A lot of newbies in our lineage struggle to write their FU talismans nicely, and that leads to many of them giving up or feeling that this is not something they can do well no matter how hard they try. If you are one of these disciples, this article will get you sorted out!
The Problem
FU Talismans is written with your hand, just like how you draw and write letters. There are 3 problems that could be one or all of your issues.
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Language
You don’t understand what you are writing, then it feels like a Chinese trying to write in Korean or Japanese, they are nothing but lines and scribbles. This often backs people off right away because it feels like super hard to understand and you feel very clueless just copying it. Some FUs are just in lines and circles etc, they are not even words, so what then?
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Writing Skills
In the modern days, a lot of people (not just kids) have been using the keyboard or tablets more than pen and pencils. This is a big problem because a lot of people have issue with writing BASIC things in life too, and now you want to pick up a BRUSH to write FU? No kidding, even using a pen or pencil is a big obstacle for many people already.
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Artistic Skills
If you have no problem writing the words, but somehow your FU look like it is always not centered, not aligned, or things are just like going all over the place or out of proportion. This is because you lack some artistic skills (not talent), which could be learned! It’s like learning to be able to draw a perfect circle with your pencil, there are always “tricks” that you can learn to make yourself more artistic!
The Solution
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Language
If you feel the language (Chinese) is strange, you should face the fact that you are learning from a CHINESE master and a CHINESE religion, so Chinese words are something you want to be able to write. No one say you need to master the language, but at least go into some calligraphy practice will get you familiar with some of the basic words and their structures, meaning, and so on. A lot of words in the FU will show up all the time, practice those more often!
One of the best practice for you is to copy and paste some Chinese words into MS WORD and choose a nice calligraphy font for the Chinese calligraphy and then print it out and start copying them, or you can even trace over them digitally if you have a surface pro or something like that with a stylus. The FU book is full of “fast” scripts, but if you learn the words in the more “slow” script, you will be able to learn the structure and also not be too “afraid” of the word because you feel like it is just “dancing all over the place”.
Watch some Chinese drama with English-Subtitles, you will also build up some love for the language and end up wanting to write it more!
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Writing
Writing skills all start from using a pen or pencil or even a stylus, don’t go for the brush right away. Start easy, and copy the FUs with your pen or pencil on paper. Improve your basic skills such as drawing lines, circles, boxes, and sketching basic shapes. These will allow you to be able to gain more control over your pen or pencil, that is critical for being able to write. If you write too little, you will never get that skills because you just did not invest enough TIME into it. People back in the old days use the pen daily and not computer, they write nice, naturally, because they write ALL the time.
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Artistic
Artistic skills will help you top up your writing skills, its like adding sauce on top of some good chicken or steak. Some tricks you could try for improving your FU work is to analyze the FU in partitions, draw some grids and such to see where things are placed and copy the proportion right. You always run out of space or have too much empty space on the bottom, because you never cared to even see what word you should have written at the half mark. One thing that is very critical, draw a center line and make sure your words are CENTERED. Use a ruler to help you draw the FU bands on the sides. When you are doing those loops and circles, make sure they look smooth, and never grip too tight!
We have mentioned that it is modern days, people type more than write – but you forgot that we also have digital drawing, with those nice stylus that feels just like writing on paper. Download some app like Concepts, Zen Brush, Expressii, and start writing with grids, doing your doodle daily. Don’t just do it “when you are free”, do some DAILY, it can be even just 5 or 10mins of your morning and you will see a big change in your writing skills in a month already if you keep doing it!
This piece below is one of my daily calligraphy practice in Concepts using the Samsung Tab S7 and the digital noris stylus.
FU writing is called “FU DRAWING” in Chinese, because sometimes words don’t make sense, and they are all CODE WORDS or even made up symbols for a certain meaning. It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand the words, even Chinese won’t understand the FU all the time. All you need to do is treat it like a piece of drawing and copy it, that’s all. As long as you are a real disciple that is authorized to use the FU, your FU will work 100% fine even your drawing sucks. However, being able to draw a new looking FU is impressive. It’s something to show off, and let people know how good you are in your Tao-things.
Remember don't start with a BRUSH, start with pen and pencil, at least it is manageable. DAILY practice, and not once a while. Discipline yourself and commit to it, you will see that nature always reward those who can invest more time and energy into things. Sometimes people ask me why I can write it so nicely - because I have been writing them since years and years ago. I wrote MORE than you in your whole life, that's why. Get going and you will be the next me very soon.
