Chris Ray's (chappel) Channel

[mrtoes]

Yup, Chris has very good skills! Is he still studying with Master Ma?

Matthew.

[Daniel]

Chris Chappel does the occasional private lesson with Master Ma, but is not one of the core people who studied for five years in Newcastle, and has so far chosen to stay outside the organisation Master Ma created in the West.

Master Ma himself will come to Sweden this summer, to Malmoe. Malmoe is Sweden´s third biggest town and a small version of Newcastle, actually, only twenty minutes by train from Kastrup International Airport in Denmark, near Copenhagen. Cheap flights from the UK go by Easyjet (Gatwick, Stansted) and Norwegian (ummm...Gatwick, I think). Total travel-time to Malmoe from London is about two hours. Flights booked well in advance can go as far down as 60-70£ return - sometimes even less. There is a wide range of accomodation available, anywhere from youth hostels (15£ and up) to hotels.

Since people here got interested, we will also put up more info about Master Wang (both in Chen and Hunyuan) and his background on this thread in a little while.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[GrahamB]

I have to say I've never seen anybody to Taiji quite like this before.... is this typical of the Hunyan approach?

[mrtoes]

Thanks Daniel.

Graham - you're right it looks very different. Looks like there's a lot going on there. Ra check out his hsing i:



Master Ma looks pretty scary!

Matthew.

[Ian]

that is impressive.

[C.J.Wang]

Is he from Feng's Hunyuan Xingyi Taiji school?

[RobP2]

that is impressive.

I must be missing something?

[Daniel]

Like what, Rob?

Mr Wang: Master Ma is a lineage disciple of Shang Ji of Xian, and has been for decades. I don´t know if Master Ma has studied Feng´s Xingyi as well. You can see his lineage chart linked earlier on this thread.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Daniel]

By the way, you can find an interview with his Master Ma´s senior disciple, Ferris Jerjis, in Alex Kozma´s latest book Ziranmen.

The interview covers Master Ma´s teaching methods, his background, and his specifics of internal power usage for real combat with the IMA.

Don´t actually know where you can get the book. Think it might be for sale only directly from Alex. Very good book, though, recommended.

I also published an interview with him a few years back in Tai Chi Chuan Magazine in the UK. It´s on my website.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Andy_S]

So where is your website? I'd be interested to read it, as his teacher does a very standard, comprehensive style of Chen Taiji but he has remodelled it radically.

[Daniel]

http://www.levandestillhet.se/artiklar

"Meeting Ma"

Some of my published articles. Almost all of them on this link are in English. Latest one, about the techniques for training awareness and cleaning out gaps in Taiji, qigong and IMA, got published this winter, so I´m putting it up soon.

The full site in Swedish is at 900 pages now, all written straight for the web to spread information and actually change the field to higher quality. The English one - www.livingstillness.se - is just at 200 pages so far, I think, as it´s a pretty big job to translate them.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Andy_S]

Hat - tipped!

[Daniel]

D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Andy_S]

Good article, but I'd like to know why he moves the way he does in his Taijiquan. I take it you found Ma more impressive than Frantzis?

[Daniel]

Well, I have explained this already on the thread, I think, but here goes again.

Master Ma can show classical Xingyi and classical Chen, but since his own focus is so much on combat efficiency, he has created his own version of these (Majia, Ma-style, I guess, ) which is souped up with and supercharged by the material from his daoist teacher, the fighting monk. He has also done the same thing to the Hunyuan-material from Feng.

Ma is also one of those rare teachers who keeps practising. If he has four hours to spare, he will practice for four hours, to this day.

Glad you liked the article. Thank you.

Edit: it´s also good to remember that anything out there on video is what Master Ma himself considers "public" material, and not what he would do for real or at higher levels. All his training is divided into three levels: public, intermediate and advanced. Only the public version should be shown, to, well, the public.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.