Tree of Life

Book II Chapter 09

TREE OF LIFE BOOK II

CHAPTER 09

Throughout High School, Julian, Brian and Nicole had enjoyed sports. With the new bodies that the Tree had given them, they excelled at whatever area they applied themselves to. Nicole had chosen gymnastics and won every meet she entered. Over time though, she became bigger and taller than everyone else and it became awkward, so she quit. Julian preferred to swim and run and for a while, enjoyed the thrill of being faster than anyone else in his school or any of the other schools that they would compete against. When he entered university and then medical school, his studies got in the way and so he stopped swimming competitively. Brian had stayed with basketball for as long as he could and had been scouted for the NBA, as we know.

Besides these areas, training themselves in martial arts also became an obvious and worthy endeavour. The fact that they could never get seriously hurt, and even if they did, they could heal and repair themselves back to perfection within minutes, made for an exhilarating and glorious experience and a gift that they knew only the three of them could ever, ever secretly share. They could try and pound each other to within an inch of their lives and bounce right back without a scratch. It was just so much fun!

Nicole had chosen to learn at her own pace and within a few short years, was more proficient at it than most masters of the art who had been studying it all their lives, but she still never took it as seriously as the other two. She practised her daily routines for the health benefits of the exercise mostly, and the calm and peace that the meditation would bring her on an on-going basis and that was enough. She was not out to be the perfect fighting machine.

Brian and Julian did not feel this way. They were much more interested in the practical side of things. They sampled from all the different schools out there and tried each one with vigour, training hard under the principles of each and studying the philosophies behind them. They tested and sparred with each other to see which ideas really worked in the field and which ones were just a waste of time. They found that over the years, for them, the traditional Chinese philosophies made the most sense. And yet because of who they were and how they were built, different ideologies even within the traditional Chinese disciplines applied to each of them differently.

Brian was large and heavy. He stood a good head above Julian and Julian was not short. Brian weighed about 280 pounds. For a large, heavy man like that, Brian found that he was much more suited to what was known as the ‘External Style’ or ‘Southern Style’ of Chinese martial arts, embodied in the well known Shaolin techniques of the Praying Mantis or the Eagle Claw, for example. This style emphasized strength over agility. It was all muscular might and explosive attacks. Power was the key. Fighters of this style preferred short, stable steps and close range fighting, with their arms placed right next to the chest, their elbows lowered and kept close to the flanks to offer them protection. In this style, you were stable, you were strong. It was believed that in all practicality, in a fight, it was not important how elaborate your punches were, or how fancy your kicks were. You only needed to land one good hit. And if that one good hit was strong enough, then your opponent would be knocked to the ground and senseless and you would win. And that was all that mattered. Such was the ‘Hard’ approach to combat sports.

Now for Julian, it was different.

Julian was tall too, but comparatively leaner, streamlined. He weighed less. He was more nimble, light on his feet, and fast. He found the ‘Internal Style’ or ‘Northern Style’ of Chinese martial arts much more suited to his taste and make up. In this style, the emphasis was placed on the development of ‘qi’, that was, the awareness of the spirit, or the flow of energies within and around oneself. The idea was that if you could master control of this energy and how it flowed from one point to the next, not only would you be able to draw forth more of your own inherent and potential strength, but in a conflict, you could even channel your opponent’s attacking strength to go the other way and be used for your own purposes as well. In other words, you could learn to turn and use your enemy’s strength against him. This style was all about breathing and being relaxed and leverage, rather than unrefined muscular tension or brute force. Power was secondary. Agility was key. It was fighting from a distance. It was speed. No matter how powerful your opponent was, it wouldn’t matter if he could never lay a finger on you. If you were the only one doing the hitting, you must eventually win. A good example of this style was the ubiquitous Taijichuan, or more commonly called, Tai Chi, the same style that you might see practised in the park on early mornings by older folks everywhere. Such was the ‘Soft’ approach to combat sports.