I knew little about qinggong when I first started learning it. My desire to be able to vault walls and jump on to roofs stemmed from admiration of the Police Special Duties Unit and a love of action movies featuring daring hostage rescues.
I started practicing climbing, and before long could scale with ease the walls enclosing our campus enclosure. After class I would look for places outside of school to go climbing. As time went on I made great progress, and reached the point where vertical walls no longer seemed slippery, and as easy to climb as walking on flat ground. As time went on, I was able to surmount four-story buildings. It was not until a friend told me that I realized my self-taught skill was actually qinggong as recorded in ancient martial arts records.
To my great disappointment, I failed the college entrance examination, and in 1992 left my home in Shizuishan to go to Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Completely broke, I did odd jobs and sold vegetables to support myself. One day I read in the newspaper that there was a course on film and television kungfu in Yinchuan. I immediately saw myself as future star of action movies, and decided to enroll.
My parents gave me 500 yuan, and after paying the tuition fees I found a job deep-frying twisted dough sticks – a breakfast dish. I would go to school at 7:00 am after finishing work.
On one occasion I borrowed a book called Shaolin Martial Arts Qinggong Private
Edition. It was 200 pages long, and one third of it about qinggong. After reading it I felt supremely confident because I knew more about qinggong than it ever mentioned.
In summer 1993, we were informed that a TV serial was to be shot in western Ningxia, and that our school had arranged for our participation. Shortly after, my mother suffered a recurrence of hypertension and rheumatism so I had to go home. Half a year passed, and all our family savings went on medical expenses, so I could not resume my studies. It was at that time that I decided to write a book on qinggong techniques.
That autumn, I rented a house near Shizuishan Steelworks, 10 kilometers away from home and started a range hood cleaning business that earned me thirty to forty yuan per day. The following spring, I moved my shop to Shizuishan urban district.
I started writing my book in 1995. During the day I took care of the shop, did research at the reference library and practiced qinggong. After work, I stayed at home and wrote. In 1999, my book Leaping Onto Roofs and Vaulting Over Walls – Chinese Martial Art Qinggong was finished, and in August 2003 it was published by the People's Liberation Army Publishing House. The book gives a detailed explanation of qinggong, its relationship to Chinese architectures, and training methods. One expert in the field pointed out that it would be of enormous use for training armed police, criminal police, firemen, and riot police.
At the beginning of 2004 I set up the Ge Qiang Studio near Yinchuan Stadium and began teaching my skills. All my students are fascinated with qinggong and, like me, want to carry forward this facet of traditional Chinese culture.
I plan to write another two books, one on group qinggong, another on utilization of apparatus.
Ge Qiang is a native of Shizuishan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
(China Today November 5, 2004)
