I should post something about this before the bruises fade, hehehe. My forearms are yellow, gradually turning green and black, with other patches on my upper arms, shoulder and chest!
In itself, that shows the value of the workshop: it took baguazhang seriously as a martial art and, although Alex didn’t use anywhere near his full power, it certainly was a change from the purely form-based practice that I’m doing with Ge Chunyan, and at the school I went to in Beijing. This article at Formosa Neijia is spot on in this regard! In truth, I don’t really know what to write: the weekend was like drinking from a firehose (to use an MBA cliche) – so much ground covered in such a short time. In any case, I don’t want to give away Alex’s training programme without permission. So let’s say that, amonsgst much else, we did some work on the single palm change, practised a few different variations, and a lot of sparring practice.
I learned that when it comes to sparring, I need to work on controlling and directing my force; I need to work harder on suppressing my flinch response (!) – and I definitely need to identify some good conditioning techniques! By the end of the first day, my forearms were really swollen and very tender 
Alex is quite clear that he teaches principles and applications above all, and that the set forms are less important. He includes a lot of philosophy as well; baguazhang is not just about being an extremely effective fighting style, it’s also a vehicle for personal transformation.
I found some of the work we did on the different elemental forms, and the way in which a single given movement can be radically different depending on which element is guiding it, to be profoundly interesting. Extrapolating this (ie this is my opinion, not what Alex said – so don’t blame him if I’m wrong!) this is why some teachers are wrong when they say that studying (or at least being aware of) the I Ching isn’t necessary. My understanding, particularly after my experience of this workshop, is that understanding the meaning, elemental association, and underlying concepts of each hexagram – and the way one can change into another – gives a tremendously valuable insight into how to approach and use baguazhang techniques.
There was a very interesting mix of attendees, most of whom had previous martial arts experience. There were quite a few wing chun people, as well as karate and aikido practitioners. I was definitely one of the less skilled there!
By the way, don’t misinterpret my comment above: I’m in no way denigrating the way Ge Chun Yan teaches. As I mentioned previously, she’s taking it slow with her students and teaching the basics carefully and slowly. Two other students of hers, T.K. and Jono, also attended Alex’s workshop, and we all went to her class on the Saturday evening. It was interesting that she also showed us an application then – on using Kou bu to hook an opponent’s ankle before bringing your weight down on their knee joint.
Speaking of which, one of the applications Alex taught us was a takedown using a scissors move; I’ve never seen bagua ground fighting before….
Just before the end of the workshop on Sunday afternoon, Alvin and his brother popped in to take a look, and demonstrated some xingyi techniques. They’re trying to arrange an opportunity for Alex to meet their teacher, Victor Chong, which should be interesting.
Anyway, it seems Alex will be in Singapore a lot more in the future. Excellent…
Update: I find I keep on coming back to add to this post! I also want to record that we did a lot of work on awareness of the body, mind and space; feeling the joints and curves, and of angles and lines. Some interesting qigong techniques, and flexibility techniques…
Excellent insight into how I-jing philosophy is useful in a fighting context. Whether it’s bagua or another art, understaning how one move can be broken down and extrapoltaed into many moves goes a long way to explaining the large variety of techniques we see, even with in the same art form. It also allows us to find a seemingly never-ending variety of applications to deal with countless self-defense scenarios.
Sounds like you got some good training.
good review! good to hear of combat traditional martial arts.wujimon – that’s why some people say many styles do in fact share many similarities in combat human body being human body – what one style finds works well another style will likely find that it works well too. bagua piercing palm – believe it or not is similar to old style wing chun biu jee. yes, bagua version tends to be vertical palm whereas wing chun tends to be horizontal palm but old style wing chun uses also vertical palm and more important the waist with bow & arrow stance so in many ways they look similar. i saw a video posted from a new yin style bagua vcd that is coming out soon from china that shows this technique and if one didn’t know what one was looking at, one might be forgiven for thinking that its wing chun application of pak sao and vertical biu jee!!! so bridging the gap, controlling / shattering the bridge, opening the gate, entering, disrupting balance, dominating the centre, striking weak spots-dimmak-body skeletal structure / locking / throwing – these are generic tactics of the martial arts. a lot of old style martial arts including wing chun also use the philosophy of yin-yang, 5 elements, 8 trigrams, thousand hand buddha for countless variations, etc. its a little known fact but its there believe it or not !!!
[...] Hmm, a little bit of a disappointment… Well, quite a big one, if I’m honest! I wrote about how I attended a weekend bagua workshop a couple of months ago; it was with Alex Kozma, who’s been studying bagua for about twenty years, I think. I really got a lot out of it, and even that short couple of days really gave me a lot of insight into the theory and practice of baguazhang. He was planning to come back and run some more training sessions, in Cheng style, and perhaps Yinfu as well. It would have been particularly good for me, because he would be teaching in English, hence able to cover the gaps I’m encountering with Ge Lao Shi due to my bad Mandarin. [...]
[...] Pa Kua Chang Vol 2 Alex Kozma stops teaching May 13th, 2007 I only went to the one workshop with Alex, but I learned a heck of a lot in that short time. He said then that he was planning to come back [...]
How do i find out about the retreats. Please let me know. Kevmeredith@hotmail.com
@Meredith – sorry, but I really don’t know. Alex’s website is broken, and he stopped answering email some time ago, so I’ve been completely unable to contact him…