My next obscure form…

What to do in Beijing? There’s no shortage of options, in terms of teachers, forms, and so on! On the other hand, I have a massive list of things that I need to get done while I’m in China – and most of them are career-related, rather than martial arts…

So, right now I’m starting to work out what I want to get done. Here’s a few thoughts:

• I’ve trained with Master Liu Jing Ru before, and would like to do so again. He’s very well spoken-of as being traditional in his styles. However, he lives far away from where I will be based, and his styles are different to what I’ve learned. Do I want to start a whole new set?
• Master Sun Zhi Jun is Madam Ge’s main teacher; he’s the one to go to if I want to maintain my current knowledge – namely, the ba mu zhang, the sword, and the needles. I’m hearing different things, though: some say he’s one of bagua’s best fighters, others say that his styles have too much xin pai (performance style) in them. He does live much closer to my base in Haidian than Master Liu, but it’s still quite far.
• Professor Huang Zhen Huan lives very close to where I’ll be, and I have his phone number. He was a student of Wu Tu Nan for twenty years, so I’m guessing he practices Wu style, rather than the Yang-based forms I know. On the other hand, I may well ask him to help me work on developing softness, and push hands…
• I am very tempted to learn another obscure form – bagua fan Here’s two examples from YouTube:

  I know that Zhang Sheng Li of the Beijing Milun School knows at least one fan form, and in any case I want to contact him to review the Long Xing form he taught me…

Kung fu for kicks

I came across these totally by chance yesterday – a couple of fun clips put together by Will and Matt, who were my seniors at the Milun School when I was in Beijing. Will focused mostly on bagua and xingyi, Matt on taijiquan. I vaguely remember that they’d been talking about filming some short movies – ‘vampire kung fu’ was a favourite idea with them for a while – but I hadn’t known that they’d actually done it. Enjoy:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Different aspects of baguazhang

I’ve been re-reading some of the material from The Association for Traditional Studies, and in particular how Yin-style bagua has both fighting and medicinal aspects. I don’t know Yin style myself; my experience is all in Cheng style. However, it just reminded me of something that I was thinking about recently.

The form I’m learning from Master Zhou is very martial: it’s very focused on application, and how to use it to fight.

The form I’m learning from Madam Ge isn’t so obviously focused on fighting. However, I’ve noticed that when I practice solo, this form is the one that I can actually feel massaging the inner organs, and so promoting health.

The form I learned in Beijing from Zhang Sheng Li is somewhere between the two. It has pretty clear applications (clearly drawn out in Frank Allen’s DVD, which I still haven’t got around to reviewing). However, this style is the one that seems to generate the most power in the waist and dantien.

Bagua practitioners who read this: what’s the focus of your forms, and what are the most obvious benefits you get from it?

Wu-Tang update #4

I got my refund this week for the book I’d paid for but which was no longer available. The delay was due to  Terri’s computer crashing.

The DVD itself is turning out to be a gem; I’m finding it very useful. I’ll try to get a review up sometime soon.

Wu-Tang update #3

The DVD of Zhang Sheng Li’s Long Hsing just arrived, yay! I probably won’t have time to watch it properly until next weekend, but I’ve briefly scanned some sections and I like what I see. Even watching the first palm change, which I thought I remembered pretty well, I’m seeing details that I’d forgotten since I trained with Zhang in Beijing. The commentary seems like it’s going to be very useful as well. Excellent! Fuller review to come in time.

Wu-Tang update #2

I heard back from Terri yesterday; he’ll be sending the DVD by US post, but it still has an arrival due date of April 20, which is pretty damn quick! I’m really looking forward to getting it He can repay the surplus, for the book that’s no longer available, via Paypal. Cool, I can’t wait to get started with Zhang Sheng Li’s Dragon form again!

Wu-Tang update #1

Well, just heard back from the Wu-Tang PCA. Apparently they hadn’t updated their web site (for quite some time, I might add, because I’ve been checking it out over the last couple of years), and they no longer sell the Long Hsing book. That’s a pity.

The DVD is still available, however, so I’ve asked Terri to use some of the surplus from my payment to send the DVD by courier, rather than surface post. Let’s see what happens next!

Traced: a man and his vineyard

Aha! As I’ve mentioned before, the senior student during my time at the Beijing Milun School was an Englishman, Will Yorke. He also maintained the school’s web site -  which after I left China, went down for some time, and hasn’t been updated for over a year. I was wondering what had happened to him, since he’d previously been quite good at keeping it current.

I’ve just found out the answer: he’s opened a restaurant with some friends, the Vineyard Cafe. There’s a radio interview with him online here, complete with dashing photo .  I remember him saying shortly before I  left for Singapore that he’d rented a hutong building, but at that time he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Guess he made a good choice – in that location, he’s probably going to  make a mint during the Olympics!

Ordering from the Wu-Tang

Following on from my post about Frank Allen and Tina Zhang’s forthcoming book, and Frank’s response, I’ve decided to order the Wu-Tang PCA’s book and DVD on Zhang Sheng Li‘s Long Hsing bagua form.

As I mentioned in that previous post, this is the form that I studied in most depth with Master Zhang during my two sojourns in Beijing. It’s a really, really nice form, and I’m gaining ever more appreciation of the ‘dragon spirit’ it contains, which is expressed through the movements. I’ve long since gotten rusty, to the point that I won’t even try to practise it now, because I know I’ll just reinforce bad habits.

I hope this book and DVD will help me get back up to speed. I’m planning a summer trip to Beijing, and it would be nice to get the basics of this form back before then, in case I get the opportunity to train with Master Zhang again.

So, the payment’s been made through Paypal: USD 95, which is expensive enough for me to really hope that the material is worth it! Hopefully, it’ll all arrive in good time; I’ll keep you all posted!

Anyone read “Whirling Circles”?

While I was writing up my post about the books I’ve bought recently, I noticed a link on Amazon to this: The Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang: The Art and Legends of the Eight Trigram Palm by Frank Allen and Tina Zhang.

Frank and Tina run the Wu Tang Physical Culture Association in New York; they also are affiliated with Zhang Sheng Li’s Milun School in Beijing. I met Tina in the spring of 2004, when I was studying bagua with the Milun School. She’d come to Beijing for a few days to train with Master Zhang, and she filmed me doing a few bagua sets in Ritan Park.

Not long afterwards, I saw their webmaster, Teri Ferrari posting to one of the Yahoo! bagua groups, advertising a DVD course of Zhang Sheng Li’s bagua forms. Since I’d moved to Singapore and couldn’t train with Zhang any more that would have been very useful for me to have. Unfortunately, Teri never replied to any of the emails I sent him asking for more information; I tried mailing Tina, and got a couple of brief replies, but nothing much – they seem very reluctant to actually sell the DVD! I’ve often wondered whether it featured the footage Tina shot of me…

Anyway, so now I see this book on Amazon, but there’s not much detail. Books on bagua are rare enough that I like to collect them – has anyone read this, or know whether it’s any good?