LI JING LIN’S SWORD
LI JING LIN’S SWORD In July 1922, in Beizhen, Liaoning, a battalion commander came to give his general a report that had nothing military about it. Among his subordinates, he had discovered a man said to be a master swordsman. The general was Li Jinglin. At the time, he commanded a brigade of the Fengtian Army, was thirty-seven years old, and had practiced martial arts since childhood without ever finding what he was looking for. The subordinate was Song Weiyi. He was sixty-seven, claimed to be the ninth inheritor of a Wudang sword lineage, and was serving in the ranks of a warlord’s army without, apparently, anyone having noticed who he was. Exactly what their meeting amounted to remains disputed. Some sources describe it as their first encounter, while others present it as a reunion: the two men are said to have crossed paths twenty years earlier, when the adolescent Li served in an imperial cadet corps in which Song was one of the officers. Lineage accounts say that Song, seeing that the boy had solid foundations and a quick mind, secretly transmitted to him the rudiments of his art. The expression used, 秘授, mì shòu, “to transmit secretly,” already says a great deal. In any case, from the summer of 1922 onward, the man commanding the brigade began taking lessons from the man serving in its ranks. A Chinese expression summarizes the situation with admirable precision: in the midst of his military duties, Li snatched whatever time he could to continue seeking instruction from Song. The old swordsman entrusted him with his manuscripts—a Wudang sword manual, a sword-form Eight Trigrams Palm manual, and a collection of Taoist methods—and designated him the tenth inheritor of his lineage. One has to appreciate what had just happened, because this is where everything that concerns us begins. An active general received from an old man a sword art whose chain of transmission was said to reach back to a Taoist immortal of Mount Wudang, and which contained no fixed form whatsoever: only a body of principles, exercises, and corrections transmitted directly from hand to hand. Nine years later, Li Jinglin would be dead, and that art would have become a system taught publicly to hundreds of people, codified into sequences, photographed, printed, and promoted as part of the national heritage by a state institution. Between those two points, there was only him. Li Jinglin was born in 1885 in Zaoqiang County, Hebei, the youngest of five sons in a Han bannerman family that included both merchants and men-at-arms. His father, who “knew the boxing and weapons of the world of rivers and lakes,” taught him the local styles: Yanqing Men and Erlang Men, fast, striking-based Northern boxing systems. At thirteen, he entered an imperial cadet corps, where he may therefore have met Song Weiyi for the first time; the corps was dissolved in 1900 during the turmoil of the Boxer uprising. He later went to Yongnian to seek instruction from Yang Jianhou, the third son of Yang Luchan, and became one of his few disciples from outside the family. It was from this period that his lasting friendship with Du Xinwu would date, one of the men who had also gone to see the Yang family for other martial reasons. Then came the accelerated military academy of the Beiyang Army in 1903, and with it his career. In 1911, when the revolution broke out, Li Jinglin volunteered to command a “death corps” of roughly five hundred men. He crossed the river, broke through the lines, and seized Tortoise Mountain at Hanyang, a decisive defensive position. This was probably the greatest personal feat of arms of his life. The Qing court rewarded him with the privilege of the imperial yellow jacket. It is worth pausing over this detail, because it illuminates the man better than any portrait could. Li Jinglin earned the yellow jacket fighting for the Qing against the revolutionaries. Seventeen years later, he would be appointed deputy director of an institute created by decree of the party born from that same revolution. One Chinese article title plays precisely on this: “the Sword Immortal and Military Governor in the Yellow Jacket.” This is not a moral contradiction. It is an exact description of what a Chinese career could look like between 1900 and 1930: one served the structure that existed, and the structure changed. What followed was the career of an officer in the Fengtian clique under Zhang Zuolin: regimental commander, then divisional commander, then army commander. In November 1924, during the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, he occupied Tianjin; from December 1924 to December 1925, he governed Zhili. There is no reason to romanticize this period: historians describe the occupation as brutal and predatory. Li was a member of the Green Gang, systematically extorted money from merchants, his men clashed with the American Fifteenth Infantry Regiment stationed there, and on August 11, 1925, he had unionized workers at a textile mill suppressed by military force. The Sword Immortal was a warlord, and that must be said—not for the sake of contrast, but because otherwise one cannot understand what he did afterward. Li Jinglin’s martial career was that of a man accustomed to commanding, organizing, recruiting, and obtaining funds. One character trait, however, does emerge from the sources. During the Third Zhili-Fengtian War, when Guo Songling rebelled against Zhang Zuolin and asked Li to join him, Li refused. He is said to have retained a thread of gratitude toward his commander. He chose neutrality. In the logic of the cliques, that amounted to condemning himself: after that, he was no longer employed. Before going further, we must say what kind of object this man had in his hands, because the Chinese straight sword is not a saber, and had not truly been a weapon of war for a very long time. The jian, the long straight sword, ceased to be a first-rank military weapon sometime between the second and third centuries CE. Under the Han, the
The Reality of Combat!
THE REALITY OF COMBAT! In martial arts, we readily talk about technique, power, strategy, style, lineage, transmission and discipline. We talk about forms honed over centuries, throws executed with millimetre precision, strikes that pierce through, and roots that run deep into the ground. We talk about all this with passion, with seriousness, and sometimes with devotion. And yet, a more brutal, simpler, more unsettling question almost always remains in the shadows: what does the body actually do in the very first second of a sudden attack? This question changes everything. It forces the practitioner to step out of the fantasy of a clean, prepared, symmetrical, ritualised fight. It tears them away from the well-lit tatami, the cooperative partner, the agreed distance. It places them face to face with real violence: the kind that takes you by surprise, that intimidates, that comes too close, too fast, accompanied by noise, fear, confusion, emotion, and sometimes without any discernible warning. Let’s take a concrete example. A man is leaving a supermarket, his arms laden with bags. He is thinking about his shopping list, his car park, his dinner. A figure looms up on his left, a voice shouts something incomprehensible, a hand grabs his shoulder. What is happening in his body at that precise moment? Not in his ideal as a practitioner. Not in the memory of his twenty years of training. In his real body, taken by surprise, overwhelmed, out of sync. This is the focus of this editorial. Not the beauty of the movement, but the truth of the moment. Not what we know how to do, but what we actually do when we no longer know anything. Certain contemporary approaches to self-defence have had the merit of bringing this question back to the fore: starting from the natural startle reflex, the spontaneous protective reaction, and building upon that, rather than against it. This shift in perspective deserves to be explored in depth, for it concerns all practitioners, from beginner to master, from boxer to tai chi practitioner, from judoka to aikido practitioner. A practitioner may know hundreds of techniques yet prove incapable of acting when the moment actually arrives. Every honest teacher has observed this at some point, sometimes to their own cost. It is not a matter of moral weakness, nor of a lack of practice. It is a widespread and well-documented physiological phenomenon: fear alters the body’s state. Fear alters breathing, which becomes shallow, high-pitched and laboured. It narrows vision, which focuses on the threat at the expense of peripheral vision: this is known as tunnel vision. It affects muscle tone: the shoulders rise, the neck stiffens, and the hands clench or tremble. It distorts the perception of time: some describe an unreal slowdown, others an incomprehensible acceleration. It impairs fine motor skills: fingers that could once fasten a belt are now unable to dial a telephone number. It disrupts hearing: witnesses to attacks report hearing nothing, or hearing only their own heartbeat. It can induce a state of shock – that frozen immobility where the body seems disconnected from the will. It can also produce the opposite: a disorderly rush, with movements that are too big, too early, too confused. Many techniques are based on a calm, responsive, warmed-up body that knows what is about to happen. The partner attacks with their right arm because the exercise calls for it.The distance is right because the teacher has set it. The floor is level, the lighting is good, nobody is shouting. But a real attack almost never begins under these conditions. It begins in surprise, humiliation, incomprehension, verbal tension, the fatigue of the end of the day, a confined space, or the act of protecting a child holding your hand. The serious practitioner must therefore ask themselves: does my art only work when I am prepared, or also when I am taken by surprise? The difference between these two answers is exactly the difference between practice and ability. In many schools, flinching is seen as a weakness. The implicit ideal is that of the impassive warrior: nothing surprises him, nothing makes him bat an eyelid; he sees everything coming. This is a beautiful image. It is also, for the most part, a fiction. Even the most seasoned fighters flinch when an object suddenly appears in their peripheral vision, when a door slams behind them, or when a hand touches their shoulder in the dark. Flinching is not a failure of training: it is an archaic neurological programme, faster than thought, older than any school of thought. Let us observe what this programme does. When danger arrives too quickly, the body spontaneously seeks to protect what is vital: the head, the eyes, the throat, the brain, and balance. The hands rise towards the face, the shoulders hunch to shield the neck, the torso leans forward or recoils, the eyes narrow, and the breath catches for a moment. Anyone can test this: throw a light ball at someone’s face without warning, and you will see this bodily response appear, identical in champions and beginners alike, in adults and children. The intelligent question is therefore not: how can we suppress the startle response? It is: what should we do with it? Two approaches are available in training. The first approach involves suppressing the instinct: building an ideal technical response on top of it, in the hope that, through repeated practice, the technique will replace the reflex. This approach has a serious flaw. Under intense stress, when genuinely taken by surprise, the nervous system reverts to its oldest and simplest programmes. The technique that has been learnt, if it contradicts the spontaneous movement, risks disappearing at precisely the moment it is needed most. The result is a practitioner with two bodies: a ‘demonstration’ body and a ‘survival’ body, which are unaware of one another. The second approach consists of channelling instinct: starting from the movement the body already produces, and shaping it. If, when taken by surprise, the hands rise, then
Internal arts are tough, which is why people have made them Limp
Internal arts are tough, which is why people have made them Limp The Internal Arts, often presented today as gentle practices for health, relaxation or well-being, nevertheless have a far more demanding martial, physical and internal history. Originally, they were not merely a series of slow movements intended to calm the mind or limber up the body. Internal martial arts were a comprehensive method of physical, mental and energetic transformation, aimed at developing profound qualities: grounding, structure, active relaxation, overall coordination, internal power, tactile awareness, emotional stability and martial effectiveness. However, in its most widespread contemporary form, the style has often been simplified, softened, stripped of some of its rigour and sometimes even of its meaning. This evolution responds to a real demand: the majority of practitioners are not necessarily seeking a difficult, long and demanding path. Many wish for an enjoyable, accessible, low-commitment activity, compatible with the modern idea of leisure and well-being. The problem lies not only in this orientation, but in the fact that it is sometimes presented as equivalent to an authentic and complete practice. It therefore becomes necessary to examine this situation with clarity: today’s internal martial arts are often chosen because they are easier, more comfortable and less confrontational. Many prefer to accept a diluted form, sometimes even knowing it to be so, rather than making the efforts essential to the genuine development of internal qualities. Contemporary Taijiquan has not become a comfortable practice by accident. This evolution is the result of a long historical, social, political and pedagogical process. Originally, Taijiquan belonged to the realm of the internal arts, that is to say, the martial arts. It involved deep physical work, combat methods, partner exercises, unarmed forms, weapons, and training in structure, relaxation and internal power. Today, however, the prevailing image of Taijiquan is often that of a slow, gentle, relaxing form of exercise, practised in parks, care homes, wellness centres or health classes. This image is not entirely false, but it is incomplete. Taijiquan does indeed have beneficial effects on balance, coordination and general health. Recent research shows, for example, that practising Tai Chi can improve balance and reduce the risk of falls in older people. A meta-analysis published in BMJ Open indicated a significant reduction in the number of falls among older people practising Tai Chi, whilst a 2023 review also concluded that it is effective in preventing falls and improving balance. The problem, therefore, is not that Taijiquan is used for health purposes. The problem arises when this health-related function becomes the sole aspect retained, to the point of erasing the martial structure, the genuine internal work and the requirement for physical transformation. A key moment in this transformation was the creation of simplified forms intended for the general public. In 1956, the Chinese Sports Commission organised the creation of a simplified 24-movement form, often called the Beijing form or the 24-form. It was designed to be short, accessible and easily teachable to large groups, with the aim of promoting public health and physical education. This form, based mainly on the Yang style, removed or reduced certain more complex aspects in order to allow for widespread dissemination. This initiative had a twofold effect. On the one hand, it enabled millions of people to discover Taijiquan. On the other, it helped to establish the idea that a short, simple, regular form of Taijiquan, without great discomfort or confrontation, could represent the art in its entirety. One of the most common misunderstandings is the belief that slowness alone is sufficient to make a practice internal. Yet a slow movement may be profound, but it may also be empty. The slowness of Taijiquan has value only if it allows for precise control of alignment, connection, active relaxation, weight transfer, the availability of the centre, and the continuity of intention. In many modern classes, slowness has become an aesthetic. We move gently because it looks calm. We round our arms because it looks harmonious. We breathe slowly because it looks meditative. But there is no guarantee that the body is truly connected. There is no guarantee that the legs are bearing weight correctly. There is no guarantee that the spine is alive, that the pelvis is transmitting force, that relaxation is not simply slackness, or that the movements retain a martial purpose. Taijiquan has also changed because the modern public does not, for the most part, seek the same things as the martial practitioners of old. Many people take up Taijiquan to relax, improve their balance, breathe better, reduce stress or resume gentle physical activity. This is a legitimate desire. It explains why UNESCO presents Taijiquan as a traditional physical practice consisting of relaxed, circular movements combined with breathing, and why it is now recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In many clubs, a telling scene can be observed. A group practises a form slowly. The movements are calm, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the students leave feeling a sense of serenity. Then a teacher or a more demanding practitioner suggests a simple test: applying light pressure to the arm during “Peng”, checking whether the posture holds, asking the practitioner to maintain their centre of gravity whilst the partner applies moderate pressure. Very often, the structure collapses immediately. The arm tenses or goes limp. The shoulders rise. The knees lock. The pelvis shifts back. Breathing stops. The practitioner, who felt fluid during the form, discovers they have no functional grounding. At this point, two reactions are possible. The first is to accept the lesson: “I thought I was relaxed, but I’m not. I thought I was stable, but I’m not. I need to work on this.” The second is to reject the test: “That’s not the spirit of Taijiquan. You’re pushing too hard. Here, we’re not looking for a fight. The important thing is to feel good.” This second reaction is common. It shows how comfort protects the illusion. As long as no one tests anything, everyone can believe they are