Week 2: Ip Man 2 and Enlighten Up!

 The struggle in writing about the body is trying to assess where meaning originates.  Naturalists claim identity comes from the body's physical structure.  The basic wiring of people determines much of their behavior and abilities, so changing the person requires changing the body.  If a body's practice alters or changes, the person will change to the extent change is possible.  Humans are limited, and determined, by their individual bodies.  Some naturalists assert the body exists prior to society, so social practices have a limited impact on changing bodies.  I will discuss this week's films, Ip Man 2 (2011) and Enlighten Up! (2008), in the context of the body and its relationship to identity and power.

Ip Man 2, another chapter in the VERY LOOSE biography of the life of Bruce Lee's instructor, opens with Ip Man (played again by Donny Yen) settling in British-controlled Hong Kong.  The third act of the film focuses on an illicit boxing series set up by a British official between Chinese martial artists and Twister, a British boxing champion.  The brutal physicality of Twister's punches overwhelm the deflection and parries necessary for the Chinese boxers to land effective attacks.  As you can see in this clip, the violence and raw strength of Western boxing contrasts with the gentle, fluid moving of Chinese martial arts:

Because the subtitles didn't work in this clip, the conversation between Master Hung (the man in the ring) and Ip Man has Hung explaining that he can't permit Chinese martial arts to fail.  If Hung surrenders the match, he will acknowledge that the Chinese are weaker than the British.  Hung's death in the ring motivates Ip Man to fight Twister for revenge against a foreign person.

Self-Discipline vs. Raw Power

The theme of fighting a foreigner bent on proving the superiority of his race motivated Ip Man in the third act of this films predecessor Ip Man but with the Japanese standing in place of the British.  Each film had a non-Chinese villain asserting his culture's dominance by demonstration physical superiority.  The inability of the Chinese martial artists to hurt Twister stands in for the notion of racial superiority.  Twister's physical strength overcame the years of training held by Hung and the students, thus proving the inherent superiority of Western people.  The cultural, spiritual, and social practices of the Chinese failed when faced with the European body.  Twister mocks the Chinese practice of lighting incense before a fight, for Twister believes culture's inferiority is proven by their inability to harm his body.  Twister's body represents Europe's ability to dominate others not through force of culture or ideas but brute strength.  The Western body's superiority trumps the disciplined training of the Chinese.

Enlighten Up! reverses notion of Western cultural superiority by examining yoga as a transformative practice.  Documentarian Kate Churchill, a woman who practiced yoga for years, wanted to prove doing yoga would profoundly change the person's spirit.  She selected unemployed journalist Nick Rosen to journey through the world of yoga and its various forms, hoping Nick will be fundamentally altered by his experience.  Nick thinks of yoga as a decent exercise routine (and clearly enjoys meeting women at yoga sessions), but he thinks the spiritual aspects are hooey.  Kate has Nick trying different yoga disciplines and styles of yoga, and Kate hopes Nick will have a breakthrough and become a different person.

The idea of the body as constructed through cultural practice says biology makes few determinations on the body.  Constructionists say the discourses put upon the body create the body.  Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote in The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life that performed action creates meaning for the body, and our gestures impact our meetings with others.  Gestures have a social meaning, and the gesture articulates power and meaning within established practices.  While Goffman studied human interaction, his principle of meaning through performance works if one assumes divine beings act as people do.  Kate acts as if yoga is an established practice and anyone can access divinity through yoga.  The project's approach of, "any-and-all yoga could lead to enlightenment" means any gesture could eventually lead to spiritual awakening.

Most yogis in the film, however, disagree with the primacy of the gesture.  Every yogi claimed the mentality was important and practice meant nothing.  Only the willing mind could enter enlightenment (if it was possible at all), so no person could access divine power through posing alone.  In all of the interviews with yogis, Nick made his lack of spirituality clear.  Some yogis took a "fake it 'til you make it" approach, but other people said Nick wasn't doing yoga.  The most prominent of these accusers is Kate, whose frustration with Nick's lack of spiritual progress becomes the central conflict of the film.

Although Enlighten Up! seems like a vanity project, the eventual conflict between Nick and Kate becomes the most critical piece of the film.  Kate wants Nick to have an awakening, but Nick appears content to enjoy the physical benefits.  Part of the film has Nick talking with historians and anthropologists to investigate the roots of yoga.  Despite the various claims that yoga is an ancient practice, the academic consensus in the film is that yoga as we know it is only about 100-200 years old.  Kate confronts Nick about his investigations and Nick claims he wants to find "the truth," something which can be measured or observed rather than experienced.

As the film progresses, Kate feels frustrated and believes Nick isn't cooperating.  Although Nick is doing all the correct motions, Kate and some of the yogis think Nick's spiritual blocks prevent him from becoming enlightened.  Pushing Nick to attend more yoga classes had the feeling of Foucault's Discipline and Punish and its ideas of power.  Foucault claimed a person's body could be molded from a peasant to a soldier through repeated gestures.

Critical to the process of change through gesture was the idea of correction by a superior force.  Ip Man 2 has martial arts students submitting to the authority of a master in order to increase their abilities.  Every potential student starts by supplicating before the master.  The master then guides the students' entire body through various gestures with the idea of transforming it.  The movements help students avoid direct attacks and choose feints over offense.  Ip Man's style relies on dodging and parrying rather than strength and power.  Ip Man rarely uses physical force or intimidation, even holding his temper when confronted with obvious insults or bad behavior.  His power comes out only when necessary for his safety (or national pride in the third act), for he follows the ideal of martial arts as a physical and spiritual practice.  Each student volunteers to have his body disciplined to have the power Ip Man has, but students eventually understand that Ip Man's power comes from restraint rather than exercise.

All of Ip Man's students come voluntarily, and Nick was a volunteer as well, but Nick's circumstances differ from .  Many reviews complained that Kate forced Nick to find enlightenment, which is a valid argument.  Yoga has thousands of forms with gazillions of teachers, and most forms take a lifetime to master.  For purposes of the film, Kate had Nick tour various forms for a few sessions over the course of six months.  Forcing the body may work for martial arts, as demonstrated by Foucault and Ip Man, but spiritual enlightenment is different.

Augustine wrote in Book IV of On Christian Doctrine that a speaker receiving applause has not touched the hearts of people, for physical actions demonstrate understanding of a message and appreciation but not change.  Tears, said Augustine, were the true proof of changing someone's heart.  During Nick and Kate's time in India, Nick has an experience where he broke down and said he missed his mother, a kooky spiritual healer whose worldview seems alien to Nick.  He realizes that he should spend more time with his family and their value.  The emotional moment of the film was insufficient for Kate, for her frustration with Nick continues.

Guru Saran Ananda, taken from Enlighten Up!'s website

Kate had little help from the yogis in India, who claimed the poses had little to do with enlightenment.  Divine forces, according to the yogis, don't behave like human society and don't ascribe meaning based on physical gesture.  Guru Saran Ananda believes enlightenment comes from living for oneself.  His analogy is that one could cook to survive or one could cook for others and be happy, but being forced to cook for others will not make a happy cook.  Guru Saran Ananda's views imply that our social world makes enlightenment impossible, for social meanings are forced upon us.  Nick asks Guru Saran Ananda if poses were the fast track to enlightement and Guru Saran Ananda says, "No, it would be easier just to have it," and points to his head.  He doesn't say that he was born enlightened but indicates that being born with enlightement would be easiest of all.

Repeated actions can mold the body, but there is limited evidence that it can mold the spirit.  Without mechanisms of control and punishment, Foucault's worldview falls apart.  Society exists because of those controls on the body.  Both films question the idea that our body determines our identity, but each film shows how society ascribes meaning to the body.  Each film connects exercise to spiritual practice, but only Enlighten Up! shows gesture alone is not enough to achieve enlightenment.  The conflict in Ip Man 2 is more exciting to watch, but both films show how people's bodies determine their relationship to power.  However, our bodies shouldn't determine our worth.  The yogis in Enlighten Up! frequently say there are many ways to spiritual connection and well-being.  Perhaps it's moral to resist the social identity placed upon bodies (as Ip Man does with his fists and various yogis claim to do through their practice).  As Ip Man says in the end of the film, "Though people have different statuses in life, everyone's dignity is the same."

Other films:
Green for Danger, 1946
Tabloid, 2010