JessOBrien

Hi Franklin, For sure man, obviously Kumar would be able to explain it way better than me, but I've gotten some of his ideas over the years. The five sets recapitulate his experience of learning chi kung, and in the same sense they form the pathway for his students to follow. The first set is Opening the Energy Gates. Even the name is a pun on the Chinese idea of the teacher opening the gate for the student to enter. This is the public set, taught for the outdoor students and for the general public to get a good start on the thing. Not that the other stuff is better somehow, but if you were to learn just one set, this would be the one. It's for everyone. It can be done without (much) supervision pretty safely and gives good benefits. It's the most "external" of the sets. The first set is all about alignments, knee safety, engaging the fascia as a whole, getting acquainted with the kwa and the spine. And on a energy level, the felt sense of your mind dropping through your body, actively letting go of tension. Again, this is to set the stage, to clear away the accumulated junk, to make a blank canvass upon which to work. Once you have things cleared up, the actual training can begin. Most people don't need to go any further, this first set can give you everything you needed, unless you wish to achieve more in the realm of chi gung. To take the next step, you learn the second set Spiraling Energy Body. This is the initiation into the indoor work, metaphorically. You can't do the later sets until you've activated your energy body with this second set. In the old days this is where the teacher would empower you to be a member of the family and participate in all the more intense work. You'd become a disciple, bow to the altar, hit your head on the floor, give the teacher a gold brick etc. As a side note, Kumar doesn't take disciples, and teaches his whole system openly to just about anyone. So my metaphor here about "indoor" is my words, not his. He teaches everyone as if they are indoor students. Anyways, Spiraling Energy Body is where you go through each of the energy gates and fill them with energy. In a sense you've gotten your car built with the first set, now you fill it with oil and gas and rev the engine. One by one you've cleared the energy gates, now one by one you activate them with your mind. The energy of the earth is pulled up through the body centimeter by centimeter, always tempered by the dissolving that has been built into the system. Spiraling Energy Body is the second set because it is essential to moving on to the rest of the system. The first set teaches the downward flow of energy. The second set brings the energy up, through every energy gate one by one, and filling each of the Tan Tians with your awareness. The first set uses one basic standing posture to dissolve all your tension. Spiraling Energy Body adds 200 more postures, and each one is crafted to help build up the energy pathways in your body. Normally the teacher assigns specific postures to each student on a prescriptive basis so that they work on the pathways that need the most help. No one bothers to learn all 200 unless you were going to be a teacher. This second set represents the Fire element, energy rising, filling and jumping from place to place. It can be dangerous if you try to rush it all up to your head at once, therefore it's essential to get the Water element in place first as a safety mechanism. There is a HUGE amount that could go into this discussion, but obviously it's best talked about in person. As I said before, Kumar took all the stuff he learned over the years and put it into the sets in a logical grouping. Much in Spiraling Energy Body comes from the Taoist training he did in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1970's. The third set is Marriage of Heaven and Earth where you work with the upward and downward flow of energy simultaneously. This is the set that represents the Wood element, living growing pulsing, opening & closing, the power of life between heaven above and earth below. That's a whole different practice and can't be fully experienced without the grounding of the first two sets. Another aspect of the training is that Opening the Energy Gates contains all the basis for healing, Heaven and Earth contains the fulfillment of martial power, and Gods in the Clouds at the end takes you toward spirituality. It gets a lot more convoluted and interconnected than that, but these are just a few words on how Kumar's chi kung system is constructed. Note that he has a list of 16 Nei Gung skills, that's the ultimate aim of the 5 sets, and each set specializes in some of those nei gung skills. The five sets were designed as a logical way to develop the 16 nei gung elements. Once you complete the 5 sets, you move on to the internal martial arts where you combine, mix and match the nei gung skills at full speed and under pressure. Anyways, just putting some of these ideas out there, hope you find it interesting! Jess O

Hi Clarity, Cool, glad to hear that. The chi kung system that BK Frantzis created is organized as a loop of 5 Elements, each set corresponds to Water, Fire, Wood, Metal or Earth. There are a lot of different reasons for this, and aspects to it. It's nice though because it makes it easy to see each part in relation to the others. He took all the chi kung he learned from a lot of study and developed these five sets. The first set Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body is primarily based on exercises he learned from his first teacher Wang Shu Jin in Taiwan. Master Wang liked to stand a lot, so OEG begins with standing and relaxing as its basis. This is the healing aspect, designed to release stuck energy and clenched muscles in a natural way. The next part of Opening the Energy Gates is Cloud Hands, which is a basic exercise from Wang's class. Taking the same ideas of dropping awareness and feeling "sung" in the body, you begin to work on twisting the muscles and shifting your weight. This is to gently wake up the body, engage the fascia and help the body become unified, connecting the legs and arms by way of the trunk and waist. All the most important alignments of the body are taught there. Also part of the set are the Three Swings that Master Wang used to teach. These are good for loosening up the body, and begins to teach you about the Three Burners of the body. This is where you develop the smooth, soft and heavy slapping and striking power of internal martial arts. By the time you complete this set you have created whole body power, the ability to put your whole body weight behind a relaxed and casual slap. The final piece is the Spine Stretch. Every one of the five sets in this system has a different aspect of spine chi kung. Spine Stretch is the first and begins the process of getting your mind into each of the vertebrae, and helping create a miniscule space between each one to improve spine health. The other sets go much further and deeper into working with the spine. The five sets replicated BK Frantzis's journey in China. The first set comes from his first teacher Wang Shu Jin. Each of the other sets are composed of knowledge from one or more of his other teachers. The final set is Gods Playing in the Clouds, and was the primary practice of his final teacher Liu Hung Chieh in Beijing. Overall I think it's an elegant and deep system, and well thought out. Take care, Jess O

Hi Everyone! If you've read Power of Internal Martial Arts, perhaps you'd be interested in training with the author, BK Frantzis. He's holding a series of classes this month near Berkeley, CA on Hsing-I and Ba Gua. The Hsing-I classes will be on the Five Elements, focusing on Tsuan Chuan and Beng Chuan. The Ba Gua classes will be on the third palm change of the system, Shun Shi Zhang, known as the Wind Palm Change in this school. He hasn't taught these topics in public for a long time, and more than likely won't again for a long time. So if you want to check out Kumar's system this is a good time! Let me know if you are interested or have questions. I'm more than happy to talk about anything I know of in his Hsing-I and Ba Gua system, it's got a lot of cool elements to it. -Jess O Details: Hsing-I Five Elements with BK Frantzis Friday March 18 to Tuesday March 22 Weekdays 6:30pm- 9:00pm, Weekend 10-5. El Cerrito Veteran's Hall 6401 Stockton Street El Cerrito, CA. My link Ba Gua Wind Palm with BK Frantzis Friday March 25 from 6:30pm to 9pm & Saturday and Sunday March 27 from 10 - 5:00. El Cerrito Veteran's Hall 6401 Stockton Street El Cerrito, CA. My link

Final Hsing-I class in this series last night, we had a good time with a variety of exercises. Bruce talked a bit about the training of the elements. He said to use Metal to develop Yi and concentration. Then use Water to build up your sensations to everything outside of you, as well as inside. Wood is the element you use once you find the target, by growing, penetrating and entering into it. We worked on a variant of the Beng Chuan follow step punch. Instead of stomping and crushing as you complete the form, your follow step pulls in and lightly sets down as you strike. This gives it a nice lifting, drifting, floating sense. The punch is as hard as ever, but it has a nuance to it that gives it some extra umph. It's ideal for when you are smothering someone with a bunch of strikes, so you are close, then you bring in the back foot and simultaneously find a nice hole in the defense to sink this soft yet dense punch right into it. Hard to describe but hard to forget once you get hit with it! We worked on trying to recycle Beng Chuan over and over as a defense/offense, entering their space with a flurry of blows, no emotion just an overwhelming Intention to take their space. As they block and defend, more and more gaps appear. He showed us the idea of Rending, once you make contact, twisting, crushing and dispersing the enemy's energy. When I came at him, he would contact me, then shift his body in a subtle way that would twist my attack off angle and spoil my line of force, setting up his retaliation. Not much movement required, but it doesn't work if you are scared or intimidated. The biggest focus of the night was the Beng Chuan turn around, which is composed of a 180 turn, split in a crouched stance, then a series of Beng Chuans and forward and back cross-steps while punching. The point is to end up going the opposite direction, but it takes quite a bit of shuffling around. The turn is simple, just pivot your feet to turn 180. Then you drill up with hand and foot, take a big step and split, ending up in a forward weighted crouching stance. This is Wildcat Climbs the Tree. We worked on this for a while as a skill for chasing and running down your opponent. This step is big, long and final, your whole body weight comes into their body, hip, knee, ankle or foot as you do a big Pi Chuan. He showed us how to charge and demolish someone as they back up and try to escape. No matter how fast I ran backwards, he was all over me in a flash, he was moving really fast for a large man... This move is followed by a series of forward and backward Beng Chuans. He showed multiple different ways of doing the turn around, and that made it pretty hard to settle on one specific way, but in the end he showed us the most regular form of doing it, which is the one we've been doing in class, and we'll stick to that. We worked a bit on Ma Xing, the Horse Form from the 12 Animal Forms. He showed us three different ways of doing it, the first two use the zig zag stepping of Pao Chuan. One is to strike with both fists forward, elbows down as if horse hooves are chopping into the enemy. The second is the same but both hands drill out forward in upside down Tzuan Chuan strikes, he said this is like holding the reins of a horse and controlling it with the twisting of your arms. The third version is done in a straight line, striking with a front punch and high block with the back hand. This is the horse jumping over a ditch. Spiritual martial arts was another topic of the night. He said that he hasn't really taught that, and is not sure if there will ever be a chance to. For him, this topic is like taking martial arts and combining it with Taoist meditation, so it's at least twice as hard as regular martial arts. Take all the body training, fighting, sparring, challenge matches, street fighting, etc of martial arts and then add all the hours of meditation that pursuing spirituality requires. It's not for most people, regular martial arts is hard enough. But he did feel that many principles from this can be used by us average folks who aren't pursuing it full time. One aspect of spiritual martial arts is that of doing good by not hurting people more than they need hurting. He said it's possible to knock sense into someone, to slay the demon inside them without killing them. We started this a little by punching each other with a sense of positive, good feeling and see if we can transfer that with our strike. I couldn't but it's certainly an interesting idea! He talked a lot about the energies of Fear and Anger as they relate to Water and Wood. Once you get the body skill of Hsing-I you can start to use the forms to draw out emotions within your body and expose them to the light of day. Then in combat your emotions arise and again, you identify them and expose them to the light. What happens then is that they naturally complete their cycle, run out of energy and evaporate. Emotions trapped and buried eventually burst out with a huge explosion, so to prevent that use Hsing-I to let them rise to the outside and return to the field, much as a bubble rises to the top of the ocean and pops at the surface, rejoining it's natural state. We finished by practicing as a group, and he led us through some lines of Tzuan Chuan and Beng Chuan. He gave a lecture at the end about how Liu Hung Chieh would practice the Five Elements of Hsing-I every single day of his life, Ba Gua or Tai Chi came second. He felt that Hsing-I could keep your chi strong and keep your movements robust throughout your life. That's it for Hsing-I stay tuned for Ba Gua Shun Shi Zhang training this weekend! Jess O

Last night we finished work on Beng Chuan and its various stepping patterns. We visualized the body sensation of doing Beng Chuan. Then we stood up and continued visualizing. Then when he called it, we all started doing it physically. Then shifted back to mental only. Then to physical. Back and forth between feeling it in your body, then actually doing it. He said that sometimes Wang Shu Jin would have them suddenly shift from San Ti to Tzuan Chuan or Beng Chuan. This is to teach your mind to stay fully present and change instantly from inaction to action, which is part of Hsing-I's focus on the mind making the shapes that you transform your body into. We worked on the stepping pattern he learned during his time at Hung Yi Xiang's, which is to advance with one side forward, then follow step with a second punch using the back hand. You do the same side forward then switch and come back the other way. We then looked at Wang Shu Jin's method which is to advance one foot and punch with the back hand, then step with the other foot and punch with the other hand, always punching with the back hand. That was one of Wang's favorite strikes, smothering with his front hand and crushing the opponent with his back hand. Wang also liked to let a guy punch him in the stomach full force, and drop his energy so that the punch did no damage. At the instant of impact he would Beng Chuan the guy punching him and steal the force in such a way as it would rock the guy suddenly. Wang had been in many high-risk fights and his every technique was designed for maximum damage, only the highest stakes would matter to him. Bruce spoke on how Hong Yi Xiang had a hot temper that would burst into flame with a moments notice, his gravelly voice was the perfect expression of his personality. He was severe and yelled at his students with the slightest provocation. Whereas Wang Shu Jin was very cool tempered, his anger was slow to rouse, but when it did you better run for cover because he was not easily appeased when in a rage. Apparently most Hsing-I people have a temper in there somewhere, and that is something that influences how they teach and train. We went on to do the Beng Chuan that Liu Hung Chieh did, which involves the Flying Step. Because he was short and small, he had to cover a lot of ground to hit. So with each Beng Chuan you step forward a long way. Punch left and step left, punch right and step right, without a punch from the back foot. Bruce demonstrated moving a long ways with one step, and even though he is a very heavy guy, he was able to cover a huge amount of ground and punch me in the throat in one step. We spent a lot of time on the subtle circle that the arm makes right before you land the Beng Chuan. It's like taking your forearm and circling it in space from the outside over to the inside. This is to teach a magnetic sticking of your arm to your opponent as you advance. He showed repeatedly how the Hsing-I punches are meant as close range sticking strikes, as opposed to outside range jabs and tests that other arts might use. With Beng your arm makes very small circles at multiple points so you are able to contact, stick, change the angle and strike hard all pretty much instantaneously. It's very cool and can be used to open up the inside of the person quite effectively. However it takes a lot of practice! We did a lot of scraping forearm over forearm on ourselves and on our partners, and many arms were rubbed raw by the end of the night. Well, just this quite note, there was much more but I'm at work and gotta jam! Jess O

HI Devoid, Cool, Heng Chuan is done in many variations, I think it's a deep principle that takes many forms. The way Bruce does it from Liu Hung Chieh has an extra step that makes it quite different from any others I've seen. Say you have your left foot forward and are Crossing with your right fist. Your first step is with the left foot to the right corner, crossing your own body. Then the right foot steps through to the right corner, while the left fist does Crossing striking to the front. Hard to visualize across the net I know! Take care, Jess O

Hi Orb, This is just a course review, so probably not a great place for an ongoing critique of IMA. We aren't doing any training for competitive fighting in this class, so probably not much of interest for you. I like to spar with people of many/any style, all IMA people should spar and Muay Thai is a great style to spar against, you can learn a lot quickly. I don't train for competition. I suggested before that you visit George Wood in VA, he can quickly get you up to speed on how to use Ba Gua for ring fighting, he has an excellent program for stand up fighting and conditioning. http://www.yizongbagua.com/ On the west coast Tim Cartmell is from the same school, and he trains guys for MMA using strictly IMA for stand up, and BJJ for ground. They do pretty well. http://www.shenwu.com/ Anyways, let me know how your visit went and perhaps make a thread here to discuss it. Jess O

Hi all, Baguakid, since I've spent a bit of time in Taiwan I've always had a preference for the ROC way of spelling and not the PRC. But mostly I just spell randomly, sorry for that. Devoid, thanks for that! Glad you liked the book, it was a fun project, there's some great teachers out there. Bruce is teaching the Hsing-I of Liu Hung Chieh in this class, his teacher was Li Yunshan a contemporary of Sun Lu Tangs, and Liu himself met and trained with Sun Lu Tang as well as Shang Yun Xiang, who's student Jin Yun Ting was also a mentor to Liu. So he was lucky to meet and practice with a big group of top teachers during a very unusual era in history before the war. Liu's Heng Chuan has diagonal stepping, but quite a bit more complicated than that of Pao Chuan, very hard to describe in words, but the front foot steps across your body sort of to begin the form. Harold, great to hear you are training in Luo De Xiu's line, that's an awesome system! Hope you get to practice with him soon, he is one of the best I've ever seen. Bruce is very much into San Ti, his first teacher Wang Shu Jin really impressed on him that it's the primary training method. Whereas Hong Yi Xiang liked it but wasn't quite as obsessed, according to Bruce. If you get a chance to do Hsing-I with Luo Laoshi, he can give you all the San Ti directions you'll need!!! Will post more tonight after class. Jess O

No doubt guys, thanks, I'll try to keep posting some of my impressions, it's been fun training all day, no better way to spend a Sunday! Jess O

Today we completed the stepping and turn around for Tzuan Chuan. We worked a lot on the twisting up movement of this form trying to use the whole body. At the end of Tzuan Chuan you can end with an additional extension, then retraction. Liu Hung Chieh used to do it this way because he was so short. On the turn around you drill, then turn the waist inward until you turn 180 degrees and then advance and drill with the other side. We used Drill as a defense as well as offense. One of Hsing-I's special trainings is to make every move an offense and a defense simultaneously rather than more conventional block then hit strategies. The Water Element that pervades this move requires you to train your awareness so that it opens to everything all around you, rather than the more forward focused Metal Element of Pi Chuan. We then started on the Crushing Fist, Beng Chuan. Beng Chuan uses Wood Energy, the element of growing, unstoppable slow growth where an acorn can break up through concrete and grow into a huge tree. The fist of Beng Chuan is empty inside, with a hard shell. Expand the energy in your palm to pervade your hand then arms. Advance and use your shoulder blades to drive the fist forward. Train so that as each punch goes out, the other hand pulls back, as if there was a cable between them that you could pull back and forth. This gives extra stability to the strike. Close down your elbows and sink your energy into your tan tian. Tan Tian pulls you forward to add to your momentum. Combine everything into that one strike. The first strike is done with full step. The hand drives through the target with long power, sending them stumbling back as you fill in their space, expanding through them. The second strike follows up as your back foot comes forward flush with the front. This gives a more short power, sudden, closing and condensing punch. More damage to the internal organs. We ended with the standing Beng Chuan drilling over and over your arms to try and create sensitivity in the forearms and wrists so you can more easily stick to and crush your opponents arms. Beng Chuan has the strategy of smothering, overwhelming and invading your opponent with straight punches, so that you enter every gap and he cannot respond. Only hit a defenseless person. We looked at Hu Xing, the Tiger Form of Hsing-I. As you advance, gather to your Tan Tian, drill up with both hands and double Pi Chuan. Each sudden attack can be used to crush foe down, blast him back, scrape and claw down his flesh, or thrust your hands into the flesh of his vital areas with Dian Xue. We got to experience all of these first hand and it was quite ferocious! This form and Tai Xing from yesterday both use lots of Tzuan Chuan and Beng Chuan in their execution. As always, this is just my random highlights, there was much more to it that I forgot! Jess O

Today we delved deeper into Tzuan Chuan the Drilling Fist. Water can be destructive like a tsunami, where the earth shifts, water falls into the newly opened space, then when it bounces off of the sea bottom it can become a massive wave. The Water of Drilling Fist is when you drop your body's energy and then the bounce back up can propel your attack with great speed and power. We used the downward pulling hand to drive the upward drilling hand, then use a final twist to conserve momentum and pull down again, driving the other hand up. We did the stepping for the move as well, a slight sidestep with the front foot as your hand over turns, feet come together, then drill as you step. He emphasized how your hand, foot and body all stop at once in order to deliver maximum power and with your whole body unified. He did a bunch of uppercuts on us to emphasize short and long types of power. Short, medium and long size Hsing-I are stages within Hsing-I training where your movements take a different size. Small tight Hsing-i San Ti was done by Hong Yi Xiang who liked to twist a huge amount inward. Whereas Liu Hung Chieh was short so he used a long and open Tzuan Chuan with a lot of extension. All three ways of doing Hsing-I are needed in the long run for a well rounded practitioner. He led the class up and down the hall doing Tzuan Chuan in various format, just the foot work, or doing the same side or alternating sides. We also took a little time to work on the shape of the Tai Xing Animal Form, which includes elements of Beng and Tzuan along with Pao Chuan stepping. He showed us the form and the various applications of each part of the form. This was Liu Hung Chieh's favorite animal form. He demonstrated how to incorporate Bend the Bow neigung into Tzuan Chuan, how the compressing downward arm coincides with the bending of the spine, then releasing the spine as you step forward and drill. Of course there was much more to it, in terms of how you can maximize the health benefits by opening up your body, various microalignments, focusing your mind on different aspects of the form to develop your intent, etc. Overall, a fun day of training! Jess O

A few random notes from tonight's class on Hsing-I Tzuan Chuan. We started with a lecture on the history of Hsing-I and how General Yeuh Fei was said to be the founder, and used it as the no-nonsense battlefield art of his officer corps. He mentioned how his teacher was very into Hsing-I as was he. He once asked Liu Hung Chieh why they didn't do as much Hsing-I and Liu replied that Kumar already had Hsing-I in his nature, and that it would be best to work more on Tai Chi and Ba Gua that weren't already his orientation. He had some thoughts on the nature of Hsing-I and how it is hyper aggressive. He described the concept of creating a shape (Hsing) with one's mind (I). Therefore Hsing-I is the art of weaving the mind and the body's shape together. We held San Ti for a while to get into things. We went through the key alignments, and how focusing your mind/Yi while breathing is so primary to San Ti and Metal. We then moved into the drilling element of Water. This is twisting the tissue at one level, and spiraling the energy on another level. Like the funnel shape of water moving, but with the crashing power of a wave. Like lightning striking swiftly and surely. We did drills to train twisting the tissue, and drilling up the center line, to use progressively more of your body to help power the action. To start with there are 2 versions of Drilling Fist. A sudden shocking upper cut, and a more twisty version which seeks space between opponents defenses intuitively. The fist is formed by wrapping the palm and fingers in a sort of spiral, unlike the Pi Chuan fist which focuses more on extending the fingers and closing them to the palm. He demonstrated how both can be used to grasp flesh and make someone scream in pain. Drilling Fist is meant to help develop an etheric sense of your opponent, extending your senses outside yourself, particularly hearing, to gather intelligence and subtle clues about their actions. To Drill, you twist from your Kidneys up your arms to your fists, this helps activate your Kidneys and energize them. Depression and fear are dysfunctions of the Kidneys, therefore you can use Drilling Fist to become brave and optimistic. He said some teachers use the Five Elements just as a naming convention for their moves, whereas others combine it with Five Element Theory and experience the actual elemental energies with each fist and within each fist. You bring the sense of that element to life as you preform the movement. He talked about how you eventually bring the Five Elements into each of the Hsing-I fists and learn to shift instantly and effortlessly between them as the situation dictates. This is beyond the Linking Form of putting a lot of moves in a row, and the 12 Animal Shapes which are all combinations of the Five Elements. Liu Hung Chieh was very focused on how the elements came to life withing Hsing-I. Wang Shu Jin was too, but he never talked about it much. He never talked much in general, he wanted to DO, not to talk! And Hong Yi Hsiang didn't care either way, he didn't have much use for energetics and such. JessO

Gerard bro, everyone has their opinions, so no offense here, but I've practiced with all three of the guys you mention here and to say that Luo De Xiu has any less grace and depth of movement is a pretty absurd statement. You sound like an experienced practitioner, but having been thrashed by Luo Laoshi on many, many occasions I can say with total certainty that his grace, smoothness, artistry and depth is at least equal to anyone I've ever met, seen, or imagined. His ability to move under pressure is instant, effortless and seemingly perfect no matter what you throw at him. He is a genius in creating counters to every strike, throw, lock or grapple you care to attempt. In terms of offense he can create and exploit gaps in your structure and break you faster than you could reach for your cell phone. And as you mention the power and force he creates from virtually any direction and at any angle is truly formidable. All three of the masters you mention are unique and amazing teachers, anyone is lucky to study with any of them. But in my experience grace and depth in the dictionary should have Luo De Xiu as the picture, he is a treasure and impossible to compare to any others I've met. Take care! Jess O

In terms of elbow positioning, in my training with Kumar there is a major emphasis on the principle of "Chun Jin Dewi Jiao" (that's how it's pronounced, not sure of the pin yin). Sink the Shoulder, Drop the Elbow. Kumar is near fanatical about dropping the elbow, growing the arm out of the shoulder, connecting to the spine, Lower Tan Tian and the legs. This is something that anyone who does his Ba Gua distance program will be hearing a lot about. I mean a LOT! Numerous times he's walked by and smacked my elbow from below, to test if my elbow is dropped. If someone's elbow was over extended it would result in extreme pain, and if in a fighting situation would result in a broken elbow quite easily. This is one of his favorite martial arts techniques for people who over reach when they punch. So for anyone who has trained Ba Gua with Kumar, dropping the elbow is going to be considered a principle of the highest importance. In terms of his lineage, his last teacher had learned during a time when the Yin Fu/ Cheng Ting Hua division of the system was not yet set in stone. He bowed to Cheng Yu Long, but he was mentored by multiple students of Cheng Ting Hua, Yin Fu and other disciples of the founder. So his Ba Gua system is a mixture, and could be described as half Yin Fu, half Cheng Ting Hua. Sincerely, Jess O

Sean. Glad to hear you are on the Ba Gua path. Although it's often complicated, it really just boils down to the circle walking. I like Kumar's method because he really puts a lot of work and detail into the each aspect of the stepping. It really helped me to get my mind into my feet and help connect upper and lower body. Everyone knows that Ba Gua is based on stepping, but it's hard to find specific instructions for how to make that come to life, and Kumar's way of teaching provides a lot of how-to details. I think learning from him in person is the best way to go, but if you can only do it at a distance, then you can learn a lot from the Bagua Program that he put out. The lessons are good and the practice sessions are solid. After training in his school for quite a while now, my advice is to train step by step, but don't hold yourself back. Too many of my classmates miss opportunities because they say "Im not ready for Double Palm" or "I'm not advanced enough for rou shou" or whatever. Take everything you can get, by hook or by crook. Beg borrow or steal. Work on the foundation, but if something more advanced comes along get it and keep it and later it will come in handy. His system is a big cycle, it doesn't matter where you jump in on the cycle because it will always go full circle and come back to where you began. Good luck! Sincerely, Jess O

Hi Orb, Great! I know just the guy. http://www.zongwumen.com George Wood is a dedicated internal martial arts teacher, who is entirely focused on the most traditional, old fashioned, non-modern kung fu as you can get. I met him in Taiwan and practiced with him at one of Luo De Xiu's camps in Maryland a while back. So I can vouch for him on a personal level. You have my 100% guarantee that he will satisfy all of your questions about how IMA is supposed to work for fighting purposes. His classes are fun and are a great workout. Hope you get a chance to check him out! This goes for everyone here, George has a lot to offer if you are interested in how traditional IMA is supposed to work. Sincerely, Jess O'Brien

Hi Orb, Sounds like you are describing stupid people. Don't buy into people's fantasies of power. The world is full of fools and those who manipulate them. People like that are best avoided, which is what I do. I understand that you've been frustrated in finding someone who can show you what you are looking for. I was lucky enough to receive severe beatings from teachers, which is why I continue to train with them until this day. There is no substitute for hands-on experience. If you want to spar with someone who is competent in IMA, it shouldn't be too hard. Where are you at, I may have a school brother or friend who can help you out. Good luck in your quest! Jess O

Hi Gerard, When it comes to Spiritual martial arts as I mentioned above, there are people who choose to use fighting as a way to train meditation skills. It's not for everyone though. For instance, if you are sparring with someone, that kind of pressure and intensity can help you reach a level of mindfulness that is hard to get in regular practice. When you are pushed to the absolute edge of your ability to stay awake, you can learn a lot about how your mind works. Spiritual martial arts uses a lot of methods: training the body, working with energy, solo forms, push ups, techniques, sparring, weapons training, sitting, standing, tons of stuff. Fighting is just one of the methods used to further refine awareness. It's not for everyone, but I was taught this way and it's quite useful. My goal in martial arts has nothing to do with self defense. Every aspect of training, from calisthenics, chi gung, forms, two person techniques, massage, sparring, every single aspect is used to further the goal of better understanding my "self", how my mind and body work, becoming aware of the illusions and falsehoods that are gumming up my consciousness. For me self-defense is not an issue. I'm a big guy with a stupid grin on my face and no one bothers me. Martial arts is ONLY useful to me as a way of training my mind and body together. Whether I'm doing techniques, forms, jumprope, chi gung, sparring, they are all exactly the same to me. Just different tools for cultivation of the same thing. To me, that's what Asian martial arts have to offer that self-defense, fight sports, and military training don't deliver as effectively. Sincerely, Jess O'Brien

Hi everyone, I saw Kumar's name on this thread so I thought I'd jump in. I've done some training with him and have found it to be quite fascinating and effective for martial arts. To begin with, Kumar is in his 60's. He no longer fights, and has pretty much retired from teaching martial arts. So he is not going in to the UFC any time soon. However, he did get into a lot of dangerous situations over the years. He has told me about his experiences with sport fighting, street fighting, security work, and challenge matches. He has won and lost in all of these areas. His first point about martial arts is that everything must be tested in non-cooperative sparring, at the least. Period. Based on my conversations with him, I'd say that this is accurate according to his philosophy: Your ability to grow in martial arts is 100% limited by your fight experience. For instance, if someone has sparred with hundreds of opponents in friendly matches, they can only reach a certain level. However, if someone has tested their skills in random, chaotic street fights where anything goes, they can perhaps reach a mediocre level. If you have tested your skills in challenge matches where severe injury or death is acknowledged as an acceptable outcome, against opponents with skill levels significantly higher than yours, you may then possibly reach a high level of martial arts skills. Not a guarantee, but the potential is there. That's if. If you don't follow that approach, then don't bother with martial arts. If you want to excel at martial arts there is no other way. However, note that being mediocre is just fine, if you accept that. No shame in being a low level martial artist, most of us are. Just don't fall into the traditional martial arts trap of thinking you can get good without losing fights. You can't. Even more importantly, you have to win some too. What he calls "Spiritual" martial arts is even more severe. Beyond the above requirements, you have to devote yourself to Taoist meditation as well. So it's like doing a double major PhD. Most people don't want to put in this level of work and challenge. Not only do you have to find fights, and survive them, but you must apply your meditation skills before, during and after the matches. Your ego, feelings, anger, sadness, pain, etc must all be confronted, and dissolved. This can be a very rigorous and challenging experience. From Kumar's perspective Spiritual martial arts is a very difficult thing to pursue, making regular martial arts look like a much easier process. Facing the most terrifying and paralyzing things inside your mind and spirit, while in the middle of a high octane sparring match is not a picnic by any means. As to the general sense that Chinese martial arts don't work for sport fighting, I think that it's best to consider Asian martial arts and fighting sports to be two separate realms. They cross over a bit, but sports are a western phenomenon and Asian martial arts are unique to the east. They can fight each other, but aside from that they have very different goals and methods. Sport takes a tremendous amount of dedication and effort to achieve results. Martial arts for most of us is just a fun hobby that we enjoy. Comparing the two is a total waste of time, unless it's a sparring match. Roy Jones is a world class athlete, one of the greatest boxers of our lifetime, who made millions of dollars defeating the best opponents on the planet. What an insult to compare him to an average bloke who does a few hours of kung fu per week! What kind of idiot would ever make that comparison? Just shows a childish mentality with no respect for the sacrifices that pro sports players make. If you aren't training 6 hours a day for your entire life you have no right to talk about what pro athletes go through. For the average joe like myself, my advice is: go grab some gloves, put them on and slug it out for a while. It's fun! And it's a great way to see your emotions and energy come out of you. I suspect that most of us do better in a sparring match than we'd expect, you just have to try to find out. Sincerely, Jess O

Hi Baguakid, Lots of good stuff going on in the Bay Area. I'm no master, but my friend and I teach the nei gung system of BK Frantzis here in Berkeley. We'll be teaching the main set of the system called "Gods Playing in the Clouds" on Oct 9 & 10 in Berkeley, it's a really good combination of lots of inner work. Details here: http://watertradition.net/events.html Take care, Jess O

Hi all, I'm putting word out that well-known internal martial arts teacher BK Frantzis is going to be teaching his martial arts systems next month here in California. For those of us who enjoyed his book "Power of Internal Martial Arts", this is a good opportunity to get exposed to his approach to Ba Gua and Hsing-I. He trained with many famous teachers in the 1970's and 80's in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. This summer's classes will give the participants a strong foundation in his system, and will be of interest to beginning and advanced students alike. The first course will be on Ba Gua's Single and Double Palm Changes. These are the first two forms of the Ba Gua system. Details: Ba Gua The second course will be a weekend of training in Hsing-I's San Ti standing practice. Details: Hsing-I If you are interested in his internal martial arts, this is a great chance to check them out in person. Sincerely, Jess O'Brien

Thanks to everyone for their input. Remember this is just an opportunity to learn something. I'm not saying you should quit your teacher and join his school, etc. If you liked his books, then this event might be worth checking out. Baguakid- I said the course material is cool. The price is a different matter entirely, which is subjective for each person and their income. Where I live this is the going rate. Where others live may be quite different. In terms of teaching hours, probably 3 hours the first day and 5 hours on each of the full days. As for evaluating the teacher before purchase, I guess that may be the best way to do things. Personally I have visited and paid dozens of teachers in my attempt to broaden my experience. Some were worth it some weren't. But in the world of martial arts that's the gamble one has to take in order to get exposed to the arts. Adeha, thanks for contributing. I agree that his Tui Na classes are pretty good. He spent a lot of time working on those skills and it shows in his bodywork and in his lessons. Dwai, I agree with your post. I'm interested in specific skills and methods, and I'll pay in order to get access to the lessons that teach those skills. A disciple relationship would be a much greater price to pay and if that was the only way to get access I'd be screwed. My experience of training Hsing-I with Kumar is that he teaches in an extremely detailed manner, which includes body mechanics, and training the mind as well. His classes are meant to give you material to train for a year afterward, and as Adeha said the things he teaches gives you a lot to work on later. He is someone who has trained San Ti more than most of us have trained everything put together and has a deep knowledge of it. If you like San Ti, I think you would like his class. That's just my opinion though! Jess O

The onsite cost refers to if you are staying on campus during the event. Offsite means you stay elsewhere and commute to the event. I've never stayed there myself, but it seems like a nice enough campus. I posted this event here because it is focused on the first two forms of Ba Gua and the first form of Hsing-I. People who are interested in his method would do well to start from the beginning like this and get some of the basic training. Much of what he teaches is aimed at students who've been with him for a long time, so it's a nice opportunity to get in on the fundamental material. He teaches the Palm Changes in terms of the I Ching trigrams. The Single Palm Change called Dan Huan Zhang teaches you to open, stretch, and lengthen the tissues of the body, as well as expansion of the mind to everything surrounding you. This is the energy of Heaven. The Double Palm called Shuang Huan Zhang is about the Earth energy which trains a number of things including the ability to withdraw and fold the body while remaining extended physically, using soft yin power in striking, and accessing the rising energy of the Earth that fills and powers the legs. The rest of his palm changes go though the trigrams and teach you how to feel the essence of each one which training solo and in partner exercises. I think it's pretty cool. -Jess O

durkhrod chogori, I've been lucky enough to spend some time training with Luo De Xiu. His fighting skills are excellent, and I say this as someone who has visited many schools, including local MMA gyms and Fairtex Muay Thai camp among others. He has tested his art in many competitions in the 1970s and challenges in the 1980s. His student in southern california regularly sends out MMA fighters who do well with his methods. Many of Luo's students are damn good fighters. However, don't try to make him seem mystical. His punches, sweeps and throws are brutal, but that doesn't mean he or his students would win or have won every single fight. Well trained fighters are always hard to beat no matter how good you are, and in a real fight even an untrained man can win on a lucky strike. Those who have fought always say that in a real conflict anything can happen, so don't try to glorify even a great practitioner like Luo De Xiu. I think there are many people in sport fighting that would love what Luo does and get a lot out of his classes. He loves the fighting arts and has researched them deeply in Taiwan and China. He no longer fights, but has quite a few students who are happy to spar. Again, just remember that IMA skill is not mystical, it is practical and useful. However, highly skilled teachers are hard to find, getting good at any martial art or martial sport is hard work! Jess O

Hi all, I've trained with Kumar before, so I thought I'd chime in. He is quite well experienced as a fighter, and my first class with him was on fighting applications. It was pretty rough stuff, and I thought they seemed pretty effective to me. Afterward I asked him why we didn't jump rope and hit bags, but instead worked on awareness, relaxation and using fluidity in movement to get power. He said that those types of training are fine, and needed along the way. However, using these internal principles was what enabled guys like Dong Hai Quan and Yang Lu Chan to win brutal challenge matches during the late 1800's when fighting for your life was an common activity in the martial arts world. He said that he had taken these training methods and put them to the test in security, street, sport and challenge match situations and that they worked incredibly well. That was his experience and that of his teachers. Whether any of them would have won the UFC or not is not really the issue. If you take this material, train it and test it, you can find the truth in it. If you don't go through that process, then don't waste time speculating, just go for what works for you. Fanboys who claim that Internal is teh best are as bad as nutriders who hate all kungfu. Neither speak from experience. Personally I've never been in a real fight so I can't claim that the Chinese martial arts I have trained work in fighting. But in sparring they've served me well. Plus they are fun to train. Take care, Jess O'Brien