SPEAKER_00 0:13

So nothing on any of our media sources, especially our podcast or website is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Katz.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hello, everybody. This is John Katz of Beats of Prosecution. I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. I am completely and totally excited about today's guest. Today's guest is William C. Phillips. Can you see this book? It reminds me kind of when uh Martin Mole would ask, Am I getting glare on what I'm showing the camera? Bill Phillips is a uh student, a junior student of Changman Chang, who developed my form of Tai Chichuan. His student, Benjamin Lowe, was the teacher of my teachers, uh, Julian Xu, um Len Kennedy, and Ellen Kennedy. When I told Bill that I was interested in interviewing him, one of the first things he said was, I don't think I can tell you much or anything about law, even though his father was a lawyer, a trial lawyer at that. But I said that uh Well Tai Chi is integral to my practice of law. He wanted me to read his book first. His book is uh In the Presence of Chang Man Chang, My Life and Lessons with the Master of Five Excellences. And he's got a second book that's going to be coming out uh too. Without further ado, Bill Phillips, please introduce yourself to everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Hi, folks, I'm Bill Phillips, student of Chang Man Cheng, the most junior person to ever get permission to teach in his school. And uh he changed my life, and I've been living the those changes uh uh since 1970, I guess you could say.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Bill, uh you're you're a New Yorker by birth. I'm a partial New Yorker uh by having uh gone to summer camp with a bunch of them and uh working on Wall Street during the year before law school and living in the corner of East 23rd and Lex. Uh please uh tell everyone what brought you to martial arts? Where did you grow up in New York City? And and to what extent did you grow up in kind of a uh uh a rough and tumble uh hard scrabble uh street life that may have brought you to uh martial arts and where you are now and to these?

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Several questions. What brought me to Tai Chi is really kind of over almost foolish. I joined the house plan in junior college. Our landlord was Midwood Judo Center. I didn't join the martial arts right away, but the guys were having so much fun hip throwing each other into couches on party nights that I figured, well, I think I gotta join this and enjoy that fun. And then when I got there, uh the our landlord, which was Midwood Judo, the the proprietor was Stan Israel, a senior student of Chang Man Ching. And after a couple of years, he started teaching me uh the form in the back room, and then he kept talking about this wonderful little old man in Chinatown. And so in January of 1970, I went to take a look, and the you could say the rest is history.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Now, okay, now we've skipped over uh parts of my question though. Uh my understanding is you grew up in Brooklyn, and you know, part of the life is rough and tumble and hard scrabble, part isn't. And how much of it was for you was it rough and tumble and hard scrabble growing up over there?

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Well, I grew up in Kenossi across the street from Brownsville. We had a lot of fights. I don't know if I should say this, but I I was in a gang in my in my street, and I was in another gang at the junior high school that I went to. Um, and so it did a deal of fighting. But the thing that I discovered at Midwood judo is that while I had developed a certain ferocity, I was not technically good. And when I was a greenbelt, I came across this little brown belt who came up to my chest and looked like a very well-fed middle class person. And I said, This guy's gonna be easy. I didn't pay attention to the fact that he was wearing a brown belt, but he wiped them out with me. And at that point, I rededicated myself to learning the techniques and becoming a good fighter, which stood me in good stead at work. Because at Westinghouse, vocational and technical, I I became school cafeteria coordinator and school security coordinator, and I had many opportunities to use what I learned.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

All right, so in 1970, you first met Chiang Men Sheng? Yes. And uh how long did you uh study with him before he went back to Taiwan and didn't return to the US?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

From 1970 forward, he he left, I think, at uh at the end of 74 or early in 75, I don't remember the date. And I should also point out that he had gone for a visit before that during our time uh with him. In fact, that that la at his last visit, we got put out of the Tai Chi Association, which was run by a group of old Chinese men as a cultural place, and we ended up uh forming professor's school in New York, the Sherjong.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

So uh by the time uh by the time you were with uh uh Chang Man Cheng, that was before the eviction by the uh uh the eviction of his school by those uh older men you're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Yes, in fact, there's an interesting story about my becoming a student. I went looking in Chinatown. Stan never told me anything more than as a wonderful old man who could do things like you see in the Chinese movies. So I went knocking on doors, and I when I got to 211 Canal Street, which was the place where the association was, I went upstairs, knocked on the door, and this short bald Chinese guy answered the door, and I said, uh, is Chiang Men Ching here? And he said, No. And then this older Chinese man in in uh in whiskers, for the whiskers man himself came over, stood behind him, and that guy was so short that professor's head was over the guy's head. Uh and he said some words in Chinese, and the guy rather resignedly said, Yes, this is Chiang Man Ching. And he said, Could I study Tai Chi? And his first answer was no. And then the professor spoke to him, and then he said, Yes, the class starts next Tuesday. And so that was my original meeting. Though at the time, you know, I wasn't really sure what I was letting myself in for.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Okay, so before you met Chiang Man Shang, you were already practicing which other martial arts and which ones were you teaching? And also, I didn't give you a chance to give your plug early on. So uh this is a good time also to tell your your web address and and what services you're providing right now for martial arts.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Please forgive me, but I don't do well with these multiple questions. What was the first part again?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Well, why don't you promote yourself first? What is your web address and what kinds of uh martial arts are you and your your students providing right now?

SPEAKER_02 7:58

At this point in my life, I have stepped back from the jujitsu, the judo, and the karate. Uh I teach the tai chi. My students teach tai chi in New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, North Carolina. Uh I don't know if the Iowa school is still going because the the teacher who was my student passed away. But uh in various places around the country, my people teach and they come to me. Oh, also in New Mexico, they come to me for for correction private classes. Uh with COVID, the school died because uh everybody went their own way, and now they're too set too split up to come back. But we had a wonderful advanced class of people who have been studying with me since 19 from 1980s and 1990s. We gather weekly, I give a little correction, we'd play a little push hands and then go eat. We had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

What is your web address?

SPEAKER_02 9:05

www.patiencey.com. That's tai chi without the apostrophe after the T. Patience is in have patience with me, not sick people. T-A-I-C-H-I.com.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

And uh I think you have some products uh link there, for instance, maybe some videos.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yes, we have we sell uh a video on Tai Chi Form, which has wonderful production values, a DVD. We sell a DVD on push hands. We have a download on Tai Chi Form which does not have wonderful production values, but it has more and more detailed instruction on the form. We have a download on Tai Chi breathing. Each move was is an inhale or an exhale. Uh I learned this from Professor, and he only said general things to the class, so I asked him personally each posture, and he was always happy that I asked, and he always told me.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Okay, so you are currently teaching yourself?

SPEAKER_02 10:13

I teach private classes, I teach uh to to people find me sometimes, and also to my to my students who always can find find me, and we always have a good time as well as the lesson.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

And you're doing this in the Bronx now?

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yes. After spending most of my life in Brooklyn 10 years ago, we moved to the Bronx.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Oh that sounds like quite a change. Okay. Now, um, so if I'm not mistaken, correct me if I'm wrong, Bill. How many of uh Chiang Man Chang's students have actually uh written books about him and his Tai Chi? We've got you, we've got Wolf Loenthal, I think was it Ken Van Sickle who did the uh the biographical movie uh The Professor's Journey West or something like that? Tai Chi's Journey West, yeah. And and and you're featured in there uh among the interviewees, right? Yes. Uh are there any other of his students who have written books about him?

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Lawrence Galanti wrote a book about the form way, way back, uh probably in the 70s, but definitely by the 80s. And that's the only one I could think of offhand.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I mean, of course, we have uh, you know, uh Ben Benjamin Lowe has uh has written books about Tai Chi, but I don't know if he's written books about the professor, and he he was an excellent uh translator as well of uh of some of the important Tai Chi writings, not only by Chiang Man Chang, but I've got this one here, Tai Chi Chuan Ta Win. You probably have that one, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah, and also thinking about it, it's just a different direction. Was thinking about students after he passed away, but Robert Smith wrote a book when Professor was still alive.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Um, of course. I've got those.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Yeah, I have three copies. The first one I bought for $4.95, the last one I bought for $37.95. So it's gone up over the years.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

That may have been Tai Chi Musings. Well, I I think it's your your uh in your book about the professor uh or elsewhere, you wrote about having uh about 4,000 books at home. You say they became something like 5,000. About how many of those books about mar are about martial arts, and about how many of those uh books are about uh Tai Chi Chuan itself?

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Well, for Tai Chi, I would guess uh I don't know, maybe 50, 100, maybe 250 on karate, maybe four or five hundred, and uh on healing a bunch, and uh on spirituality, a few. So, but most of those books are are biographies, it's what I read for entertainment when I want to shut down and get away from things. I read about other lives in other times.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

And to what extent have you ever been able to learn uh Chinese so you could read any of this in the original language?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

You know, it's funny when a professor was alive, I would go to the Chinese movies and I would try to figure out what they were saying because it had English across the top, Chinese across the bottom, and also they spoke it in Mandarin usually. And also I took Chinese language class, I think that was taught by Ed Young. Uh, and I remember in that class I discovered Tai as in Tai Chi, meaning supreme, and Thai Thai is wife, so we kind of got a laugh out of that. But uh I was trying to learn to read and write to talk to the professor, but once he passed away, I kind of let the language thing drop.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Okay, so now you also have uh videos uh at home, at least that were taken at the Sherzheng school with Chang Man Sheng, and you also have a bunch of copious notes. Am I correct about this?

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yes, I had permission, only about half a dozen people have permission to make film, and so I originally shot with Super 8, which I had transferred to DVD, and unfortunately, one of the best pieces was uh when Professor was challenged by one of his students, and it comes out so dark on the DVD. On the film, you have to hold keep the film like uh a couple of feet away from a wall to see what's really what see what's going on. But as far as notes, I have these were notes that I took at the time, and I have also the written material that was given out by Professor, which I have uh donated to uh Redmond Entwistle and the Tai Chi Zoom, and they are teaching the the great learning off of my audio cassette tapes and notes, and they will be teaching the Chan Yun also off of the audio cassette tapes. I don't know, I have notes I haven't looked at. I may or may not have the notes for that, but uh I I just am trying to bring Professor's legacy forward. He would have wanted his words to get out, and I'm happy that I'm helping that. Also, the materials that I gave to uh the Tai Chi Zoom people to to teach and spread uh were given to the Museum of Chinese in America along with my book.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Okay, so um what has been given to the museum? Is it uh aside from your book, is it all your videos? Have you given any of your notes over?

SPEAKER_02 16:10

No, they digitize the audio cassette tapes, and that's what's being given. The film I have, and I have digitally. Uh, that's something for if people stop by. The uh, you know, and also, you know, other stuff was put out on that on Ken Van Sickle's video. Uh, the film I have, I also had have stills, some of which are in the book that you saw, and more will be on the next book, whose title at this moment I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think it's gonna be A Legacy of Chang Man Ching, intermediate instruction in Tai Chi form and push hands, and more stories.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Okay, so uh who were your teacher uh teachers at the Xiang School? To what extent were you uh learning directly from Chiang Man Cheng versus from his other students?

SPEAKER_02 17:05

Uh well this there were six seniors in in New York City. Stanley didn't uh teach uh work with beginners, he worked uh mainly more ahead with push hands, though he taught me from 1967 until January of 1960 70 at uh at the in a back room at uh at Midwood Judo Center. But when I got to Professor, I did a beginner's form class, and professor would come in and correct the the people. That was the last class, the students did not have permission to teach the new piece. So professor would come and correct us, and then he would teach the new piece. Then I was demoted back. Everybody else got to go play push hands with anybody they wanted. I thought it was demotion, but Professor saw some something in me, and I I thank God he saw it, and he sent me back to study the form again. And so I had another class in the form. And also he would come in to take to correct that, though the student teaching had permission to teach the new piece. After that, Morton Raphael, one of the senior students, was assigned as my mentor for push hands. I still didn't get unlimited permission to go to push hands. I could only play with Morty or who Morty said I could play with, and there was a re there was a reason for that. I was tight, I was judo strong, jujitsu and karate, and and I I didn't really understand soft or pushing from the legs, not using any arm. And so Morty decided to teach me this. Maybe Professor spoke to him, and that's why. And uh and I had I had every class of professor I could take. I had advanced form correction with him, I had sword with him, dueling with him, um Chinese language with him. Uh you know, actually that was with Ed, but there were the and philosophy, the philosophy classes with him. I'm sorry, I got that wrong. But the philosophy classes with uh with Professor, and I was just so happy to and he invited me to ask questions, and I I used that so much that both Tam and Ed said they weren't going to answer my questions anymore because I was tiring him out and talking too much of his time. So I went to Morty's wife, Ling Raphael, and she took me to Professor, and Professor made it very clear he was very happy that I came to uh and work my way around Morty, uh uh excuse me, Ed and Tam. He was very happy to answer my questions. And so I I was very happy to have him. Uh that I I had my own personal way to get to him and find out things if something came up that I was that I didn't know. And I knew I was smart enough to know that I didn't know. And that may be why he skipped over so many more senior people than me and made me a teacher in his school. I was enthusiastic and fairly ignorant, but I knew I was ignorant and willing to ask.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yes. And you went out of your way to uh for how long was it that you would pick up uh the professor? Was it on the upper west side and drive to the Sherjung School in uh in Chinatown? Was that usually with Ed Young and and uh Tam Gibbs in there as well in the car?

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Yes, but forgive me, it was the association from shortly after I joined in 1970. I was going from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side to pick him up. Uh he had an apartment overlooking the the Palisades in New Jersey on Riverside Drive and drive him to the school. And I got to embarrass myself a couple of times because I heard what he called me and a bunch of Chinese. And the first time I heard my what he called me, and then I heard uh Kung Fu. And I said, please, you know, guys, tell me what he said. And it turned out he was saying, use self-discipline, don't hit so many potholes.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

So I mean, you how much were you going out of your way to pick up uh the professor? I mean, you're going from Brooklyn to the upper west side there.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

You're going from Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn. It's about as far south as you could get in Brooklyn. But I would have gone a lot further because uh it was just such a wonderful experience. I experienced him as a wonderful grandfatherly presence in my life. I was so happy and that to have this wise man who was willing to answer my questions. And and he smiled. If you look at that book. That was my smile. He was getting ready to do a class for a whole bunch of people. I held up the camera and he nodded at me and I got ready to take a picture and he smiled at me and I clicked it. So that can give you a sense of how I felt about him. And I can't say how he felt about me. I don't know, but I like to think that he felt nicely about me as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Okay. Now let's go into the menschess of you and professor and the professor. The professor must have been a mensch, in my view, to have devoted so much of his time and energy to teaching Tai Chi Chuan, because I don't think that would be would have been a huge moneymaker by itself. You're a mensch, as I understand. You you freely uh share Tai Chi. So where does that spring from uh for both of you? I'm sure you understand yourself where that springs from.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Well, I had asked Professor. Professor had said that he only got to the eighth level and there were nine levels in Tai Chi. And I asked him why he didn't go get the ninth level, and he said he would have had to go away to the mountains for years. And he said, but I'm Confucius and I want to teach. And so you should be happy that I'm here that I didn't go for the highest level, because I'm here, excuse me, I'm here teaching you guys instead. And he brought Tai Chi to New York, and then we we eventually spread it all over the place. There are Chang Men Qing students and students of students almost everywhere at this point.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Well, including here in the uh in the DC area where I am. I mean, as you know, Bill, uh you you know some of the names I'm gonna mention. Uh there's the David Chen Memorial Tai Chi Court at Cabajon Park in Montgomery County, Maryland, where I go uh several weekends a month to push hands on the weekends. And uh Joanne Chang and I think Charles led the effort to uh make that memorial court there.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

And uh I learned about there at the opening of that. I knew David, and Joanne is a friend. And if you notice when she gets her mailing out, there's always a little something about my book.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

There is, and I'm looking forward to her posting to our interview on there too. I uh for the first time in in years, and for the second time in my life, I pushed with Joanne uh just last uh Sunday when when they resumed the uh Sunday morning practices of uh uh heavily with uh Julian uh Chu students. And and I learned about Julian Chu. He's so popular uh that he never even had to advertise, that I found out about him through Matt Stamp, uh, who's an acupuncturist locally, and uh when I was going to David Walls Kaufman's practices on on Capitol Hill, and um I and remember uh you told me that you're friends with uh David Ritchie, who's a martial arts teacher in Connecticut, and I told you that it was only a few months after the professor died in 1975 that David Ritchie uh presented this spectacular martial arts demonstration with himself and a few other martial artists at my summer camp. And then the next day he and he he was showing us some judo judo moves. I mean, it's amazing how small a world it is, and how you and I have that connection to David Ritchie alone uh from my experience with him 50 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Well, and also Joanne, you know, and and many other people. I know David Walsh Kaufman a little bit, uh, and I'm sure that if we sat down to talk about it and mentioned names, we have a lot more people because our Tai Chi world is not all that big.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

So Chang Man Shang did die uh just a little over 50 years ago in 1975. For how long were you picking him up over at his home and and bringing him down to uh to Chinatown for this school? Was this uh a matter of a few years?

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yeah, a couple years. Yes. Um, up until he went to Taiwan for the for the first time in my that I was studying with him, and then we got put out of the school, and when he came back to the Sherjiang, he had made other arrangements, but I would have gone on forever. There was no I didn't offer my time for a set period of time. I offered my time for as long as he wanted me.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

How often did you push hands with uh Chengmen Sheng and what was that like?

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Several times, and I can tell you a couple stories. In fact, it's coming as I think about it, it's coming in better. I'm gonna go back and put uh in my second book. But first he wanted to teach me neutralization, so I pushed him, and I was expecting resistance. I pushed him, and I pushed him so hard when he wasn't there, I went flying past him by my own force. He didn't have to add anything. Then I wised up. Next time I played him, I pushed gently back until I was clearly over my front foot, and he just tapped me lightly on the back and I went hop, hop, hopping into the corner. Then I figured, let me wise up even more. I pushed him gently back. And the thing is, he went back to his spine, was clearly behind his back foot, and that's impossible, but he did it. And then I said, if he has a foot here and here, and I'm there, I'm gonna go this way where he has no foot. And I started to push him over where he had no foot. He tapped my back, and again I went hop, hop, hopping away. And then there were times when he wanted to push me, and the most incredible thing happened. He I never felt his force from him. He settled down next to me, and a little energy went from him to me. And then I was next thing I know, I'm going up on a 45-degree angle, and it feels like slow motion, and I'm watching him grabbing my wrist as my hand is playing out. And when my hand is all played out, boom, I realize in slow motion, I thought I was like a helium balloon. But when my hand played out, I came back to reality. I was moving probably at about 60 miles an hour on a 45 degree up angle. And if he didn't grab my hand, I might have really slammed the wall.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

And to what extent was the professor able to do this to you just by his accumulated chi and jing, or was it something else as well?

SPEAKER_02 28:45

I don't think he ever jinged me because I I can do jing. And when you do jing most of the time, you feel the force. Uh, a friend of mine who he jinged uh said he felt like a dump truck, a speeding dump truck. Professor always took care to be gentle with me. It was like some gentle energy went from him to me, and I just launched myself. He didn't push really, he just settled down next to me and emitted a little bit of energy, and I was on my way.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

And how was he emitting that energy?

SPEAKER_02 29:22

How he did it, I don't know, but it didn't feel intense. It just felt like a little click, and the I felt intense energy from him when I went to him for medicine. It felt like he like house current, it felt like he had plugged himself into a wall. He was healing me while he was taking my Chinese pulses, but this was just a gentle little click, and then poof, I was going.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

And what can uh any of us mere mortals do to uh approach that level at all?

SPEAKER_02 29:55

I don't think we can, but I have been since those days, I have I gave up trying to push with strength, and I have been trying to learn his method. I have a little bit of Jing, I have a little bit of ability if somebody's tense enough to lightly touch them and have them go, but it's clearly his level is lost to us. I really I believe I have not met anyone who comes close. Uh my second teacher in 1988 was Zhang Lu Ping, who had studied various other styles and did not know who Chang Man Cheng was. And he could really jing somebody and he could really off-balance somebody. He was the best I crossed hands with after professor, but heaven help me, he's he was no professor. He had skills that nobody has.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Okay, so were you ever able to? I assume I know the answer to this. Were you able to ever able to push the professor off balance?

SPEAKER_02 31:00

No, and he let me. I couldn't get his unit. He had a a a creased, a pressed uniform, and it was the press was down his arm. I couldn't even get the lump, you know, it came up to a point. I couldn't get that point down to his skin. He was that light. I he'd get out of my way wherever I went, and sometimes he didn't have to touch me, and sometimes he would just lightly touch my back and I go bouncing away. And I don't know if he used energy. Nobody else who's ever touched my back has been able to get me to go bouncing like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Do you know of anyone who's ever been able to push uh the professor other than uh other than his his teacher, uh Yang Chang Fu?

SPEAKER_02 31:45

No, I don't. Surely nobody in New York, nobody in the United States. I don't know. I don't know that much about Taiwan. That would have been a question if he was still alive for Robert Smith, or maybe you could ask William Chen, because he still is alive, people who knew him in Taiwan.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

And uh to what extent uh did uh the professor ever talk to you about Yang Cheng Fu? He mentioned that.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

He he mentioned Yang Cheng Fu a little bit. He said that we were lucky to have him because he was gentle and cared for us. And I try to treat my students that way. He said Yang Cheng Fu put his hand on his face and issued force and sent Professor flying across the room and he hurt his jaw, and when he landed, his whole body hurt. Probably my guess, I'm putting my feeling in it, probably from the energy, but because uh he landed on his back and head, back of his head, not his front, but he said his whole body hurt, and so he said that the professor that he Yang Cheng Fu enjoyed slamming people, especially people who asked him to play with them. And so Professor said, and he's right, we were lucky that we had a compassionate human being in Professor who was gentle. I and he also that was a teaching point for me, because he he instantly made me give up my attempt to use strength on people. I wanted to learn to do what he did to people, and I become a fair hand at neutralizing, though I cannot do anywhere near what he could do.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Um do you to what extent do you think that Cheng Man Sheng uh approached the level of Yang Cheng Fu? Because perhaps you're talking about Yang Cheng Fu pushing the professor early on in uh in the professor's uh time with Tai Chi.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

Please forgive me. I have no way to evaluate. I just don't know. I heard stories about Yang Cheng Fu and I experienced professor, but you know, that's not enough information to make uh an evaluation.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Okay, I don't mean to offend you or anyone with this one. Do you think uh that that that there probably remained a big gap between uh Yang Cheng Fu's Tai Chi excellence and uh and the professors?

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Professor would say so. He once told us, and I I I forgot, I would have said this before, that if his whole body represented the knowledge of Yang Cheng Fu, he just got one finger and he held up his thumb. So that was his feeling. Yang Cheng Fu had it all, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah, but to what extent was that just the uh uh the the the the student paying respect to his teacher? I mean, Ben Low uh was amazing, and and and he he he would talk with such reverence about uh Chang Man Cheng as to say that Chiang Man Chang was far ad uh far advance of Ben Low. He was.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

He was, though Ben Low could do some amazing things when he came to New York. He put all his weight on his back foot and then he bent over and smacked his calf muscle, and to show that the calf muscle was going back and forth like a flag. He just had no tension in it. But when it came to Professor, he was nothing, really. And we all were nothing. We all were just so lucky to have his patient, wonderful knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Okay, well, let's talk about this thing about uh uh patience and gentleness. You've mentioned that several times about uh the professor. So please talk a little more about that, and only not only about the professor, uh, but why you chose your uh your URL and or Thai Chi school to be called Patience.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Well, I knew that when I grew up I had a temper and I may have needed it to help me be, quote, fierce, unquote, back in the neighborhood. But when I was no longer in that location, I figured I needed to become patient. I needed to develop patience, and if I called my school patience tai chi, I would always have something to remember where I'm trying to go. And if I was trying today, having achieved some patience, I'd probably call my school compassion tai chi. But it it's patience because that was a quality I wanted to develop back then. And so Professor was very patient with us. They say that he answered questions. If somebody had a predicate in the question, he'd go off on that tangent. But he always answered my questions fully and thoroughly. And maybe I don't remember if I asked questions that had a a preamble or a predicate, but he never uh he never did that to me. I always got I always felt fulfilled when I walked away having asked him a question.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Bill, uh, do you feel that there's uh that doing the external martial arts uh gets in the way of achievement with uh the Tai Chichuan? You you were talking to me yesterday uh when we were talking before this uh uh interview about the benefits of some other martial arts to street fighting or defending yourself on the street versus Thai Chichuan.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Let me say that in theory it could. In my life, it did not. I was something of an accomplished martial artist and a fighter by the time I got to the school. But when I took the principles of Tai Chi and applied them to the movements of the Japanese martial arts that I was doing, it greatly improved what I was doing. I was only ever a Niky, second brown in judo, and I would stumble over other second browns and first browns and showdowns. Once I applied the principles of Tai Chi, they couldn't throw me anymore. Up to the sand ons that I knew and would play for entertainment purposes, nobody could throw me. I could sometimes throw them, not often, but they couldn't throw me at all.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Okay, but uh have you experienced being attacked on the street or otherwise, uh fighting people uh on the street as an adult? And to what extent were you using uh any of your martial arts uh teachings in that?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yes, I fought quite regularly, not a couple of times on the street, but more often as school security coordinator at Westinghouse Vulcan Tech, get young teenagers, and every year you get a new crop of young teenagers, so the kids aren't getting any older, only I am. But with the tight the principles of the Tai Chi, I became very, very fast and very, very balanced, and I could hit almost anybody without being blocked, and I could throw almost anybody that I wanted to, and so I was able to fight with kids who I had a fight with. I was able to break up kid fights among kids. Often there's only one kid that really wants to fight, and I grabbed a kid that didn't really want to fight by the arms and throw a quick side snap kick in front of the face of the guy attacking, and he realized at that point it wasn't he wasn't bullying anybody anymore. He put his hands down and off and walked away.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

And to what extent have you used your uh what you've learned in Taichi to modify uh your use of other martial arts? Very much.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Uh in my hands I developed this open snap strike, which is literally faster than the eye can see. I destroyed it because the power of my punch ripped my biceps tendon, and then I had to have it surgically put back, and it took me 20 years to get the open snap strike back, and then what the first thing that happened was I really wanted to do it with power. I did it with power, and thank God the tendon didn't break, but it kind of like a piece of cr of of clay, it just oozed out. I don't I lost a lot of the power of my right again. I'm trying to build it back again, but uh I could kick with a foot flat on the ground, I could punch, I you know, I could block. I bl I had timing in those days, which is one thing that kind of went away over the years of not being able to use it my soft style inside block, which also comes from the ideas, the principles in Tai Chi. Told you a story yesterday. I had this little tough kid. He was shorter and slimmer than I was, but everybody was afraid of him. And he came up and wanted to get to get past me. And I said, No, you have to stay here. And he put up his hands to fight, and so I just stood there. And when he came, he started to throw a punch, I blocked, my hand got there first. His hand was only halfway out. I put it down and blocked again. I caught him the second time.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Okay, so Bill, uh in your book, you talk about being permanent becoming permanently disabled uh during during a fight in school. So uh was it really all all worth it for you to be doing that kind of work if that was gonna permanently disable you? And and and how did you keep doing martial arts after that?

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Well, on balance, it was a lot of pain, but in a way it was worth it because I stood up for the good kids who wanted to get an education. I stood up for for law and order in the school. I ran a service squad, and we were the good guys, and we stopped the bad guys wherever we could find them. And so there was five months when I couldn't go to work, and then when I could go to work, I've had pain on and off for the rest of my life. But I have good a lot of really good days, and I have some a lot of really moderate days, and fortunately I have only a few bad days when I really hurt.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yeah, but how do you feel about the way you got screwed over by the school system when you wanted to get, I guess, uh what is it, workers' compensation or whatever, and and you had to litigate that.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Well, that was a funny story. They ignored me. I I call after school and they'd say you got to call during school hours. I call during school hours and they say you got to call after work. But my father what represented the National Maritime Union, and he didn't call the lawyer, he called the union and he said, Look, I represent uh a collegial shop. Can you please get a lawyer for my son? And then the lawyer called me back, and then we started to to what we didn't we and my we couldn't sue. There's a law in New York that the city is its own uh insurer, but we got a couple thousand dollars out of them because my dad said to them, they they said you can't sue. And he said, Well, until a judge tells me this, I can. What will it cost you to defend up to that point? Give that to my son. And they wrote me a check for $2,000.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

So your father was what kind of lawyer? And uh you told me an interesting story about him using one of your questions when you're around uh 16 years old during a trial uh uh during cross-examination. Isn't that did I get that correct?

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Yes, you did. It was fun when I was a kid, when I was 14, 15, and 16, I used to go to my father's office. I used to go to court with him, and he would leave me a legal pad and say to write any questions I could think of for cross-examination. And I filled up legal pads with that. But one time, just one time, he looked over at what I was writing and he saw one question that he liked. And he put his finger down by that question and then asked it. And I was so proud of myself, I finally came up with something. Um Uh, but I I loved to go with my dad. And if I hadn't found martial arts in Tai Chi, I would have probably been a lawyer because my dad invited me to become a lawyer. He said, give up your martial arts and go to law school, and you can join me in the firm. And I said, Dad, please pay for my school teaching salary and and I'll keep my martial arts. And he said, Bill, you don't want it bad enough. I'm sorry. And that was that.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Bill, what to you, what is investing in loss?

SPEAKER_02 44:34

That is a very important point. It's what I call losing to learn. It's not just losing. If you just lose, you're not investing in loss, you're losing. But if you don't use strength, and I always could have used strength and forestalled a lot of what was coming for a lot of people, but if you don't use strength and instead put your mind to figuring out how that push worked, and then the next time you try to neutralize it a different way, and the next time a different way, that's investing in loss. You're thinking about how you're losing and coming up with another way to neutralize until eventually you hit on it, and then you neutralize, and then you can send the person flying, whether it's past you or jing him forward when you have neutralized.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

And that's then let's transition or connect that to uh uh what's the importance of yielding and why is yielding by itself not enough?

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Yielding if with with a method, there are certain pathways of neutralizations. Every push is unique, but every push has is is is part of a branch. Like every apple is every brand of apple is a different apple, delicious and granny and so forth. Every push is its own push, but they follow certain pathways. So you learn to neutralize those pathways that is yielding, but it's yielding in in specific directions. And being soft and listening is important so that you know where to which way to yield. And when you've yielded that way, you've gotten out of the line of the push, and then the person who's pushing you is yours to push.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Now, um, can you talk a little bit about the importance of uh uh Bob Smith, as I was talking about, mentioned about uh with the professor that the professor would seem to actually draw energy from the concrete, send it through his body, and then send it uh send it through himself in pushing hands. What is your uh take on that?

SPEAKER_02 46:49

I don't know where he got the energy, but he got energy and he just touched me and I flew. Um, I don't know if it was from him or through him. Uh, some heelers talk about energy comes in from the top. I don't I don't know. I'm not qualified to talk about that. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

Okay, then do you can you talk a little bit about uh uh what what part of the body is the bubbling well in?

SPEAKER_02 47:15

It's in the foot, it's between the balls of the feet just behind in the middle. It's a part where you have no muscle, so you can't have strength. If you try to put strength in that area, it might go into the balls of the foot. And the balls of the foot is connect the are connected to the calf muscle, so that's not gonna do it. But between them, there's a point that you can make like a suction cup to the ground and stick to it. And so when I do seminars, I take off people's shoes and socks and I find it for them, but because it's an energy point, it varies a little bit from person to person. So the the definition I've given you is kind of generic. A person, it might be a quarter of an inch higher, a quarter of an inch lower. But when you breathe to your Dantien and you take the energy down to your bubbling well, you can feel it, and you put that energy into the ground like the roots of an oak tree, and it stabilizes you so that you can you can root.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Then then, regarding the bubbling well and anything else, to what extent is it important to wear the proper footwear uh for Tai Chichuan practice?

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Well, I gotta admit that I kind of don't. But the thing is, when I do the form, I do. Professor said wear leather soles or rope soles because your energy needs to go into the floor. But when I do foothold and when I play push hands, I wear rubber soles, which actually would Professor said was insulation from the floor because it gives me a better grip, and I want to be able to grip the ground so that I can I can root and or I can let somebody buy and stay on balance. Uh when I pushed one time at my school wearing rope soles, uh, it was a curious thing to watch. It was like I was being used like a dust mop. The person kept pushing me and I kept sliding back. I wanted a foothold against them, but I kept slipping back across the floor.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Now you say uh that the professor had uh provided you some medical assistance before. And so what were you feeling from him energy-wise when he was doing this?

SPEAKER_02 49:38

It felt like that one time it felt like house current, but there was always some energy coming to him. He took my pulses the in the Chinese way, uh, three different pressures from three from three fingers, deep, middle, and light on both wrists. And then he was able to tell me not only what was wrong with me, but my whole history, my whole medical history. He told me when I was three months, when I was like three or four years old, I was sick for three months. And then I went and confirmed that with my mom. I the professor didn't fill the prescriptions, he wrote them. And I went to the guy who filled the prescription, who was also a doctor of Chinese medicine, and he said, Professor, is very high. I can't barely tell what your pulses tell me now about your health right here, right now. And so uh and also professor did something before he left, though thanking God I didn't need it. He gave me basically, I think, three presents when he left, and one of them was a renewable prescription for Chinese medicine. He said, if you have a fever, it will take your fever down one degree each dose. If you do not have a fever, it won't do a thing to you, don't worry about it. And fortunately, I never needed it. I used to get fevers of 104, 105. I think my record was 106 something. Uh, and when I came to him, uh, he started working on that along with I had very, very bad allergies. I still have mild allergies, uh, and I caught everything. I mean, I was a teacher, I was among students. I had colds pretty much from late September to early May. And so he took care of a lot of that.

SPEAKER_01 51:28

He gave he gave you three gifts. What were the other two gifts?

SPEAKER_02 51:31

The other two gifts were D his Dita Jiao, which was an amazing healing formula in powdered form, and he brought it to the school in powdered form. It looked like tannic acid from my chemistry set. He mixed it with Johnny Walker Black, and then he gave he gave me a four-ounce bottle of it, and it worked absolute wonders in healing. And the third and most treasured thing, he made me a teacher in his school. I can't tell you how good that made me feel. It was a challenge, but it was wonderful to be a teacher in his school.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

Bill, to what extent did you have interactions with uh Chiang Man Shang's wife or any of his children?

SPEAKER_02 52:17

I knew his wife very tangentially, but I knew his kids. I I was a friend of Patrick and Wayne after he passed his two sons after he passed away. Pointed out we were talking together, and they said that at that point they were interested in fast cars and faster women because they thought his father had another 30, 40 years. If they knew his father was going to die, they would have paid more attention to the Tai Chi. I helped Patrick. Patrick was in graduate school in New York, and he arranged to do a Tai Chi demonstration at the Graduate Center. I think it was on 34th Street at the time. And uh I have some pictures somebody took, which was very nice, of me with and another fellow with Patrick doing form and playing push hands. His daughters are I had a separate and still have a good relationship with him. I kind of don't not really in contact with Patrick anymore. Wayne passed away, but I I was starting a new friendship with Wayne at the premiere of the movie about Tai Chi's Journey West about Professor Chang. But uh Professor had a daughter who passed away, Marina, and I was teaching Marina, tutoring her in English, and she was teaching me five element theory. And I've been I wasn't friends with Katie in the school. She was such a good-looking lady. I was very aware of her, but I was would have been chicken to go up and talk to somebody as pretty as that. But uh, since Professor has died, we have become friends. And Ellen, who travels with her, is his other daughter. They've both survived. They're wonderful, giving, friendly people. And prof where Professor was was uh getting his affairs in order. He knew he was going to die months before, and he gave us a speech where he held his hand palm up and he said, This is like a pomegranate. I'm holding Tai Chi here in New York. When I'm gone, you guys will spread to the four winds. And he opened his hand, and the idea was I don't know pomegranates, but pomegranate seeds going to the four winds. And so, but he told Katie that she was the lineage holder in this generation, and so she goes she teaches all over America and she goes to Taiwan to offer correction. So that will give you an idea of where she is in terms of her skills.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Uh, Bill, uh, I think you mentioned something to me yesterday about including compassion or something else in your prayers. Can you uh tell me if I have that right at all?

SPEAKER_02 54:59

You do, but let me go to Profess talk about Professor first. He wanted to give us Tai Chi for our bodies, but he wanted to give us ethics for our mind. To that end, he taught the great learning. To that end, he taught Chanyun, and I'd like to get it in there. He taught 25 hours or so uh about Chanyun, but he gave us the short definition: do not too much, do not too little, do it not too early, do it not too late, do the exact appropriate thing at the exact appropriate time, and you should study that. And he had something to the right of his desk engraved, which I have on my wall to the right, where he talked about in the evening taking thoughts in quietude, and that was what he thought about. He thought about his chanyang. Did he do it right? Did he do everything just the way it should have been done? And he taught us Confucius. I called it the Analex, they now call it, I've heard it called the great learning. And as for myself, when I go to bed every night, I pray. When I pray, I pray to be the best person and the best kind of person that I can be, that I can overcome myself in emotions and in mind and see clearly to do the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

When you do this praying, is is this connected to any real any of your uh religious tradition?

SPEAKER_02 56:27

No. I don't know that I have much of a religious tradition. I'm a child of a pair of atheists. And so uh my dad said there was no God or he would not have done this to me. Then he made that snap decision when he was seven years old and he found his mother's body, she had committed suicide. And my mom went along with my dad. I developed my own religious feeling, I guess you could say, spiritual feeling, not in any organized religion, though it comes close, I guess you could say, to theosophy. Or maybe uh but I I I believe it in the ethics. I you know, I believe if you don't believe in God, it doesn't matter if you believe in God. If you're treating your fellow human beings and and other living things as nicely as you can, you're on the right track. And if you believe in God and do terrible things, God, are you on the wrong track? So that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

I'm happy you added all that. Now we're getting near the end, and I did tell Matt Stamp that I would uh sh uh ask you his question. I forwarded that to you. He's asking about by hue, if uh if I'm saying that right about uh the top of the head, he's also asking, you don't like multiple questions? Did the group in New York do special sitting or standing exercises? And he's also asking about any thoughts on techniques you can recall.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

That's about as much as I could take at one time. The microcosmic orbit I have done. And I have my own particular sticking place, which is at the top up here, and it connects to my anger, and the there's a lot of heat energy here, and I'm literally hot under the collar when I'm not successful with it. And I have to just detach myself emotionally from what's going on in my body. Um, but you get it to the top of the head and it will go back down, and it will feel either very hot, so hot you can't tell if it's hot or cold, or only mildly hot. But a way to know if it's your imagination or not is to have somebody put their hand on your spine. They won't experience it as very hot, but they will experience it as a warmth, as a mild warmth that they can feel through your skin going up your spine.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Yes, and also Matt asks if there's anything any uh experience or learnings you got from uh the professor about Negong that is not in his 13 chapters book.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

I have to say I'm not sure. But he told us about the microcosmic orbit and the macrocosmic orbit, and he told us to start out by breathing to the Dantian, always breathe to the Dantian, and then from there you could take it to the base of your spine and make it rise. And I don't know if that's in the category of Nigang or Tai Chi. For standing exercise, he said to stand in postures and strengthen the legs. And I recall in particular the raised hands or or or the armbreaker, I cross hands, but uh it was mainly about strengthening the legs and also digging your your bubbling well into the ground.

SPEAKER_01 59:51

Okay, then certainly before we sign off, yes, I believe in holding postures too. Uh which were the postures that he particularly recommended holding? And for how many?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

Raise hands, cross hands, single whip for the lungs. The right hand back here opens the lung meridian. And by the way, he said, and I don't know independently, don't do it on the left, that closes the lung meridian. So uh those postures and he's but also movements like like wave hands in clouds and step back and repulse monkey, that you should develop the flexibility in your hips because you might need it in neutralization, as well as it's good for the digestion.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

And and for how many minutes should the postures be held? Is it five minutes per posture?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:39

You know, he you he put you in a posture and collected a and corrected a class that might have had 60, 70 people in it. And I have to admit, sometimes when he was working on the other end and it had been a long time, I would straighten my leg for a minute, hop up, take a deep breath, get the pain out of my leg, and sit back down. And the thing is, I thought my legs were very strong because I ran cross-country in high school, and then I did a lot of put legwend in judo, in jujitsu, in karate. In judo, I used to walk around with somebody on my hips, you know. But when it got to Tai Chi, it was all over again. I may have had a leg up on some of my classmates, but it hurt like hell. I jumped, bounced. The school was like four or five flights up and the shore junk. I'd bounce up, but walking down, I'd be hanging on to the banister going one step at a time, afraid I was gonna, my feet were gonna collapse and I was gonna roll down to the next landing.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

Bill, you're you're uh you're a strong proponent of uh doing Tai Chi. One of the first things you do in the morning and one of the last things you do at night. Uh, and as I told you yesterday, when I do both, uh doing the Tai Chi in the morning prepares me for all the expected and unexpected bows and arrows that are going to come in court and elsewhere. And doing it at night helps me uh get a good rest. Uh, do you have any recommendation about doing the Tai Chi form any differently in the morning versus at night?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:14

I do it both morning and night. If you've had a vigorous day at night, it will help you relax and get to sleep. If you've had a good night's sleep, it will help you to be alert during the day and also will give you uh a feeling of relaxation in your body. And I say this in different periods during the day when I was a high school teacher. I would do just the qi exercise with the breathing to help me calm back into the place I wanted to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

Although you said to me a couple of months ago when I first uh broached the idea of you being on my podcast, you didn't really think you had anything to talk about the law, but I think you probably do have uh a suggestion or two for us criminal defense lawyers who deal with all the poop flying court, uh, if if not uh anything other than saying learn tai chi and practice tai chi and and apply it to what you do in your life.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:12

I would say the latter, but I want to say one thing. You know, my dad told me this, and I'm sure every lawyer knows it. When you're trying to be your own lawyer, you got a fool for an attorney. So I'm not an attorney, and I'm not gonna make a fool of myself, I hope.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:31

Bill, I could go, you know, you you were wondering if we would have enough time to fill in this interview, but I have hours and hours of more things that I want to talk about, and I'll I'll start doing that next time I meet with you in person for the first time. But this is your opportunity to tell the audience anything you haven't already spoken about and uh to remind them as well of your website.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:56

All right, www.patience tai chi.com. We have DVDs we can mail, we have downloads. Uh, my book, which is currently out of print, should be back in July in the presence of Chang Man Ching. My life and lessons with the Master of Five Excellences. And in the fall, my book, A Legacy of Chang Man Ching, Intermediate Instructions on Tai Chi Form, Push Hands and Stories will be out. And um I'm happy to I'd be happy to come on again at some point if you decided you had another hour full of questions to ask.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

Oh, yeah, Bill uh twist my arm. And and you can probably get Bill's uh first book uh used, but uh I prefer that Bill be able to get the profits. Uh Bill Phillips, this has been an amazing time for me. The courts are closed today. It's Juneteenth, so this was a great time for me to set aside the time. Uh I have been working a whole lot to contain my excitement at uh interviewing Bill Phillips, who I'm seeing visually for the first time. Uh this is John Cat to beat the prosecution. There is no other way. I am a criminal defense and DUI defense law in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. You have heard from the genius Bill Phillips. Visit his website, pacesy.com, read his books, learn from the man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a like us against police investigations and prosecutions.