by Pat McGowan
and relishes her first kill.
the pa kua teacher
‘It’s that killer instinct and it’s one thing we have got to get better at.’ Michael Voss, coach, Brisbane Lions
He hovers and swivels in all eight directions,
one or two strikes, a body is shattered,
a fight with him lasts a matter of seconds.
He’s fixed in his circle, pursue over there
what ever you wish, but cross this line,
invade his space, and he’s ready to pulverise you.
Already ninety and his health is good,
though his eyes are weak due to those months
when he stared at the sun, not blinking once.
Life on this fine edge is how he has thrived,
his record, so far, is fifty-five fights,
and fifty-five dead men he’s left behind.
It started with a contract his teacher and he signed.
Stay for twelve years, no leaving early or
teacher claimed the right to kill off the art,
an art that goes back to the book of I Ching,
the missing pages he knows by heart,
he’s both a cool scholar and a mad monkey.
His students train six hours per day,
crosses on the fence, lines made of sweat
as arms chop, like blades, this way and that.
Some leathered thug visited his house: ‘Old man,
I hear there’s a great teacher nearby.’ ‘I‘ve no idea…
…you fat slug,’ he murmurs, slamming his door.
elizabeth
I posted a parcel to Elizabeth, packed
inside was a city of words,
it dangled from the stars,
it tip-toed the earth,
like a UFO, draped with unknowns,
but with roads leading anywhere
you wanted to go.
After she opened it, she went all ape,
coffee cup, cutlery, table and chairs
flew across the room, as she
crazily complained about some pot-hole
patched with a tai chi symbol,
for her a conspiratorial masonic mash-up.
Sadly she missed
the eye of my creative delight, so
I’m not sending her
any more cities or worlds,
she can live inside
her pot-holed side street
with her stinky tai chi symbol
for as long as she likes.
The city can sit and wait.
the judoist
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,
about to open his pale, pencil-lipped mouth,
not dreaming of his fairy tale path to the Kremlin
or of desires to deliver the bedevilled people,
he’s thinking of his next class of judo,
gentle sport of life, with his beloved teacher.
A little naive, though not far from the perfect teacher,
for sure, he had more talented students than Putin,
he found himself jousting with new levels of judo,
a subtle art transmitted by word-of-mouth,
one-on-one, though not the chop for most people,
when he drew the ire of hawks in the Kremlin.
A Byzantine, sestina-like outfit, the Kremlin,
heard whispers in Petersburg of this teacher,
after the decision of the people
to turn a little known man into President Putin,
the minders were shocked, wide open-mouthed,
as he pinned Putin’s virtues solely on judo.
‘Let’s use this obscure Olympic sport, judo,
to reach behind the walls of the Kremlin,
we’ll tell the story from the horse’s mouth,
an extended interview with the President’s teacher:’
said the media in pursuit of fresh angles on Putin,
a desire to shift power back to the people.
Lacking that X-factor in the eyes of the people,
plus his odd pronouncements on life beyond judo,
the whole matter loomed as a crippler for Putin,
thought the savvy spinmasters back in the Kremlin.
He was, no doubt, a skilled martial arts teacher,
but best saved for instruction via hand to mouth.
‘Vovka, we’ve gotta shut his fuckin’ mouth:’
said these slick judges of the Russian people.
‘He’ll bring us to our knees, your teacher.
Can’t you see the judo hall is the best place for judo?
It’s your image we care for here in the Kremlin.’
With gall, they eyeballed President Putin.
He mouthed the word ‘silence’ like a deft move in judo:
we have enemies wanting to bust us back in the Kremlin
The teacher went silent, after those few words from Putin.
the tycoon
With
White Crane
Opens the Wings,
we explore movement
up and down.
As the body sinks,
knees bent,
arms gathered,
lift one foot
to kick,
open
arms
wide,
rise like the crane,
wings outstretched,
movement
back
down,
on the
other foot,
now do it again,
up to down
and down to up,
making a circle.
Al’s got his own tai chi,
it’s called currency trading.
After tai chi class one evening in ‘87,
over a Lebanese coffee in Rozelle,
his news that he lost eight million dollars that week,
puts us into a freeze frame.
‘Ah, it’s nothing,’ he says.
‘It’ll come back again.’
I visited Al in England
five years later.
Bloomberg blasting over breakfast,
we were talking about train times to London
when Al mentioned
he made six hundred thousand dollars the night before.
‘Anyhow, let’s get the bikes,
and we’ll pedal up to the village.’
Was that
a white crane
flying past
my window.
kakek
Young Arto studied a martial art,
the greatest thing any man could learn,
his teacher, Joko, claimed to impart.
Joko’s eyes scared all in his class,
they’d heard stories of him punching cows,
with an explosive strength none could surpass.
One day Joko pushed Arto into a routine.
Arto tried hard, but made one faux pas,
Joko slapped him for an ugly scene.
Arto told his grandpa, Kakek, a man of tai chi,
who got so upset. After stroking his beard,
he decided to confront this bully.
Next afternoon, Joko, in a booming shout:
‘What do you want, silly old one?’
‘If you apologise, we’ll have no fallout.’
Joko’s response reeked of venom.
but Kakek was in no mood to argue,
he had another stratagem.
‘Master Joko, that pen in your pocket.’
Kakek leaned forward, his goal not the pen,
but to press one finger on Joko’s heart.
Once Joko got home, a paralysis grew,
the corners of his mouth started to foam
and his skin went darker shades
of blue.
The condition progressed, he lay on his bed,
they’d heard of Kakek, but never believed,
his friends and neighbours saw problems ahead.
‘You must see Kakek!’ All of them pleaded.
‘Get out of here!’ was Joko’s reply.
Early next morning, they covered his head.
yang wu dui
I saw it happen at Prince Duan’s Court,
the day Yang Wu Dui came to the capital,
as all in our school clambered to challenge,
Duan singled out his strongest man,
a boxer, a fighter of national fame.
Settled in chairs, the two agreed
to pit their right fists against each other.
I’ve studied the art, I know what goes on,
one less experienced sucks in the chi
and pumps out to the fist, with the aim
of dissolving his opponent’s resolve,
but Yang was skilled to such a degree,
still as a lake on a windless day, waiting
for the boxer to defeat himself: first, beads
of sweat showed, then his chair creaked.
When a piece of wood popped,
Yang calmly spoke up:
‘Indeed this man is a master, though sadly
his chair is not as well made as mine,
how about we all go and eat?’
tai chi hermit
All of them,
the whole hundred schools,
clutch at yin-yang like a pair of second hand crutches,
spin and get spun by the five transformations,
could never cover the oceanic gaps
that reach out in the eight different directions.
And twelve houses won’t ever be enough.
I laugh at their numbers and names
of schools, postures, masters
and random pet things.
Hackers, all of them!
No match
for this one
supreme ultimate fist.
online master (junbao)
Tim, Thanks for the interest. My tai chi
is First Generation teaching from China.
While it does lead to serenity in
the mind, it can only do so after
quite a bit of practice. What I’m saying
is, there is quite a bit of sweat involved in
learning (real) Tai Chi. We build a foundation
of stretching and strengthening the muscles
and extremities to improve balance
and circulation. This is turn leads to
confidence, health, and long life. Western thought
has turned Tai Chi into a more mystical
practice, seen by westerners to be a way
to connect with the energy and peace
of the universe. This is not so in China.
To practice Zen, go to a monastery.
The name “Taijiquan” in Chinese translates
to “Grand Ultimate Fist”. Tai Chi is
and always has been a martial art.
That is the way I was taught it, that is the way
I teach it. While we practice the form slowly
in “tai chi time”, the applications
in real time are swift and exact. To quote
the Tai Chi Classics, “Do not worry
about speed or power. When the moment
needs it, there will be no fear of slip
or falter.” That being said, the practice
of Tai Chi is addicting. The body
begins to ache and bog down from lack of
practice. After a while, it is not a chore
to practice mid-week, it becomes a necessity.
As the body’s extremities begin
to “glob up” with stale Chi and stagnant
nutrients, it remembers Tai Chi from
Saturday morning and begs to be renewed.
The renewal circulates Chi, blood and
oxygen to the far reaches of our
extremities, filling them with spritely
quickness and life. Who hasn’t noticed
the curious feeling an hour or so
after class when you notice your body
feels alive, fresh and renewed?
This is what Tai Chi does.
gu ruzhang (1893-1952)
Homesick and tired of mushy burgoo
scraps night after night, money spent on whores
and coarse wine in Canton’s foreign quarter,
on their fifth or sixth loathsome lap
of south China, the exiled Russian circus
troupe cooked up a new enterprise.
The moustachioed ringmaster offered a prize
of one thousand pounds (his face red with ague,
and each second word a Tatar cuss)
to one who could bear three kicks from his horse.
Urgers waved passersby through the tent flap,
stragglers from every Canton backwater.
A slim, bare-chested man, in three quarter
length trousers, set off the gossipries
after stepping forward to a hearty clap.
He hailed from Song Mountain, this Mr Gu,
Iron Palm Kung Fu his one hobby-horse.
‘First, some conditions I wish to discuss...
...if after three kicks, I don’t concuss,
may I slap your horse on the hindquarter
in lieu of the loot?’ The Russians went hoarse
with laughter at how these Chinese comprise
such tragic folk. Without any argue,
they nodded ‘yes, yes, yes,’ plus a backslap.
These two on stage with nil overlap:
proud Arab blood horse and this hocus pocus
man, short, wiry, and so out of vogue.
The first kick landed. He gave no quarter,
as a few Russians whimpered with surprise.
But this was course one, the hors
d’oeuvre. As if but another of his daily chores,
Gu absorbed the next thunderclap
without much ado. The squeamish prised
open their eyes to see a hibiscus
bruise on Gu’s chest, the hoof’s hard quarter.
The third kick likewise failed to move Gu.
The horse owner stood cockily amid the ruckus,
Gu took a breath. One slap on the hindquarter,
the horse fell, eyes closed, her heart turned to goo.
luke
He studied Chinese medicine in Alexandria,
once hallowed home of learning and knowledge,
and there became handy with the art of wu shu.
His writing was still an oracular dream.
After the Jesus years, he visited Rome,
sight of his signum ring, Caesar’s rare gift,
gave this man entrance through many doors.
A clutch of wrestlers, on hearing his laugh,
beckoned him to challenge. Without raising breath,
he put them to dust. Defensive or dumb,
none showed interest in his peerless skill.
It was later he drifted back to his book,
a book translated so many times,
you won’t read a word between the lines.
(wu shu is a generic term for Chinese martial arts)
the cabbie
The son of Mediterranean migrants,
black, curly hair and soft, dark eyes,
he pushed a squeaky newspaper barrow
along Redfern streets, after school.
He soon got tired of being rolled
and robbed, for a handful of coins,
dropped on his arse too many times,
one weekend he enrolled in karate class,
to stand up for himself and be strong.
As the inner city school years hurtled
by,
his fearless front-footed style
took him to the national championships
and gained him a student following.
This martial passion stayed a hobby,
as he drove taxis in town through the day,
unfazed by the fools, in singlet or suit,
who, when they misread those soft, dark eyes,
thought they sat with some dumb wog cabbie.
brandon
Brandon followed his father,
a man who once described his own fighting style
as if he was water
filling an empty cup,
but too soon his body filled
a hole in the grounds
of Lakeview cemetery.
Brandon, still following,
talked about life as dealing with
one blockage after another.
It was on the film set,
when the gun jammed
before the murder scene,
(so let’s go over this again)
thinking they’d emptied the bullets,
one still stuck in the barrel,
when the director said ‘Shoot!’
Brandon took the hit
and made the move
to Lakeview too.
incognito
A drive of five hours, from airport to town,
I’m honoured as driver
to our guest gong fu teacher,
Frank is his name,
a man of high rank,
multiple national champion,
breaker of bricks with brawny bare hands,
a warrior who travels incognito.
We choose a truck stop café,
my car buried behind a line of B-doubles.
Square-body truckies clomp in and out,
open shirts, grizzled faces, missing teeth.
A bucket of ice water
wouldn’t break the cabin stupor of some.
Others shout across to old mates,
as we order our food and drink.
Frank tells me a little
about his family: his father, his brother.
We sit at a bench in high chairs,
eat, drink and catch up.
Meanwhile the café fills, is crowded.
A towering truckie with a sandstone face
grabs Frank by the shoulder.
‘Out of my way. I want to sit down.’
Frank, composed, flows with the throw,
stands next to me, continuing his story
about his sister’s success on piano.
