Hwa Rang Do®: Concentration Power For
Martial Artists
- Ki power,
Korean bushido code and a martial arts technique potpourri unite in hwarangdo
(Black Belt Magazine January 1977)
by Paul William Kroll
Photo
caption: "COME ALONG AS A GOOD FELLA'." Joo Bang Lee demonstrates
a simple technique for crowd control. A few fingers can control the movements
of a large person. Lee has trained special forces in Korea to be able to control
rioters with minimum force.
Automobiles can be driven over his body without hurting
him. Blocks of concrete can be smashed across his chest. He can jump 12 feet
in the air from a standing position to deliver a flying spin kick. He is Joo
Bang Lee, hwarangdo Founder, and president of the World HwaRang Do Association.
Lee has spent over 35 years of his life learning the more than 4,000 techniques
of hwarangdo and the esoteric Buddhist philosophy which influences their teaching.
Lee’s brother is Joo Sang Lee, chairman of the World Hwarang Do Association.
Together, they control the 56 hwarangdo schools in Korea and the 38 schools
in the United States and Europe. Like his brother, Joo Sang Lee entered the
Yang Mi Am Buddhist temple when he was a child and studied with Buddhist priest
Suahm Dosa until the Lee brothers founded art name and opened the first hwarangdo
school in Seoul, Korea, in 1960. It was the first time in modern history that
hwarangdo was taught outside a Buddhist monastery. Joo Sang Lee was the first
to come to the United States, making the trek in 1968. In 1972, Hwarang Do Founder
Joo Bang Lee came to the United States.
The brothers, particularily Joo Bang Lee, are best known
for their version of ki, the ability to use “internal energy” to make their
bodies hard, lighter, heavier or to feel no pain. They have specialized in this
area and it is what sets their hwarangdo style apart. For example, in an experiment
performed by the Biofeedback Research Institute, and reported in the December
1972 issue of Probe The Unknown magazine, Joo Bang inserted a spoke through
the fleshy part on his arm, and lifted a 25 pound bucket filled with water.
The bucket was suspended from the spoke, Joo Bang Lee felt no pain.
At the
time, Joo Bang Lee explained how he did it, through an interpreter. “When I
am arranging my body in my preparation, I start my concentration with abdomen
power, bringing the energy up into my arm and letting this energy flow out into
the arm. The energy comes up from the legs and abdomen and flows into the arm.
I start my concentration with abdomen power, bringing the energy up into my
arm and letting this energy flow out into the arm. The energy comes up from
the legs and abdomen and flows into the arm. "It is at this point that I insert
the spoke ....My concentrated mind is on the activity itself.... I would have
to say that my mind and body are together, and then separated from the place
where it would hurt and put somewhere else.... During the penetration, I am
aware of what is happening because I am doing it, but I do not feel anything."
I asked the Lee brothers recently about this experiment and other similar aspects
of hwarangdo's form of pain control. Joo Sang Lee explained it by saying, "I
take feeling out of my arm by ki. The ki takes the feeling out. I actually make
the arm numb."
What happens is difficult to describe in words, as the above
conversation snatches show. The fundamental aspect of the Lee brothers' internal
energy, however, is similar to some other martial arts. The fundamental concept
behind the ki is that a power resides at the bottom of the abdomen, about three
inches below the navel. Everyone is said to possess this power and to be able
to learn to manipulate it.
In hwarangdo, the Lee brothers explain, there are five aspects to the ki power.
"To make body hard like steel, is first way," says Joo Sang Lee. "Can also make
body lighter to jump higher. We also make body heavier. Fourth way is to make
body feel no pain." How does this operate in something like the spoke experiment?
The best description is that Joo Bang Lee first moves the ki energy into the
arm and then uses it to create some kind of activity in which whatever it is
that causes feeling is "short-circuited" by the internal energy. During the
penetration of the spoke, Lee says, he is fully aware of everything that is
occurring. He simply feels no pain. In some fashion, he is able to 'take feeling
out" or take that part of his body and "separate it from the place where it
would hurt" and place it elsewhere. Biofeedback researchers, commenting on the
experiment they performed on Lee in the PROBE magazine article, said, "It is
as if there is no room in the consciousness for the sensation. of pain. It is
active elimination. It is different from the passive willing of alpha elimination
and biofeedback training. It seems to be 'making it happen,' as opposed to letting
it happen,' as in the case of classic meditation.
It
is superb concentration in an active sense. Zen masters and yogis, on the other
hand, employ what also seems to be superb concentration but in a passive sense."
Apparently, there is more than one way to achieve this control of internal energy.
Whatever this internal energy is, hwarangdo ki experts of which there are only
a few claim it is real. "You can't see the energy that runs through your nerve,
but it's there," says hwarangdo student Dan wanner. "Ki is even more subtle."
What do you feel when you're controlling this ki? "It feels hot in the danjun
area. In the palm there will be a strange, tingly sensation," Joo Bang Lee student
continues. "You can control pain as well as the circulatory system. The masters
can drive a nail through their hand without feeling pain or bleeding."
Joo Bang Lee ki control is particularly discussed among his instructors and
students. One example concerns Bob Doggan, one of Joo Bang Lee student. The
account, related many times, was told me by student Dan wanner. "During a class,
Duggan's hands lost their circulation. No one knows why but he started getting
numb. Grandmaster Lee was told. He checked Bob's hands. Grandmaster Lee started
to concentrate and his own hand turned blue. It was icy cold. He held Doggan's
hand and the circulation came back. Grandmaster Lee began to concentrate again
and his hand eventually returned to normal.” If this happened as reported, the
principle of a roving ki energy would also operate here. This ability is called
Ki Ryuk Sool in Korean, or simply, moving the internal energy from or to different
parts of the body. One descriptive analogy to explain this is that the ki practitioner
concentrates on a very small area. In this case, the danjun or spot just below
the navel. He concentrates on a small circle and expands that into larger ones.
These radiate throughout the body. In the converse, a large, radiating circle
is constricted into ever smaller circles into that part of the body to which
the energy is to be brought.
Another,
more showy experiment has Joo Bang Lee being placed, sitting in the lotus position,
on a bed of nails, spaced one inch apart. Then an assistant comes in front of
Joo Bang Lee and smashes bricks over his head. Joo Bang Lee remains completely
unaffected. He can also, according to his associates, walk on and jump on broken
glass without being cut.
Some less esoteric, but still impressive, Lee brothers experiments are those
surrounding breaking. The supreme test of breakage is to avoid using a leverage
point. In supported breaking, the ends of a board remain stationary, usually
held by an assistant. The board bends and eventually breaks at the point of
impact, using the supported ends as leverage. Less force is required to cause
breakage. The same would hold for any other breaking activity. Joo Sang Lee
says the real test of breakage is to do it unsupported. He will suspend a one
inch board by having each end hung in rice paper. The paper is so brittle that
the weight of the board will almost tear it. Lee then steps forward, raises
his hand behind his head, and kiais. The descending hand makes impact with the
board, which splits in two and falls to floor, without tearing the paper.
But
what about the typical student who comes into a hwarangdo school? Will he or
she come out as the personification power? Not likely, at all, says student
Dan wanner. Like other schools, the dropout rate is very large, so few people
ever make black belt. "I would say that one out of a hundred students gets to
black belt rank," Wanner said. But even at this state of proficiency, most of
the learning is involved with physical techniques. The mental aspect, which
involves great emphasis on ki development, does not occur until the higher black
belt degrees. What this means is that very few people really come to have a
grasp of the ki.
For most hwarangdo students, as for most martial arts students, the concept
of the ki remains just that, a concept. But there is physical training to prepare
the mind and body for ki training. The Lee brothers utilize the kiRyukSool,
a phrase hard to translate. It is an exercise meant to develop control over
the ki, and includes a type yell the beginning students must do over and over
again. Instruction in punching and kicking is also geared toward control of
the ki. Students are taught to remain relaxed during the delivery of a punch.
Only at the point of impact is flexing to occur. At the same time, power is
to be brought from the foot, along the leg and body and through the arm and
fist to the point of impact. There is consistent work on preparing the body
physically for a potential study of hwarangdo ki.
The Lee
brothers, for example, utilize the KiRyukSool. Students are instructed to tighten
up their stomach-abdomen area, the seat of tangen from whence the ki power is
said to originate. Arms and fingers are also to be tightened. The student is
taught to push out mentally from the stomach through the chest, arms and fingers
reaching out to the space beyond his fingertips. At the same time, a breathing
exercise involving a kiai type of release is done. "Students do this many times
at the beginning and end of each class," says Dan wanner. Another exercise done
regularly is a lotus position meditation sequence. He studied meditation with
Indian yoga mystics for four years prior to joining the hwarangdo World Headquarters
and is very enthusiastic about the exercise. The exercise in its simplest form
involves inhaling and exhaling of breath. The student is taught to think only
about his breath. "His thinking must be focused on his breath, watching it mentally.
He is not to think of anything else," says Dan. Students do this during every
class for about five minutes. This exercise is also designed to create a physical
awareness, preparing the student for a more sophisticated grasp of the ki power.
A casual stroller, coming into a Lee brothers hwarangdo
school, might not see anything that is different from other martial arts schools.
He would see the typical 'kicking and punching exercises. Students, in general,
would be a little different. But a few would one day become the hwarangdo elite,
able to tap para-physical powers about which most humans remain basically unaware.
