Practising in public, redux once more

Well…

So, last night I was out in Duxton Plain Park again. I’d left work late, so didn’t start practising until after 8, which is later than I prefer. Anyway, same routine: one set of Yang-24, one set of CMC-37. Half-way through the latter, I noticed a oldish guy who was walking past stop, and then settle down on one of the benches next to my practice area. He watched me as I went through the Xuan Xuan broadsword set, then the bagua ba mu zhang that Madam Ge’s teaching, then through the basic bagua set that I learned in Beijing (not Zhang style Dragon Form, a different one).

When I stopped to take a break, he came over to chat, and started by telling me off for drinking water between sets (which, I suppose, is what all of my teachers have told me, but my goodness, in Singapore’s climate if I don’t drink water, I’ll pass out!). His name is Mister Ku, a short, white-haired gentleman, and he knows nanquan, wing chun, and southern baguazhang. He gave me a demonstration of a long set of wing chun, which he says is a different style to that commonly practiced in Singapore. As usual, communication was hampered by my dire Mandarin, but we were able to understand each other to an extent. He also gave a brief demonstration of his bagua, which looks quite different to what I know.

I may be wrong – and perhaps someone reading this will be able to enlighten me – but I think “southern baguazhang” means Fu style. I did some research on this before, because I saw a Master from Hong Kong (one of Fu’s disciples fled China to Hong Kong) performing it at the Singapore Chin Woo Association’s 85th birthday celebration. Apparently, Fu style has four palm sets. This clip shows the Fu Style Dragon Form, which isn’t the style Mr Ku showed me, but has some similarities):

After we’d talked for some time, he went on his way, and I did some sets of thesword form. I’m doing something wrong, because last night I kept on ending up some way to the left of where I started, I’m not sure why. While I was doing this, two men appeared on the rise above me, and lit a large number of big joss sticks, which burned brightly, sending thick clouds of aromatic smoke drifting down towards me.

After I’d finished, I met some friends from Chin Woo at a coffeeshop nearby. As I was tucking into my roti prata (and, hem hem, a Tiger beer), I felt a tugging at my sleeve – and at the next table was Mr Ku! He was with a group of older men, one of whom spoke good English. This was Mr Sum, who apparently also studies Wing Chun, and had seen me working on my sword form on Monday night. We talked for some time; they’re all members of the Cantonese clan house I wrote about almost exactly a year ago (and which we were sitting outside at the time; the drums were beating last night, as well). They offered me a tour of the clan house, which I’ll definitely take them up on when I get some free time. One the Chin Woo members knew them as well; they have an anniversary show of their own coming up, and we may get some tickets.

The caretaker of the clan house passed by; he had a small plastic bag full of marbles and ball-bearings. These are from occupants of the apartments on the other side of the road, who apparently get fed up of the drumming from the Lion Dance practice, and use catapults try to smash windows in the clan house. The drummers are acting legally, and obey the 10pm curfew set by law, so they’ve brought the police in to check the projectiles for fingerprints, and to try to track down the culprits – after all, these things could easily kill someone.

So there we are, another amazing night in the world of Singaporean martial arts culture. Fantastic. And I am simply astonished at how many people here seem to know baguazhang, once you scratch the surface!