Peter Ralston - Founder of Cheng Hsin

Most students of Aikido will have at least a basic awareness of its history and the biography of its founder. The bones of the story are that Ueshiba was a restless spirit, with great energy and drive, who learned Daito Ryu Jujutsu from Sokaku Takeda and then transformed it into Aikido in response to his own spiritual journey which was strongly influenced by his relationship with the Oomoto-kyo guru Onisaburo Deguchi. The Aikido world today understands Ueshiba and his art through the various prisms of the teachers and organisations that have served its international dissemination and growth over the past 40 years. There are resonances between the stories of Ueshiba and Ralston, and there are also distinct differences, so I would like to provide an overview of the birth and development of Cheng Hsin.

Born in the USA, Peter Ralston grew up in Singapore and Japan, returning to California in his mid teens. He had begun practicing Judo at nine but didn’t show particular interest, nor ability, until this time. He had been progressing at the usual slow and steady rate of most students but became impatient with this. He felt he needed to practice more but the dojo wasn’t open often enough. His answer was to begin practicing mentally rather than physically, visualising techniques over and over. At first he imagined that he was successfully completing techniques but when this led to no improvement he realised he was just fantasizing and that his imagination needed to better reflect reality. To do this he had to be more accurate and complete in his visualisation, recreating all of the feelings of actually practicing. He worked back and forth between his experience on the mat and his mental exercises.

One night he did a technique perfectly in his mind and knew that he had it. In the dojo the next day he pulled off the technique perfectly, as visualised. Not only was the technique successful, but Peter also knew that he had discovered something powerful about using his mind. He continued this way of practicing with renewed vigor and one evening;

“I simply “got” Judo. I got what it was, the essence of it. I understood what the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, had in mind. Judo was supposed to be easy! After that, it was easy. Suddenly I didn’t have to learn technique after technique searching for “Judo” - I could create techniques from my new understanding. I went from a yonkyu to shodan in fifteen months. No one else in the dojo accomplished this in under five years.”

Peter is quick to point out that this was not magic, it is simply that conscious insight makes an enormous difference in physical performance. As he studied other martial arts he noticed that there was a lot of talk about how things “had to be” or internal powers but much of it seemed founded on belief and fantasy. Even while studying these arts, Peter continued to investigate consciousness directly.

Subsequently, Peter was introduced to Zen contemplation. Within the first few months Peter had a direct experience of reality, an enlightenment experience. The clarity that he gained from this greatly accelerated his martial ability. He was able to read an opponent’s intention and found that the more he let go of his own desires the more he was able to achieve them. Continued intense contemplation led to more insights and, in turn, more leaps in skill.

This amalgum of consciousness, movement and relationship was the birth of Cheng Hsin, which may be translated as genuine heart or true being.

One of the primary goals that Peter set himself was to find an Effortless Power, a power that wasn’t reliant upon muscular strength but could be achieved while remaining completely relaxed. Despite seeking out the best teachers available, no-one demonstrated such an ability. Nonetheless, Peter felt it was possible, and set out to find a way. He was studying Northern Chinese Kung Fu at the time, and while the other, predominantly Chinese, students were performing beautiful movements, Peter was flopping around like a rag-doll. To begin with the results were not encouraging, he bounced off his opponents, or was thrown down himself. But he stuck to it, practicing hours every day, and slowly began to see results, haphazardly at first, and then with more regularity, until he could consistently strike, throw and uproot opponents while remaining completely relaxed, primarily through generating particular mind or feeling states. Through controlling internal states he could produce external results.

The search for an effortless power influenced other aspects of Peter’s training. He abandoned blocking and parrying for other means of neutralisation, such as yielding and dodging. This required a shift in the way of relating to an opponent, no longer adversarial, instead blending with and joining in on their activity, leading them and borrowing their power to return it back to them.

Peter looked into the many martial arts around him and tested himself in competition with practitioners of many arts, refining his methods and understanding. His skill was very apparent to those who met him and he began to attract more students. When it came to teaching people, Peter experienced the difficulty of getting across his insights to others. His approach was well outside of the mainstream and his experiences were not commonly shared. To communicate Cheng Hsin Peter needed to address how people learned as much as what they learned. To grasp Cheng Hsin they needed to personally experience it and have their own insights. He developed exercises and whole courses designed to facilitate this.

In 1978 Peter entered, and convincingly won, the full-contact martial arts World Tournament held in Taiwan, being the first non-Asian to do so;

“I did it for two reasons. It was to complete something for me and to begin something new. Now the completion part of it was that I was no longer going to be involved with that part of martial arts, and I wanted a little recognition. One of the fundamental reasons that I did it is that I’m quite radically different in the world of martial arts; I ask people to do very “uncommon: things, to take on apparently unrelated inquiries, and I demand a very deep level of understanding. I want people to listen to me, to open up to what I’m saying. Winning the World Tournament was done so that I could say; “I did it. What I’m teaching you is functional. It works.” Now they’ll consider it. People listen to me now who wouldn’t before, yet I’m saying the same thing.”

To begin with Cheng Hsin did not possess a curriculum of techniques, in fact Peter resisted the idea of creating a new style of martial arts. Instead he worked at communicating his breakthroughs within the format of existing arts like Tai Chi, Pa Kua Chang, Hsin I Chuan and boxing. His focus was on the principles that underpinned mastery rather than specific techniques. Over time though, a curriculum of techniques did begin to develop that was particularly in keeping with the spirit of Cheng Hsin. As well as a whole boxing system, Cheng Hsin has a system of uprooting, throwing and joint manipulation that could easily be mistaken for a style of Aikido, with a liberal injection of Judo’s body throws and leg sweeps.

Peter ran a full time school in San Francisco for twenty years and then secluded himself in the mountains  of Hawaii for several years during the 1990s. In 2001 he opened the Cheng Hsin Centre in Texas where he runs retreats and apprenticeships. (Having served apprenticeships in both Japan and with Peter in Texas, I can tell you that Peter is both less rigid and yet far more demanding, physically and personally!) Peter teaches workshops across the USA, Europe and the Pacific and is always very accessible, handling correspondence and questions from around the world, and from people of diverse experience, promptly and with great care.  

If you will excuse me ending this article by speaking about myself; when I began to practice martial arts I dreamed of finding a Yoda-like master, secluded on a mountain somewhere, and sitting at his knee to learn the secrets of the martial arts. (Perhaps some of you who are reading this will recognise, even empathise, with my teenage fantasy.) After having taken myself to Japan, studied full time and searching out teachers, I began to doubt, even mock, the existence of such characters of martial arts folk lore. In Peter I found someone who embodied such a spirit while at the same time being completely real, direct and pragmatic. It has been a great privilege and I continue to be amazed at how willing he is to share his knowledge with anyone who is keen to take on the enquiry into the nature of Mastery and Being.

Once again, I hope you have enjoyed this article and I invite your feedback and questions. In the next article I will look at the Cheng Hsin Body-being - training the body, mind, perceptive senses and feeling attention for effortless effectiveness.

Comments

[Bjorn Saw]

Very nice post Alan, loved it. Commendable effort from your part to stick with it.

[Alan Roberts]

Thanks Bjorn for continuing to follow this. There's more to come and I hope I can have some useful and interesting things to say.

[Anita]

thanks so much Alan! wonderful information.

[Miles La Mont]

Hi Alan, just ran across an interesting article similar to that which we've discussed before. Just thought you and others may be interested in reading the study, so I've included it here, with an excerpt from the abstract:

Three [basketball] attack movements were objectively and subjectively evaluated during a pre-test. The first game strategy was physically and mentally practiced twice a week over a 6-week period. The second was physically performed, while the third was not trained. The combination of Motor Imagery and physical practice was found to significantly improve motor performance during the post-test. Scores awarded by the coach suggested that such a combination was the most efficient training condition…

Using Motor Imagery to Learn Tactical Movements in Basketball