Protected: Woah

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Piper comes to Singapore

Wow – I just heard that Lloyd de Jongh and Nigel February will be visiting Singapore in January 2008. Excellent!

Nigel and Lloyd are the guys behind the Piper System, a technique that puts together and formalizes the knife-fighting techniques of South African convicts and gangsters (specifically, Cape Town). I’ve blogged about them several times, which led to an email conversation with the two of them. As I’ve mentioned before, I spent time in Africa when I was younger, and find it interesting to hear more about combatives based on African culture and rhythms of movement; it’s also very interesting to see someone studying a previously undocumented subculture to create a new fighting art…

No news yet as to whether there will be any public demos (the guys will be here for business, not pleasure), but I’ll be looking forward to catching up and finally meeting in the flesh.

More zen meditation in Singapore

I’m noticing a lot of visitors coming to my post Zen Meditation in Singapore, which is a year old now. If you’ve come here looking for information on classes in zen, the Kwan Yin Chan Lin centre will be running a six-week course starting on January 5th 2008. Details here (PDF file).

Upcoming classes with Master Sun Zhijun

At class with Madam Ge last night, we got confirmation that her own lineage master, Master Sun Zhijun will be holding classes in Singapore later this month (December 2007).

Master Sun (online bio here and here) was born in the same village as Dong Hai Chuan’s famous disciple Cheng Ting Hua. Cheng’s younger brother was Cheng Dianhua, who also studied directly with Dong. He taught everything he knew to his son, Cheng Yousheng.

Master Sun studied bagua with Cheng Yousheng himself, as well as with his sons. More information is available at his Wikipedia profile.

Master Sun will be arriving in Singapore this week, and staying until the end of the year. He will be running two separate courses. His Singapore-based disciples, Ge Chunyan and Mi Jin Pei, will be assisting him.

Course #1: Baguazhang Applications

Dates: December 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 25 and 26 2007 (7 classes)

Time: 19:30 – 20:45

Cost: S$200 for the 7 classes. (A discounted price is available for Madam Ge Chunyan’s students).

Course #2: Cheng Style Judge’s Pen (Bagua needles)

Dates: December 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 25 and 26 2007 (7 classes)

Time: 20:50 – 22:00

Cost: S$200 for the 7 classes. (A discounted price is available for Madam Ge Chunyan’s students).

Both classes will be held at 65A Marine Parade Drive, Singapore. For more details, call 9025 3887 or 9298 9054. Madam Ge can also be contacted via email: ge_cy at yahoo dot com dot sg.

This is a great opportunity, and personally speaking I’m really looking forward to studying the rare needles form! Here’s a clip of it from YouTube:

Questions

Here are some of the people I’ve studied under during the last few years – some of them for periods of months, some for just a few hours.

• Nam Wah Pai (Taijiquan, Singapore)
• Nam Wah Taijigong Association (Taijiquan, Singapore)
• Rennie Chong (Taijiquan, Singapore)
• Madam Ge Chun Yan (Baguazhang, Singapore)
• Master Zhou Yue Wen (Baguazhang, Singapore)
• Alex Kozma (Baguazhang, Singapore)
• Master Liu Jing Ru (Baguazhang, Beijing)
• Zhang Sheng Li (Baguazhang, Beijing)
• Jinghua Wushu Association (Taijiquan, Beijing)

If you could ask them questions, what would you want to know?

Knowing when to stop

Up until mid-afternoon it was quite a nice day, but then the monsoon clouds hit us hard and the rest of the day was spent with deafening* thunderclaps and pouring rain.

By the time I got home, the last drizzle was petering out, and I decided to chance going out for solo practice. However, the spot that I use in the park is quite low-lying, and there was still a lot of water standing around. The concrete volleyball court that’s my patch was still a bit slick, but seemed to be drying off, so I tried a couple of sets of taiji. I quickly realised, though, that all of the rain evaporating out of the sodden earth into the evening was making the air thick with humidity, cold** and clammy – almost feverish. So I called it quits and came home again.

As I passed through the housing estate next to my apartment block, a big yellow tent was up for a Buddhist wake. The flaps were pulled tighter than is usual – because of the rain, no doubt – so I couldn’t see the coffin. There were lots of plastic tables and chairs around, with a small group of the mourners manning this shift sitting around in a desultory way. At the centre table were three monks: two older, one quite young. One of the two older monks was tapping away on a gourd (is that the name for the thing that goes tok-tok-tok? I’m not sure…) as the other two chanted. Well, one did… The younger monk chanted in a loud, determined and totally flat voice; the older monk kept trying to join in, in more musical way, but stopped each time as if thrown by the sheer tone-deafness of the other…

*Not really. Very, very loud, though.

** By Singapore standards – maybe 23, 24 Celsius? How’s November going for you, anyway?

The Yin and Yang of a wushu student

A few more musings on last night’s lesson that I want to jot down…

It was a very warm and humid evening; a few of the Chin Woo instructors a little further down the park commented on it as I passed them later on, but I didn’t need to be told: I was drenched in sweat after my lesson. Master Zhou was wearing a silk wushu outfit, so he didn’t suffer too much, but I was in cotton. T-shirt and trousers alike were soaked, with just the loose part of my trousers around my ankles still undarkened…

This led to one doh! moment… We were practicing an upward-rising punch to the ribs; Master Zhou was using one of his hand to shield the impact as I hit him. Unfortunately, both his hand and my arm were slick with humidity-induced sweat… so my fist slid off his hand and continued upwards… my forearm, frictionless, followed… and suddenly I realized I’d just socked my teacher with a heavy uppercut to the jaw! To his credit, Master Zhou was OK about it. He wasn’t hurt, and just laughed – and possibly ruminated that there’s no-one so dangerous as a beginner who doesn’t know what he’s doing…

He was glad to hear that I’m romantically involved again. He thinks it’s a good thing for a wushu student to be attached, as it balances things out – “for the student, the sifu is the yang, the woman the yin – you shouldn’t be like a monk”. Heh. As I’ve said before, he’s pretty old-school!

After the class, I went for solo practice. I was worn out, so only managed an hour rather than my usual 90 minutes, but got some good work done, I think. The moon was close to full, and the rabbit stood out clearly. (I have never, ever, been able to see a man in the moon). Light clouds came and went. The feral cats stretched, slept, explored and prowled around me as I worked on my taiji and bagua. I love these tropical nights when the moon is full and golden.

Meeting a monk and Hell’s messenger over a beer

Only in Singapore? What a strange experience last night…

I got back late from work last night, pretty tired, but decided to go out and practice anyway; I’m wary of letting my routine lapse. So, I did about six repetitions of the CMC-37 routine, noticing something new each time. Then two sets of the Xuan Xuan Dao form, one of bagua sword, and about five of the wuji bagua set I’m learning from Master Zhou. I finished up with two sets of the Zhang Sheng Li’s long xing bagua form from Beijing.

After that, I badly needed to sit down for a while! I went to a nearby coffeeshop where quite a few people from the local martial arts scene were hanging out. I ordered a beer, and wound up sitting on a busy table next to a Buddhist monk (who was drinking tea, not beer!). I’ve seen him around before, as he’s friendly with a lot of these guys, but never spoken to him before. We chatted for a while, and then he moved on to another table. I started talking then with people on the other side of me, and eventually discovered that I was talking to one of Hell’s messengers.

Some readers might need a bit of background here. In the Chinese tradition, Hell doesn’t mean the same thing as the Christian Hell. Both are places where spirits of the dead suffer for their sins during their life. However, there are big and important differences. In the Christian Hell, souls go there for eternity, and their tormentors are innately evil, sadistic and malevolent demons. In the Chinese hell, souls are not there for ever; the spirits inflicting punishment can be regarded as prison guards and judges, implementing (very severe) punishments laid down by law – in other words, innately moral and defenders of justice, not sadists. So bear this important distinction in mind.

In the Daoist tradition, the spirits of both Heaven and Hell are able to visit Earth to communicate with us. They do this through the possession of spirit mediums, who act as the messenger of one particular god. I’ve previously written a review of a book that studies this phenomenon in Singapore, as well as some video links of the same thing in Thailand. I think it’s gradually dying out in Singapore, unfortunately. Here’s a clip from the 1970s – you don’t see crowds like this any more:

Anyway, so I got talking to this guy who turned out to be a tang-ki, one of the mediums. His story was very interesting. He and his family had traditionally prayed to a certain spirit, a general of Hell. One day, a member of the family became very seriously ill. Unknown to the rest of the family, this man prayed to the spirit, asking for his relative to recover; in return, he would act as the spirit’s messenger.

The spirit intervened, and the family member recovered. The deal had to be honoured, and the guy I was talking to now had to act as the vehicle for the god, for a period of three years. Now, every week, the god occupies his body in order to talk to worshippers. He remembers nothing from these periods. These rituals are actually held very close to where I live; I hope I might be able to go along as an observer at some point, although I’m not sure of the etiquette here, so I feel I need to tread carefully for the moment.

Anyway, after three years, the contract with the spirit will expire, and he won’t have to do this any more. However, it seems that every officer in the ranks of Hell has an equivalent in the bureaucracy of Heaven. It’s possible that the General’s heavenly counterpart (who is also the family’s protector), will seek this guy out and require three years’ service himself, although this won’t necessarily happen.

In any case, it was a fascinating conversation. Once again, I’ve been amazed at how much ancient tradition and knowledge survives behind Singapore’s glass-and-aircon facade…

Parkour in Singapore

Grrr, I’m trying to download parkour clips to my iPod, but my network connection is playing up – the network upstream seems really busy – and it’s just not working.

Never mind – I’ve managed to watch this: very skilled British parkouristas (what is the correct term?) on tour in Singapore. Very cool. Want inspiration to get in shape (as I do)? Watch this…

About 1’15″ in, one of the guys talks about seeing a video of someone crossing London rooftops; I’m pretty sure he’s talking about this BBC advert featuring the creator of Parkour, David Belle:

… and I agree: it’s fantastic!

Update:

The correct term is traceur(e)(s). I knew that, I’d just forgotten…

Alex Kozma moving to Singapore, early 2008

Well, a while ago, I was beginning to think that Alex had decided to go undercover, and stop public teaching… So, it’s a relief to hear from his “local representative” here in Singapore, aka Kevin, that Alex plans to move here next February to teach full-time. Given his reputation here, I think there’ll be no shortage of students!

Kevin says that Alex “intends to teach XingYiChuan, Baguazhang, and is also licensed to teach his friend’s Simon Das’ Kesateria Silat, which I think he intends to teach on a closed door basis”.

It’s all good news!