I went to yiquan class yesterday, and left again almost immediately. There were three of us there apart from Master Yao. I was standing in zhan zhuang and I couldn’t stop wondering whether I had flooded my apartment….

I’d put the washing machine on just before I left for class. Like in many apartments here, the washing machine is in my bathroom, and the outlet pipe isn’t plumbed in; I need to unroll it, and put it into my shower cubicle for the water to drain away. If I forget (done once, and caught in time) the water will quickly flood the bathroom and the water will rapidly move out into the living area….

So I was in zhan zhuang, and I couldn’t stop wondering whether I had remembered to unroll the outlet pipe… In the end, I decided I had to leave to go and check. It turned out I had, and there was no problem, but after that it seemed to be too late to go back.

So, I had class again today. We just worked on a couple of moves for the whole lesson, which is great for me - that’s the way I like to to learn. There were four Chinese students as well as myself, and a couple speak pretty good English. Master Yao was asking whether we had any questions. Some of the others did, I didn’t. I just watched as Master Yao corrected them, and he corrected me a few times as well.

A visitor arrived during the second hour - the German guy I mentioned previously - and Master Yao was outside talking to him for sometime. While he was outside, we starred doing a bit of tui shou; the moves I had been practising slowly turned out to be really useful for sensing and redirecting the opponent’s force, and for pushing along lines of stiffness to uproot. Hmmm, cool. One of the students who’s been there longer than me gave me some useful insights into generating fa li. He can do it from a static pose, but struggles during tui shou; he’s too eager, and signals that he’s about to use it. He said that he’d studied for a few years in New Zealand; apparently there’d been some trouble between Chinese students and some Maori, who are much bigger and stronger. He said he’d been able to use his kungfu to defend himself, but felt it was more luck than skill, which is why he’s begun to study yiquan now that he’s back in China.

The zhan zhuang is really good for my shoulder muscles; all of the muscles etc that have been chronically tense and stiff are slowly and painfully stretching and relaxing… I’m also noticing that my kua are opening a lot; the key to this was the backward and forward motion in various postures. As I go back, the weight falls on my hind leg, my head rises and spine stretches, and the heel of the forward leg rises slightly; as I sway forward, all of this reverses. At first, my forward knee would sway backwards and forwards as well, and Master Yao and other students repeatedly told me off about this - but I couldn’t work out how to stop it, and the keep the shin upright and the knee steady. Eventually, I realized that the key lies in stretching the muscles and ligaments in the hip joint… My next project is sinking my weight; I’ve improved a lot here, but during tui shou my weight rises too far, making me too easy to uproot…

Live and learn, live and learn…

Starting bagua again isn’t turning out to be as straightforward as I’d hoped! There are both external and internal reasons for this…

Externally, I don’t know where my teacher is! He apparently went away somewhere a couple of months ago. I called a few times, and his wife said he’d contact me when he got back, but I haven’t heard anything. I feel a bit awkward now, and I don’t want to keep on calling… I’ve tried contacting the only other one of his students who speaks English, but his phone is constantly powered off. I’ve also tried getting in touch with Kong Cheng, who introduced us, but there’s no answer there either. I am perplexed!

I’ve decided that I can”t wait any longer, which is a pity; I really like the Liu Jingru form of bagua that Sun Lao Shi was teaching me, but I’ll carry on practising that with the help of DVDs and VCDs. So, on Monday evening, I went to check out a new wushu group that teaches bagua, xingyi and sanda. It’s very close to where I work, which is a huge plus, and has classes every evening, so I can get there easily during the week. It’s hidden away behind an apartment complex, and is basically a big prefab metal shed. It’s cold inside! There’s no electricity, so the only illumination was from camping lamps, which cast stark shadows. Overall, there was a kind of cyberpunky, ‘Fight Club’ feeling which was… heh… stimulating…

When I got there, the students were doing pad work with the teacher in rotation; when they weren’t kicking, they were stretching, doing pushups, working with scaffolding poles or staffs… some were working on xingyi forms… it was clear that in this school self-motivation and individual practice are the norm. I chatted to some of the other students and they were friendly but very focussed on what they were doing. Interesting.

My contact there is an American bagua student. He showed me some of the forms, and he’s very good! The style taught in this school is Liang Zhen Pu, and the stepping is quite different to what I’ve done before in the Cheng styles.

I’m a little hesitant to start learning yet another new style. On the other hand, it’s really convenient, the guy I know there shares my outlook on learning martial arts and raves about the teacher, they apparently do a lot of group work and applications… so it seems to make sense.

I didn’t get much chance to speak to the teacher himself. He was happy for me to observe, but focussed on working with his students - kind of a ‘if you want to join, join; if you don’t, don’t’ sort of approach, I guess. Hmm. I have a lot to do today, but I’m not working, so I’m going to try to get back there right at the beginning of the class to have a word with him.

Internally… Wow. Watching the students made me realise that I haven’t done bag or pad work for a long time! If I join this school, it’s going to be a big challenge… I’m soft compared to most of the people I saw there. Better to be sure that I’m mentally prepared and ready before I do ask if I can join…

While I was living in Singapore, I often thought that I would like to try some acting. It never happened. I looked around for classes, but the only options seemed to be corporate - and there just didn’t seem to be enough demand even for those.

Why am I interested in acting? Well, I wrote about it on the previous incarnation of this blog: All the World’s a Stage. After all, each of us is an actor. All of us are given a script at birth, written by our family and community. Some of us ad-lib, some of us leave the performance and head off to look for a different role…

This whole idea of acting has been on hold for a couple of years. Recently I’ve been getting closer - I’ve been attending Toastmasters, the public speaking society. I’m OK with giving prepared speeches - it kind of goes with my job - but the impromptu Table Topic sessions have been challenging.

Recently, I’ve been hanging out at a bar in the heart of historic Beijing which is well-known for its live bands - and it turns out that Beijing Improv have their meetings there as well. I caught one meeting by chance (as an observer) and it looked fun. Maybe I’ll take the plunge and give it a go…

Getting back into the bagua… Spent some time circle-walking this morning, reviewing the ba mu zhang, and working on getting my transitions right from one palm to another… I’ll have to spend a few days on this - I’m rusty after my long break - and then it’ll be on to the ba da zhang… It feels good though, after not working on my bagua for a few months; I’m noticing that my abdomen, spine and lungs feel really energized…

Run, don’t walk over to YouTube, and to an absolutely amazing archive of martial arts interviews recently uploaded by MartialArtsTV MartialArchiveTV!

Just as a sample, here’s an interview with Bruce Frantzis from 1987, split into four segments. Incredible stuff.

I love the “Take it easy” pleas from his sparring partner in the 4th segment

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