Taijiquan and advanced Shaolin Kung Fu

[Luo Lang]

Dear family members,

Due to various requests Sifu has agreed to make an ajustment of the course content!

Now here we go, keep yourself ready: we shall have:

A "Shaolin and Taijiquan against Other Martial Arts" course!

Sifu has offered to spend time on performing "Grasping Sparrow's Tail".

Then course participants move on to "Double Dragons Play with Water", which is from the Set "Dragon's Strength".

To quote Sifu:

Quote:
"Grasping Sparrow's Tail" and "Double Dragon Plays with Water" are quite similar except a small part. Both Taijiquan and Shaolin students will be delighted. They can experience the relationship between Taijiquan and advanced Shaolin.
For the other martial arts, Sifu will show how to deal with Aikido, Judo and Jujitsu, which have not been formally dealt with before. Hence, this "Shaolin and Taijiquan against other Martial Arts" will be different from the other "against other martial arts" courses before.

The course will cover therefor the defence against Boxing, Kick-Boxing, two of the most common Arts used nowadays and Aikido, Judo and Jujitsu.

For the upcoming Combined Tajiquan and advanced Shaolin Kung Fu course in Bern some interesting question have come across:

What do you think is meant when Sifu states: students at this course will experience the relation between Taijiquan and advanced Shaolin Kung Fu?

Have some fun!

[AndrewFromCT]

Advanced Shaolin Kung Fu is "soft" and so is essential Taijiquan?


Advanced Shaolin and Taijiquan exclusively deal with use of internal force??

[Luo Lang]

Thanks Andrew for your contribution!

Yes you are right in certain ways!

High level Kung Fu and Taijiquan both have always both aspects hard and soft! That's what Sigung Ho mentioned to Sifu: genuine Kung Fu has always hard and soft aspects.

High level Kung Fu besides Taijiquan also uses the internal aspects, meaning Chi, but you are right.

Yet, Tajiquan is considered as one of the three Internal Arts, while Kung Fu was often regarded as external. We know in Wahnam that these boarders melt in our school and it melted also in the Past.

What is soft? Can soft mean even harder? Fact is on advanced level both Arts deal with Internal force. The Taijiquan force may be regarded as soft but that relative. The energy can still penetrate a body and damage internal organs or the energy system.

What is it what bring these Arts together? Any more comments on that?

[joko]

Thank you, Roland Sihing, for starting this thread.
I would like to respond to your interesting questions.

What is it that bring these Arts together? Any more comments on that?

As the path (or the means) to reach spiritual enlightenment.

Sidai,
Joko

[joko]

What do you think is meant when Sifu states: students at this course will experience the relation between Taijiquan and advanced Shaolin Kung Fu?

The students will have the experience that the Shaolin sets performed in slower motion will become Taijiquan, and Taijiquan sets in faster motion will become Shaolinquan.

With reference to the first post in this thread, it can be predicted that:
During the course, the students will practice both "Double Dragon Plays with Water" and "Grasping Sparrow's Tail".
There will be an optimum speed of performing both sets at which the two sets will become one.

Joko

[joko]

It can be expected that

During the course, the students will learn and practice how to defend against Aikido, Judo, Jujitsu, and any other martial arts, by merely using "Grasping Sparrow's Tail" or "Double Dragon Plays Ball".

Joko

[AndrewFromCT]

Please someone correct me if wrong...
Along with similar diverse combat application,could Sigung also show similar internal force training with Double Dragon Plays with Water just like Grasping Sparrow's Tail??

Showing that another possible link in Advanced Shaolin and Taijiquan is internal force training in this manner?

In elementary Shaolin,practicioners use zhan zhuang to build up force,as well as intermediates(of course masters,but I think the greater emphasis was on the beginning of their kung fu career). At an advanced stage, masters and advanced practicioners didn't discard stance training,but because of the force built inside of them was flowing they were able to obtain more force through practicing their movements with chi flow,causing intrinsic force training.

In taijiquan, they have both intrinsic and extrinsic force training.The beauty of it was that essential taijiquan always had intrinsic force training? right at the beginning?(right,masters and brethren/sistren?)

In fact...is that it? Advanced Shaolin has intrinsic force training? just like taijiquan?

[Binia]

Sifu, thanks for the upcoming insight and here is a contribution from a beginner: both Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan are great martial arts and help us in our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual development. They seem to have the same roots and treasure the same highest aim. Walking the same way, just take other paths in between.

But I guess you might be looking for something more concrete and profound and I will have to leave that to my Seniors :-)

Definitely it will be beneficial and interesting to learn from each other at this course.

[Luo Lang]

Dear family,
Thank you for your interessting responses!

Dear Joko Brother,

As the path (or the means) to reach spiritual enlightenment.

Yes agreed, both approaches offer a great Way to cultivate spiritual cultivation!

The students will have the experience that the Shaolin sets performed in slower motion will become Taijiquan, and Taijiquan sets in faster motion will become Shaolinquan.

It may seem that on an advanced level both Arts become more and more similar.

One possible reason is that on an advanced Shaolin Kung Fu level, practitioners may perform the flow method, which is quite the Taijiquan approach.

The normal typical Shaolin Kung Fu approach is form force flow.

In order to gain speed with this approach we in Wahnam may use breathing control as one possibility.

A more advanced level is to use the energy flow to gain Internal force and speed. In this aprroach many students will be surprised to hear that the breathing control is relative. Learning this skill will lead into a higher form of breathing the Cosmic breathing.

During the course, the students will learn and practice how to defend against Aikido, Judo, Jujitsu, and any other martial arts, by merely using "Grasping Sparrow's Tail" or "Double Dragon Plays Ball".

Along with similar diverse combat application,could Sigung also show similar internal force training with Double Dragon Plays with Water just like Grasping Sparrow's Tail??

Yes Joko that's one of the course aims, just using one of those pattern to apply against different Martial Arts. Double Dragons Play with Pearl though may have some slight sublte differences to Grasping Sparrow's Tail. As a hint, Double Dragon Plays with Pearl may be also very similar to the pattern Double Butterfly Palms.

Double Dragon Plays with Pearl though is different from Double Dragon Plays with water. On the first pattern one may use Double Dragon Palms on the second Double Dragon Form.

I agree with Andrew, students will learn how to use the pattern Double Dragon plays with Pearl for different training purposes. One is for sure to generate the energy flow. Another to develop Internal force.

Best regards,

[Luo Lang]

Side note

As a side note Sifu will also offer different Shaolin Cosmos Chi Kung Sets:

http://wongkiewkit.com/forum/showthread.php?p=104736#post104736

[Luo Lang]

Dear family,
Mind you, the Great Art Taijiquan is meditation, Chi Kung (including Martial Arts Chi Kung) and a Martial Art at the same time. While different other Arts had to involve for example meditation or chi kung into their system, Taijiquan doesn't need to do so.

It's complete by itself. Not only it covers all 4 modes of attacks, it contents the Great three Arts in One!

Mind you there is a saying that just beeing able to learn one of the three Arts Zen, Chi Kung or Kung Fu, is more valuable than changing matter into Gold with your hands.

The same goes for advanced genuine Kung Fu. One can train meditation, chi kung and Martial Art in one go. There is no need to separate meditation, Chi Kung and Kung Fu. When you train all three Arts become One.

This is not only more simple it's also highly time and cost effective in many Ways.

With the two pattern "Grasping Sparrow's tail" and "Double Dragon Plays with Pearl" students will discover the melting together of meditation Chi Kung and meditation into One. They will be able to generate the energyflow. The will be able to develop Internal force. They will be able to direct chi with mind. And they will experience a focussed and sharp mind. Evenetually they will experience a satori

Students and instructors who are therapists or Healers will be delighted to find out that those two patterns will greatly enhance their teaching and therapy skills. Mind you the Double Dragon Plays with Pearl is training the Shen-mind aspect greatly.

[Luo Lang]

Dear family,
It would be beneficial in many ways giving your comments and your experiences especially for those who attended the courses. Of course all students and instructors are kindly asked to share their views.

Please refer to the following post first befor answering:

http://wongkiewkit.com/forum/showpost.php?p=105836&postcount=8

And please check Sifu main mage for having a taste of the great secrets which were so kindly offered to us:

http://www.shaolin.org/

What I can say is that next years courses will be very historical too:-)

[Kingmonkey]

Oh my god !
Awsome !
I don't believe it !


These were only some of the reactions to the course; Taijiquan and advanced Shaolin Kung Fu against other martial arts,Sigung held in Bern this year.


The gentle reader may remember that Sipak Andrew renamed the Flicking Fingers course to the wow course and the Sinew Metamorphosis course to the wow wow wow cours. Now to follow this tradition, I'd like to rename the above course into the blessed course.
Why?
We were in fact blessed in many ways, and I for one was even blessed a little more.....
To keep this post in a comfortable length and preventing it from becoming ten pages long I will now, for conveniance just list the blessings we recieved, before I share some more details.


First ofcourse we were blessed with the presence of Sigung here in Switzerland once more, ready to give us some more deep insight in to the arts we are training througout the year.
Damn the list, here we go.....
After Sigungs last year visit to Switzerland, when we were allready blessed with the opportunity to not only learn the most wonderful Tang Lang Quan but also get the transmission of a lot of its finer points and some other deep skills which led us to some much deeper understanding of our arts, we prepared ourselfes or a cours that is going to deal with, lets say, more fundamental skills and techniques – not a bit of it!
First half an hour of the course; second blessing! - We were, not so much tought, at least to me it seemed more like a transmission, a or the pinnacle of Taiji quan; Grasping Sparrows Tail. Wow wonderful I thought, but not long to go there came along Double Dragon plays with Pearl, which is the essence of the Dragon Streangth circulating Chi Set, and you bet it, wow was no longer adequat, mere astonishment about the power of that vew patterns took place. A power so strong but nontheless flowing smoothly.... I know that a lot of people are longing to learn that set. I now have a glimpse of it in my heart and I might say; I think this set might for many people be to bloody powerful, I only got the essence now and training it this morning, after four repetitions I had to stop it, otherwise I would explode.....


After that we thought we would spend the next two and a half days with using those patterns against other martial arts as announced beforehand. Oh, we did, we truely did. Within one and a half days we learnd how to handle a Boxer or Kickboxer with some simple patterns which as such allready was quite advanced....Here is the point to say that ofcourse we are not at all in thi ability of defeating a skillful boxer or kickboxer, but we know what to train if we wanted or had to.


Here comes the third day!...this day will go into history of Shaolin Wahnam Switzeland.
To make it short, and to give some other partisipants the opportunity to tell some storys; we were visited by the eight imortals and learnd some very advanced stuff and some very rare closed closed door secrets and even people like Sifu Ronny Singer were astonishd, really astonished about the profundity of those patterns out of the Drunken Eight Immortals set. You might think thats great, but now it gets really historical, that was only the morning, in the afternoon we were visited by Chang San Feng and he brought us some of his profund and wonderful patterns out of the Wudang Taiji Chuan set.


It was just to much we have learned and experienced to put in one single post, so this is just ment to be a overview and hopefully the start to a nice discussion about that historical course.


Yes, the course was said to teach us to use Taiji Chuan and advanced Kung Fu against other Martial arts, and yes it did exactly that, and nothing else, but on a level of deapth and width, nobody would have expected.


Just three more things for the moment:


First: Some of us had to have some beers to cool down all the Chi we gaind in these days. ;-)


Seccond: I finaly was told that I will get to learn the Monkey Set. (Blessing number five)


Third: On my Way back home from Bern; bling bling... PAAMMM I had a vision of Sun Wukung in all his might and power – Wow! (blessing number six)


Thank you so very much Sigung for teaching and blessing us and for making all this wonderful things possible.


Thank you so much Sifu for exactly the same reasons.


And last but not least Thank you very much to all the participants and visitors.


Namo to all the past Masters
Namo Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa
Namo Amitabha Buddha


Sincerely Pat

[Kingmonkey]

What I can say is that next years courses will be very historical too:-)

so what do we have to expect ?
we expected a historical course last year.....
we had the unexpected this year....
so we can expect the unexpected for next year......

[Luo Lang]

Seccond: I finaly was told that I will get to learn the Monkey Set. (Blessing number five)

Well I remember when you applied to my first official Qi Gong course back in Winterthur you would already call yourself King Monkey. Persistant in training you shall learn the basics of the Shaolin Monkey Set.

The tricks I shall keep up to me to drop you gradually.

The jade stone or essence of it you shall ask your Sigung to show to you!

Your Sigung is allthough it's I guess not his speciality the best Monkey ever seen and experienced.