I got back from the gathering Saturday June 11th early evening, coming back is always bitter sweet. It’s nice to get back to the family and friends, but it’s not so nice to leave the friends you make while at the Gathering. As always the event is full of information usually more then you can keep in your mind. The days are long and by the end of the week you’re tired and a little sore, but it’s worth it.

Here’s a little review of what the week was like.

The theme of this years event was centered around Lake Palm(Dui Zhang or Fu Zhang) with the exception of Monday every day started at 7am for a class which covered quiet sitting and Qi Gong, from 9am – 1pm was the 1st class of Lake palm. However, the Instructors and Instructors in training, left for a special class from 11:30am – 1pm with Shifu Castaldo to cover some key areas within the Rolling the Pearl program. From 2:30pm – 5pm was a continuation of Shifu Painters Lake palm class which covered application of Lake palm. The day ended with a class from 7pm – 8pm with an introduction to the Li family Dragon claw (elbow knife) methods.

The morning quiet sitting and Qi gong class covered material from various quiet sitting exercises, standing , linear and circle walking Lake palm Qi gong. This was a very interesting and fun exploration of this palm.

The morning lake palm class centered around the basic exercises that would build a strong foundation of this palm. These exercises covered the standing, Yi Xin Gong, shifting, linear walking and circle walking methods of this palm.

The Instructors training program with Shifu Castaldo focused on a few main areas within the Dragon rolling the pearl program which was created to assist new students to learn and focus on generating proper alignments and full body power without the added complexity of learning Heaven palm.

Our afternoon Lake palm class took the basics we learned in the morning class and expanded it to cover applications. Not specific techniques, but the pricipals behind them. I was very surprised with all the information we received here, it covered not just the application of Lake palm, but we had some exposure to magnetic body and striking with Lake palm into a strike sheild, very cool.

With the exception of Friday from 7-8pm we covered alot of information centered around the Li family Dragon claw methods, the information covered here was in depth and to a degree scary. Scary in that it makes you respect what this weapon/tool can do, with a walk a way feeling of I never want to be involved in a confrontation with a knife.  Some of the information covered was basic grips, grip changes, drawing the knife, checks, through to applicaitons and circle walking with the double dragon claws utilizing Lake palm energy. This was a fantastic end of the day.

After the days classes, people would go out for dinner in various groups and would meet up for some socializing before getting to bed. With days like what we had 6am came pretty early. Shifu Castaldo brought one of his old movies and shared it with us and some of the other people in the bar that night. It was the only room large enough, with a large enough for all of us.

If you’ve every thought about going and haven’t, you should give it a try Shifu Painter is a great teacher of the internal arts you won’t be sorry.

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