The Lishi Arts

The Lishi Arts, which originated in north east China, are a combination of tai chi, kung fu, yoga and dance. Like many Eastern exercises they are rooted in deep musings and this time round, Daosim provides the logic. The Daoist philosophy is fundamentally anti-violent and can be summarised with: ‘the softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world’.

I am a sucker for anything that combines gentle ideas with firm action so it was with girlish anticipation that I braved the slushy streets of east Dulwich.

The first half of the class was given over to breathing exercises and physical warm up. In practice this involved gradually pushing your muscles to the fullest whilst swivelling your legs, standing on tip-toes or just generally being sensible but decisive with your bod.

The ambience of the class was very relaxed and banter flowed freely between my teacher and two stalwarts who clearly knew the Lishi Arts inside out and back to front. I couldn’t work out whether I was being relaxed by the friendliness or the loosening of tension in my body.

The next bit of the class was where we started to do slick moves reminiscent of  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The most impressive exercise was unpretentiously-titled ‘Unbending Arm’ and involved having your partner try to bend your arm when you’re trying to tense it normally and then trying to bend it again when you relax it and turn your palm inwards. To my surprise, the second method was extremely successful and poor Bill had no end of trouble trying to bend my ‘unbending arm’.

As a non-violent art, lishi is about channelling your energy defensively, however to provide practice of fending off high kicks, your partner has to launch a few at your chest area. This provides fantastic exercise although delivering accurate kicks whilst standing on one leg is not without its challenges.

The other thing I observed was how logical and economic with energy lishi strives to be. If someone tries to push them over, a lishi practitioner goes down immediately (and then backward somersaults into an alert and vertical position). This seems cannier and more zen than resisting force until blue in the face.

The problem with sampling a one-off class is that the whole good comes from incorporating lishi into your life. In the absence of personal longevity, I turned to the two stalwarts who were adamant that lishi had made them calmer, fitter and more philosophical. Bill, aged 75, claimed that since taking lishi up four years ago his body had learnt to perform  impressive contortions. And I trust a testimony from Bill. Unbendingly.

Lishi takes place every Thursday (1.30 – 3pm) at:

The Dulwich Constitutional Club
33 East Dulwich Grove
Southwark
SE22 8PW

Lishi also takes place on a weekly basis in Pimlico, Homerton and Southgate