Chapter 117: Underwater Martial Arts (1/2)
Chapter 117: Underwater Martial Arts
“Master Cheng, do you mean to say…?” Wang Chao knew from Cheng Shanming’s words that he had wished to give Wang Chao what he himself had comprehended over the years. In the past, learning the ways of the fist had many taboos. The secrets to a school was especially precious; if a single word or movement was leaked out, it was enough justification to kill to stop the leak.
The era of today was not as strict; but the teachings of a school was still not easily divulged to an outsider.
Chen Aiyang’s “Flying Horse Treading on Sparrow” had been taught to Wang Chao for the sake of mastering it. Chen Aiyang had taught it to Wang Chao so that his friend may live.
Cheng Shanming and Wang Chao had only met once before. Neither of them were friends, and neither were they enemies then, but now there was a feeling of comradery. Yet, how was such a thing good enough to impart the secrets of their discipline to another?
An expert capable of Transforming Jin placed martial arts secondly. The most important thing was to slowly teach through the lessons of experience.
Ever since the Wushu of the ancient past, there had been true and false methods of learning. Given a secret book, if one were to study and learn from it, it was possible to become muddle-headed from it.
But a person with experience was by no means fake. Cheng Shanming had said he would present what he had learned to Wang Chao, which would mean to teach him both martial arts and experience. When it came to walking down a detour or the right path, this specific example was a windfall of riches and wealth.
“In my years of living, I have already established a business and home in Canada. There is where my roots have been planted, and never will I be able to return my roots here. My body will live in Canada, and my bones will be buried in Canada. You seek martial arts in your heart, and at your age, you’ve already reached where your muscles and bones act as one, the sounds of thunder follow the fist, and have already touched upon the principle of martial arts reaching into nothingness. What little experience I have will be negligible, but I can see that you have studied Baguazhang as well. I can only hope, you will see the many schools of it, and master them all to become a grandmaster. This is the only contribution I can make for the sake of Chinese martial arts.”
“In the expansion of today, martial arts has become something sentimental and has not yet disappeared without a trace in the world. I have learned the ways of the gun, but my martial arts has become secondary to myself.”
In the short several hours, Wang Chao and Cheng Shanming had fought once more with words. Cheng Shanming had took Wang Chao to be a person with moral standing. But his art laid within marksmanship instead of martial arts. His movements were adapted to such an art and as well as his thoughts.
When it came to Wang Chao’s history, Cheng Shanming had guessed correctly. His fists weren’t as pure as it could be in martial arts, but his experience had given Wang Chao some thoughts to reflect on. In the future, if there was a chance to recollect on it, it would serve him plenty.
“To bury his bones in his homelands…”
Wang Chao thought over Cheng Shanming’s words as he thought about the grief a Chinese person overseas would feel now that the leaves of their lives would never return to the roots of their lives.
“A pair of elder and junior with different perspectives. In comparison, the elder Cheng Shanming has the openminded thinking of a youngster. While Wang Chao follows the teaching of the old, how interesting. The elder is open-minded while the junior is inflexible–isn’t this inverted?”
Lin Yanan watched Cheng Shanming and Wang Chao reply to each other with great interest.
“You are a practitioner of Bajiquan then.” Cheng Shanming turned to look at Cheng Shanming. “It’s unfortunate that your Bajiquan is not pure.”
Lin Yanan looked down, “Master Cheng has learned the Huo school of Bajiquan; a style that has been taught with the Cheng school of Baguazhang. My Bajiquan is only a subsidiary, it is no wonder mine cannot be considered to be as genuine as yours.”
“Haha.” Cheng Shanming began to laugh. Holding his spear, he walked towards the beach. At this time, the sun had not yet begun to shine, but the waves and ocean breeze could still be heard. But still, the light coming from the nearby city was quite bright enough for the people on th beach to be seen.
Cheng Shanming did not say a word and instead brought his spear up fiercely! Shua! The spear shook as it brought out the buzzing sounds of a swarm of bees.
At the same time, Cheng Shanming’s body had begun to shake along with the spear. At a glance, it was unclear whether it was the man shaking the spear, or the spear shaking the man.
A single sound of thunder could be heard coming from Cheng Shanming’s abdomen as his clothes began to crackle with sound.
In this current moment, Cheng Shanming was like a deity with his beard flying up.
With a single breath, Cheng Shanming expelled a mighty “Ha!” sound that was similar to the cries of a swarm of soldiers.
Simultaneously, Cheng Shanming’s body flew forward and his spear shook along with the “Ha” sound. The air had been slapped apart by the intense movements of the spear and made it seem like a wave of air was being blown everywhere.
Feeling the forceful waves of the spear, Lin Yanan couldn’t help but take several steps back.
A single foot came crashing onto the ground, causing the grains of sand beneath Cheng Shanming’s feet to cave in. It was as if there had been a cave in, but his feet hadn’t been affected in the slightest.
With his lapels like the wind, Cheng Shanming and his spear stabbed forward. The entire body of the spear had seemed as if it was the body of a dragon coming to life.
But his clothes seemed like something was supporting it and did not budge an inch while his beard danced in the wind.
Wang Chao’s eyes swiveled to look at Cheng Shanming step forward as he hopped and leap and shook his spear over the sand. Each strike of the spear contained a mysterious intention behind it that any regular martial artist wouldn’t be able to understand. But for a martial artist as accomplished as Wang Chao, he could understand the Jin and movements completely. Like chef Ting from The Dexterous Butcher, he did not need to use his eyes to observe the movements.
Every five spear thrusts, there was a single stroke of inspiration and Jin that reached the peak of spirit.
And in those instances, his chest and abdomen would let out two distinctive burst of sounds; the “Hengha” sounds.
Wang Chao’s eyes observed the way Cheng Shanming’s body burst with Jin, swallowed the air, trembled his body, stepped forward, and focus his spirit. From this, he gradually begun to understand the secrets of Bajiquan’s “Hengha” to wash the marrow.
Wang Chao had originally learned the “Tiger’s Thunder” while Chen Aiyang had the “Fishing Toad Jin”. One tempered the muscles and bones while the other tempered and cultivated the inner organs. One was external, the other was external, but while both took different paths, they led to the same destination. And now, the Bajiquan’s technique of “Hengha” was nothing more but a principle of two ways to temper the marrow. Circulating Jin and breathing were two different things in the end.
Cheng Shanming was deliberately teaching Wang Chao, so each circulation of Jin and process of breathing was shown clearly with each move of his spear. He was practically a breathing textbook of the classics; and the more Wang Chao looked, the more he understood.
Wang Chao knew that if Cheng Shanming taught his disciples, he wouldn’t be using this manner to teach. He would definitely use a set of movements closer to what one would see in a performance for them to slowly understand and practice on their own for several days to get used to it. When they finished, they would learn the drill again so that they could learn the posture and gain the spirit of the moves. If one had the posture and understanding of it, then that the was the goal of cultivation.