Return to Posting

To all my readers, I have recently returned to posting on my blog after about a long hiatus. I think the discipline will be good for me as I begin to think about various developments that have happened in the intervening years. As a catch up here are some of the things I have been working on since the time I last posted on my blog. 

For the martial arts enthusiasts I have continued to practice my various styles - Baguazhang, Yiquan and Tai Chi. The last couple of years have placed much more emphasis on my Chen Tai Chi practice. As some of you know my Sifu CS Tang is a disciple of Feng Ziqiang in Beijing who passed away in May, 2012. (It feels almost like yesterday). There have been a lot more breakthroughs with regards to my shenfa and the way I move my body, especially a deeper understanding of silk reeling. This year I have gone back to basics and have been really focusing on my basic Baguazhang movements again, trying to understand how the spiraling works deep within the body, especially how the rotation of the torso contributes to storing and releasing energy.  

Related to this ... in the intervening time I have also been focused on practicing Qiji Daoyin - a form of qigong taught in Taiwan by Master Chang Liang Wei, who helped found Taiji Daoyin and then broke away to develop his own system. This system has helped me really understand many of the basic principles of Tai Chi and internal arts on a much deeper level, what he terms the 8 major principles 

螺旋、延伸、開闔、絞轉 spiralling, extension, opening and closing, wringing, and 靜心、旋轉、壓縮、共振 stilling the mind, turning, compression and resonance. The biggest take-away has been freeing me from the defensive turtle-back of internal arts to open the body to a greater degree. I hope to share more of this in future posts as well translate some of the important materials on his site for a larger readership. 

Continuing on the theme of martial arts I have also started teaching. Although it is mainly Tai Chi at the moment, I do hope that I can start teaching more of the Daoyin as I believe it really does have something valuable to offer that others do not. If any of you are interested in taking my classes in Hong Kong (or in Orange County) you can drop me a PM.

On a final note I have also been spending some more time on some of the other Chinese arts - like gongfu cha (tea ceremony) calligraphy (which I also study under my teacher CS Tang) and incense ceremony (appreciation of agarwood which I study under Master Chang). I found that these have helped me round out some of the character development that martial arts does not provide. But it is indeed surprising how much the arts inform each other. You can also find pictures of my travels and other arts on my Instagram page - @bodhisattva77

Anyhow, after a series of false starts I am happy to be back posting again. Please excuse the self indulgent photograph above. But thanks for your continued support.