Archive for the ‘Article’ Category

Like Yin & Yang, this past week held a great holiday of happiness, and a day to mourn; we lost a great martial artist, a great teacher, a great man.

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Six Sealing Four Closing – A video clip and an explanation…

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Previously, we took a look at Understanding and implementing Wu De (武德). In this installment, we’re going to look at some of its different manifestations.

There are three aspects of Wu De that are commonly misunderstood, but can in many cases fall within the same category: School / Kwoon / Guan Rules & Guidelines, General Virtues and Martial Virtues. In this installment of Wu De, we will look at common school rules & guidelines and try to understand why they exist and what relationship they have with Wu De. In the next piece we will look at specifics of the next two categories of General Virtues and Martial Virtues.

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Why Study Chen Style Taijiquan? There have been many answers to this question since the development of this theoretically simple, yet methodically complex "art of yin and yang."

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Well, it’s been a long time since I was able and motivated to do one of these posts. Newborn babies and all the other vagaries of life have kept me, shall we say, distracted. But, things are starting to settle in around here, and as I’m going to be undertaking a much larger writing project in the new year I suppose I should get back in the practice of actually doing some. So, without further ado, #4 in our series of basic Ba Gua concepts:
Change!

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Previously, we looked at a general definition of Wu De (武德). Let’s now take that understanding a bit deeper.

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We know the term “Wǔshù” (武術), refers to military or martial art. And the title of a philosophical book you’re no doubt familiar with is the Tao Teh Ching, or Dào Dé Jīng(道德經), which translated, roughly means The Classic of the Virtuous Way.

Broken down into its parts, Dao or Tao, means the way or path. De or Teh means Virtue and Jing or Ching means Classic, as in a “literary classic”.

Wu De (武德) then, means Martial Virtue.

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Wu De, the often misunderstood Cultivation of Character in traditional martial arts, is an important topic.

As we learned in Is Kung Fu a Martial Art?, the term "Kung Fu" can relate to martial arts, yet truly applies to the cultivation of any skill – a level of mastery in a skill through hard work.

This does not mean, however, that one must be a "master" of the martial arts; simply walking the proper path will do the trick.

However, there’s more to improve than just the physical and mental skills – there is the character.

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Yes and No. And yet your Martial art can either have Kung Fu or not.

Technically speaking, the term "Kung Fu", sometimes spelled Kongfu or Kong Fu, comes from the Chinese words 功夫 (gōng fu), and means skill, art, labor, or effort. Put together it means a skill or art derived through labor and effort.

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More Basic Circle Walking

When I last wrote to all of you (far too long ago, I know) we spoke about the Bagua basic walk from the ground up to the legs. This time we will address the rest of you—torso, arms and head. Please refer back to Ba Gua Training Tips #2 if you need to catch up.

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