I received some seminar information from a taiji contact of mine. For those interested:
=======================
Chen Zhenglei workshop, Jun 24/25 2006 Chicago

Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei is one of the Four great jingang’s (Gems) of Chen Style Taiji, and is officially accorded the title as one of the Ten Great Wushu Masters of Renown in Contemporary China.

His Taijiquan is an embodiment of the principle of gang (hard) and rou (soft), the duality of rou in gang (softness in hardness) and gang in rou (hardness arising from softness), thus presenting a rare treat to learn from.

Seminar Topics:
1: Training of Twinning Power (Chan si jin)
2: Chen style Taijiquan Old Frame 1 (laojia yilu)
3: Chen style Taijiquan Push-hands

Date:
Saturday June 24 and Sunday June 25 2006

Time:
8:30 am to 3:30 pm (with lunch break)

Location:
Truman College
1145 west Wilson Ave
Chicago, IL 60640

Fees:
$225 for two days and $125 for one day.

Special:
$200 for both days for students who have attended previous Chen Zhenglei workshops

Late Registration Fee:
$25.00 applies if not paid before Jun 20 2006.
At door Registration penalty charge: $25:00 and cash only.
No credit card accepted. Personal checks accepted for early registration only. No refunds.

Contact Information:

Send money order or check to

Jun Qin Song
PO Box 408321
Chicago, IL 60640-8321
Tel: (773) 780-1881
Email: saly662003@yahoo.com

After reading about Squeezing in the Training Hours, I was prompted to write a bit about my own training. I had originally posted a bit about my training in a previous post titled, Current Training – End of 2005, but looking back on it.. I have not kept up the 100 hrs of zhanzhuang portion of my training. I feel kinda bad about it, but it’s something I want to resurrect in the future.

Currently, my training schedule consists of:
4:30 AM – Wake Up, prepare day
11:30 AM – 2 or 3 times a week do form training over lunch
8:30 PM – 3 or times a week do zhan zhuang and possible some form work
9:30 PM – go to bed

While I don’t put in as much time as I’d like, I do try to squeeze in what I can, where I can. As I mentioned on the original post, I’m hoping that after my son is a bit older, we can train together instead of me trying to do the form while he climbs on me

Having studied a little XYQ later, I came to realize after I left Japan that the teacher was using the sword training to develop what the Chinese call YI, or intent. Using a real sword gave me the ability to focus in a way I’ve never experienced before. Every time I drew the sword, I was “on” and paying attention to every last detail. Failing to do so would have resulted in injury.

– On Buying a Taiji Sword – Formosa Neijia

Wow.. this is really a great point and something I wanted to expand on and explore a bit on my own. I really like the connection of using a live blade and the development of yi.

Often times, I’ve been told to imagine an opponent when I do the form, but imagine no opponent during push hands. Personally, I’m still working on the form part. I think one of the precursors to this is to understand the application of each and every movement of the form. In my experience, I have not encountered the type of teaching where each and every posture is taught along with the application except in rare cases (it’s taught this way when I learned the 12 animals of liuhebafa, and also in the Chen Practical Method). I then start to wonder if a lot of teachers out there *know* the application for each and every move??

On the flip side, I’ve been told that learning the applications to each and every move can result in a blockage of higher level development due to focusing on the “physical” and not the energetic application. Energetic meaning, when given a peng, counter with a lu. When given a lu, counter with a ji and then try to break down the form into their energetic components.

Which is right? I’m not quite sure, though I think it’s probably something along the lines of the “middle road” and a bit of each.

The Taiji Student blog is now Shanglee.com. This site is quite nice and I’m a huge fan of integrating topics instead of having disjoint blogs. When I first started off blogging, I had a personal blog, a martial arts blog, a techie blog, etc etc..

Overtime, I started to feel as if my online presence was disjointed and not connected so I decided to collapse everything into 1 blog. So now I write about taiji, weird ramblings, aquariums, technology, etc etc. I feel this gives people and myself a better understanding of who I am b/c I do more and enjoy more than just taiji. This give myself perspective on what I feel is important and puts that in relation to other things.

Also included is a shout out to Life Giving Sword. You are not chopped liver, buddy Also, ZenMindSword is now posting on Ritual Cat.