Meandering River, Ardent Flame

by Vivian Chak

  ***

  The girls followed Jiang as she moved through the empty-hand form. This one focused especially on tiger and crane moves. Both required strong forearms, so Jiang had made them do at least a hundred push-ups before starting, merely by having them follow her as she continued well past fifty, even as they started gasping. With the form, glancing at her students, Jiang slowed slightly so as to emphasize the correct motions. Arms circling, hands in claws to pull and subdue. Hooking an opponent's blow, arm as supple as a crane's neck. Jiang had repeated the moves many times. The girl Yue was having difficulty. Jiang had them all repeat the move several more times. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Wong shifu in careful observation.

  The practice ended. Qiuyue, who had been watching interestedly, ran up to her.

  “What's this?” asked the little girl, sweeping her arms in a circle, in imitation of Jiang.

  “Hu zhua, tiger claw,” replied Jiang. She demonstrated again.

  “That doesn't look like a tiger at all,” Qiuyue giggled.

  “It's the imitation of a tiger bringing down its prey,” Jiang explained, knowing to keep her explanation short for Qiuyue. Otherwise, she would have added that the motion had its roots in fire from the five Taoisist elements, and that it was only one of the five animal forms, the crane being the other.

  “Show me,” demanded Qiuyue, eyes wide. Jiang executed the move for her. She tried again sloppily. Jiang smiled and repeated the move for her. Again Qiuyue couldn't do it.

  “You'll learn it when you're older,” reassured Jiang. “After you've learned basics.”

  “It's hard. Why do we learn it at all?” asked Qiuyue, stopping her motions.

  “Well, Princess Yongtai, for whom our monastery is named, and who was known for her great devotion to Dharma, practised it. That's why the nuns practise too.”

  “Why do you? You don't have to. You're not a nun yet.” Qiuyue was adamant.

  “That's true, but one should begin early,” Jiang evaded, not wanting to invoke Qiuyue's loss of family by mentioning her own. In truth, Jiang realized, the exercises cleared her mind of everything. Not only of the selfish human desires the Buddha spoke against, but also of the physical exhaustion that seemed to fill her whenever she thought of duty to family and universal duty. Exercise, with instinctive movements, resulted in thinking of nothing, which brought her far from such thoughts.

  “'By punctuality and knowledge...root out your darts of sin?'” quoted Qiuyue, somewhat slyly. Jiang looked at Qiuyue with some internal disquiet. Did her unrestrained, un-Buddhist thoughts show that openly? The alarm must have shown too, Jiang thought, as Qiuyue added, “I don't like Sister An either.”

  “It's not for us to judge whether or not someone else is likeable,” Jiang said. Maybe she was being a bad example for Qiuyue, if the little girl was thinking such things. “How can a blind man laugh at another for being blind?”

  “Maybe the other man made him blind.”

  “Clearly that wasn't a good example,” sighed Jiang.

  “That's okay,” said Qiuyue. “Goodbye Jiang jiejie!” She skipped off, giving Jiang the honorific of Elder Sister.

  “That wasn't the right example at all,” growled a voice. Jiang turned around to see Wong shifu, and quickly bowed in greeting. He was on a somewhat permanent loan from the monks of the White Horse Temple. Rumour had it that they had wanted to get rid of him; that he had been sent from temple to temple all across the Empire. But Jiang didn't really believe rumours.

  “Your execution of hu zhua was purely external, your chi completely undirected.” He swept out quickly, arms retracting and hands exploding powerfully. “No?”

  Jiang couldn't see how the internal energy was being manifested. Maybe she had been staring too much at the external: the instructor-monk's flapping robes, vivid orange unlike her novice ones. He clawed again, stopping with one claw near her wrist and the front one poised before her throat.

  “Wong shifu, I understand where the tiger claw is targeted.”

  “Do you truly?” The orange robes snapped as he pulled his arms back and clawed out again, stopping at the same spot.

  “The foremost claw is for the throat.”

  “Yes. The throat.” He retracted his claws. Jiang tried again, aiming carefully at where the throat of her own mirror image would have been.

  “Still external,” said the shifu. Silhouetted against the reddening sky, his robes looked a fiery orange.

  “Understand that the tiger's claw at the throat is fatal. One directs the entire chi towards this object. If even the slightest part of you objects, the internal energy is dissipated and weakened. Do you understand?”

  Jiang nodded, but had to add: “Shifu, are we not taught by the Buddha and Confucius to eschew violence and forgive?”

  The forty-year old monk nodded seriously. “That's so, but Confucius also taught that if you give all to the man who gives you harm, there is nothing to give to the one who gives you kindness.”

  When Jiang opened her mouth to protest the use of the quote, the monk added brusquely, “that's the way I see the master's words, and remember, giving all can mean your life. Would you do that?”

  “If Dharma required it.”

  “Exactly. Preserve it for a better cause,” he grumbled, rubbing his grey beard. “You'll make a good nun.” He began to leave.

  “Thank you, Wong shifu,” said Jiang, bowing. He inclined his grey-stubbled head in acknowledgement.

  “Remember what I said. Practise the tiger. Your crane is fine.”

  When he had left, Jiang again practised her hu zhua and he. The movements of the tiger claw still came jerkily as she tried to decide how far to extend. The crane, however, came naturally, and Jiang flexed her arms as a crane might flap its wings, to smoothly avoid and redirect incoming blows.