Formosa Neijia

My personal martial arts journey

Formosa Neijia random header image

Entries from November 2006

Mozart on IMA training

November 14th, 2006 · 2 Comments · Bagua and/or xingyi, Taijiquan

We have a special treat today. An IMA student named Mozart who is studying in China has written a guest post on zhan zhuang and fali training for beginners. He has a background in various IMA arts and is now studying Wu style taiji in Shanghai. This is his first attempt to put the principles [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Yang Jun’s 103 “family” Yang form

November 13th, 2006 · 27 Comments · Taijiquan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pna9ajZHKY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek_LjYWaveo
Given the Yang family’s penchant for secret keeping, I was surprised to see this out on youtube. I don’t want to sit on it considering that they might demand that it be taken down soon.
I’d be interested in hearing what others think of Yang Jun’s flavor and his expression of the taiji. When I saw [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Tim Cartmell on taiji/push hands as grappling

November 11th, 2006 · 12 Comments · Other MA, Taijiquan

The following is a block quote of part of a review of a recent seminar by Tim Cartmell. I found it here (Kit le Blanc is listed as the writer) but I don’t think a lot of people saw it. I thought it was a great quote because it shows a certain perspective on how [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

World Taiji Cup Push Hands (or PH in general)

November 9th, 2006 · 11 Comments · Taijiquan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nsKIKmHHAY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2oI2MyA3eA
These are two examples of push hands that I took at the tournament last weekend. They both feature a local foreigner that competed.
It’s interesting to me to watch these clips because I’m always surprised at how few taiji techniques get used in these matches. Looking at these clips, you’d swear that push is the only [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Rare Gao style

November 8th, 2006 · 8 Comments · Bagua and/or xingyi

Finally! I figured out how to work youtube so here are the clips of the version of Gao style that I took at the demo a while back.
As I said before, this version of the Gao style was really good. Their performances were smooth and showed skill, as opposed to many of the [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

World Taiji cup review

November 6th, 2006 · 3 Comments · Reviews, Taijiquan

These are just random impressions from the comp.
The arena is really nice. I was proud that it was well-constructed and conveniently laid out. It’s about time that Taipei had something like this.
The first day was crowded and mainly featured group taiji competitions. But when those started, they also started the master’s demonstrations, meaning that almost [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Qi Gong standards pt. 2: bagua, TCM, and teachers

November 4th, 2006 · 7 Comments · Bagua and/or xingyi, Qigong, Taijiquan, Traditional Chinese Medicine

Casey/onyomi and I are having an important discussion in the comment section of the post about qigong standards. It’s so important that I don’t want to keep it in the comment section, but write a new post to address the issue. He brings up some great points that I’d like to discuss.
Here’s his comment:
The reason [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Advice on taiji competition

November 3rd, 2006 · 4 Comments · Taijiquan

Edit: In light of tomorrow’s tourney, I thought I’d post the following post. About the Gao style clip, the process so far is really laborious. It will be a few more days before I’m able to get it up. I’ve never done this before so bear with me.
I’m interested in competing in some local taiji [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Onyomi on qi gong standards

November 1st, 2006 · 9 Comments · Qigong, Traditional Chinese Medicine

I was sort of waiting for this thread on EF to come to it’s natural conclusion and I think that onyomi’s post, archived below, is it.
I feel onyomi’s pain on this one, but trying to reform the qigong field, or even making a dent in it, will be impossible. Qigong is difficult to understand and [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: