[atari 2600]

Lou Reed interview:
We sat down to talk with Lou Reed the afternoon of our gala 10th Anniversary party near San Francisco. Joining our sunny, coffee-fueled afternoon discussion in the poolside atrium was the master himself, Ren Guangyi, one of his top students (and Kung Fu Qigong frequent contributor) Stefan Berwick, both of whom occasionally joined the discussion.
M: Let’s start with the tai chi…How did you find tai chi, or how did it find you?
LR: This is so many years ago. But I found tai chi when I was studying with Leung Shum, who teaches Eagle Claw and Wu Hao (tai chi). And I’d been studying tai chi with him for a long time. In NY. Starting in the 80’s. There was a little break for world tours. And then I’d come back and I’d take up studying again.
M: How did you meet up with Master Ren?
LR: I had started also studying because I wanted to learn more about power and fighting. So I was studying how to generate power. And a lot of sparring with another great teacher Sifu Larry Tan, the founder of a Thai based system called “Strange Dazzling Hands.” And then, in my Wu class, one of my fellow students mentioned Ren to me. He said, you have got to see Master Ren. And brought me a tape of him. And I saw the tape and then a friend of my friend’s was in his class. And when I saw what they were doing, I said well, I’ve never seen tai chi that looked like this before and I wanted to learn it particualrly as Master Shum was no longer teaching.
But at first I didn’t go because my friend said the class is SO hard, it’s impossible, it’s really, really hard! But finally it was just too fascinating, so I went to the class and I met him and then I called around to see if I could study with him privately. When I saw what he did, and I said oh my god, a man who can fly. I want to start learning that. And that was almost a year ago.
M: He says that you practice very diligently.
LR: My attitude is that you very rarely come in contact with someone of Master Ren’s level, so every opportunity I could get to learn from him I wanted to do that. So I took time off from what I normally do. And I decided I really felt I was missing a lot of things in my tai chi education, and that the answer to it was Master Ren. To show me the things that I hadn’t been able to learn in some of the other classes.
M: What specifically?
LR: He combines the very beautiful form, the great control, the focus, and a really, truly remarkable fajing (explosive power.) When I saw that combination of grace and power, the fast and the soft, the yin and the yang, that’s what I’d been looking for. When I started studying with him I realized how much he could teach me. To say the least. So I was very fortunate that he agreed to teach me. And I try to study with him as often as possible.
M: Was it more difficult than what you were studying before?
LR: Like I said, one of the people I was with said it’s really hard. They were talking about the lowness of the stance for instance, and fajing. But it’s not a really realistic appraisal, because you don’t do what you can’t do, and you learn how to do things. I’m not saying it’s not difficult, but it’s not impossible, it’s a matter of application and the ability of the instructor, which in this case is as good as it could possibly get.
If someone teaches you alignment and – I’m not a tai chi expert by any stretch – so interviewing me about tai chi is kind of the cart before the horse – but just from my point of view as a student, it’s simply that Master Ren can show you the relationship of power, stance and form.
I’ve found that from my point of view, the Chen style contained many things that I knew on a fairly superficial level from Eagle Claw, and that had Chen elements of what seemed to me the soft in Eagle Claw. There were lots of things that I recognized from my experience with Eagle Claw and Wu Hao, and here was the combination of the whole kit and kaboodle, the whole tamale in one. I think it’s pretty astonishing. Plus, being able to really generate power in fighting.
M: So the martial quality in Chen style was also more appealing?
LR: Well all tai chi has the martial aspect to it, a lot of people don’t know, a lot of the teachers won’t show it, or they do show it but you don’t really learn it, what the application is. I started studying with Larry because I wanted to have street fighting. Not applications that you throw a punch and if you stand there for fifteen minutes I do the application. And you’re in your pose. I’m in NY, that’s not what’s going to happen. So I was interested in some of the more serious applications of it. And then again, I thought that Master Ren’s form and the way he taught it gave you access to all these things. From the minute I saw Master Ren do fajing, I thought I will study this forever. To try and get some of what he can do. And he’s a truly great teacher. He likes showing you.
M: Do you find the practice helps with going on tour?
LR: I practice when I’m on tour. In the hotel find out is there a conference room, a board room, and at some point there’s bound to be one that’s empty. In you go, and you just lock it.
M: Is there a relationship between being a musician and doing tai chi?
LR: Well, everybody does something, some people race cars, others collect stamps, I find tai chi to be philosophically, aesthetically, physically and spiritually fascinating. I was told in my fast form there are four emotions you express. I found that a fascinating concept to have.
At what point are you a martial artist as opposed to someone interested in the martial arts? And if you’re looking at it that way, you’ve got a layman, you’ve got a dilettante, you’ve got this and that, at what point would you say martial artist? Well, that’s a martial artist (points at Ren). I mean, look at painters. OK, Van Gogh, there’s a painter. Lots of people paint, lots of people teach painting, are they artists? No. That’s an artist (points again at Ren.) A martial artist. That’s a goal. I don’t think I’m in any position to call myself a martial artist. I’m a student of the martial arts. He’s a martial artist, that’s a whole other level.
M: Do you find that after having a life of rock n roll, very intense, do you find the intensity of Chen, the fajing, the power behind it, is similar?
LR: Suits me to a tee. That’s the kind of tai chi that was made for me, and if I’d seen it I would have gone there. It combines everything. I’d never seen it before, though. Not what Ren does. If I had, then there I would have been. I think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it’s going to happen. Chen is made for someone like me. The attraction is, that’s it, my temperament.