Steven Macramalla - Unleash the Dragon Within: Transform Your Life With the Kung-Fu Animals of Chien-Lung

Unleash the Dragon Within is an artful and intelligently written book about life, not just about martial arts. Its about the human experience and how we all can discover our best selves through discipline, focus, concentration, and determination. Macramalla sets us on that path, with storytelling that is insightful, knowledgeable, and informative.

Homer Hans Bryant, artistic director of Chicago Multicultural Dance Center

Chien-lung has provided my body with a vocabulary of movement and spirit, a poetry of bows and forms. With his dual backgrounds in psychology and martial arts, Macramalla is that rare individual who can not only bridge the gap between Eastern and Western ideas, but who can write about them with delightful clarity.

Jon Pearce, professor, Department of Computer Science, San Jose State University

Unleash the Dragon Within is a beautifully written, practical book on personal development through the art of Chien-lung kung-fu. Macramalla takes you on a fun and body-centered journey into your own way of being to better cope with everyday life. If you want to have better relationships, a calmer mind, a firmer grasp on your own emotional responses as well as be fitter, more flexible, and toned, you really should buy this book.

Sarah Turner, alternative medicine researcher

Steven Macramalla bridges Eastern philosophy, martial arts, and ancient wisdom to modern life. He provides deep insight to the Western mind and awakens our inner psychology to the amazing possibilities life has to offer. He gives new insight and perspective on how to live more fully and how to ignite our human potential.

Lee Holden, author, TV personality, producer, and qigong master

Discovering and studying Chien-lung changed my life drastically, in the greatest of ways. It has given me tools for every area of my life, which I still use on a daily basis. I have learned the fluidity to change perspectives in a number of important ways, and to respond to my environment creatively and openly. If you want to explore and transform your inner and outer world in the most astonishing of ways, I highly recommend this book.

Peter Irish, six-time world hacky sack champion, award-winning juggler, and artist

Steven Macramalla expounds a revolutionary new perspective on an ancient path forward by which we may better understand ourselves, others, and our relationship to our environment. This book invites us to profoundly shift the way we see our world. At the same time, it provides a practice framework that enables us to access the vitality, potency, and poignancy available to each of us through this strange and beautiful thing we call life.

Valerie Moselle, author of Breathwork: A 3-Week Breathing Program to Gain Clarity, Calm, and Better Health

The Animals of Chien-lung straddle both personal-level archetypes and representations of the building blocks of nature itselftexture, weight, flow, weather patterns, and the elements of fire, water, and earth. You are deeper than your personality, deeper than archetype even, and, as an Animal, you are little more than a loosely bound-together collection of attributes.

Emilia Sandilands, massage practitioner and movement teacher

For those who are looking to embody the greater version of their self that is waiting just around the corner, I highly recommend that you read this book!

Sifu Kelly Ryan Lake, daoist priest, doctor of medical qigong therapy, acupuncturist, and instructor of Chinese martial arts

The Chien-lung Animals practice enriched my work as a young dancer and continues to do so now as an international show director. Macramalla has brought to life an exciting and unique fusion of science and art that will inspire any artist with ideas and themes for a lifetime.

Susan Gaudreau, show director, Cirque Du Soleil Entertainment Group

Academically precise and lyrically passionate, Steven Macramallas insights combine animal symbolism with a pragmatic approach to changing human behavior, all in a mesmerizing style. Dr. Macramalla offers a rich, poetic analysis of martial arts that is as intellectually refreshing as it is daring. I highly recommend it to any reader.

Sergey Makarenko, Project Director II, State of California, DGS EO OS, internationally renowned instructor in Systema

Copyright 2019 by Steven Macramalla. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

Blue Snake Books
Berkeley, California
Cover design by Rob Johnson
Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Images of the bows, mudras, and seated positions G. Craig Hobbs, Associate Professor, San Jose State University.
Diagrams of the skeletons Meann85 on Fiverr; the stances Anshue on Fiverr.
Photographs of Constantine Darling Robin Yeh, Soul Visuals.

Printed in Canada

Unleash the Dragon Within: Transform Your Life with the Kung-Fu Animals of Chien-Lung is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

The following information is intended for general information purposes only. Individuals should always see their health care provider before administering any suggestions made in this book. Any application of the material set forth in the following pages is at the readers discretion and is his or her sole responsibility.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Macramalla, Steven, author.
Title: Unleash the dragon within: Transform your life with the kung-fu animals of Chien-Lung / by Steven Macramalla.
Description: Berkeley, California : Blue Snake Books, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019002357 (print) | LCCN 2019009342 (ebook) | ISBN 9781623173661 (ebook) | ISBN 9781623173654 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Kung fuPhilosophy. | Martial artsPhilosophy. |
AnimalsSymbolic aspects.
Classification: LCC GV1114.7 (ebook) | LCC GV1114.7 .M33 2019 (print) | DDC 796.815/9dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002357

North Atlantic Books is committed to the protection of our environment. We print on recycled paper whenever possible and partner with printers who strive to use environmentally responsible practices.

Dedicated to my wife, Veronica, andto the future generations of this planet.The climate will change.The mores of our humanity will not.

I would like to thank my wife, Veronica Tonay, who provided moral and material support. Dear Santa Cruz, you will never know how much darkness she dispels.

There are more training partners than I can name who played a big role bringing this work to light. In one way or another, you are in this book. Thanks to Alisoun Payne, Jean-Paul and Dory Thuot, Dana Peterson, Susie Gaudreau, Kassandra Jewall, Laura Bergstrome, Barbara Poggemiller, Lynda Raino, Blaise Eagleheart, Irma Soltonovich, Cameron Avery, Cindy Smith, Dave Philips, Rick Abermyck, Gerry, Christo, and the Munnuke clan, Robert Birch, Melissa Whipps, Marcus Mcdonough, Chad Iocovetta, Scott Hunter, Jon Pearce, the Ashland Crew of Justin Thyme, Heather Hill, Peter Gross, Jasmin Patten, and Destino Das. Thanks also go to the whole crew from Salt Spring Island, Matthew Horn, Serena Vaillancourt, Emma Yardley, and Craig DiAngelis; and to my brothers and sister in arms, David Rabby, Peter Irish, Robin Yeh, Orion and Silas Radies, Ocean Hellman, Sameer Gupta, Alper Caglayan, and Terri Salvatore. Thanks also to my aikido teachers, Linda Holiday, Glen Kimoto, Aimen Al-Refai, Mary Heiny, and Yoshi Shibata, and to the whole aikido family. Thank you to the incomparable James McNeil and Little Nine Heavens Kung-Fu for your example of tenacity and integrity. Thanks to Brian Lynn for teaching Feldenkrais and opening a world of systematic investigation. To Homer Hans Bryant, Marlise McCormick, Clara Roberts, Sarah Turner, and Emilia Sandilands for your support! From Systema, thanks to Sergey Makarenko, Gene Smithson, and Casey Lake; and from Bagua and Daoist mysticism, Kelly Lake. Thank you to Grace Darling, Peter Jonassen, Gabrielle Ciceri, and Beth Niernberg for being family. To my advisor in grad school, the late Bruce Bridgeman. To Dacher Keltner, a leader in the field of Positive Psychology, who helped me take the plunge into writing the Seven Steps for each chapter. Thanks to friends of the pen, Chad Sampanes, Jeff Reed, Ben Preston, Crystal Tanaka, Dr. David Anthony, and Andy Couturier, for your edits and moral support. And, of course, to Mom, Maggie, Esmat, and Hany. To Michael and Lesley Colgan, thank you for planting the seeds.