Today I had just finished a dance performance with my daughter (10 years old) at DTW—dance theatre workshop. She was the choreographer and she decided to do a duet called the lineage, a dance about the struggle of her accepting the passing of the family lineage of Dantao practice.. I did the Taiji form on stage and she danced to move away. Finally she decided to come back and assumed the lineage from me. It was a great honor to be in my daughter's dance in DTW since I had tried to audition to perform there and failed to get in. Finally, I succeeded to dance in that space.

Father daughter duets, this one brought tears in many audience's eyes. Many of them told me how it reminded them of their special moment with their father.

The passing of the lineage is a delicate task. I have never put any pressure for my three daughters to practice Taiji. I make myself available if they want to do it. Once a week we have self defense class for 15 minutes before they go to school. This is crucial. Being Chinese, I could not even sneeze without worrying about family honor. I had to do things for the family honor, for the honor of the country.
But for my daughters I want them to find out for themselves what they like to do and not project my wishes.

The history of the Taiji family, the Yang family was replete with each generation being forced to assume the family lineage and mantel. The grandson of the founder( Yang Lu Chan), Yang Cheng Fu ran away from home due to the harsh training of the Taiji training. Yang Cheng Fu never felt close to his father. He only really seriously started to train after his father's death.Later on, a serious misfortune occured when Cheng Fu's own daughter was killed in an spearing practice accident by one of his students. The father forgave the student because it was lack of skill that her daugther was killed.

Avoid alienating your children by not imposing on them the heavy burden of the lineage. In a way, all family of tremendous wealth like the Kennedy or the Rothschild all inherited this heavy burden of family lineage and their children  suffered tremendously.

My own late Master Koo's children and grandchildren did not inherit his Qigong nor Taiji lineage. One becomes a nuclear physicist and the other an architect. While the grandson becomes a M.D. but I had observed how Master Koo treated them much more strict than his regular students. He treated his senior students stricter than the beginners--I always smiled silently when the beginners used to tell me about what a kind old man Master Koo was. So the people closest to him he was the toughest. That is the Chinese tradition of teaching. If they see that you have the ability to improve, they become relentless in their training until you gain mastery or crack. 99 out of a 100 students cracked but the one remained, achieved the mastery and that student becomes the lineage holder—very much like the Gold medallist of the Olympic.

My teacher told me that the teaching was like a priceless golden elixir and one must hit every pot to check for cracks before the golden fluid could be poured into the toughest pot. Otherwise, it is better to let the lineage die out. I am sure many of us had many cracked. And I for one do not claim to be a lineage holder, I certainly have enough cracks to leak out most of the golden elixir a long time ago.

My own approach in teaching is very different. The old way originated from old Chinese system of family honor, school honor and absolute authority of the teacher/master—once, Musasi was asked by the Shogun what is immovability. Musasi turned to one of his student and asked him to commit suicide. As the student plunged the knife into his heart without a single hesitation, Musasi blocked his arm just as the tip draw a single trickle of blood. he turned to the Shogun and replied, " this is immovability."—from the Book of Five Rings.

Many old style Martial Art teachers that I studied with still carry this authoritarian tradition of absolute obedient to the teacher. And the students had complete faith in the teacher. Once a Taiji master from Taiwan threw me so hard from our push hand training that he tore a six inches gash on my arms—luckily his nails were not soak in poison that day. Did it improved my practice ? I don't know. But later on, the other Chinese professors at Princeton University heard the story and the master apologized to me privately. I understood from his own training after fighting bare hand combat in World War II. He was trained to kill but for us college students it was a pure love of the Art.
But I did benefit from learning from him. I gained the insight of facing real life and death in push hand with this master. I am still grateful for the deep lesson every time I looked at the inch long scar on my arm.

But I would never imposed that on my students. I felt that most of my students their purpose is not to be combat ready in bare hand fighting when the bullet is finished. Rather most of them want to explore the healing and therapeutic effect of Taiji and Qigong. A throat lock technique has very little relevance for them. So rather than hitting all the pots to check for cracks, I mend the cracks that were pre-existing in my students.

I envision the future context of Taiji Quan trianing must change —from Martial Art to Healing Art. Teaching from the healing, spiritual context, the richness of Taiji as a Taoist practice opens a whole inner sanctum of Alchemical sacred movement and meditation, as well as deep spiritual awareness. That is like picking up an olive branch and planting it with one's sword. The sword will rust and the olive tree will propagate and spread and nourish infinite multitude of all beings. My sword had long become rusty but the olive they are getting ripe.

Being a Chinese doctor my concern is healing pain not creating more. The techniques of healing that I inherited and learned from my teachers at the hospital in China is something that I used everyday to relieve suffering for myself, my family and my clients. In all the years of my study of the Martial Arts, I only had two occasions to use it to defend myself. Both time, it was enough to bluff my way out just by standing completely still.

The healing lineage of Dan Tao, Way Of Transformation is what I will pass down to anyone who like to study and heal themselves. It is not something that just belong to the Hon family lineage holder. This way, I can enjoy my daughters as who they are and not impose any pressure on them.

At the end of my dance duet, Lineage. I clapped with the audience as my daugther stepped forward to take her bow. The sound of clapping had never been so clear and sweet to my heart. And a deep wellspring of gratitude to all my teachers flooded my eyes. .
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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