ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

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ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby marvin8 on Tue Jun 04, 2019 1:17 am

Ziran Men
Published on Mar 12, 2017

Here you can see my Shifu (Teacher), Yu Guang De from Dalian, China and me .
He teaches me Zi Ran Men. Zi Ran Men is a really rare system in China and didn´t find it´s way out of China until now. Actually It´s very close to Taiji , Xing Yi and Bagua but Zi Ran Men means natural and has a clear focus on fighting. Not like most of the Chinese Martial Arts , Zi Ran Men owns no TaoLu (Kata/ Form). All movements have to be practiced in a relaxed way (song) .

This clips shows some applications and explanations of using BaFa 八法 . I hope u can enjoy it :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZAq2eo9RUw


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47KOWSBG6ho

Ziran Men
Published on Mar 2, 2017

My teacher allowed me to Take a short clip of him practicing and allowed me to interview him on an important ability in Martial Arts Kai He (Open and Close ) I done my best to translate it as good as possible. if u see any big mistakes just leave a comment , but please respect that as a foreigner who´s focus is working and practicing, in China to generate deep knowledge language skills , is not that easy :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDBx1-EmWQ8
Last edited by marvin8 on Tue Jun 04, 2019 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby Giles on Tue Jun 04, 2019 11:15 am

Nice you picked up on this to post here, Marvin. I have participated in two Friday-Sunday seminars with Master Yu and Nassem over the last couple of years and I have really been impressed by, and profited from, Master Yu's teaching. ('Master' is actually a term I don't use much but in this case it feels wrong to me not to use it). Much of the training is real basics and is all based on walking/stepping. The kind of stepping pattern shown in the first video from 0:45 to 2:00 is typical, but in fact even this is more 'complex' than the basic one or two patterns, where the hands are held much lower or down alongside the body. In our seminars, for example: 10 guys doing a simple, slow-motion walking exercise through the dojo for over half an hour, with subtle, individual postural and 'mental' corrections from Master Yu. Kind of an internal, exhausting but also nice-to-do zombie shuffle. Other stuff a little more complex and also with partner exercises, but all revolving around the walking-based bodywork.
Master Yu is not only a very attentive and subtle teacher but also an extremely friendly and easygoing guy. No airs and graces whatsover, just like in the interview in the third video.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby wayne hansen on Tue Jun 04, 2019 12:07 pm

Liked your channel
https://youtu.be/TdTG34sPEIY

Can you explain the connection with Hsing I because there is clearly one
Last edited by wayne hansen on Tue Jun 04, 2019 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby Trick on Tue Jun 04, 2019 9:51 pm

Lived in Dalian for 10years and regularly go back to visit, totally missed out any Ziranmen there, got hooked up with Tongbeiquan since Dalian is a hub for that gong-fu
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby Giles on Tue Jun 04, 2019 11:32 pm

wayne hansen wrote:Liked your channel
https://youtu.be/TdTG34sPEIY

Can you explain the connection with Hsing I because there is clearly one


Hi Wayne, as if usually the case when Marvin8 posts some videos and quotes text, there is no connection between him and the referenced channel. My connection is that I have taken part in a couple of (very good) seminars but it's not my channel either.

I can quote Nassem (Master Yu's main student): "Here my Shifu demonstrates our 5 Elements五行拳. We don’t see the the elements as essential foundation to develop Chinese Martial Art Skills but much more as variations of our Jibengong基本功 (foundation practice).
So if you are a Xing Yi or Tong Bei practitioner, on the one side this will maybe look familiar to you but on the other side it will not, because this is not Xing Yi形意拳 oder Tongbei通背拳" The same goes for the 'tai chi-like' moves, as far as I have experienced.

Here's a video that more reflects my own relatively superficial experience of this training, although you have to imagine that these basic exercises are done for what feels like a looooong time and with plenty of hands-on correction. I can imagine you might rate the training because your signature words - Don't put power into the form let it naturally arise from the form - are very much emphasized by the teacher. And he has a lot of power.

FYI, I'm the taller guy in the blue pullover in the Berlin seminar. The non-Chinese guy who appears in most of the other videos is Nassem, Master Yu's tudi.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby marvin8 on Wed Jun 05, 2019 1:34 am

Yes, I just happened to come across those videos and they seemed interesting. @ Giles, thanks for sharing your experience with Master Yu and Nassem.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby Bao on Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:25 am

Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing y'all.

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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby HotSoup on Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:17 am

Giles wrote:I can quote Nassem (Master Yu's main student): "Here my Shifu demonstrates our 5 Elements五行拳. We don’t see the the elements as essential foundation to develop Chinese Martial Art Skills but much more as variations of our Jibengong基本功 (foundation practice)".


Probably true for all IMA: "What" doesn't really matter much, "How" does.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby dspyrido on Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:10 am

I have known two guys who did ziranmen as their core style. They also trained in other styles like tc, dishuquan, san da, tc, pi qua, liu he ba fa etc. They both mentioned that zrm was applied to the way they did their other forms (ie doing more fluid twists and height changes than other who had not trained zrm).

But their core zrm training was not about chi gung, slow drills, two man sensitivity play, slow forms, mind power or anything like that. Their training was all about conditioning drills using and weighted implements. Mostly like this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DffpTFgtcJ0

Later they would soften up, do technique/senstivity training but this was viewed as secondary to getting good at the basics.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby HotSoup on Mon Jun 10, 2019 10:12 am

Doesn’t seem to be the same Ziranmen.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby zrm on Mon Jun 10, 2019 5:58 pm

Yeah, I'm also interested in the lineage of this version of Ziranmen and if it's related to Du Xin Wu's teachings. There are a few Ziranmen lineages around and they seem as different to each another as some of the Baguazhang lineages are. The conditioning stuff show above is from Wan Lai Shengs lineage, which is the most common one. The training looks like this



Serge Augier's Ziranmen looks different to the Wan Lai Sheng school and seems a bit closer to what is shown above. When I watched Serge's stuff I noticed the stances are not as low and the movements are much more subtle, to the point I didn't recognize some of them at first. As I understand it Serge's teacher learnt mainly from Du Xin Wu, possibly much later in life to when Wan Lai Sheng trained with Du Xin Wu. Wan Lai Sheng was also heavily influenced by Liu He Men and Eagle Claw and made people train that as foundation before teaching them the softer stuff from Ziranmen or Taijiquan.

I haven't watched all of Serge's stuff but he rarely seems to discuss circle walking, which is lot different to the WLS school where circle walking is seen as a very big deal. My own teacher once mentioned that Wan Lai Sheng trained something that looked like "XIng Yi's five elements but different". My teacher didn't pick it up as he already practiced Xing Yi's version of five element fist and taught that instead.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby Giles on Tue Jun 11, 2019 6:42 am

I remember hearing Nassem say something along the lines of "Another style has the same name, but in essence that is another art completely". However, my involvement is only peripheral so if you want to know more I suggest you contact him directly.

Here's a video with more background info on (this iteration of) Ziranmen:

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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby dspyrido on Tue Jun 11, 2019 3:29 pm

The guys I mentioned trained under Wai Laisheng & his senior students in his later years. They are now 70+.

After poking about the net it seems Serge and Naseem had instructors from a similar WLS lineage but the bios are not that clear.

Could 2 views of the same style been formed in just 1 generation? Or are the same training methods used but one is more overt than the other. Or are we just crossing wires and they are the same? Idk. Don't really care that much about histories and lineage.

I do know that the guys I mentioned where extremely fluid in movement, very tough physically and mentally & had a good bag of techniques.

Anyway here's the man himself in his later years.

Last edited by dspyrido on Tue Jun 11, 2019 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby Yeung on Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:55 pm

Wan Laisheng's 1932 book on Taijiquan, translated by Paul Brennan:

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... -laisheng/
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Re: ZiRanMen 自然门功夫 training insights & Interview — Yu Guang De

Postby zrm on Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:39 pm

Here are some videos of the softer elements of Wan Lai Sheng's Ziranmen. No Shaolin influence here.

Wan Lai Sheng's version of Taiji.



There are no set forms in Ziranmen (well except for one) but shadow boxing looks like this.

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