Beijing Practice Groups?

[tastydurian]

Hello, I'll be in Beijing for a week or so in late August and wondering if there are any open practice groups that I could potentially drop in on? It could be XY, BG, TC, or Shuai Jiao as I have some experience in each.

[nicklinjm]

With the caveat that I am relatively new to Beijing (only 6 months in), my impression is that while there are a lot of groups here for those styles (xy / tj / bgz / shuai jiao), there are v few where outsiders are welcome to drop in at short notice. From my own experience if you try and visit, say, various yiquan / taiji / xingyi groups you will be politely invited to watch but not much more than that.

The only exceptions I can think of are the open push hands groups at Zizhuyuan Park and another one run by a teacher called Qiu which meets near Tucheng station - guess you could go there at the weekend and try your luck.

Of course, if the material you practice has a direct connection to a certain Beijing teacher then could be a different story!

[yeniseri]

Better to go, practice your current 'knowledge base' of what you know and only then will you may be able to be part of x practice group.
When you are seen practicing and showing some level of 'skill', you may be invited to join. My daughter only knows Beijing 16shitaijiquan
and after a few early morning practices, she was invited to share and pick up a few noteworthy tips. She was there for 4 months!

The same thing happened when she was in Shanghai where she was teaching English.
NOTE: Shanghai was a little more 'personal and friendler'