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To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se
Subject: Ancient Chinese Secrets

Talked this over with you, went ahead and posted it to the mage list. Don't
know if you have that so....


>  My current player character is a fella named John Patterson
>He is an Akashic brother and started out as a sort of a cross between Fortunato
>from the "wild cards" books. and John Constantine. I've been playing him
>steadily for a few months now and he's evolved a bit.
>   One of the most enduring factors in John's life is his Mentor,Morry Chang.
>Morry(or the old goat,as john refers to him.) is chinese and is over 400
>years old. He is incredibly wise,witty,never gives a straight answer, and
>if you listen to certain students, the most sadistic man alive.
>  As i've allready stated, I like the destroyer novel and the movie too.
>Morry Chang is a sort of cross between Chiun(last reigning master of the
>glorious house of Sinanju,and adviser to Mad Harold,emperor of america.)
>and that fella in surf ninjas who owned the restaurant.
>   One of the running gags in the chronicle is that Morry has 400 years
>worth of expirience in teaching students humility. And lots of methods.
>Here are some.
>As related by Patterson himself.
>
>1) A thousand years of agony:
>" this was the first lesson I ever learned. It's basicaly an Atemi strike
>and not magickal at all. I didn't know that of course. I was bitching
>about the diet, and all the exercises and thr gross unfairness of life in
>general when Morry snaked out his hand and set my entire nervous system on
>fire. Air became an incredibly precious commodity and time seemed to slow
>to a crawl...No, check
>that,a drag. He stood there with his hands on his hips,naked power of his
>avatar showing. Somehow he had gone from 4'8" to 9 feet tall. And he
>said," Pain clears
>the mind but it steals the breath. If you would learn anything CHILD...you
>must learn to master both."   I have no doubt that if i hadn't nodded,I
>would still
>be on that floor begging death to come find me."
>
>2) Kata study:
>One day the master said he would show me a Kata. He took me to the
>Dojo,and after warming up, performed a perfect and heartbreakingly
>beautiful swan Kata.
>he showed me the movements and bade me work on it. After a half an hour I
>thought had it pretty good. He came back in with a bucket of tennis balls.
>he told me to begin the kata and i did and then he started whipping the
>tennis balls at me. Hard.
> I was naturaly upset and angry. and ended up slipping on a tennis ball
>and landing on my...pride.
>   The old goat was chuckling."you are the vainest creature on
>earth....Why are you doing the Kata that way? You are trying to pretty it
>up."
>"but it's supposed to be Beautiful. It is a martial art."
>"John-san, Kata is only an exercise to teach you nuts and bolts of Do.
>Will enemies stop in these particular spaces where you put your fist or
>your foot?
>No.Kata is to teach elements. You must learn to be flexible, The beauty of Kata
>comes from it's simplicity, not because it is some sort tea ceremony."
>DO KATA! HAI!" (whiff,whiff,>OW!<)
>
>3) breaking Boards:
>" as I found out later, Breaking objects is a simple application of the
>knowledge of stress points and Chi control. But I didn't know that. I
>guess
>I'd seen too much Kung-Fu as a kid and so I pestered him until he showed
>me how to do it. After I had done it once. I looked at him and he just
>looked tired.
>"What!",I said," I think that was pretty good considering that i've never
>done it before."
>"you put too much stock in that parlor trick."he griped,"problem
>is...Board does not hit back."  And so saying he hefted a 2x4 and chased
>me around the Dojo until I broke it while he was swinging it at me."Now
>That...is useful." he grinned.   Btw, Entropy magick helps this process
>along considerably."
>
>4) everyday manouvers:
>"I know that my Sifu has seen many Karate Movies.He likes to give them the
>MST3k
>treatment.He can laugh his chinese ass off at the Power Rangers all day.
>Now,I see why. I also know that he's seen the Karate kid Movies. I know
>this because
>i ended up working on his house for free,and working at his restaurant for
>free.
>he'd give me some repetitive task that i'd have to do all day and then
>he'd attack me yelling " Show me Paint fence! Show me Wax car!"  I once
>got my nose
>broken because I was stumped as to how to defend myself with "Mow lawn".
>Morry apologized,and still swears to this day that it was an accident.
>Unfortunately, I believe him."
>
>5) Walk without traces:
>" we had trained on a Nightingale floor which is a ninja training tool. It
>is a
>floor especially designed to creak and pop. he was trying to teach me footwork
>control and how to walk without trace. One day he brought out a long roll
>of rice paper parchment. He said" Walk across the parchment without
>leaving a mark."
>I said " Hard.But certainly not impossible."
>He smiled thinly and then unrolled it. the length of the paper had been
>freshly inked with Kanji characters that read things like 50 laps, or 50
>marine push-ups.or 1000 strikes on the Makiwara board, or 4 hours on the
>heavy bag,
>you get the idea. If I mussed it, I did it.
>I grimaced "still not impossible, you're losing your touch old man."
>Then he pulled out a Jeweler's Loupe and put it in his eye.
>I should have kept my mouth shut."
>
>5) Concentration Exercises:
>"Concentration is the key not just to Do or Magick but life," he would say.
>"But life does not play fair." Well. Neither did he. He started me with simple
>exercise. but they were the equivalent of "go into the corner, and keep
>from thinking about a white bear."
>   He would read long chinese poetry to me. if I showed any sign of wandering
>attention or of incomprehension he kept a wooden practice sword handy to
>smack at me with.
>    Once he put me in a room alone with a T.V. and told me clear my mind of all
>thought. he turned on the T.V. popped a tape in the V.C.R. and left. I was
>pretty sure he was monitoring me mentally so I cleared my mind and started
>my
>Chi-gung exercises.
>The tape was long sections of Playboy channel and the goddamn song from sesame
>street. You know the one...Mahna Mahna DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO! Mahna Mahna
>DOOT DOO
>DOO!
>
>6) Hand-eye coordination:
>"Hand-eye is very important, it's very key to Mind Magick and is useful
>for learning some forms of Time magick. We practiced with many weapon
>forms.
>Morry is very well rounded in Kobu-jutsu. Kendo,Japanese archery,
>Mongol,horse-borne archery(which he swears is more usefull.) Shuriken throwing,
>knife and tomohawk throwing. and other suchlike became my daily faire. I
>excelled at this. the old goat even said so once. and I was going along
>fine.
>Until one day...
>" I am thinking that you have truly mastered Hand-eye Coordination.your
>training
>is finished bu for one last test."
>" I am ready Sifu."
>" You know my Grandson Soo, Answers to Johnny?"
>" Sure, Ive' sparred with him a few times." The kid was only 13 but was
>every bit the martial artist.
>" Good, then go defeat him in Mortal combat."
>I was a bit stunned as you can imagine. I went to go find Johnny Chang.
>" you grandfather says that I'm to best you in mortal combat."
>"is that so?" he said,cracking his knuckles." That old Man never gets
>anything right. I swear I told him that I was gonna use Virtua Fighter 2.
>Mortal Kombat
>is totally old news."
>I still haven't beat that damn kid."
>
>7) Mental flexibility:
>I'll give the old goat this. His training is designed to make you mentally
>alert. "your mind must be like water." is his big phrase. We had an
>exercise that took place in his kitchen. We would be working on the lunch
>or dinner rush.
>and he would attack me. my only warning would be "HAAAAI!" and I would
>have to defend myself with whatever weapon i had to hand. It made me
>cognizant of the fact that i am constantly surrounded by weapons. coffee
>mugs,keychains, newspapers, all can be deadly in the hands of a master.
>Believe me I have the scars to prove it.
>   Another one of his favorites was firing arrows at me in the Dojo while
>doing kata. I was allowed to break only red feathered arrows but i was
>only allowed to catch the blue ones. I was not allowed to duck.
>Occasionaly he would co-locate
>or Multi-locate. Stopping three arrows all at once is tough.
>   there is also a portion of the Dojo that is called the black Labyrinth.
>It has no light at all and is filled with mundane traps that constantly change,
>as well as other students,spiritual guardians,and the ocasional mental
>illusion.
>mind,body and spirit get tested in there."
>
>8) Hired Guns:
>Occasionaly, a gang of guys will accost me on the street. They will say:
>" We were paid by your Mentor,Morry Chang to teach you to control your temper."
>And then they'll try to beat the living shit out of me.
>Rocks,chains,knives ,martial arts weapons,pipes,antennas,2x4's and other
>shit.
>Morry sez that this is to teach me how to combat groups. when to run and
>how to focus on not hurting the other guy too much. I never kill these
>guys and they've never killed me. Guns have never come into it.
>
>9) really advanced shit:
>Some of the really advanced exercises aren't possible without some low
>level use of Magick and some high-level use of Do.
>   There is a rock face that Morry is fond off. I have to free-climb it
>while doing calculus problems in my head, on another track in my head morry is
>berating me for my laziness and my foolish western attitudes. also he's
>shooting at me from a distance. I'm lucky though, Morry's a pretty lousy
>shot.
>  The one that I hate the most is the Juggling exercise. First he'll toss
>me some balls,bean bags,or clubs. maybe a mix of all three. then there is
>a ball that I'm supposed to get up on. then he'll toss a ring which i'm
>supposed to catch on my free leg and spin. then he might start throwing in
>odd items into. the juggle. He's thrown a head of cabbage,a beef tounge,a
>squid(thankfully dead)
>a haddock, a steak(literally covered with pepper) a cleaver, a mixing bowl,
>and once even a bowling ball. I'm supposed to keep that up for as long as
>it takes him to empty a clip a me. I am allowed to duck but I'm not
>allowed to drop anything.
>
>"Why are you doing this to me?"
>"I do this to teach you how to concentrate and be alert."
>"I concentrate fine, you old goat, you're just a fucking sadist.
>" That too."(BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!)
>
>Granted these ideas are well suited to those Akashic's who are scales of
>the dragon. Does anyone have any ideas on how to train the other forms?
>
>P.s. Does this list have a digest function? of all the mail I've got,I
>have at least a 100 k of frigging headers. I'm an ordained minister...I
>don't have time for all this editing.
>
>

Pete Sears(Kinesis@uky.campus.mci.net)
"the day that I stop trying to learn something new,is the day that they
need to put my ass in a box in the ground."
-from the Silicon Sermons of Reverend X.S.Kinesis