On my ancestor’s place, as is the one at the Gompa, there are many objects placed there that are symbolic representatives of the school, its history and of my own personal beliefs and history. I have a sword rack in the living room that holds 8 swords of various styles and dates. But the one that sits on the single display on my ancestor’s place is a double-edge straight sword that is broken in two at the middle. A friend came to visit this past week and looking over the swords, asked why the old, broken, cheap sword has the honor of being on the ancestor’s place, instead of one of the fancy, “pretty” ones (his words, not mine). [Read more...]
The Power of Symbols
December 31, 2011 By 2 Comments
Changing Reality with Non-reality
December 14, 2011 By 2 Comments
Here is a simple experiment that you can do right now to show you how the imagination creates reality. Imagine a large juicy lemon. It is a big thick, fat lemon, swollen with tart lemon juice. The fruit is very yellow and ripe. Now you can see yourself holding a knife, a sharp knife. You carefully cut into the lemon skin and slice around the lemon rind. The juice of this lemon starts to drip down the knife onto your hand. It is cool and sticky. You put down the knife and peel open the lemon exposing the yellow pulp. As you squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl, it smells tart and sweet. [Read more...]
The Basics
November 22, 2011 By 1 Comment
Shifu Painter recently posted a response on the yahoo discussion forum that lays out how to get started in Jiulong. It was in response to this question:
“Hello there! I am a fresh member of this group, and I thank you for accepting my request to join. I was wondering if you could explain some of the basics that I might work on in order to lay down the foundation for both the Internal Qi Flow and the External forms and steps of BaGua”.
Shifu’s response:
Welcome to Jiulong. In the beginning stages we do not discuss Qi flow. The truth is that for martial arts that is “real” martial arts one needs to build a solid physical and mental foundation first.
Here is what we learn to do in Jiulong Baguazhang a reality based martial art and health system.
Being Uncomfortable in Toronto
November 8, 2011 By 3 Comments
“Feel the incoming force move your body up and back” said Shifu Painter, “Feel your body being moved by this force and then compensating for it by coming back to True.”
I felt it. I felt the upward and backward sensation almost as if someone was actually pushing me. I felt the body react to this feeling and adjust so that it settled back to the feeling of “true”. This is the sensation of having the centre of the body vertically aligned. This alignment runs from the feet to the top of the head.
This entire experience was a small part of the weekend workshop in Toronto on October 22 – 23. [Read more...]
Wondering about the Willow
October 28, 2011 By 4 Comments
Weekend workshops in Toronto are usually spit into a health session and martial session. This time we had decided to stick with the martial theme for the whole weekend.
On Friday evening the focus was on the Willow Bends exercise. This is possibly the most misunderstood practice in the Nine Dragon repertoire and as a result the one that can become a complete waste of time. This is because it is actually designed to be a sensitivity exercise, but tends to get degraded into a competition very quickly. So Shifu Painter took the Toronto students through some exercises in feeling movement. This was done in a way that was designed to reduce if not eliminate the tendency to compete and “beat” one’s partner.
The problem with attempting to win in Willow Bends is [Read more...]
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