation. Establishing the proper body alignments is a prerequisite for the muscles of the body to relax and thus be more available for force generation. A prime example of this would be the stacking of the body over the feet so that the minimum effort is wasted standing upright. Other examples would be keeping the elbows behind the wrist or knees aligned to the toes during force generation. Poor positioning of either of these joints results in extra muscular effort being spent just stabilizing those joints.

In addition to allowing greater potential force, relaxation also allows more efficient use of force. An untrained individual (particularly with the modern sedentary lifestyle) often has several movement dysfunctions. The proper muscles are not sufficiently activated, the body alignments are off, and extraneous muscles are tensed to compensate for improper body mechanics. The extra muscle tension often retards the desired force. The extra non-functional muscular tension is like driving a car with the accelerator and brake pedals simultaneously pressed. A lot of force might be generated, but the unnecessary tension means that different forces in the body are working against each other. An example of this would be throwing a punch with all the muscles of the upper body tensed at the same time. It can feel like a lot of effort is going into a super strong punch, but because the muscles are not contracting and relaxing in the correct sequence, they end up working against each other and making the punch weaker. When the unnecessary tension is taken out of the movement, the generated force is applied more efficiently towards the desired movement.

Finally, joint coordination plays a crucial role force generation. To achieve maximum acceleration, we want to be able to tap into as much muscle as possible to generate the maximum amount of force. If we rely on only muscles local to one joint for movement (let’s say the elbow for a punch), then the amount of force we can generate is limited to strength of only a few muscles which may not even be all that strong. What we can do instead is use multi-joint movements to draw on muscles from all over the body, particularly from the strong muscles of the legs and hips. This requires that the joint alignments be correct and that the movements of each body segment coordinate properly with the other body segments. When the coordination is correct, the movement becomes like a chain that is whipped: each link transfers power to the next segment until the sum of all the individual forces is manifested at the end of the chain. If the movement is uncoordinated, the forces do not sum together and the chain flops in a disorganized fashion.

One of the purposes of the skill portion of training is to develop movement quality.  When we can leverage proper body alignment, relaxed movement, and whole body coordination, we can achieve sufficient force production to accelerate our attacks over much shorter distances than would be possible otherwise.

Johnny Kuo

originally posted at mindbodykungfu.com on 9/1 & 9/9/2011

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RELATED ARTICLE

Contained Spiral Force

Penetrating the Sphere: Geometry of Attack

In a previous post, I discussed the point of contact in terms of vector components. When you penetrate your opponent’s sphere, you pass the diameter line of the virtual sphere at the point of contact and have technically passed your opponent’s defense. However, just getting past the diameter line is necessary but not sufficient.

One mistake that I frequently made (and probably still frequently make) is to roll and pivot past the diameter line and attack straight away. That tends to only work if you partner or opponent is not attentive to your actions. The problem arises from the fact the force interactions are multidimensional. The point of contact is not a static sphere; rather, it is a dynamic point that changes curvature and moves in space.

Just touching the other side of the diameter line only means you have entered the sphere of defense. It does not necessarily mean you have an appropriate application point. You can penetrate the sphere but still give your opponent enough space to recover as you attack. In essence, your opponent readjusts his sphere to intercept your attack and re-establish your contact outside of the sphere.

Johnny Kuo