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http://tomabey.com/en/article.aspx?msgid=741&bbsid=1010&topicid=3
“Sounds of Thunder From Tigers and Leopards”
  by IronMoose on 4/12/2003 10:55:22 PM
"Ancient Xingyi poems suggest one can increase his power by pronouncing
certain sounds, it's is called, 'Sounds of Thunder From Tigers and
Leopards'... "
I have been wanting to translate some of the best Chinese martial arts
writing into English, I have thought about starting with Yiquan materials,
but decided to begin with the root of Yiquan: Xingyi.
The Chinese martial art world was visibly shaken two years ago when an
85-year-old Mr. Li Zhong-xuan came out from nowhere and introduced himself
as one of Master Shang Yun-xiang’s disciples. Published in the Chinese Wuhun
Magazines, his articles have since caught the fantasies of thousands of
martial art practitioners.
What is a better way to start my translation “career” than to present you
with the best of the best in Chinese martial art writing? I have picked this
one out of the Li Zhong-xuan series because it vividly illustrates how
martial art culture, tradition, training and secrets are interwoven
together.
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Comments
[Translation] Part I
Narrated by Li Zhong-xuan
Recorded by Xu Hao-feng
Copyright 
www.wuhun.com
Ancient Xingyi poems suggest one can increase his power by producing certain
sounds, this method is called, “Sounds of Thunder from Tigers and Leopards”.
Mr. Li Zhong-xuan became a disciple of the Xingyi master Shang Yun-xiang
when Shang was in his advanced age whereas Li was only 19-year-old. Since
the huge age difference, Shang commanded Li not to have any disciples in the
future, in order to avoid seniority confusion in the Shang’s school of
Xingyi. After Master Shang passed away, Li continued his personal
development alone, away from the martial arts circles. He is now 86 years
old. At this age, he becomes even more attached to his memories of Master
Shang. Thus he wishes to record the stories of his martial art study in an
effort to enrich the martial art legacy.
This story is about the “Sounds of Thunder from Tigers and Leopards”.
Before Li Zhong-xuan became a disciple of Shang Yun-xiang, he had studied
with Shang’s younger martial art brother Tang Wei-lu at Ning River. He had
inherited the complete system from Master Tang: the martial arts, medicine,
and Taoism (As a neijia system, Xingyi is found on the principles of Taoism,
which includes medicine and neigong - the internal training) and had became
Tang’s principle disciple. Once, when Tang verbally taught him the ancient
Xingyi poems, he came across the phrase “Sounds of Thunder from Tigers and
Leopards”, but did not go into it in detail. Li took it as shouting out load
in combat in order to unsettle the enemy’s nerves, so he didn’t follow up on
it.
He was ignoring it, because Master Tang forbad his students to make any kind
of sound during practice. Once Li finished his practice in a high spirit, he
proceeded to sing some Beijing Opera before he was verbally trashed by his
teacher. “To practice martial arts is to work on your Qi; once you open your
mouth you waste anything away!” Tang said dangerously, “More over, since all
your Jing-Qi-Shen is contained in your breathing, if you don’t work on
absorbing them internally, but rather singing them away with your big mouth,
you are putting your life on the line.” Because of this “no talking while
practicing” rule, Li was biased against making any sounds, so he did not
continue to investigate.
Li had taken Tang’s rule to his heart, because he could draw from his own
experience. After a Xingyi training session, he could feel his energy
steaming within him. If he started to talk casually he would indeed sense
this steam “leaking out”. Now to dissolve this breath of energy, as Tang
instructed, you should not sit down right away after the training, instead,
walk slowly. After strolling around the surroundings a few times you may
feel as if you have taken a steamy shower, your mind and energy is crispy
clear. As the days go on, your intelligence will improve. Hence martial arts
training is the production and digestion of energies: the beginning of a
movement is just as important as the closing, the time you spend wondering
around after the exercises may even be longer than your actual practice.
The way Tang taught old Xingyi poems was to recite the whole thing out, have
Li memorizing them, then explained them section by section later on. Because
martial art training requires actual practice, only after you have reached a
particular level you may not have the corresponding comprehension for that
level. Sometimes Tang’s explanations were very clear, other times they were
difficult for Li to follow - it seemed even Tang had trouble searching for
the right words. Once they got to the section on “Sounds of Thunder from
Tigers and Leopards”, Li asked, “Is it for driving fear into the opponents?”
“No, no,” Tang quickly corrected him, “it means using the sound to increase
your Kung Fu.” – that goes against Tang’s rule of “no talking while
practicing”, so Li had to know why. Tang explained that his teacher Li
Cun-yi’s had once said, “To push your Kung Fu to a new level, take ‘Sounds
of Thunder from Tigers and Leopards’ with your travel.” Tang pointed out,
“The only catch is that your Kung Fu has to reach a certain level before it
will work magically.” Li wasn’t about to let go of his teacher’s last words,
he asked, “So it isn’t about crying out load, but a training method! Could
Sifu elaborate more?”
Tang was stuck. After thinking it over for a while, he led Li to a temple by
the town of Ning River. Making sure that no one else was nearby, he lightly
knocked on a large bell hanging inside the temple. The bell gave a
resonating sound. Tang asked Li to put his hand on the bell. “That’s it,”
Tang said. Seeing Li was still confused, Tang commented, “Back then Sifu Li
Cun-yi taught me the secret of ‘Sounds of Thunder from Tigers and Leopards’
exactly this way, I didn’t hide anything from you. Only you didn’t get it.”
So the matter was put aside.
In order for his disciple to reach a new height, Tang later have Li
transfering to Shang’s school, so Li moved from Ning River to Beijing. Li’s
family had relatives in Bejing, but Beijing was then in turmoil, a lot of
people headed south bound, leaving behind a lot of vacant houses. Rent was
unprecedented cheap. Li spent a few days in a relative’s home, then rent his
own room and settled down in Beijing to study martial arts fulltime.
Since Li was used to Ning River’s countryside large-family-style living
complex, and now he was living in a hutong - narrow alleys in the old
Beijing city, he was intrigued by everything new. Back then Mr. Yan, an
accountant who was very good at using abacus was living in the same hutong.
When he had some spare time, he often taught the neighborhood kids how to
use abacus. And that was how Li got started. Little did he realized then
that he would become an accountant. Whenever he contemplated on how a game
from years ago would eventually turned into a skill set for making a living,
he couldn’t help but to marvel the karma and the coincidences in one’s fate.
One time Mr. Li asked Li while he was teaching Li abacus, “I used to think
your martial artists must have thick fingers and rough hands full of
calluses, you wouldn’t be any good with abacus. I didn’t realize your
fingers are finer than a woman’s.” Li replied, “Neijia people don’t have to
hit others with hard fists.” It just happened Tang had come from Ning River
to visit his disciple. He was resting in Li’s room when he heard Mr. Yan
speaking with Li outside, so out he came with a grin. He stuck his palms out
and said, “Mr. Yan, my palms also don’t have any callus.”
Mr. Yan was even more surprised, because Tang was farming in a village near
the town of Ning River, yet not only his palms didn’t have any callus, they
were also small and without any mark of physical labor. Tang remarked, “But
my hands are powerful.” He reached out with his hand, yanked out a nail
which was tied to a string women used for drying their clothing out of the
wall, then aimed the nail not at the original hole but a bit off to the
side. With one twist of his hand the nail was back into the brick. Mr. Yan
was dumbfounded at the sight.
(to be continued)
  by IronMoose on 4/12/2003 10:59:09 PM
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[Translation] Part II
One day a friend of Shang Yun-xang came for a visit when Li was in Shang’s
house. This gentleman didn’t feel too good, feeling dizzy and suffering from
tightness in the chest. He heard that reading Buddhist scripts might cure
his illness so he heartily got a copy and started reading everyday. But the
scripts were hard to understand; the more he had struggled with it mentally,
the tighter his chest became. So he wanted to know out how he could get
better.
Shang answered, “It takes even more mental work to study martial arts. I
think you are only weak. Finding a good doctor to adjust your system
gradually with medicine is your best bet.” After that friend had left, Shang
continued chatting with Li. After a while, they started talking about this
friend. Shang remarked, “Actually there is one way to cure illnesses: it’s
reading. You have to be like a kid going to elementary school: don’t pay
attention to what you are reading. Rather, swallow it down and just go on
reading, so as long as the text is easy to read, it will benefit your mind
and body. But adults don’t have as much energy as children. Reading aloud
may hurt our chi in the liver. Instead, sound out only the tones and don’t
be troubled with pronouncing every word clearly. As long as you get the ups
and downs of the phrases you are fine.”
Li asked, “Why is that?” Shang explained, “Nothing in particular. I saw how
charged up kids were once they started school, so I made it up.” Li
followed, “So how come you didn’t teach your friend this trick?” Shang said,
“He was troubled by life problems and was down in spirit, which was why he
felt sick. It is better for him not to think about anything and not to use
his mind too much, so I didn’t want to trouble him with this method.”
And so this topic was over. A few days later, Li suddenly had a thought
inspired by that reading method: perhaps the “Sounds of Thunder from Tigers
and Leopards” has some intricacy with voice? So he presented the question to
his teacher. Shang took one look at him mischievously, “The Sounds of
Thunder from Tigers and Leopards is not something you should practice. If
you want to use it to frighten your enemy, go right ahead and practice. But
too much practice will only hurt your brain and may drive you crazy.” Li
insisted, “But opera singers do project their voice out load in practice.”
Shang said, “Hey, but they don’t practice martial arts.”
From then on Li no longer dared to ask about the “Sounds of Thunder”. After
they became acquainted with one anther, Shang began to teach Li. Since his
teaching was very different from Tang Wei-lu’s, Li was puzzled, at times
even visibly. Shang sensed his puzzlement, and laugh, “What Tang Wei-lu had
taught you was exactly the same system as the one our teacher Li Cun-yi had
taught us; what I am teaching is my own system.” Li was quick to jump onto
this topic and told Shang how Tang taught him the “Sounds of Thunder” by
knocking on a bell. Shang agreed, “Yes. My teacher Li taught me in the same
way.” Li asked, “If that was how Master Li Cun-yi explained it; how do you
teach it yourself?”
Shang was cracking up, he said, “My dear disciple really knows how to dig
around. Okay, I will explain it to you when a thunder comes around next
time.” Li figured Shang was joking in order to get him off the subject,
nevertheless, for a while he was hoping for rain every day. Yet days went by
without rain and Shang never brought up the subject again. Li had no choice
but to focus on his training and dropped the idea.
Just then Shang’s neighbor had a group of kittens, one of them still didn’t
pop up her two ears a month after birth, her ears were dangling loose like a
doggy. Shang liked that kitty very much, even though he hadn’t adopted her,
he often brought her back home and hugging her around. One day Li went over
to visit Shang and found him sitting in the courtyard playing with this
kitty with a short clothing strip, so Li sat aside. Noticed Li was waiting,
Shang stopped after a few more games. He hug the kitty in his chest, closed
his eyes, nd run his hands on the cat’s hair. He seemed to have spaced out.
After a while, suddenly he said, “You have never seen a tiger or a leopard,
me neither. But certainly you have seen a cat before, haven’t you? Actually,
once a smart person has heard the phrase, “Sounds of Thunder from Tigers and
Leopards”, he will have figured out what is going on.”
“Cats are like Tigers or Leopards, they make this “um” sounds all the time,”
Shang declared. Li took the cat from Shang and listened. Yes, he heard this
“um” sound coming from inside the cat, and even sensed a vibration on his
two hands holding the cat. Shang further explained: once you reach a certain
stage in your training, your bones, muscles, and tendons will be toughened
up. At that point your trainings should aim inwards, which means you should
work on improving your internal organs. But it is a difficult step, so you
have to use certain sounds as bridges. The sounds originated from inside
propagate outwards, your forces starting from outside move inwards. As a
result, your inside will be connected with outside, and your Kung Fu will
reach a new level.
Shang summarized, “The so-called ‘Sounds of Thunder’ is not the thunder from
lightning, they are rather the humming noise from the sky right before the
rain. You may hear them clearly, or you may not. But they are always very
low in frequency.” Afterwards, Shang demonstrated the two “um” and “su”
sounds.
It has been some sixty years since Shang Yun-xiang passed down the secret of
“Sounds of Thunder from Tiger and Leopard”. As Li Zhong-xuan was bringing
back his memories from the distance past, he remarked jokingly, “If it wasn’
t for the kitty with sloppy ears, I might not have heard the Sounds of
Thunder from Tigers and Leopards.”
(========== end ===============)
  by IronMoose on 4/13/2003 11:07:45 PM
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Concordo con te!
Buono!
Grazie del post :-)
Leo.

 but decided to begin with the root of Yiquan: Xingyi.
ucci ucci sento odor di Yi-Quan-ucci....
^___-
bye
MX
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