Fresh wiki

I just noticed that ChinesePod have put up a wiki. Let's go!

He tried meditating

He doesn't say why, but he tried it. He writes about it, and being tossed about by the choppy waves of his monkey-mind.

Next time it may be gentle ripples.

10 days later, he's learnt a lot and is trying to divide his conciousness into levels. The you that does the clicking, the you that does the reading, the you that does the thinking, and the you that notices all that. Are they really all there inside, or are you making it all up, with mirrors?

Wakan and Yi Quan

From Cook Ding's Kitchen, this interesting language tool. Windows-only unfortunately. Since I've almost entirely switched I'm passing on the recommendation as is. The project website looks nice though.

While I was at it, I came across a very interesting program entitled Wakan. It’s available as a free download as long as it’s not put to any commercial use. Wakan translates between Japan and English, and between Chinese and English. It’s a very handy way to look up words and characters. Even if you have no intention of studying either Japanese or Chinese, but may want to look up a word or character from time to time, I think you would find it useful.

Wakan can be found at http://wakan.manga.cz/

Also on Cook Ding's Kitchen a post relating to Yi Quan, which I've not come across before. It seems to be a newly (i.e. early 2oth C) synthesised internal martial art system, a re-factoring of xing-yi if you like. The site linked to has some interesting background and a substantial qi-gong booklet for free download. Anybody else heard of this?

Back on the list, the river meets the ocean ...

... or the hills lead up to the mountains.

A while ago I linked to Peter Bojanic's blog, but of late it seemed dormant. But it now seems he's revived it. Excellent. Here's an interesting post about the illusions of early progress in Taiji (or anything, really) that chimes so well with this extract from the Zhuang Zi. The latter is from another blog, Cook Ding's Kitchen, that hereby goes from my list of possibles to the definites.

I keep bloglines folders for "maybe subscribe to properly" and "maybe get rid of as it's dead or rubbish". PB was there but he's back in the RM main list again.

Consider videotaping

My video project never got anywhere. When it's nice outside again (brrr!) I may revive it. I was reminded of it by Master Paul's 6th point.

Chinese Pod

This is brilliant!

Daily Chinese lessons (99% Mandarin) on my ipod -- ChinesePod.com.

I try to keep it handy, play one or two now and again even when working on other text in English.

It's slightly below me content-wise (it might catch up with my level of intermediate incompetance in a few months) but it's really really helpful for tones, idiomatic expressions and life/culture insights.

xie xie ni men, Ken he Jenny!

What is push hands?

This is from Interesting Thing of the Day, where you'll find some nice little essays on a whole buncha stuff.

Here's a nice little article on what push hands is all about, for those who might not think tai chi is any sort of martial art:

In general, players stand facing each other with their hands in light contact with each other’s arms. As one person’s arms move, the other person follows the movements, keeping both hands in contact at all times. A player may push against the other person’s arms, chest, shoulders, or waist; the person receiving the push yields by turning the waist and redirecting the pusher’s arms in a variety of ways. Pushing and yielding continues in a circular fashion until one person is “uprooted,” with one or both feet losing contact with the floor; then the cycle continues. If you were to watch two skilled push-hands players in action, you may see virtually no movement, as each person gently feels for a point of tension in the other person’s body to push against. All at once, someone’s hand will move, the other person will stumble, and the two partners will smile and begin again.

full article here

Bingo! Thanks Bryn and Sergey!

Here is a marvelous list of sword-related resources, amongst a rich tai chi site: form lists, books, videos. All nicely referenced. There's a list of the Yang style sword movements! It will be interesting to compare to the list we've been given (which I may find time to type up, or not).

uh! templates.

That Blogger search thingy went skewwiff. Maybe it conflicts with the adsense stuff. Any blogger template wizards got a clue what went wrong? Time for a fresh template perhaps, but it will take time to back up all my customisations. Not tonight.

Other tai chi blogs you may like

In general, tai chi people aren't big on blogging. Most tai chi sites are quite traditional, static things, or else shops. I've found a few though, and they should be in the sidebar, underneath Previous Posts. If I see any more I'll add them.

Swords!

James brought along a box of swords for the class tonight. That means we are now learning two things now: the old first form (Chen style) and Chen Man-Ching's (Yang) sword form.

These are the totally blunt retractable practice swords, that you are unlikely to get arrested for, but still I managed to cut myself.

The sword actions, just the simple ones such as cycling the blade, really start hitting little muscle parts that not only other exercises do not reach, but parts that clearly have never been reached at all before. We had already covered these basic moves in the Norfolk course, but then we moved to the opening parts of the Yang form. My main worry at the moment is tassel control – I keep getting tangled threads and am constantly biffed by the pom-poms.

Look back at the summer

The Castle Acre workshop was a great success. We weren't, after all, overwhelmed by the expertise of the others – a bit of a worry for this monkey's mate, but, truth be told, for me too – since there were all sorts of skills and styles within the group.

There are a few pictures at the head of my Norfolk holiday set which I hope demonstrate how nice the surroundings were.

We worked on a lot of qi gong, a good base of silk reeling every day, a fair amount of Chen short form and only a little push hands. We started to go into the lao jia yi lu, the old [Chen] first form, and I also took part in sword exercises, including two-person parrying and thrusting.

All very stimulating and enjoyable, and the surroundings and people were wonderful too.

Easy video

I knew my monkey-mind would come in useful!

I've borrowed a little DV camera from a friend and I've played with it a tiny bit. My sexy Manfrotto tripod came in useful. Using iMovie, it's as easy as picking fruit to set up a timeline of clips. I needed to scrabble around in the help to work out how to trim video and audio clips, but from then on it was easy. Transistions are a right pain though - they seem to adjust the length of the clips in unpredictable ways.

It's going to take me an hour or so to run through my forms from various angles, then another hour to put it together on a DVD (hello iDVD!). Don't wait to buy it from me though, I recommend Wang Hai Jun's Chen Style Tai Chi 18 Movement Form.

Just doing the camera test (web-quality Quicktime 8MB, about 4 min) with Start ... Pounding the mortar ... lazy tie coat, I've noticed loads of inadequacies already - so I'm confident that this techno-learning is going to be juicy fruitful!

Summer dreams

Baah! Classes are over. I'm probably not going to practice standing, silk reeling and forms every day. I'm looking forward to the push hands/applications workshop in Norfolk. In the meantime, I might grab a handycam and see what my forms look like from the outside.

Mandarin-wise (classes also over), I'm probably not going to practice reading and writing at all. But I've bought the next in the Practical Chinese Reader series, as if material acquisitions can do anything for my dedication. I really should be seeking out and chatting to 中国人 either in my department or who are in college improving their English.

I picked up the text book from Guanghwa in Newport Place (opposite the bandstand in Chinatown, London). If there's anyone from the class reading, you can see what books I have on Bookcrossing (look for Education or Reference titles).

Nice shop (website broken), with a decent learning section AND a selection of wushu and taijiquan books. Best title of the day: 12 Fatal leg-attacks.

Enough of this madness.

No messing about.

Yesterday, we practiced in a simple way, yet it had great rewards.

We were outside for a start, on the playing field behind the town. It can be noisy (cars, skaters, microlights, hot air balloons), and the ground wasn't that flat. The former distractions can be dealt with, given the right attitude, and the slightly uneven ground is actually good for knowing about your balance.

We simply went through the Yang short form three times, then the Chen 18 movement form three times.

Brilliant! The first time in each case is always all over the place with me. The second is OK - generally I feel steady but not capable. The third is when some learning gets done. A fourth might have been damaging without a rest.

After that, Neil and I worked on Chen style pushing hands (not sure what it's called, it's a two-hand/elbow style with a fixed stance and lots of repositioning of the hands - one of these, number 5 in the second list maybe?) which is sort of coming to the point where it makes some sense. Almost good enough to work on softness, listening and development of force, but not quite.

Palm changes

DSC00127,
originally uploaded by Drift Words.

We stayed on after Tai Chi last night for a go at the Ba Gua class which James also runs. We did some mud walking practice in lines, a simple palm change and graduated to a circle walking. Oh and some sadistic spine stretchers, the Heavenly Stems. Then we let the already-practiced people demonstrate the ten palm changes.

It's a bit like country dancing in some ways, since James calls out CHANGE now and again and the group follows.

I'd like to have a go but where will I find the time and energy?

Wujibits

Ahoy there!

Here's a (young guy, presumably) reflecting on his taijiquan path in his blog, Wujibits.

He's quite the Chen style adept already, having graduated to the longer forms.

It's so interesting to see how it's going with other people.

Chinese bookshelf

DSC00001,
originally uploaded by Drift Words.

This is my little collection of Mandarin Chinese textbooks and dictionaries, which I make use during, and sometimes in between, evening classes at UCL.

Week 1

Back to the beginning. A bunch of new faces were seen in what is now James Langcake's Tai Chi class. After a few warm ups, simple silk reeling, and a bit of standing in an Embracing Position, we proceeded to work on the 18-move Chen Form. For even the part of the class that "know" the entire form, most things after Hidden Hand Punch were a bit wobbly.

Despite other more serious things on my mind, and a persistent cough (I even had to sit down at one point to gather some energy) I concentrated well. I can see my Tai Chi going well this year, and I'm looking forward to Aarvo's summer workshop already.

Chaos at UCL : not only are my rooms being moved about, the Mandarin evening class has been rescheduled - the start delayed by a week and a day. Have I remembered anything since the summer? Back to the beginning I think.