taiji fajin

I don't know how many of you know him, but there is a Chen style Taijiquan Grandmaster who is famous named Feng Zhiqiang. If you don't know him, look him up, he is very impressive. In any case, one day a person was talking to Feng, describing some of Jackie Chan's training. They told Feng of this very impressive guy (Chan) who when he was younger would train in very strict ways, having to do lots of jumping, tumbling, etc, and how his instructors would strike him with a staff whenever he was the slightest bit off. The person then asked Feng if he ever had to go through such painful experiences to reach his level of skill. Feng simply said, "oh, no no, I just stand there" and stood in the santi meditation posture.

1. Heart and spirit void and quiet from start to end. 2. Center equilibrium. 3. Use mind to move qi. The heart is the commander. 4. Start with sink and drop. 5. Search for soft and smooth. 6. Inside/outside and upper/lower should work together. 7. The transition of yin/yang will help you find hard/soft. 8. The silk reeling force should be present through the body. 9. Search for open/close by folding the chest and stomach. 10. Concentrate on dantian to improve neigong (internal force). 11. Keep your heart calm, mind quiet, and practice slowly (stillness in 12 movement). The form is a moving standing pole (huo zhuang). 12. You will be successful if you know both how to practice and how to nurture yourself (yang sheng). What do you guys think of these? For me, they are extremely helpful. Its hard to say which one helps me the most, so instead I will say which one I have the most trouble with and need to work on the hardest. I believe this would be 12. While I nurture myself during my formal taiji practices, my nurturing throughout the rest of my life, equally as important, has definitely dropped. I am doing my best to try to get back on track, though.

Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang created the 48 forms I practice from the "long form." He got rid of replicated parts and added in forms from pao cui. My laoshi is a formal disciple of Grandmaster Feng, so we stay close to Grandmaster Feng's training style.

Don't forget KJN Sims making people do "one push-up" as well. To get more on topic, though, what do you guys feel about a lot of low stance training, especially for the lower belts? Such low stances have been shown to cause knee problems in many people, especially later in life. This can be helped some by slowly working into it (but do we do that with lower belts?), but even then you are still at a much higher risk to have bad knees. Do you think of doing low stances for building leg strength (in which case, how much time should we spend doing it, especially if it puts the knees at risk), or do you think of it as a stable structure that allows you to strike hard, or even better, release (or negate) energy? Interesting side note #1 - who has seen Kuk Sa Nim do low stances? In all the videos I have seen of him, whether instructional videos or at demonstrations, plus just what I have seen in person, I have never seen him get into a low stance. Interesting side note #2 - I've noticed none of you have mentioned meditation in your schedules. How much emphasis do your schools put on the "internal" part of Kuk Sool, as Kuk Sa Nim has repeatedly said that Kuk Sool is both an "internal" and "external" martial art.

We do have a fairly large number of pads. Not enough for everyone, and no place to store them, but I think I might start bringing them more and doing more of those drills, thanks. We also just recently got a few rebreakable boards. Dan, you just reminded me of a fun stance drill we do. Horse stance, turn one direction for long stance, pull it back into cat stance (half of the time hold it, half of the time do front leg front kicks), then step with the lead leg across in front into dragon stance, then turn around into horse stance and repeat. All stances are done in the same amount of time (usually 30 seconds or a min) in a nice, low stance. Once you've gone through it twice, you end up back where you started, counts as 1 rep. Not that many people in my club can do that many reps of that . . . . .

I practice Chen style, for about the past year or two. I cannot say I have practiced other styles, but from what I have gathered Chen style has a lot more spiral energy. I have seen Yang style on DVD, and it seems very . . . . . I don't know how to describe it, it looks more rubber band-ish than what I practice, more emphasis on flexibility, while Chen seems more on solid structure. That could just be from the DVD's I have seen, though, and not a common theme. I am in no way trying to say Yang style (or any style) is better or worse than another. I am curious, what aspects of taiji are in your guys' practices? For mine, we cover Qigong, Form, Push Hands, and Silk Reeling. We do some work with taiji rulers, though none of us are up to weapons yet (at least not in my group). Then there are misc activities to complement learning how to relax, move chi, etc. I think that covers it, but its late and I'm tired . If I think of anything else we do I'll post it later.

Thank you to everyone for the warm greetings. I'm looking forward to chatting on this forum.

KSN Doug Yes, I'm teaching in the same dojang that I learned in. With the choice aspect, I think I came across a little the wrong way. People are not allowed to only do one or the other. They have to do both each week. There is just a leftover day since we have an odd number of practices where they can be in one or the other. I do understand your point about people avoiding what they least like to do (and usually need to do the most) though. We specifically focus on our problem areas during the practices that are brown belts and up. I will definitely take into consideration your advice on the splitting of class, though. Kicks, punches, etc are trained both during the warm up, work out, and the practicing sections. We don't avoid those, though I admit there is more emphasis on techniques and forms. Part of this comes from the lack of teaching we had from our old instructor on any kick mechanics, part from my own dislike of kicks. What I do feel we actually are being undertrained in is sparring. We grapple a lot, people love to stay after class and drill or live grapple, but sparring time is almsot non existant. In the 4 years before my old instructor left, I think we had all of 5 or 6 days where he had us do anything remotely close to sparring. Even worse, about half the "techniques" for sparring would get you a point in a match that stopped for every point, and get you thoroughly beaten up in real life. I honestly just don't know any profession type drills for sparring, just things I can think of on my own, and then different kicking and punching drills against pads. Another problem is the lack of padding the students have. Most of them are on a very tight budget. The class is made up of college students, and we try to keep the cost low for them. Sorry for the long post, I am usually long winded and will try to keep things even shorter in the future. Thank you for your input.

So for those of you that practice Kuk Sool, what is the general lay out of your practices? I'm a fairly new instructor at it and would like any possible ideas to incorporate into my own practices, which are about a hour and half long. Here is how I run it now: First 15 min are a light warm up (jumping jacks or light kicks / punches to get muscles loose), and then stretching so we aren't hurt. Next 30 minutes are teaching new techniques or forms, or just refinement. Next 30 minutes have the class split in half. People can choose whichever they want, depending on what they want out of Kuk Sool, but they are encouraged to do both options every week (we have 3 practices, or 4 for brown belts and up, each week). One half does a Kuk Sool oriented workout. The other half continues to practice techniques, forms, etc. The last 15 minutes are when we meditate, along with announcements for the class. So, what do you guys do in your practices?

Good fans are DEADLY, but they need to be made well (strong supports, hidden weapons, etc). I've seen some demonstrations with them that were very nice. While opened they can be used to cover a person's view (and sometimes can be used against the eyes or throat). Closed they can be used like a dahn bohng (short staff). In the past, they also had hidden weapons in them. The feathers on the end had poisoned powder in them designed to blind. Open it up across the eyes or even near them, the resulted cloud of powder blinds the person. Also hidden in the feathers were tiny blades that could be used to rake across the eyes or throat as it was opened. Not that those hidden weapons would be used in a demonstration, but the rest of the pressure point attacks and joint locks make me not want to be on the receiving end of them, even in just a demo.

Beats me out, I'm 23, started at 21. If you find a good instructor, keep with it and you'll be amazed at the progress you make as time goes on.

I practice Chen style. I use Feng Zhiqiang's syllabus (not directly from him, from a disciple of his who lived and trained under him).

Kuk Sool Won - Tries to be a "cover everything" martial art. Uses circular movement with a mixture of hard and soft. Focuses on learning techniques, forms, and weapons over other things (such as sparring, punching and kicking combos, acrobatics, etc, though these things are also practiced). Taijiquan - Yin Yang. Works on developing chi, a good foundation for balance and whole body control. Lets you use your entire body together or to separate it so that you can disappear from a touch. Builds instictive responses to any situation, allowing you to explode or disappear as needed. Lots of emphasis on internal energy, circles, and spirals.

Hello all. I just joined today. I practiced wrestling (yes, I know, not a ma, but it does help you with body control and some general balance) for four years. After that I took up Kuk Sool Won, which I've been doing for about five years. About a year and a half ago I took up Taijiquan. I litereally can't say enough about taiji, so I'll limit myself to saying that it has greatly improved my Kuk Sool, general health, flexibility, and mood, to say nothing about my chi. Hope to get into some useful discussions here. Glad to have joined.