Welcome to the rum soaked fist. Please introduce yourself

[Mitlov]

Been lurking for a while, figured I should start an account.

My martial training began in high school, with four years of epee fencing. In college I did taekwondo. After settling in Oregon, I took up Shotokan karate, which I did for two years until I managed to separate my right knee (not fun). I turned to Yang taijiquan first for physical therapy purposes, but quickly learned to appreciate it as a martial art. I trained in it for several months and also dabbled in Wing Chun for a few months before the arrival of my son and a move to start a new job interrupted my training. After about a year, I found a Shotokan dojo in my new location (not easy to find anything in southern Oregon) and started training there. I then proceeded to throw my back out twice in a year. Apparently my body does NOT like Shotokan, and I finally started listening. After searching around for anything else decently taught in my area, I stumbled upon another Yang taijiquan school (taught out of an aikido dojo, of all places). So I'm back to doing taiji and really enjoying it.

For me, the question of "for martial purposes versus for health purposes" isn't an either-or. It's both. Knee pain drove me out of fencing, and a knee injury, continuing knee pain, and a couple back injuries drove me out of Shotokan. (None of these injuries were related to getting hit; all were related to wear-and-tear from the arts or injuring myself while delivering kicks). I like the martial side and I need the health side.

I've enjoyed reading the discussions here. People seem to know what they're talking about and the level of courtesy is far higher than on most other forums I've been on. I'm not sure how much I'll have to add, being a relative novice at taiji and all, but I'll give it a shot.

[baguamen22]

Hello, I practice mostly Jeet Kune Do, some Shaolin, and Baguazhang. I have been doing martial arts for 14 years now, and just enjoy sparring, fighting, and overall just the sense of accomplishment I get with martial arts.

[Orpheus]

I'm Brian Johnston, currently located in Seattle Washington.

I've been away from this board and martial arts for the last couple of months to deal with some personal matters.

I began martial arts studying in Sip Pak Gi school. I also studied San Da and Wu Shu there. That was about five years. My school suffered a scandal, and I left due to that and because I was burnt out. I moved to Seattle and began studying Chen Tai Chi and Bagua with Andy Dale, which I continue to this day.

I have also begun study of classical judo with Aaron Fields.

I studied Xing Yi with Wu Na Chang for about a year, practicing only the five elements and San Ti. I have also studied intermittently with Dave Harris. I will probably move to Beijing next summer to study Bagua Zhang and Shuai Jiao.

[deviatingtao]

Hi All,

I'm Mike, from NYC. Tried a bunch of stuff, trying to find a teacher for Bagua and/or Xingyi to start training in those.

[benf]

Hi all,
I've been here before, I'm more of a lurker than poster...

I'm an I Liq Chuan student, and I teach classes in Durham North Carolina. you can check out our group at http://www.mindfulkungfu.com/

-Ben

[Dogs Mercury]

Hi all

Long time lurker since the very early days when David DeVere was still interested and participating on the forum. I preferred his emptyflower xingyiquan scheme before the current 3.1 version.

Long time southern mantis practitioner

D.

[Muad'dib]

Devere is still around and reading the forum, he just doesn't post so much, FWIW.

[Bob Mnemos]

Does it matter which EF I was registered on before? I ain't been following all this stuff for a buncha months. Bob Mnemosopoulis. San Diego job, live in La Mesa. Xingyi different styles for a lotta years; started with Vince Black's group but now doing Dai Family. Compete in MMA. Bounce in assorted bars in SD. Programmer on the side. Like to check things out and see whass up wi' dat.

Bob

[Daniel]

Hey everybody. How´s things?

...long time listener, first time caller, and all that...

Various Taiji, meditation, and qigong since 1990. Then Dachengquan and tried other arts, some street-fighting stuff; started doing Bagua in 1994 in Beijing (Liang Zhenpu, for a very short time), then Bruce Frantzis´ material since about...umm...1996? Probably. ´97. Ish. Qigongs, Taoist meditation-work, Bagua, Xingyi. Also now in-door student of Ma Baoguo since 2003, a Hebei Xingyi and Chen-style master, student of Shang Ji of Xian in Xingyi and Wang Changhai in Chen. Also do various weird Daoist martial thingies with him. Have started learning Alex Kozma´s Xingyi from Alex, and really look forward to learning more. He´s a very skilled, very nice guy.

Writer by trade; full-time teacher in Qigong, meditation, and Internal Arts over the last decade. Been writing articles about it since 1994, a lot of it in English. Most of my time lately spent on my website, where there´s 600+ pages about this stuff as of now, not all translated into English yet, though, but available as it is at www.livingstillness.se.

I´m Swedish. Live in Sweden. Travel a fair bit to teachers. Practice a lot.

...and...what else...hmmm...yeah, I like coffee, but that´s in the profile...no, that´s it. Just happy to join up. Great forum; good karma to those who started it and keep it alive. Thanks.

D.

[ActiveMonkey]

Hi,
been visiting here back and forth for every so often but just registered. I started in Wado Ryu Karate in Scotland when I was 12yrs old. Was a bit of a natural but always thought that Karate was lacking something; actually quite a lot of things.
Anyway, from there I dabbled in other MA's including Muay Thai, Boxing but never got serious until I began Aikido with Sensei Matthew Holland of the Scottish Aikikai, who has awesome ability; he was Sensei Chiba's uchi-deshi for many years when Chiba was still in the UK. As much as I loved Aikido I had some problems with the ideology. I will probably return to Aikido at some time in the future and am looking forward to combining it with the power of Xing Yi.

Currently I am living in Shanghai and studying with an old Daoist master who primarily practices the Nei Jia of Sun Lu Tang; he knows the whole system. I've explained more about him in the find a teacher section so won't repeat it here.

Ganbei.

[Bryn M]

Hello everyone,

My name's Bryn, im new to all this but this is my very first thread At present i have 4 years of okinawan goju ryu karate do under my belt and also 1.5 years health tai-chi and One year of Wu style Taijiquan. Its great to see such a website with people of differing martial arts all conversing about a shared passion!!

Peace!

[MarcusR]

Hi everyone,

My name is Marcus Rosario from Paterson, NJ.

1989-1994 Shing-Yi under Stanley Walcott (Kenny Gong's lineage)
2003-present Shing-Yi under James Montalbano (at Kenny Gong's old school).

I honestly have never been much for words on forums. However, I've been working overnights lately and I'm hoping this will assist me every once in a while to keep me "stimulated." Or awake, if you know where im coming from.

Peace.

[Inner_man]

Hi all

Im Rob Chauval based in Auckland New Zealand. In my previous life on EF I was previously known as "Robster" but I've decided to reinvent myself as Inner_man.

GREAT TO BE BACK

I've been super busy for the last 24 months traveling all over on business (Africa and Middle East mostly) and haven't had any time to keep in touch with EF or my training and now that I'm back I find EF has moved on and my previous logon don't work anymore.

As for my MA background;

- 3 yrs Shotokan karate when I was a teenager - invaluable as I now know the hard and truely linear.

I decided that circular was best and started looking for Bagua Zhang but couldnt find a teacher here in NZ during the 80s so I started Taiji in the belief that I would eventually move on to BGZ later.

- 17yrs Yang Taiji. Part one with Peter Boston (Earle Montaigue...) which was incredibly valuable but I could see that there were clear limits so I moved on to Part two - Marcus Zhao who had studied directly under Fu Zhongwen and I was proven correct that there was A WHOLE NEW TAIJI WORLD with real depth. I owe both Peter and Marcus a lot and thank them both from the bottom of my heart for sharing their passion of IMA with me.

- 12 yrs Shang Hsing-I Chuan and BGZ, with now Shifu Richard Hwang here in Auckland and absolutely loved his stuff (in parallel with Taiji under Marcus) Hsing-I is def me and absolutely what I've been looking for all these years. Spent a lot of time in Taiwan (90s) with Shifu and Wutan including Shibo GM Dai and Daimon Hwang who have both been absolutely amazing to train with.

Things got a bit complicated with Marcus and Shifu so I decided to focus solely on Hsing-I and BaGua now - tho' I still dabble with Taji on occasions when I get homesick for it.

[velalavela]

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[zhongdin]

Hi all.