Lots of new things in the Membership site today including a podcast about Cheng Man Ching Tai Chi, a new article and another extract from Nigel Sutton’s new book – Fighting Tai Chi Chuan.
Nigel’s new Membership Site is now live and waiting for you!
If you practice Tai Chi or other Chinese Martial Arts and are looking to improve your knowledge or skills then this is the resource you have been waiting for.
The site consists of the following main areas:
Pondering Podcasts – Nigel talking about all aspects of Tai Chi – new ones every month;
Articles – Nigel’s writings about Martial Arts training – new one every month;
Videos – Selections of videos from Nigel’s extensive library of Zhong Ding training over the past 20 years;
Books – Nigel’s books serialised, month by month;
Members Forum/Ask the Master – An exclusive area to swap ideas with other members about your training and also to ask questions of Nigel or any of Nigel’s teachers or Martial Arts brothers.
And remember – none of this will be available anywhere else.
The cost? Get in now before the end of April and your first year’s subscription is only £35 – less than £0.10 a day! Wait until May and it goes up to its regular price of £39/year – but still less than a months membership at some similar sites!
So don’t delay – click on the Membership Join menu above and join now.
In the Membership area, soon to be unveiled, are numerous Ponderings of Nigel on a very range of topics, including:
Lineage – its importance in Chinese Martial Arts – in 4 parts
The 13 Methods
Cheng Man Ching Tai Chi
Creativity
Pushing Hands – in 2 parts
The Role of the Teacher
Why come to Penang
and many more
The video below contains extracts from the first of these on Lineage
Remember – these Ponderings, Videos and Articles will only ever be available in the Members area.
Also there will be many of Nigel’s books serialised over coming months and a Martial Arts Forum where you can ask Nigel and his teachers and his Martial arts brothers questions about your personal training; again not available anywhere else.
As some of you might know our Tenby International School and Han Chiang High School Students will be representing their Schools to take part in Wushu competition on the 27th Jan 2013 at Gurney Plaza, Penang.
This event is organised by Penang State Wushu Association and sponsored by Gurney. Six of the students are preparing for the challenge at this their first experience of taking part in the Penang Open.
I always like students to take part in competition because it is a great opportunity to test their skills outside School events. Thus, it is not only to test themselves, it is also a way to learn from others. In other words is to share knowledge!
Our New Year Wushu Residential Course at our centre has finally come to an end . All of the students, the youngest aged 7 and the oldest 12 , from both Uplands and Tenby International Schools worked very hard .
Everybody had fun.
Congratulations to all of you who passed the next grading and don’t forget to keep it up!
I hope everyone is excited about the coming residential course on the 1st Jan 2013 at Zhong Ding Training Centre Balik Pulau Penang.
This special course will not only teach you a Mantis form and the applications but you will also be able to learn the next level of weapons training as well as continuing with the Syllabus.
There will be a lot of interesting activities, games, wushu history, philosophy, theory, movies etc.
If you are unable to make it this time, you can come on the next course. Hope to see you then.
Christmas is a very special time of year for me, as it is the time when my training becomes both the most physically intense and the most mentally deep.
Why this should be, I am not sure. I think, however, that there are two main reasons. The first has to do with the nature of human culture and the meaning given to festive seasons; the second to do with my early karate training.
Every culture has a major annual festive season, for the Chinese it is the Lunar New Year, for Muslims it is Eid, for Hindus Divali and for those in the christianised West, it is Christmas. This is traditionally a time for reflection on the past and planning for the future. Such festivals are not only a time for celebration but also for introspection. At such special times of the year, there is a feeling of infinite possibility for renewal and change. This same feeling is one which may be harnessed and injected into martial training.
Raised, as I was, in the UK, Christmas is the festival season that most resonates with me. Ever since I first started martial arts training, at the age of thirteen, this has been the time of year when I do my most intense practice.
This brings me on to the second reason that my training intensifies at this festive time of the year, namely because of the Japanese tradition of shugyo, or austere training. Since my forst exposure to the martial arts was through the Japanese art of karate, I learnt very early on that the Japanese undertook intensive periods of harsh training at both the hottest and the coldest times of the year. My reading of books such as Moving Zen, further reinforced the idea that when it was cold or snowed, outside was the place to be and martial arts training the appropriate activity.
Of course it seldom snowed in the South of England where I lived, especially at Christmas. Nevertheless the festive season was the one that I associated with such hard training.
In the cold of winter in the small scout hut, which served as our dojo, I was often the only student. On those occasions my instructor would tell me to do my own training, while he got on with his. Inevitably, however, he would come over and correct my techniques, or suggest some ways in which I might improve.
When not training at the club, I would train alone in the garden, or on the beach with my training partner. These sessions, particularly when it snowed, were very special for me. Something about the extra effort needed to brave the cold and continue practicing when freezing extremities cried out for a warm fire, made these sessions seem somehow worth more than at other times of the year.
Several years of “special” winter training, instilled in me the habit of deepening not only my training, but also my research, at this time of the year.
Now that I live in Malaysia, and snow is no longer very likely, I still find myself training more intensely at Christmas, than at other times of the year. This always goes hand in hand with a period of deeper research. This is the time of year when I reread my notes, or search through books, old or new, to shed more light on whatever I happen to be working on. With the advent of the internet, there are also innumerable resources available through a quick google search.
This year, spurred on by the news that Master Xu Shu Song has been invited to teach our art in Mainland China, I have been re-exploring Grandmaster Zheng’s legacy; in particular Douglas Wile’s translation of “Zheng Manqing’s Uncollected Writings on Taijiquan, Qigong and Health, with New Biographical Notes” (Sweet Ch’i Press 2007).
So as a belated Christmas gift from me to you, I will leave you with a couple of short passages that are currently inspiring and fuelling my training. Wishing you all Happy Holidays and looking forward to a great year of training in 2013. Heng Ha!
“Zheng Manqing has said that during his taiji training, he passed through a stage where every joint, sinew and muscle in his whole body felt as though he had been cut with a knife. Nevertheless he clenched his teeth and persisted in practice.” Zheng Manqings Uncollected Writings on Taijiquan, Qigong and Health, with New Biographical Notes. Douglas Wile, Sweet Ch’I Press 2007 p34
“In the beginning, taijiquan consisted of just thirteen postures, and they were practiced individually. Today’s fixed forms have nothing to do with the original ideas of our forebears. Everything in the world, every kind of knowledge or form, is a negative side effect of progress.” Ibid. p.88
Books I am currently reading (Just for you Vicky!)
Willpower Baumeister and Tierney Penguin 2011
The Inner Art of Karate Tokitsu Shambhala 2012
When Buddhists Attack Mann Tuttle 2012
Meditation and the Martial Arts Raposa University of Virginia Press 2003
October & November – Nigel and Fong are visiting the UK and travelling around the country giving seminars and also hosting a weekend of training in Nottingham when Tai Chi students from around the country meet to train, socialise, chat and generally have fun learning about all aspects of Tai Chi and Qigong.
Please click the link below to see details of the 25th Anniversary celebrations taking place next year. Or Right click the link to save it to your computer.
