Aloha Tribe,
I'm studying an ancient Chinese rope walking form of Kung Fu, to improve my surfing. The art is called Treading on Soft Rope. Rope Walking is an art that goes back about 2000 years to the Han Dynasty.
It has several phases to the training.
Treading On Soft Rope.
This art is an internal art, like Tai Chi, Baqua, Hsing-Yi, or Liuhebafa (all of which I've studied), and, is rooted in Chi Gung, also spelled Qigong.
There are several phases to this ancient and traditional style of Kung Fu.
Phase 1. You wear a heavy backpack or gunny sack and run over uneven ground with holes and bumps and such. This art is a form of Rock Running. It teaches one to pay extreme attention to detail for foot placement and balance.
Phase 2. Suspended Pole Walking. You take a bamboo pole, mine is 12 foot long and 2 inches in diameter, and suspend it at each end from two trees, so that it swings, kind of like a giant long swingset, in a way. You walk on this suspended pole. The idea is that you train on it until the pole does NOT sway at all.
Phase 2 part a. Vat Walking. You get a large vat or barrel, mine is an old wine barrel, and you traditionally set 7 of them up , currently, I only have 3. You more or less place them within stepping disance of each other, and you fill them with water or whatever. Then, you walk on top of the barrels on their edges, since, they have no tops on them. Every day or so you take a bucket of water out of each barrel which makes them, over time, lighter, and thus, more tippy. With 7 barrels, or even 3 for that matter, you can have all kinds of walking patterns of circles, clockwise, counterclockwise, semi-circles, and so on.
part b. Leave No Footprints On Snow. You get a pile of very loose sand, about a foot deep, or, you do this at the beach, and, you cover the area with leaves. Then, you walk on top of the single layer of leaves with the idea of leaving NO footprints in the sand. I have a nice sand pile about 20 foot square outside next to my Gypsy Vardo - a 19th century styled Gypsy horse drawn wagon that I built, that one can live in.
part c. Rope Running. You tie a 31.8 foot rope around yourself and let it drag out behind you and train yourself to sprint, like a sprinter, until you can run with the rope completely floating in the air and totally straight out behind you as you run.
Phase 3. You take two bamboo stakes, and pound them into the ground. My takes are 6 foot long and I bury them 4 foot.. Then, you take a manilla rope, mine is 1 inch diameter. I also have a 1/2 inch that I want to learn on, and you tie the rope between the two stakes so that it is sort of like a slackrope or slackline. Then you walk on that until it does not sway.
Phase 4. You go to a river, I live on a creek and the river is about a mile away, and, you tie a rope from one side of the river to the other, onto trees. I'll be using my manilla rope. The river, I have not measured, but probably is about 300 or more foot across, I imagine. Then, the final test it to walk the full length of the rope without falling in.
Phase 5 . The last phase, never really ends, because you always use something smaller and lighter. It is called Treading on Duckweed Across the Water. It starts, as an art called Single Bamboo Pole Drifting or dú zhú piǎo or 独 竹 漂. It comes from the Wujiang drainage area of the northern Guizhou Province. In it, you get a 6 to 6 1/3 inch diameter, 12 to 24 foot long piece of Moso bamboo. This acts as your "boat," in a sense. You stand on this in the water. You also use a pole, mine is 12 foot long, one inch Tonkin bamboo and is used to push yourself or pole or paddle yourself across the river, sort of a Chinese version of SUP (Stand Up Paddle) surfboard. With this art, you start on the large Moso bamboo pole, then gradually get a smaller and smaller one, and also a thinner piece of bamboo, until it, ultimately is simply a flat reed. Moso bamboo grows primarily in Zhejiang Province in SE China. It grows to about 6 inches in diameter and roughly up to 90 feet tall. It actually can grow up to 3 feet in one day!!!, thus, making it truly filled with awesomely bodacious amounts of Chi. Not only do you float, paddle, and practice balance on the Du Zhu Piao Single Bamboo Pole Drifting pole, but you also practice a form of Chi Gung called Taoist Yoga on it. In many ways, this is similar to Indian styled Yoga, only it is more Yin based or softer with more focus on what happens internally in your body, as such, personally, I feel it is a much healthier and more beautiful art. I'd imagine, in half a year to a year, with the popularity of SUP Stand Up Paddleboard paddling that is going through the surfing world, that people on SUPs will begin doing Yoga as a form of balance training on an unsteady platform, in this case, an extra thick surfboard type craft. Of course, since I prefer Chinese style, I'll stick to Old School style of practicing yoga, that is, Taoist Yoga, on a floating bamboo pole, which, I must say, is much harder than SUP by far!!!
All of these exercises, put together, make up this particular style of slack rope walking. And, as I see it, they all relate directly to surfing in that they teach balance, foot control, agility, strength, flexibility, and grace and beauty, all in a fun and rather unique way to train. As you can see, I find the history and traditions and such of an art like this truly fun to do and replicate. You'd all love my yard, by the way, where I am making all of this training equipment. In a way, it looks right out of a Chinese martial arts movie where the hero builds a bunch of traditional and primitive training equipment to train on while he gets ready to fight the villain in the final part of the movie.
This method, is an ancient Chinese method of rope walking from the Hubei Province area of China in the NW.
Many of these training methods come from a book called 72 Consummate Arts Secrets Of The Shaolin Temple by Wu Jiaming. I have added my own interpretations and materials to the arts in the book based on my experience in Chi Gung and in surfing, as well as to fit the environment where I live, while trying to stick as closely as possible to the traditional Chinese methods of practice.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
I'm studying an ancient Chinese rope walking form of Kung Fu, to improve my surfing. The art is called Treading on Soft Rope. Rope Walking is an art that goes back about 2000 years to the Han Dynasty.
It has several phases to the training.
Treading On Soft Rope.
This art is an internal art, like Tai Chi, Baqua, Hsing-Yi, or Liuhebafa (all of which I've studied), and, is rooted in Chi Gung, also spelled Qigong.
There are several phases to this ancient and traditional style of Kung Fu.
Phase 1. You wear a heavy backpack or gunny sack and run over uneven ground with holes and bumps and such. This art is a form of Rock Running. It teaches one to pay extreme attention to detail for foot placement and balance.
Phase 2. Suspended Pole Walking. You take a bamboo pole, mine is 12 foot long and 2 inches in diameter, and suspend it at each end from two trees, so that it swings, kind of like a giant long swingset, in a way. You walk on this suspended pole. The idea is that you train on it until the pole does NOT sway at all.
Phase 2 part a. Vat Walking. You get a large vat or barrel, mine is an old wine barrel, and you traditionally set 7 of them up , currently, I only have 3. You more or less place them within stepping disance of each other, and you fill them with water or whatever. Then, you walk on top of the barrels on their edges, since, they have no tops on them. Every day or so you take a bucket of water out of each barrel which makes them, over time, lighter, and thus, more tippy. With 7 barrels, or even 3 for that matter, you can have all kinds of walking patterns of circles, clockwise, counterclockwise, semi-circles, and so on.
part b. Leave No Footprints On Snow. You get a pile of very loose sand, about a foot deep, or, you do this at the beach, and, you cover the area with leaves. Then, you walk on top of the single layer of leaves with the idea of leaving NO footprints in the sand. I have a nice sand pile about 20 foot square outside next to my Gypsy Vardo - a 19th century styled Gypsy horse drawn wagon that I built, that one can live in.
part c. Rope Running. You tie a 31.8 foot rope around yourself and let it drag out behind you and train yourself to sprint, like a sprinter, until you can run with the rope completely floating in the air and totally straight out behind you as you run.
Phase 3. You take two bamboo stakes, and pound them into the ground. My takes are 6 foot long and I bury them 4 foot.. Then, you take a manilla rope, mine is 1 inch diameter. I also have a 1/2 inch that I want to learn on, and you tie the rope between the two stakes so that it is sort of like a slackrope or slackline. Then you walk on that until it does not sway.
Phase 4. You go to a river, I live on a creek and the river is about a mile away, and, you tie a rope from one side of the river to the other, onto trees. I'll be using my manilla rope. The river, I have not measured, but probably is about 300 or more foot across, I imagine. Then, the final test it to walk the full length of the rope without falling in.
Phase 5 . The last phase, never really ends, because you always use something smaller and lighter. It is called Treading on Duckweed Across the Water. It starts, as an art called Single Bamboo Pole Drifting or dú zhú piǎo or 独 竹 漂. It comes from the Wujiang drainage area of the northern Guizhou Province. In it, you get a 6 to 6 1/3 inch diameter, 12 to 24 foot long piece of Moso bamboo. This acts as your "boat," in a sense. You stand on this in the water. You also use a pole, mine is 12 foot long, one inch Tonkin bamboo and is used to push yourself or pole or paddle yourself across the river, sort of a Chinese version of SUP (Stand Up Paddle) surfboard. With this art, you start on the large Moso bamboo pole, then gradually get a smaller and smaller one, and also a thinner piece of bamboo, until it, ultimately is simply a flat reed. Moso bamboo grows primarily in Zhejiang Province in SE China. It grows to about 6 inches in diameter and roughly up to 90 feet tall. It actually can grow up to 3 feet in one day!!!, thus, making it truly filled with awesomely bodacious amounts of Chi. Not only do you float, paddle, and practice balance on the Du Zhu Piao Single Bamboo Pole Drifting pole, but you also practice a form of Chi Gung called Taoist Yoga on it. In many ways, this is similar to Indian styled Yoga, only it is more Yin based or softer with more focus on what happens internally in your body, as such, personally, I feel it is a much healthier and more beautiful art. I'd imagine, in half a year to a year, with the popularity of SUP Stand Up Paddleboard paddling that is going through the surfing world, that people on SUPs will begin doing Yoga as a form of balance training on an unsteady platform, in this case, an extra thick surfboard type craft. Of course, since I prefer Chinese style, I'll stick to Old School style of practicing yoga, that is, Taoist Yoga, on a floating bamboo pole, which, I must say, is much harder than SUP by far!!!
All of these exercises, put together, make up this particular style of slack rope walking. And, as I see it, they all relate directly to surfing in that they teach balance, foot control, agility, strength, flexibility, and grace and beauty, all in a fun and rather unique way to train. As you can see, I find the history and traditions and such of an art like this truly fun to do and replicate. You'd all love my yard, by the way, where I am making all of this training equipment. In a way, it looks right out of a Chinese martial arts movie where the hero builds a bunch of traditional and primitive training equipment to train on while he gets ready to fight the villain in the final part of the movie.
This method, is an ancient Chinese method of rope walking from the Hubei Province area of China in the NW.
Many of these training methods come from a book called 72 Consummate Arts Secrets Of The Shaolin Temple by Wu Jiaming. I have added my own interpretations and materials to the arts in the book based on my experience in Chi Gung and in surfing, as well as to fit the environment where I live, while trying to stick as closely as possible to the traditional Chinese methods of practice.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
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