Intensive Taijiquan in MALAYSIA September 2008

[Andrea]

Dear Jeffrey Sipak,

What are the five factors to take into consideration when we are training moving in stances?

A big thank you for posting these question. There was so much material on the course, I probably would not have gone back to these points any time soon. And while doing so I realized how much of a tresor, they will be for my practice.

Why? Because one of the difficulties I had when practicing "moving in stances" was that I "ran out ideas" where and how to move. These factors and the way Sigung taught them, make it easy to first select where I want to be at the end of the move and how I will be moving. Amazing . I will definately spend time practicing moving in stances over the next few weeks. But first let's see if I did get the 5 factors correctly. Here is my answer:

1. Directions - as given away by Huber Sisook on his post above. Thank you.
2. Leg mode: Left to Right, Left to Left, Right to Left, Right to Right (I just saw Ade Sisook added this one allready while I was writing this post)
3. Reference point: Front leg, mid point, back leg.
4. Yin-Yang approach to leg movement: Inside-out (Yin approach), outside-in (Yang approach) or straight
5. Body movement:Clockwise or anti-clockwise

Are they correct? If so I feel confident about 4 of the 5 factors. The one I am still not very sure I understand correctly is the reference point. My understanding is that whatever we choose as the reference point is where the movement is started. If we turn to another direction this is also the rotation point. Is it? I think what confuses me is my understand of a reference point as a "fixed point" - i.e the point that does not move, while here it is the point that moves first.

If my understanding as explained above is correct, what does it mean for the mid point? Is it just the "rotation" point? Where does the movement start? I tried to review the video about this part (MOV05870 disk1) but however hard I try, I fail to see the link between the mid point and the movement sigh . I would be very grateful for any comment and help.

Warm regards from cold little Switzerland (4°C yesterday in the morning)

Andrea

[joko]

With regard to the five factors of moving in stances I think the second point is how you are going to get there, Right / Right, Right / Left, etc

I think the third factor is the point of reference in turning; front, mid, or back.

Joko

[Jeffrey Segal]

Excellent answer, Andrea!

I agree that the scope of this exercise is enormous

One way of understanding the reference point is that this is where the back leg will be when you have arrived at your new stance. In other words, the reference point is where you need to get to with your new back leg before you can correctly move into your new position. Where there is a rotation, it's the point about which you rotate. It's also worth noting that when we talk about the point of reference, we're talking about the stance we're in before we move, not the position we're moving to! Here are some examples to illustrate what I mean.

Let's say we're training Bow Arrow Stance and that we're starting in right mode facing north. Please note that this is the starting point for each of the examples i.e. they are not continuous. For now, let's just concern ourselves with the first three factors which are direction, leg mode and point of reference. You'll notice that I just write "Left" or "Right" for the second factor. Thus, if we are starting in Right mode, "Left" means "Right-Left" and "Right" means "Right-Right".

North, Left, Front means that we'll take a full step forward into Left Bow Arrow.

North, Right, Front means we would roll forward with the left leg and then advance the right leg (so we'd still be in Right Bow Arrow).

East, Right, Front means we would roll forward with the left leg and then turn to the right and advance the right leg into Right Bow Arrow (facing east). In this case, the point of reference is also the point of rotation.

East, Right, Back means we would roll back with the right leg and then turn right and advance the right leg into Right Bow Arrow. Here again, the point of reference is the point of rotation

West, Right, Middle means we would roll forward a half step with the left leg and turning to the left, advance the right leg into Right Bow Arrow (facing west) Here, the mid point of our original Right Bow Arrow has become the point of rotation and the place where are (left) back leg belongs.

and one slightly trickier example

South, Left, Back means we'd turn around and roll forward with the right leg before advancing the left leg into Left Bow Arrow. Alternatively, we could roll back with the right leg and then turn and advance the left leg into left bow arrow facing south.

Please let me know if that's clear.

Greetings from Melbourne

[barrys]

Jeffrey,

Thanks. Very clear.

Barry

[Andrea]

Yes your explanation is very, very clear. Thank you for your help and the great examples Jeffrey Sipak. (Die sind cheibe guet .)

While changing the reference point for different moves, I also realized (finally ) why using an intermediate unicorn step comes in handy . (For example starting Right/facing North, moving East, Left, Middle)... I think I will have some fun with this *smile.

Big thanks.

Andrea

[Mark CH]

Wow there was such a large group, excellent. Nice to read all the experiences.

[ANDRESLONDONO]

Thanks to Sigung Wong for such nice course. For your teachings and your hospitality including of course the marvelous work of Wei Foong
Thanks to all participants and to the family for sharing your experiences.
Thanks to you all for this thread
Congratulations to Sifu Antonio and Sifu Simon. Well done and all the support you need.
Thanks to Sifu Antonio for openning it and Sifu Jeffrey and Andrea for starting the completin of this first subject. Very clear and very good. I please ask and want to contribute (as far as possible) to keep with more subjects of the course of Malaysia,
As requested I want to share some of my experiences in the course in Malaysia.
1. I just want to say the practice is worth it, I knew it because after 6 months of continuous training in order to learn the most in the intensive Taichi Chuan course in Malaysia I can say I enjoyed this course more than anyone else with Sigung Wong. My invitation to you all is to keep with the daily practice. Thanks again to Sifu Emiko for your help on telling me how to train by myself imagining the oponent and enjoying the practice. Thanks to Sifu Hubert for stressing how important is to relax on stance training. Thanks to Sifu Jeffrey and Sifu Robin for giving the advice of stance training and moving between stances some time ago in the blue mountain. Thanks to Sifu Rama and Sifu Piti for the importance of the differentiating Ying and yang and the waist movement. After including all these advices for six continuos months (almost daily) I can say training steadly is worth a lot, I am really thrilled with the practice. What Sigung says constantly: "do this or do that for 3 months daily and you will notice is really a treasure to be followed".
2. Is was amazing to cross hands with the japanese team so "wisdomly" guided by Sifu Emiko. This is also the proof as Sigung Wong says that a very beatiful, tiny lady can be very powerful. Sifu Piti can testify himself of a very powerful throw by a japanese lady. And most of all the attitude of all of you was very delightful.
3. It was great to see again Adrian Pete Irene David and the Latin team, It is inspiring to see you again
4. It was great to see the local team (Senthu and Mr. KL) you brought a lot of hapiness.

And finally I want to highlight the joy of sharing with Sifu Ricardo Salvatore, your warmth, respect and easy going was very much appreciated. (Muito obrigado pela sua atitude durante a semana)

It was a shame others as Sifu Robin, Barry Wouter and Priya could not make it.

I want to propose as said before to Sifu Simon and Sifu Antonio and now beeing a reality in this thread with the leadership of Sifu Jeffrey to create a compilation of some of the most remarkables knowledgements. Count with me as far as possible.

Greetings from Bogota Colombia

[parrapiti]

Here are my additions to Jeffrey Siheng´s questionnaire:

1.- How long does it take for durian smell to disappear completely?
2.- How many rats are required to scare Rama Siheng?

This course was intensive in all levels. The learning opportunities never stopped, both during the formal part of the course as well as during "freetime".

Thank you all!

Piti

[Jeffrey Segal]

Hoi Andrea

I'm glad you liked my examples (ha müese cheibe im "Zürichdeutsches Wörterbuch" naa luege)

Yes, yes, some of the wonders of the Unicorn step can be discovered when training Moving in Stances.

[Jeffrey Segal]

Bienvenidos al hilo, Piti y Andres!

Thanks for your lovely post, Andres. I think you've captured the feeling of the course really well. I'm glad you took my advice to focus on Stance Training in Costa Rica last year. I found your Taijiquan to be greatly improved in all aspects. Well done

In fact, your timing is also pretty good because I was thinking that we could now take a step back from Moving in Stances back to Stance Training proper.

I'd like to invite everybody to share their current or past Stance Training experiences/program etc.

In my own training, these days I alternate between doing all the stances in one session with a longer 3 Circles Stance at the end (1-2 times each week), or just concentrating on one stance, usually Goat Riding Stance.

A couple of months ago, my Shaolinquan brother Steve came to Melbourne to visit Lauren and me. Steve's current Zhan Zhuang routine is to spend 20 minutes in Horse Riding stance with Two Tigers at the Ready, followed by 20 minutes in Golden Bridge and then 3 rounds of One Finger Shooting Zen (with some extra Dragon training) to round it off. All in all, about 50 minutes in Horse Riding Stance per session.

It was very inspiring for my student Chris and me to train with Steve. Having somebody next to us in Horse Riding Stance made it really easy to enjoy our Goat Riding Stance for 50 minutes. For Chris it was quite a breakthrough. Until then, I'd say that the longest he had trained Goat Riding Stance was about 20-25 minutes. Thank you, Steve!!

So, where are you all at with your Stance Training?

[Jeffrey Segal]

Piti, no idea how many rats it takes to scare Rama but the smell of Durian is always there, just close your eyes and think of room 604 (or the entire 6th floor) at the Copthorne........

[NaokoY]

Dear Shaolin Family,

I was very excited to be in the Intensive Taijiquan course in Malaysia.
The experiences there were wonderful and precious to me.

Thank you very much for planning and managing everything for us, so that
I could learn deeply like this. I was so happy to learn with a lot of Seniors who were kind, gentle and powerful. They showed me how to become polite, pure, and spiritual as a disciple.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Sigung for generously teaching us wounderful skills, and to all of my Seniors for their patience.
And it was such a pleasure to train with all of the family.

I was able to learn how to spar with small person to big person.
I learnt how necessary it was to use good spacing, timing internal force and 6 harmonies.

This thread is very effective to depen our understanding of this course.
Thank you Jeffrey Sipak and everyone.

Please forgive my English.

Now I am training stance in movement.

Happy Smile,

Naoko

[Jonny Say]

Dear Shaolin Wahnam Family

I was also blessed to attend this wonderful course.
I enjoyed every moment from start to finish. Having taken Kung Fu courses with Sigung it was really interesting to compare the way the Tai Chi Chuan intensive was taught compared to these, and with no surprise there were many similarities.

I hadn't taken a course with Sigung for a little while and I was utterly blown away by the power of training around him, so much so I was walking on air for the whole time! The content, style and method of his teaching has evolved once again and I thought this course was truly complete, literally everything you need to train for life in 5 days.

It was great to meet so many wonderful members of the Wahnam family, everyone was so relaxed and happy and this was a real joy to be around.

So thank you to everyone who made this course possible, to my fellow participants and to Sigung for his truly generous teaching - so many closed secrets I filled a notebook a night practically!

Love to all

ps great thread Uncle Jeff, and I will get involved in the discussion when my time free's up a bit!

[AColarusso]

Hello everyone,

I will start uploading some picture in www.shaolinwahnam.com.ve/photos

I will try my best to have all of them ready by friday.

Thank you

[AColarusso]

Hello everyone,

Sorry the last address had an error here is the corrected link

http://www.shaolinwahnam.com.ve/photos.html

Thank you