I remember meeting Robert W. Smith, or "Bob" as we knew him, on his first night at the Washington Judo Club. Bob was introduced by Donn as a black belt from Seattle, WA who had edited a newsletter about judo in the Northwest part of the US. Bob practiced at our club for a time and then began teaching classes for beginners at a place closer to his home.

Bob always had an interest in both writing and martial arts. I remember him collecting jokes from his beginning adolescent judo students for a joke book that he wanted to write. He once told me that he wouid not try to get his Ph.D. in any subject related to his interest in martial arts because there would be no one to test him on his knowledge of his thesis.

Soon after, Donn Draeger retired from his position as a US Marine M:ajor and moved to Japan. A few years later Bob Smith, who was employed by the Central lntelligence Agency, was assigned to work in Taipei in Northern Taiwan for 3-4 years. One year after Bob left the US I was hired by the Navy Dependents School to teach high school for one year in Southern Taiwan.

I practiced judo in Taiwan and, near the end of my stay, began studying some of the prearranged forms of crane-style boxing. I never heard of T'ai-chi or saw it practiced in Taiwan when I lived in the South.

In June, 1962, I prepared to leave Taiwan. I had to fly to Taipei and then get a connecting flight to the US. I contacted Bob Smith and told him that I would be in Taipei for a day or two, and he offered to take me around and show me some examples of Chinese martial arts. I learned that he had been simultaneously studying about three or four styles of martial arts in Taipei, most of which I had never heard of.

On the Friday evening after my arrival, I was invited to Bob's house for dinner. A]so there was Yuan Tao, the retired Chinese guerrilla general shown in Figure 13 of Smith (1974). The next day Bob took me around Taipei to meet Chinese martial artists. Our first stop was at the home of Cheng Man-ch'ing. Bob told me that Professor Cheng was teaching art to the President of Taiwan at the time. Professor Cheng lived in a small, one-bedroom house of about 700 square feet. The property was encircled by a wall about seven feet high, as is typical in Taiwan. The house was clean, neat, very sparsely furnished and had a terrazzo floor.

Professor Cheng met us at the gate to his property and, after a few words with Bob, began to do the T'ai Chi exercise. I was completely dumbfounded by this. I had never seen or heard of rai-chi Ch'uan and only vaguely recognized the movements as having marital arts possibilities. I didn't understand how these movements could be effective in actual combat. I wondered why Bob would be spending his time learning these prearranged forms.

We were next invited into Professor Cheng's house. He took down a picture that he had on the wall and asked me to push against his forearm that was extended in what I would now call a "ward off" position. The next moment I was thrown against the wall so hard that I had to perform a judo "breakfall" by slapping my arm against the wall to soften the impact. If I had not been trained in Judo, I'm sure that my head would have hit the wall and I would have been knocked unconscious. More amazing to me than the force with which I was thrown against the wall was the lightness of Professor Cheng's touch. In fact, I don't remember that I could actually feel his hands pressing against my body. He repeated the push several times at my request. I thought he was using a very subtle form of the typical off balancing that we always practiced in judo, but with such deftness that I couldn't feel his movements. Then Professor Cheng asked my to hit his forearm with mine. I did so until I had to stop because my arm was quite sore. His arm remained unhurt.

Professor Cheng next challenged me to Chinese arm wrestling, where the two people grasp hands as if to "shake hands" and then extend their arms and try to twist the wrist of the other person. He could easily twist my wrist, and it seemed as though he was not using any of his own strength to overcome mine. He preceded this exercise by placing a white handkerchief between our hands. I didn't understand the reason for the handkerchief but remember feeling slightly offended.

Finally, Professor Cheng displayed his fingernails. I could see that they were very different from mine. The white half-moon-shaped parts at the base of his fingernails were absent. In addition, the skin of his fingers, between the fingernails and the first finger joint, were stretched very tight so that there were no wrinkles. Professor Cheng attributed these physiological changes to the production and movement of ch'i in his body through the practice of T'ai-chi Ch'uan

We left Professor Cheng's house and drove to meet Hung I-hsiang, the overweight and unshaven martial artist shown in Figure 2 of Smith (1974). I was shown examples of some techniques used in either Pa-Kua or Hsing-i Ch'uan, I can't remember which. Hung looked very powerful to me and somewhat menacing. I asked Bob how safe it was to learn from him. Bob responded that Hung had broken his elbow in the past and he constantly feared more injuries.

Next we went to the practice hall of the monkey boxing expert, Liao Wu-chang, shown in Figures 7-12 of Smith (1974). He was short and very wiry. He performed a prearranged exercise using a very low posture that I would have judged to be so low that regular practice would injure one's knees. It seemed incredible that an oider person could move so fast while being so low to the ground. One of his students, a young man about 23 years old, performed a different exercise that didn't require such low postures. I also met one of his wives. She was quite tall, heavy and matronly compared to her short, slender husband. Bob told me that Lian had four more wives and they all looked enough alike to be confused for sisters. At that time, I was unaware that plural marriage was sometimes practiced in Taiwan.

We spoke to a Chinese friend of Bob's who recommended that I be taken to meet the martiai artist who trained by lifting weights with his "cork." Neither Bob or I understood what he meant at first. We questioned him and realized that he meant "cock" and was telling us about a man who lifted weights with his penis. There was no time for us to visit this person and I missed the chance to see how this was done.

That evening Bob took me to a storefront where a T'ai-chi ciub was practicing. They spent a lot of time doing the "bear" by rotating their upper bodies whlle being very relaxed. Then they began push-hands practice, something that I have never seen before.

A year or so after I returned from Taiwan, Bob also returned to the Washington, D. C. area. He stopped teaching judo and began teaching T'ai-chi at local recreation centers ( a flyer for his class is included in the Appendix). He attracted a number of students, including some who had originally practiced judo with Bob and myself. My father, who had taken up judo a year or so after I did, practiced T'ai-chi at Bob's club for several years but, as was his custom with me, never showed me his T'ai-chi form. I eventually left the Washington, D. C. area, stopped practicing judo, and lost contact with Bob.

REFERENCE
Smith, R.W. (1974). Chinese Boxing: Masters and Methods. Palo Alto, CA: Kodansha International

Charles Lomas is a student at The Naropa Institute