I Liq Chuan of Hawaii

I had the good fortune of having a very, very brief meeting with Lipyeow Lim on Sunday here in Hong Kong. Lipyeow is a student of Sam Chin and studied under him for 5 years in New York and now teaches I Liq Chuan in Hawaii. I had previously attended a Seminar held by Sam Chin here in Hong Kong about two years ago and it was a good opportunity to find out more about Sam Chin's conceptual framework and ask some further questions, now that I had a greater understanding after 2 more years of training.

What was most impressive to me about ILC is that it has a good system that allows you progress rather rapidly (becoming proficient in 2-3 years of dedicated training) and that there is systematic way to train. This stands in contrast to many traditional IMA teaches who just ask you to keep practicing push hands and leaving you pick up the principles yourself. There is a lot of teaching about maintaining a neutral structure from the very beginning, and teaching about how to ground forces to your feet. 

As Sifu Sam Chin had developed his own system, some of his concepts do not map directly onto what is taught in traditional ICMA, but can be seen as a parallel way of looking at things, and with the help from Lipyeow (who has many years of experience in Chen Taiji under Zhu Tiancai) was able to deconstruct some of his terms, such as where he talked about muscles of contraction and and expansion (yin and yang muscles) which to me seemed very similar to the concept of Hunyuan Li in Yiquan.

As my meditation practice has also deepened in the last few years, I was also able to better understand the Buddhist element that Sifu Chin has infused into his teachings. His art has a strong meditative focus with an emphasis on not reacting to your opponents, but trying to maintain equilibrium within yourself, and by maintaining that equilibrium you are able to neutralize your opponents and do as you wish. This to me has strong echoes of the Taoist concept of 無爲 or the art of no-action. 

I will be heading back to Hawaii next month, and it will provide me with an opportunity to touch hands further with Lipyeow. Also planning to make a trip to Malaysia in August, where there is an annual meeting for ILC with Sifu Sam Chin and his father also. So look out for more ILC posts in the near future.

I Liq Chuan Hawaii      

Related Post: 
Seminar with Sam Chin 2010