{"id":30962,"date":"2023-12-07T15:10:54","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T15:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/?p=30962"},"modified":"2023-12-23T15:49:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-23T15:49:55","slug":"first-years-with-master-lam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/blog\/first-years-with-master-lam\/","title":{"rendered":"First Years with Master Lam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n

Don\u2019t move,\u201d said the Master. He was motionless. \u201cWhatever you do, don\u2019t\u00a0move.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a long silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he spoke again: \u201cYou can sing. You can talk. You can dream. Anything to take your mind off the\u00a0pain. But whatever you do, don\u2019t move.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were twelve of us standing in a circle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One whispered desperately, \u201cSing us a song.\u201d Another cried, \u201cLook at my hands: they\u2019ve gone\u00a0white and cold as ice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cDon\u2019t move,\u201d
said the Master.
He was motionless.
\u201cWhatever you do, don\u2019t\u00a0move.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rivulets of sweat were running down the face of the woman standing next to her\u00a0and dripping from her hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cListen to me and don\u2019t move,\u201d said the Master. We were standing, transfixed by pain and amazement, in a long, bare hall on an autumn evening in London. It was 1987.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Master
First demonstration of Tai Chi and Chi Kung in Europe by Master Lam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The previous month hundreds had packed an overflowing Conway Hall to see Master Lam Kam Chuen perform, for the first time ever in Europe, the Chinese Dragon Chi Kung form. His energy was explosive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we were standing with him at the outset of our training. No one knew what to expect, or even how to spell or pronounce what we were going to learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were no books on the subject in English. And no one that we knew had ever learned \u2013 or taught \u2013 this system in this part of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were at the threshold of the discipline of Zhan Zhuang Chi Kung. The Chinese characters are best translated to mean \u201cStanding Like a Tree \u2013 Energy Exercise\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It is said to be the most powerful of all the forms of Chi Kung, the ancient Chinese exercise system that stimulates the flow of vital energy in the human\u00a0body.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor years this teaching was secret, even in China,\u201d Master Lam told us. \u201cNow it is spreading across the country. At last our Grand Master has given his consent for you to learn. You will be the fourth generation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Zhan Zhuang system is all the more remarkable for the fact that it enables a person to reach extraordinary heights of internal strength without moving. You stand in carefully designed postures that help you relax while, at the same time, building up your physical and mental power. It can be practiced by anyone, of any age, anywhere, without special equipment or clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Group
Master Lam and first students in London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On that first autumn night, however, we could never have guessed at the inner transformation on which we were about to embark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike a tree with its deep roots, powerful trunk and great branches reaching into the sky you will appear unmoving,\u201d said Master Lam. \u201cIn reality you will be growing from within.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWill you teach us to meditate?\u201d asked someone in the circle. \u201cIs there something special we should be thinking about or is there special breathing we should do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t try to run before you can walk,\u201d he said in response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Master
Master Lam demonstrates an advanced Zhan Zhuang posture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will tell you a story about my own master in China. When he was young, he suffered from low energy. He heard of a master teaching in a park in Beijing who could cure him. This was Great Grand Master Wang Xiang Zhai, the first master ever to teach this art in public. He showed the young man how to stand like a tree. He was shown nothing else for three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe young man was so sure he was being denied the teaching he was after, that he decided to make friends with the master\u2019s son. That way, he thought, he could find out the secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘What does your father teach you?’ he asked the son one day. ‘He teaches me to stand like a tree,’ said the son. ‘Does he tell you why?’ ‘Oh no,’ was the instant reply, ‘he just tells me to stand like this every day and if I don\u2019t he beats me.’ \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was to be the method of teaching we also received from Master Lam \u2013 the centuries-old classical Chinese system of instruction in any art form, whether spiritual or physical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The medium of teaching and learning is not language and explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is example and practice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It stretched credibility to the limit. Day after day we were expected to stand utterly still for ever-lengthening periods, lasting as long as half an hour or beyond. Each week we would stand in new \u2013 and often more excruciating \u2013 positions under the watchful gaze of Master Lam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would move slowly around the room, gently adjusting our bodies in silence. One day I remember that he pulled my hands lightly with his thumbs and forefingers. The penetrating heat where he touched me was unbelievable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Master
Master Lam adjusting Zhan Zhuang positions of students<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Long after he had moved away, my attention was still on the point of my palm where he had made contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the physical changes that most of us noticed within ourselves first of all, although something else was happening in the silence as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One woman who had been without periods for two years after giving up a contraceptive pill found herself menstruating regularly again. Others noticed buzzing and tingling sensations in their hands and feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A young woman in her late 20s had been suffering from spontaneous muscle wastage in her upper arm. Doctors could find no cause or cure for it. Her Zhan Zhuang training halted the wasting and gave her arm renewed firmness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes Master Lam would stand beside us in our training and slowly pass his hand near our bodies. He would stare intently as if examining some sort of etheric boundary around us. But he resolutely dismissed all our efforts to elicit explanations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Slowly we became aware of other qualities growing inside us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stamina and patience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calmness under pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heightened awareness.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was the most compelling thing I had ever done,\u201d said one of the first students. \u201cI got more and more confident in myself and my body. The limits of my power kept expanding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Training
The public turned out in Holland Park for a photo opportunity: The first open-air mass Chi Kung session organized by Gaia Books to promote Master Lam’s book The Way of Energy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We had persisted in the training for two years when Master Lam said very quietly to me, \u201cWould you like to help me write a book about Standing like a Tree?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For two years we spent many hours in the evenings taping his meticulous instructions, going over rough translations from Chinese texts and making dogged attempts to agree on Western terminology that might explain the system to an ordinary reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often we were interrupted by the stream of visitors coming to him for Chinese medical treatment, not only from London, but other locations in Europe as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaia Books took the brave decision to be the publisher. \u201cDo you really think there\u2019s a book in standing still?\u201d asked one of their incredulous directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole project received a tremendous boost when 70-year-old Grand Master (and Professor) Yu Yong Nian made the journey from Beijing to London to lend his unparalleled authority to the work \u2013 to be known as The Way of Energy. A dental surgeon by profession, he was the leading authority on Zhan Zhuang in China \u2013 and therefore in the world \u2013 having studied the system and pioneered its application in hospitals and clinics throughout the country for 50 years. He painstakingly reviewed the book\u2019s dozens of drawings and diagrams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Grand
Grand Master Yu and Master Lam at a Gaia Book Fair just before the launch of The Way of Energy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He was keen to meet the small crop of Western students. \u201cLike me,\u201d he told us at a private lecture, \u201cyou may have trouble believing that this system works. But try this. Keep one arm beside you. Raise the other one as if holding a balloon against that half of your torso. Relax. Stay like that for a while. You start to feel the difference between the two sides of your body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The lung on the balloon side is expanding far more freely and absorbing more oxygen.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Over time your body begins to change on\u00a0the\u00a0inside.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

“The internal changes manifest themselves as they move outwards and you begin to feel warmth and tingling \u2013 like ants crawling on your hands, arms and body.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was another aspect of the art to which we were being introduced. When Master Lam and his wife, Kai Sin, came to London in 1975, he became the first formally recognised teacher of Tai Chi in the UK, appointed by the Inner London Education
Authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI put my Chi Kung into my Tai Chi,\u201d he would tell us. We could feel it when we watched him move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several years later, in Step-by-Step Tai Chi, he included the foundational Zhan Zhuang practice of Wu Chi — the position of primal energy — and specified that the movements of the Small Circle Tai Chi form should be preceded by this energizing practice of standing relaxed between heaven and earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was another way in which we glimpsed the inner power of Zhan Zhuang. Master Lam, as an accomplished martial artist (having represented Hong Kong in international competition) insisted that we learn the martial applications of all the Tai Chi movements he was teaching us. When he demonstrated this, his energy seemed unstoppable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"One
One of Master Lam’s students goes flying during a summer workshop at Hawkwood College, Stroud<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He had the ability to bounce people around in all directions, seemingly with no effort whatsoever. Most spectacularly, we witnessed his ability to do this without ever touching the person. Years later, we learned he was a master of the mysterious rare power known as \u201cEmpty Force\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Master
Master Lam sends Richard off the stage at the Association\u2019s annual dinner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was another aspect about which Master Lam said little in the early years, although it later became a focus of his life\u2019s work: Healing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While working on The Way of Energy, I arrived at his home one evening to find him with his right hand completely wrapped up in a huge bandage. He had fixed the broken fence in his back yard by slamming it in place with one blow of his hand. A rusty nail had been driven completely through his palm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I came back that same week, the bandage was gone. There was no evidence of the wound. \u201cI used some herbs and my energy,\u201d he said. He asked me to poke my fingers into the spot where the nail had been. The skin had completely healed, the flesh was firm and he showed no pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as its healing properties, the effects on the brain and nervous system have been studied by scientists in China. An experiment in Beijing examined alertness. Those who were tested for their response to random, infrequent signals immediately after doing a normal Zhan Zhuang practice session had an average response time five times faster than the norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grand Master Yu would always speak movingly of the spiritual dimension of this remarkable system. One evening he called for a copy of the Chinese classic, The Tao Teh Ching, and searched for the following lines \u2013 telling us that they beautifully expressed the spiritual vision that one day we would come to embrace:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Standing alone and unchanging<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One can observe every mystery <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Present at every moment and ceaselessly continuing \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the gateway to indescribable marvels.<\/p>\nLao Tse: The Tao Teh Ching<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A year or so after his visit, in 1991, The Way of Energy was published. It has since been translated into more than a dozen languages and sold tens of thousands of copies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor some reason, it seems that us barbarians in the West are now ready for Chi Kung,\u201d said a reviewer in Here\u2019s Health magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On publication day, a journalist in Leicester was suitably sceptical: \u201cYou\u2019re trying to tell me that standing still is exercise? Can I do it at a bar?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remembered the words of Grand Master Yu whose 70-year old hands were as young and graceful as a dancer\u2019s: \u201cIt sounds easy but it took me 20 years to really understand this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan you imagine anyone in the West sticking for years with something they couldn\u2019t understand?\u201d whispered Master Lam to me with a knowing smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Original article written and illustrated by Richard Reoch. Formatted for the web by Thomas Apfel<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t move,\u201d said the Master. He was motionless. \u201cWhatever you do, don\u2019t\u00a0move.\u201d There was a long silence. Then he spoke again: \u201cYou can sing. You can talk. You can dream. Anything to take your mind off the\u00a0pain. But whatever you do, don\u2019t move.\u201d There were twelve of us standing in a circle. One whispered desperately, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[38,32,25,23,33,29],"class_list":["post-30962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-master-lam","tag-grandmaster-wang-xiang-zhai","tag-health","tag-master-lam","tag-professor-yu","tag-tai-chi","tag-zhan-zhuang","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30962"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31746,"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30962\/revisions\/31746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chi-gong.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}