Next Step in Training

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Next Step in Training

Postby greytowhite on Tue Apr 11, 2017 7:12 pm

So I've been working on the xingyibagua of Kenny Gong's lineage for the past two years and recently tried out Han shi Yiquan. I got into a discussion with my now former instructor about how the attachments to Yue Fei, the stories of xingyiquan being used in the Chinese army on a widespread basis, and how Jiang Rong Qiao's Original Frame is not "THE ORIGINAL BAGUA EVAR." I'm an atheist and I don't take any of these stories on faith because I was taught at a very early point in my internals training that much of the oral traditions are more hagiographic than factual. Let's face it - there are people putting really good work in out there in the historical and scientific sides of things and it's hard to keep up with anatomy, human biology, and how to correlate that to Chinese medicine.

So I've got a good number of zhan zhuang postures from a few different styles to work on, a few local schools who are willing to do light sparring and grappling, a number of neigong exercises, and a good number of partner exercises. I am still good friends with people from the xingyibagua group I just can't stomach the teaching method. I am thinking of revisiting my childhood roots of aikido from a more informed perspective on the Chinese arts' approach to neigong. I also have Yin baguazhang, Chen village taiji, and perhaps some Eskrima again as an option.

My current focus is on a standard of Western fitness that is more befitting an athlete as well as stretching and mobility. I'll be working with a local Pilates instructor for strengthening my core and back in exchange for neigong.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby cloudz on Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:42 am

Sounds great man.
All the best with it, and look forward to an update at some point.

Is TOD as awesome in real life as he is online ? :D
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby bohdi on Wed Apr 12, 2017 6:35 am

Yeah, for sure it's an interesting time to be training TCMA. My shifu and I were talking about that the other day, especially with regards to people like wong kiew kit - serious research and translation along with things like youtube are making it a lot harder for people to sell snake oil without the recipient being a willing participant or just being too naive and out of touch to know any difference. To be sure, you still have jake mace and the internal wudang people out there, but I'm seeing more and more "well, the tradition says this but here's what research says" which is fantastic.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby greytowhite on Wed Apr 12, 2017 7:12 am

cloudz wrote:Sounds great man.
All the best with it, and look forward to an update at some point.

Is TOD as awesome in real life as he is online ? :D


Actually I found my whole experience to be quite pleasant and he was more than willing to kindly answer my questions. Speaking from experience - most of us IMA types are rather odd to begin with and our online and offline personas rarely match.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby cloudz on Wed Apr 12, 2017 7:27 am

No doubt brother
happy training
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby Yeung on Wed Apr 12, 2017 1:59 pm

cloudz wrote:No doubt brother
happy training


Actually the Chop Suey approach to martial arts is not a very good idea until one knew enough of one art to differentiate it from another art or sport.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby greytowhite on Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:46 pm

Yeung wrote:
cloudz wrote:No doubt brother
happy training


Actually the Chop Suey approach to martial arts is not a very good idea until one knew enough of one art to differentiate it from another art or sport.


Thanks for your lack of confidence - I'm quite aware of the differences between the arts - I've been practicing martial arts of all kinds for almost 23 years now. I've got a good idea about what I'm doing with over 10 years focused on "internal" training - I couldn't care less about carrying a lineage forward or having a "xingyi/bagua/taiji focused body." I care about gaining real, useful tools that can be used in a real fight. I've been in a lot of real fights - not sport fights. I get attacked when we're out at bars semi-regularly just because I'm the small guy people want to show off by trying to beat on me. I can handle myself against college wrestling competitors, against karate and wing chun people, and more - most IMA practitioners don't fight at all or with weapons. Do I care if what I'm doing is an external/internal hybrid? Nope - I'll take a useful tool belt over an empty one any day.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby MaartenSFS on Wed Apr 12, 2017 3:42 pm

Fair enough.. but Aikido.....? :o

Anyways, this is no different from what people did back in the day. They would take on anything that was practical. Good luck with your training.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby johnwang on Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:04 pm

greytowhite wrote:I couldn't care less about carrying a lineage forward or having a "xingyi/bagua/taiji focused body." I care about gaining real, useful tools that can be used in a real fight.

I like your attitude. If RSF's members can care more about "martial", this forum will be more fun to hang on. I don't understand why some people want to have "xingyi/bagua/taiji focused body, but don't care about "martial". Why not just take a dancing lesson instead?
Crow weep in the dark. Tide bellow in the north wind. How lonesome the world.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby greytowhite on Wed Apr 12, 2017 6:09 pm

MaartenSFS wrote:Fair enough.. but Aikido.....? :o

Anyways, this is no different from what people did back in the day. They would take on anything that was practical. Good luck with your training.


http://www.aikidosangenkai.org/blog/

Yes, I'm broke as hell and the local aikido dojo may allow me to attend class without pay for shugyo (martial research). The suwari-waza and focus on partner work in a safe manner interests me greatly - I need to learn the transition point between stand up and ground with similar body mechanics I've already established. I'd rather not deal with the testosterone fueled bullshit at some of the local BJJ gyms. It's going to be hell on my knees but oh well. I used aikido to great effect as a kid growing up in Stockton, CA - knife disarm was especially useful. Also the stuff along the lines of Yoshinkan's kamae and kihon dosa interest me greatly - I think a lot of power solo development in aikido is lost because people don't work on stances and single movement drills and only work on partner drills with 0 resistance. A lot of the stuff I've been reading that seems untranslatable to an aikidoka is almost a direct parallel to Chinese internal theory. Basically, the "super spiritual mystic" stuff that Ueshiba spouted was all straight from Chinese classics but they didn't have a background in Chinese classics. I've been reading this book and I fully understood what O-Sensei was saying in a lot of the "garbage" quotes.

http://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/ ... -fighting/
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby Taste of Death on Wed Apr 12, 2017 11:39 pm

cloudz wrote:Sounds great man.
All the best with it, and look forward to an update at some point.

Is TOD as awesome in real life as he is online ? :D


I'm so awesome in real life...
greytowhite wrote:I'm an atheist and I don't take any of these stories on faith...

my training partners have epiphanies after one push hands session and set out on a new path. I am an yiquan missionary. Who have you converted recently?
"It was already late. Night stood murkily over people, and no one else pronounced words; all that could be heard was a dog barking in some alien village---just as in olden times, as if it existed in a constant eternity." Andrey Platonov
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby wayne hansen on Wed Apr 12, 2017 11:54 pm

Those that don't see the value in good aikido are just immature or haven't come across good aikido schools
Don't put power into the form let it naturally arise from the form
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby Trick on Thu Apr 13, 2017 2:51 am

wayne hansen wrote:Those that don't see the value in good aikido are just immature or haven't come across good aikido schools

I will agree on this. If here where i live was a Aikido school i would really like to pick up that practice again, i like the liveliness and flow of Aikido.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby Yeung on Sun Apr 16, 2017 3:42 am

greytowhite wrote:
Yeung wrote:
cloudz wrote:No doubt brother
happy training


Actually the Chop Suey approach to martial arts is not a very good idea until one knew enough of one art to differentiate it from another art or sport.


Thanks for your lack of confidence - I'm quite aware of the differences between the arts - I've been practicing martial arts of all kinds for almost 23 years now. I've got a good idea about what I'm doing with over 10 years focused on "internal" training - I couldn't care less about carrying a lineage forward or having a "xingyi/bagua/taiji focused body." I care about gaining real, useful tools that can be used in a real fight. I've been in a lot of real fights - not sport fights. I get attacked when we're out at bars semi-regularly just because I'm the small guy people want to show off by trying to beat on me. I can handle myself against college wrestling competitors, against karate and wing chun people, and more - most IMA practitioners don't fight at all or with weapons. Do I care if what I'm doing is an external/internal hybrid? Nope - I'll take a useful tool belt over an empty one any day.


I just find it interesting when you said, " I'll be working with a local Pilates instructor for strengthening my core and back in exchange for neigong". As you sounded that your so called neigong did not strength your core and back. Maybe this is why your IMA instructors can not fight. I think you should review their lineages.
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Re: Next Step in Training

Postby greytowhite on Sun Apr 16, 2017 5:36 pm

Yeung wrote:I just find it interesting when you said, " I'll be working with a local instructor for strengthening my core and back in exchange for neigong". As you sounded that your so called neigong did not strength your core and back. Maybe this is why your IMA instructors can not fight. I think you should review their lineages.


That's one of the reasons I am breaking away - tried to empty my cup and held back my previous training for two years with the last instructor and I feel like he was deficient in helping me improve gua and dang integration with lower dantian. I got more experience with that in one three hour session of Yiquan than I did in two years of painstaking practice. Now I have some tools for middle dantian usage that are interesting that I have to learn how to rectify with a better understanding of lower body mechanics and good friends to help me further along a more correct path. Pilates is a great system that I used during my stroke rehab in addition to Feldenkrais and dynamic tension exercises to release "dead" zones and regain function. There's a lot of stuff in different systems that many IMA lineage queens miss out on.
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