Innerqi

Gia Fu Feng Health and longevity have been the focus of the 3rd International Taoist Forum in Southeast China’s Jiangxi Province. In Taoist theory, to concentrate on individual development is to practice the path of the Return to the Tao on a macro level — to be in harmony with nature, if not the universe.   Taoism is connected with achieving well-being. Traditionally, those practices were reserved for followers, acquiring an aura of mystery. "To cultivate health, you need to learn the true meaning of life. Only by understanding life, can we pursue the cultivation of longevity, the importance of health," Zhu Heting, a Taoist master from Hong Kong said. "Health needs a healthy mind first, by minimizing your desires and centering ourselves on stillness. Human lives are in our control," Li Zhiwang, a Taoist master from Singapore said. read more

Neulich notierte ich mir im Zusammenhang mit der Schwierigkeit, Taijiquan zu definieren, folgendes:  Jemand der Schwimmen lernt und sich nicht oder nur mühsam über Wasser halten kann, schwimmt nun mal nicht. Wer mit dem Fahrrad ständig umfällt, weil er es nicht versteht, die Balance zu halten, fährt nicht Rad. In dem Moment, wo das Entscheidende verstanden ist, nennen wir die Aktivität Schwimmen bzw Radfahren . Nun finde ich den Vergleich mit Schwimmen und Radfahren auch auf Stefan Gätzners sehr lesenswerten Webseite

Taijiquan sei etwas für ältere Menschen, lautet ein verbreitetes Vorurteil. Scheinbar bestätigt wird das durch jene älteren Chinesen, die man morgens in den Parks und auf den Plätzen üben sehen kann, wegen ihrer Kleidung auch als Seidenpyjama Rentner verspottet. Ganz sicher werden die Teilnehmer dieser Übungen keine competition gewinnen, wie sie immer häufiger ausgetragen werden. Damo Mitchell hat ihrem Taijiquan allerdings einen bemerkenswerten Aspekt abgeschaut.  Artikel (auf Englisch)

I feel awkward taking credit for this story for two reasons. The first has to do with the subject matter. As a martial arts writer myself, I have long found in Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming's work a tremendous source of personal inspiration. When I was a fledgling freelance writer, intelligently-written books on Chinese martial arts were few and far between. Back then, most books made scant offerings: a few pages of introduction, typically a recounting of apocryphal Shaolin legends, followed by a short discussion of the author's lineage and style. The rest were "how to" photos and captions. Dr. Yang's books were thick and informative. Not only did they expand upon those stereotypical introductions, they provided some serious background research and insight on the topic. For the literate martial artist, Dr. Yang's books were a breath of fresh air. They really opened the door to deeper knowledge for practitioners who only read English. I still reference his books today. I...

Clad in traditional Daoist robes, Zhong Xuechao looks like he just walked off the set of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. While Americans are familiar with robed Buddhist monks like the Dalai Lama, Daoist attire has a distinctly Chinese flair, yin black and yang white accentuated with an assortment of dark-hued blues. Instead of shaven pates, Daoists let their hair grow with the flow. It's long and uncut, tied in a top knot with a signature dragon hairpin. To top it all off, Daoists customarily don traditional hats which are unlike anything seen in the West. The overall appearance is dramatic, as if an immortal hermit mystically escaped from a Chinese painting. As a Wudang priest, Zhong Xuechao (鍾學超) always wears Daoist robes as an expression of his practice. Zhong, who also goes by Master Bing, is now teachingko in Los Angeles, but in the City of Angels his unique apparel barely attracts a second glance. "There's less staring in America than in China," says Bing in...

I was born in the year of the monkey in a small village in central China's Henan Province. My grandparents had moved there after floods had destroyed their hometown. Because we were not native to the village, my family endured a lot of bullying. The locals made sure my parents had to use the worst land for farming, and the worst spot for building our house. When I was in fourth grade my grandfather fell ill, and because we needed money for hospital bills, I had to leave school. I worked on our farmland, helping my family plant corn and cotton. Eventually, my parents decided to send me to Wudang Mountain to study martial arts. I was a very active child, much harder to contain than my brothers. It was also my parents' hope that if a member of the family were good at martial arts, the local villagers wouldn't bully us. As a boy, I used to walk for hours to watch kung fu movies on the sole TV in the area. I was always fighting with my brothers in our family's front yard. S...

aus kungfu magazin  2003 Wudang Mountain When  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon  pushed martial arts movies into the Oscar spotlight, it also exposed one of China's most cherished martial treasures, Wudang Mountain. Nestled in the heart of the mainland in Hubei Province, Wudang Mountain is a famous center for Taoism and is believed to be the birthplace of Tai Chi Chuan. According to legend, Tai Chi (spelled Taiji in modern Mandarin) was created by an ancient Wudang master named  Zhang San Feng , who was inspired by mystical visions he experienced on that mountain. Today, the Taoist temples of Wudang are still active. In fact, Wudang's temples are protected as one of 730 registered World Heritage sites of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Inside those temples, the internal styles of kung fu - Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua - are still practiced by robed Taoist priests. Now they are opening their doors to the public for the...

über google books kann man sich nun von der unterhaltsamen und lehrreichen Qualität dieses außergewöhnlichen Buchs überzeugen. Es ist im Buchhandel als gebundene Hardcoverausgabe und als Paperback erhältlich.

王征南先生傳 BIOGRAPHY OF WANG ZHENGNAN [also known in abridged form as 內家拳法 Boxing Methods of the Internal School] 黃百家 by Huang Baijia [1676] [complete translation by Paul Brennan, Aug, 2014] Wang Zhengnan mastered two arts: boxing and archery. But although there have been many extraordinary archers throughout history, Wang was the best boxer. Shaolin is the peak of refinement for the external arts. Zhang Sanfeng was a Shaolin expert, but he turned the art on its head and thereby created the internal school. Obtaining just a little bit of it is enough to defeat Shaolin. Wang Zhengnan learned it from Dan Sinan and was the only one of his students to obtain the entire curriculum. When I was young, I did not train at all for the civil service exams, for I preferred doing things that were a little more extreme. Once I had heard about Wang’s fame, I bundled up some provisions and went to the village of Baozhuang to learn from him. Wang was extremely proprietorial toward his art an...