Shaolin Chin-Na June 2008

[joko]

Yes!
It will be great! Congratulations.

[Damian Kissey]

Dear All ,

Happy travelling and see you in Sabah soon .

Sifu , Roseline and me are on a driving trip and are now in Sandakan : will be seeing all of you on the evening of June 8th at the Perkasa Hotel Kundasang at Mount Kinabalu .

Best regards ,

Damian .

[Andrea]

So many unique opportunities in one year . Isn't it wonderful that our family has grown so much and to such a level that yet another secret will be shared !

Wishing you all an amazing and blessed course !

Andrea

[Zhang Wuji]

My experiences - a review

I have been home a little over 24 hours and it is time for me to pen (type) my review of the 2008 Qinna course. I took a little bit of time because I was catching up on lost sleep and I was organising my thoughts.

It was and is a wonderful course. Together with all the course participants, I am so grateful to Sifu for teaching us the priceless art of qin-na, and to Dr Damian, Dr Rosaline and Bernie (Adam on this forum) for making the course even more enjoyable.

Let me begin with a broad outline of the course syllabus as it was taught to us - as you will notice, when written out, it is brief, but when we were training......

A. Day 1

1) Review of One-Finger Shooting Zen
2) Remedies for internal Qin-na injuries
3) External Qin-na training
4) Remedies for inuries from external training
5) 5 combat sequences (5)

B. Day 2
1) Internal Qin-na training - Fierce Tiger Cleanses Claws
2) Combat Sequences (10)

C. Day 3
Combat Sequences (11- 25?)

D. Day 4
Combat Sequences (25-45??)

E. Day 5
1) Bone Marrow Cleansing
2) Combat Sequences (45-72)

As you can see, there were a LOT of sequences to be learnt. On the first day, we were rather optimistically thinking there would be more than enough time to learn the sequences, on the (now proven false) assumption that the 72 sequences would be incorporated in a maximum of 20 sequences. But no.....there was one sequence for each of the 72 sequences....This must be something of a record. If you thought cramming 16 combat sequences in 5 days was bad.......

OK, some back-story, as it were. Before I arrived for the course, there were two questions in my mind.
* Was the course title "Shaolin 72 qin-na techniques" a misnomer? Surely, we were not just going to learn just techniques?
* Would we be learning counters to the techniques?

I actually knew the answers to both questions even as I held them in my mind but it was nice to be proven right

* With regard to the first question, one of the most important principles we took away from the course was: Techniques are not as important as our internal force training, a point often stressed in our basic training, but even more significant at advanced levels. I will go more into this in a while, but before I go on, I would like you to read this post I wrote a while back, and which contents were fortified during this course.

*As for the second question, well, let's just say, I would welcome (after sufficient practice) any Aikido or Jujitsu exponent trying to lock and hold me

Duty is calling (ie, the kids) but I would like to slip in a very fundamental lesson that was drummed into me in the course of the sequences training, and that is: the basics - moving correctly in stances, safety first, and daily practice - are the most important of all. Anyone who attempts qin-na without a sufficient foundation in the basics is just wasting his time. He will end up with a host of fancy but useless techniques.

And now, the crying is getting louder and incessant so I really must go. Tune in tomorrow for the next episode...

[Alex]

Photos! click for slideshow

[Jonny Say]

Dear Wuji

Thanks for taking the time to recount some of the details of the course, I look forward to reading more.

Thanks Alex for providing the photo, its lovely to see family members having fun on holiday!

All the best

[Zhang Wuji]

I will continue the post, everyone.

As I noted earlier, Sifu reviewed our One Finger Zen to correct, enhance and deepen our skills. He then made a very illuminating statement that would continue to reveberate throughout the 5 days and beyond: "Your One Finger Zen and other force training are far more important than the qin-na techniques."

As was many truths and secrets revealed to us during the course, much of what Sifu transmitted to us was not new, and yet at the same time, refreshingly enlightening. Sifu has been saying the same things to us, whether at qigong or the basic kungfu courses: relax, let your qi flow, go with the flow. Anyone who has gone through tertiary education (actually, even primary education) would have experienced how a lesson taught years or months ago suddenly take on a whole new meanng. That irritatingly obtuse mathematical formula, say, of trigonometry, suddenly makes so much sense when one is standing in at the base of a beautiful landmark like Mount Kinabalu, and wondering about the angle one should stand to be able to see the peak.

Fortunately, whether or not we have perceived the significance of what Sifu had transmitted to us much earlier, most of us had been been practising the basic building blocks of kungfu so essential for proficiency in qin-na. A quick check with my brethren confirmed that force training was the centerpiece of our daily training, though some like me had not been practising combat sequences as frequently as was ideal.

I will go into the actual meat of the qin-na training tomorrow, but I thought I should highlight the paramount importance of basic training. It takes a course like this to truly reinforce the crucial nature of basic training (by exposing the glaring weaknesses resulting from an inadequate foundation). On second thoughts, I would say that if tactics, strategies, application and techniques are the meat of qin-na, then our core basic training must be the bones.

[psychvet]

Thanks Z.W. for the writing and Alex for the photos. I really enjoy both! I especially liked seeing a few familiar faces from the course before yours, and some shots of places I wish I had taken when there!

[Zhang Wuji]

Thanks for the encouraging responses. (remember, the name's Wuji)

And I continue:

After the One-Finger Zen training, during which Sifu corrected some minor mistakes in our postures that we had not even noticed, we went into the philosophical aspects of Qin-na. As Sifu often remarks, "philosophy" does not mean empty and theoretical intellectualisation. In Chinese culture, and especially in Chinese medicine and marital arts, philosophy means the accumulation of practical knowledge and consolidation thereof into a coherent set of records.

Sifu explained that Qin-na is a compassionate art, whereby one can temporarily disable the opponent without maiming him. At the same time, it takes a high level of skill to achieve such submission of the opponent. It is for this reason that qin-na is classified as an advanced art, when compared with arts that depend only on hard-hitting strikes and kicks. And of course, qin-na is more than locks and holds. Students of acupuncture will immediately have noticed how qin-na grips target specific points on the meridians. An observer may ask "what happens if you miss the points"? I will leave the answer to others to explain privately to our fellow Wahnam students, because I am not sure if giving the answer here in public would be wise.

Without giving away any secrets, I will say that qin-na is much more than a physical attack on the opponent. As with our general Shaolin arts, it involves both the energy (qi) and mind (shen).

To this end, Sifu had us apply a qin-na grip on ourselves (right hand applying on left or vice versa), and feel the effect on our body. This was after he demonstrated a low-power grip on Adam, who, obviously, from his facial expression, felt every watt and amp of Sifu's (deliberately) reduced power. We all felt some adverse effects to some degree when we tried it on ourselves, and almost immediately, Sifu started us on the remedial exercises.

The remedial exercises were as follows:

a) Lifting the Sky
b) Flicking Fingers
c) Dancing Butterfly
d) "Flicking wrists and bending down" (sorry, does anyone know what this exercise is called)
e) and of course, qi flow.

For those who are not proficient in or even aware of these exercises, Sifu advised that we prescribe a concoction for our opponents on whom we have applied qin-na.

I think it is immensely important that we hold this sense of duty to our opponents, especially those opponents whom we encounter in friendly sparring competitions. When we take part in competitions or have friendly sparring sessions, we have an obligation not to hurt our partners with our strikes backed with internal force, and if we accidentally do, to do all we can to heal, restore and strengthen them.

Sifu also said something that held much significance for me:
"The mind works in marvelous ways" - even though it is to yourself, but because the instruction was to apply qin-na, rather than to heal, the mind applied qin-na as instructed." Hidden in these words were, in my view, the essence of qin-na, and in fact, of the Shaolin arts.

[Adam Kryder]

Videos

Is anyone else having trouble playing the videos?

I have a Mac.


Best WIshes,

Adam

[Adam Kryder]

Nevermind

To play the videos on a mac find and download

VLN Player

Best Wishes

Adam

[Zhang Wuji]

I have a problem playing it on a PC. Do I need to download anything to play VOB files?

[Omar]

Video assistance has arrived!

Congratulations everyone with the wonderful course. Can I have a list with names and pictures showing who was there so I know who to stay away from this summer camp?

Technical jargon to follow..

VOB files are raw DVD data, similar to what you find if you put a DVD video disc in your PC and open it.
Any software DVD player like windvd, powerdvd etc. should be able to play them.
If there is only VOB and for example .idx files on your disc, it is most likely a video dvd, try put it in your dvd player.

For general problem free managing of video playback on a computer, theres a neat little project called cccp. It's a collection of video playback filters created and assembled to provide what you need to play any sensibly authored video file on your computer without messing things up, as installing multiple video playback codecs will usually do.

If your pc is already having say 43,7 different video filters installed and you have problems with video playback in some way, I recommend to also get the "insurgent" from the site, as it will have a look in your computers way of playing video and propose fixes to improve it.

I have used this for many years now perfectly smooth, working somewat with video I prefer it above solutions like windows media player among others. Not sure however if this works on a Macintosh as I never tried it on one.

[TaiChiPete]

Dear Wuji,

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

there was one sequence for each of the 72 sequences....This must be something of a record. If you thought cramming 16 combat sequences in 5 days was bad.......

Pete

[Zhang Wuji]

Thanks Omar for the assistance. Sadly, my PC's DVD player does not recognise the files either, so I am in a mild panic right now. How am I supposed to learn 72 sequences without those videos!!! Will try the cccp thing later.

Typo in my last post: "there was one sequence for each of the 72 sequences....This must be something of a record. If you thought cramming 16 combat sequences in 5 days was bad......."

It should have been "there was one sequence for each of the 72 **techniques**....This must be something of a record..."

More on Day 1.

We then began with the techniques proper. We learnt only 5 combat sequences this day, but what an awesome set of 5. The first sequence was the ubiquitous "Single Tiger Emerges from Cave". We have often heard that the Single Tiger is not just a "block" - it is a "lean", with Sifu and instructors almost as often alluding to but never directly expounding on its qin-na use. Well, here's news - the Single Tiger IS qin-na, and if you have been practising your basic sequences 1 to 4 diligently, is comparatively easy to apply (see, told you the basics are important).

We realised that even learning 5 sequences could be daunting, but like I said earlier, we had wrongly assumed that since each sequences contained a few different qin-na techniques, we could comfortably finish (72 / 3 = 24 or 25) in the next few days. Sifu spent a great deal of time on these 5 sequences, explaining the fine points.

It was quite fascinating to see Sifu's teaching methodology in action. The forum is full of posts about how Sifu improves his teaching methods after each course, so that old-time students are frequently amazed at how quickly newer students learn the skills. I can now report that Sifu even improves his methods during the course. After it became obvious that our brains were being fried and/or frozen from the countless (quite literally, from our point of view) sequences - this was on the second or third day, I really cannot remember - Sifu assigned one sequence to each pair. This worked wonders as we could focus on mastering one sequence a day but yet remained alert enough to absorb the essence of the other sequences.

Between the third and fourth day, there were already about 50 sequences being taught and I confess I went through some of them groggily (I need those videos!). It came to a point that I could remember the sequences as they were being taught but promptly forgot each one as the next was taught. But strangely, on the last day, my mind was extraordinarily clear and I felt confident I could remember and execute the sequences when I do review and practice them one by one (this was due in no small part to the Marrow Cleansing, which I will write more about sortly).

I kind of jumped the gun by talking about the sequences up to Day 5, but really there is nothing much more I can say about the sequences since they cannot be described in words anyway. I can only say that to execute the sequences properly, one must have good stances and internal force, which once again underlines my point that the basics are all-important.

Next segment - the force training for Qin-na

Many were most intrigued to see bags of black and green beans, cooker stoves and glass jars in the training hall. It turned out that these were the materials for the "hard and external" training. Sifu said that although the nature of our training is internal, it is good to revisit and relive the training path taken by those before us (including himself, who had undergone the same training before). The training methods are all in "The Art of Shaolin Kungfu" - I checked the book 2 nights ago, and the book contains all the necessary instructions. Yet, there is a world of difference when we tried out the training methods with Sifu being around.

As an aside, it is absolutely jaw-dropping to see Sifu doing finger push-ups. Most men at Sifu's age cannot even get into a push-up position. But Sifu's picture-perfect push ups (actually, this was Taming the Tiger, a qigong exercise, not push-ups) put me to shame. Inspiring what genuine Shaolin training can do, isn't it?

We then washed our hands in the herbal concoction that Dr Rosaline and Bernie kindly and painstakingly prepared for us. It was a pleasant sensation having the medicinal and nourishing mixture drying on our arms in the fresh mountain air.