One day last week, after teaching all day, I went home, and it was pretty late. I like to geek out by watching all these special science channel shows, and they have this one really cool program where they go to different ancient locations and deconstruct the buildings to show you their architecture. So, I just happened to go home one evening and turn on the TV, and here’s this show, Unearthed. I said to myself, “Well, let me sit down and check this out.” I didn’t think it was going to be anything special or unique, but it was really intriguing this time because it was about the Forbidden City. I’ve never seen anything done on this architecture because for so long China has been so clandestine and not allowed western crews to come in. This show was done in conjuncture with a lot of Chinese archaeologists. It piqued my interest because the Forbidden City was constructed by the first Ming emperor. All of us that are descended from the Southern Shaolin Temple recognize the importance of this. (Fan Ching fook Ming – overthrow the Ching and put back the Ming… ha ha ha). So, I said, let me just sit here and check out what they’re going to say. 

First, they went through the brief history of the first Ming emperor, Chu Hungmo being able to oust the Mongols from China and obliterating their palace, which was the norm for every successive dynasty because they wanted no remnants of the previous dynasty left to remind you of them. Emperor Chu Hungmo (Hung Gar, Hung Moon… you know, all that rebel stuff), like every other emperor was a despot and ruled with an iron hand. But he went so far as to make the Imperial decree that everything had to be perfect in his court. So much so that in one section of the palace, when they were excavating, they found shards and shards of broken gorgeous Ming ceramics and pottery. Originally, the archaeologists couldn’t figure out why they were strewn into the walkway of this section of the palace. Later, they determined that the pottery was not up to the standard of the emperor’s liking, so it couldn’t be used for him, but would not be tolerated to be used by anyone beneath him, so it had to be destroyed. They used it to fill in the cracks and build up the walkway. 

So, fast forward to the actual construction of the Forbidden City itself. They went into talking about the joints, foundations and construction of the palaces within the city. What struck me as intriguing was that the grooves and ceilings that are ornately decorated with tons (literally tons) of ceramic roof tiles were not supported by the walls of the palaces but rather by the columns therein. The columns were embedded in the ground, but not dug in deep like a post. Rather, a hole was dug and in the hole they put loose rocks and stones and other material that the pillar would sit upon. It helped to hold up the roof of the structure but still allowed for movement, so when the structure was hit with a storm or an earthquake or a great wind, it had sway. It wasn’t brittle. It would jostle and be able to dissipate the energy. I was looking at this structure and marveled at how comparatively it was the same structure that we use in Kung Fu. We are rooted, but not to the point that the body’s structure is brittle and hard, but rather, it is flexible and able to absorb oncoming force. The pillars of the building are tantamount to your legs. I always talk to my students about the stability and mobility of your stance. When you’re executing a technique or absorbing a technique from an opponent, you need that interplay between the flexible and the stable.

This also led to them discussing the specialized joints that were fixed to the roof and the pillars. These joints, called Duogong joints, had no glue and no nails. They are cut in an ornate jigsaw-like pattern and fitted together so that they aren’t too tight or too loose. There is play in between the joints so when the shockwave from an earthquake or a storm was to hit the palace, it had give. It had sway. This reminded me of the shoulder, elbow and wrist joints and made me think about the physical looseness and flexibility that we like to have when we play Kung Fu. We need physical looseness in all our joints, muscles, tendons, bones and sinews. We’re not so hard that we become brittle, but we’re not so soft that there’s no structure. There is a balance between the hardness and the softness that brings about a harmonious interplay between the two. This allows for the production and absorption of power. The body is like a giant link of chain. The almost whip-like structure that we like to use allows you to absorb the energy from the opponent’s blow and return it back to them. This is very much like the joint is able to absorb the energy of the earthquake and dissipate it amongst the rest of the structure, thereby not incurring any damage.

My feeling, especially in the particular system that I practice and teach, is that Kung Fu uses the inherent structure of your skeletal and muscular system. It doesn’t go against but rather with your physical structure. The other day, I was working with the class on an uppercut and I was explaining to them, it’s just like you sway your hands back and forth when you walk. The innate architecture of your body is being taken into account by Kung Fu and used to create techniques. To hearken back to the structure of the Forbidden City, the builders of the palaces didn’t fight against the natural forces that were being put upon them. Rather, they utilized an infrastructure that took them into account. They didn’t try to fight nature. Nature is alive, and whatever you build and whatever you do, you have to be able to respond with live energy. 

I see a lot of times, students struggle hard to learn how to move, but inherently you already know how to move because you’re a part of nature. When you execute a movement, you shouldn’t be struggling with it or fighting against it; you should be going with it. The archaeologists who studied the temple couldn’t figure out how it had been constructed. They couldn’t fathom how these guys did it, with no modern technology, no help, no machinery, no nothing. When I watched them uncover the so-called secrets behind the Forbidden City, to me it seemed like common sense. It’s the same thing with so many students of Kung Fu. Why do so many students have a problem bringing out those attributes that they already have? I don’t think it’s because they’re physically incapable; I think it’s because, like the archaeologists, they’re so predisposed to thinking one way about something that they can’t open their mind to another type of solution. 

What I saw in the construction of the Forbidden City emulates the physical construction that we have within our Kung Fu system. Initially, it struck me as strange, but now I look at it and think, Why is it strange? If this culture could build this architecture that had this resilience that could last centuries, why wouldn’t that same architectural concept be applied to Kung Fu? It’s coming from the same place and the same background. I sat back and thought about it, and after a while, it made perfect sense to me that the masters of old, be they craftsmen and builders or martial art masters, had the knowledge that had crossed over between disciplines. They knew what they were talking about. The architects and archeologists on the program commented that with all of today’s modern technology and so-called “know how,” they would be hard pressed to reproduce what these artists produced for the emperor in the Forbidden City. They had to deconstruct the architecture to understand how the city was constructed. They had to see the inner workings to see how these guys put this together. You can’t find the answers from the outside; you have to go in.

That’s what they did with the architecture, and I think we also need to understand and do this with our Kung Fu. I’m not putting down any of us in our martial art society, but I think many of us would be hard pressed to create or recreate the broad and all-encompassing systems that we have within the Chinese martial arts. We are just like our modern archaeologists and craftsmen, seeking to understand and duplicate what the martial art masters of the past did. The centuries of knowledge, skill and mastery that have been passed down to us should not be easily dismissed, but rather, as these archeologists did, we should take the time to try to figure out the meaning, purpose and logic behind the structure within the palace and the structure within our own martial art system. This will enable us to better understand our martial arts and be able to utilize them as they were intended. 

Today, you could say we have better building techniques than they did in ancient China, so let’s tear down the Forbidden City. But we shouldn’t do that. Just because initially the archaeologists could not identify the building techniques used on the Forbidden City doesn’t mean that they are not powerful or useful. Just because you don’t recognize something doesn’t mean there is no meaning; it just means that you can’t see it. Everything has an obvious meaning, but then there’s the implied meaning when you scratch the surface, and when you really dig deep, you may begin to discover the secret meaning inside.

I don’t see a reason to disband or do away with the traditional systems and the traditional martial arts. I actually think that the individuals that practice have to raise their standards in order to be able to understand and appreciate their system and put it into usage the way it was meant to be. This is what these archeologists found out. They discovered that these ancient artisans, craftsmen and workmen had know-how that we in our modern society with all our technological advancements could not see from the outside, and would have a difficult time reproducing from scratch. We shouldn’t malign the past because it is old. That doesn’t mean that there’s no knowledge there. There is knowledge and wisdom in the old that needs to be respected and looked to to help and foster our modern society and our martial arts. I saw the wisdom inherent in the structure of the Forbidden City, and it reminded me of the wisdom that’s imparted in our Kung Fu systems. This only made me feel that I wanted to go back and start learning again, because I probably missed something on the first pass. I think it would be wonderful if all of us could be like these archaeologists and put a well-focused eye to our individual chosen Kung Fu system, and seek to glean the hidden knowledge that lies within.

-Sifu Paul Koh