A key factor in what we were working with was foot work. Having quick and nimble footwork is defiantly an asset. Here’s a video clip of Shizi Orchard performing a number of the basic stepping patterns and turns in Jiulong Baguazhang.

One of the things I’ve been looking at is the different turns and different ways to apply them. I’ve been currently focusing on two of the more basic turns the water dragon and pendulum turns. This has been very informative and interesting to see how what seems to be a relatively simple move can have so many different applications can come of it. For myself it seems that the more time I spend practicing this art the more I see in the many seemingly simply motions.

In January of 2012, Shizi Reynolds will be having an Introduction to Jiulong Baguazhang, for more information and to register at http://baguamississauga.com/ .

This past weekend Shifu Painter was in Toronto teaching workshops on the internal aspects of the art, which was hosted by Shizi Eric Reynolds and Shizi Jan Carstoniu.

On Friday night there was a workshop on the internal aspects of the Willow Bends(our version of push hands) exercise and other sensitivity exercises. This workshop was very informative as it delved into the deeper levels of the Willow Bends game and variations on how to play it to get the most out of it. Also included was a discussion and exploration of Yin side of the Jiulong Rolling the Pearl program. The evening ended off with some sensivity and awareness building games, it was a very full evening to say the least.

Saturday and Sunday built on what we learned on the Friday evening, but focused on the areas of the internal aspects of circle walking. As part of it was refining some of the basic walking and turning, Yi Xin Gong, etc, but built upon this to learn what should be incorporated into our circle walking. Shifu Painter also covered some information on Nine Palace training and different variations of it.

Overall it was a great weekend with lots of information to work with over the course to the next 6 months before he returns.

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.

What I like about the clip below is that it show Jiulong Bagua applications on stairs. I can say I’ve never seen any martial art applications demostated live or in a video on stairs of any type. Check it out.

Each of the sections has many layers that are the building blocks for the next section. Eventually, you revisit the first section and refine it further. This constant refining means that you must look inward at yourself, be honest and find where you must correct or improve. I remember I was standing in the embrace the pearl posture, the same way I had for quite a while. I just noticed that something didn’t feel quite right. I noticed that I felt like I was over extending my upper arms, so I brought them back into my shoulder slightly and everything felt right. There have been many times so far and many more that will be of self insight and correction.

I’ve also been focusing on my Iron Palm training which is now in it’s second phase. This phase the stiking is performed on a bag that is hanging verticley on a wall. I’ve been doing this for just over a month and have noticed a few changes. One thing I noticed is if there is anything out of alignment I notice it. I’ve also noticed that my hands are still hardening and getting stronger.

Well that’s it for now,  I’ll try to get another update soon. Also check out the Jiulong Journal http://jiulongjournal.com for many interesting articles.

Once I completed the 100 day program, I contacted Shifu Garza to inform him of my status. His reply included congratulations on completing this program. Some instructions on how to evaluate my palm/hand and questions to be answered. Once I completed this I was given 3 options to continue/maintain my training.  I could 1-maintain my hand, 2- continue hardening my hand  or 3- start verticle striking. I chose to start the verticle striking, which I feel would be best suited for me, I may choose to continue hardening my hands at a later date.  For any of my supplies I purchase them through http://www.coilingdragon.com/ who is a cerified Jiulong Baguazhang Instructor, but is also a Dit Da Jow Brew master, I’ve been very pleased with his products.

The last few sessions in our training we’ve been working with the effect of the Ba Step on a potential attack. We found it very interesting to see the effect that the Ba step has on a potential attck and then add in the torso and arm and to see how they magnify the ability to avoid the potential attack.  The reason I decided to start really looking into the footwork of Jiulong Baguazhang is that footwork is a major and powerful component of the system.

I working on another workshop with Shizi Eric Reynolds on Sept 26/10, if you’re around the Hamilton area drop me an email to get further details at hamiltonbagua@gmail.com .

Once of my KungFu brother makes some very nice bagua circles, to check them out go to http://baguacircles.com/ .

Here are a few pictures from the Gathering, the top three pictures are from the morning class with Shifu Castaldo which focused on various combat games used in Jiulong Baguazhang.

The second row are pictures from the afternoon earth palm classes, taught by Shifu Painter.

The final row, was also from the afternoon class taught by Shifu Painter. The focus on this portion was YiXinGong, this is an internal skill practiced by not just Jiulong Baguazhang practioners, but by all the arts within the Daoqiquan system which Jiulong is apart of.

The gathering is not just an extremely informative event, but it’s very enjoyable. This was my 3rd year going and each time I get more out of it and have more fun.

So Sergio wrote as follows:

“The mornings at the Gathering of the Circle were devoted to studying Ji Haoma Qigong.This is a form of personal Feng Shui designed to align yourself to the most beneficial directions thus increasing the benefits the Qigong practice.

It begins by determining from you year of birth a number-your personal lucky number-which will be assigned to a position in the Early Heaven Ba Gua.That will be the first of your beneficial directions.One,then, can orient oneself to any of those directions for different purposes( improving health,harmony,developing vital qi.)while in quiet sitting or power standing practices.

But there is more than that.This Li Family method uses a combined diagram of the Early Heaven and Later Heaven trigram arrangements coupled with the Luo Shu numbers and Feng Shui compass directions not only to determine our personal most beneficial orientation but also to use the trigrams BaGua Zhang postures both in its single trigram and combined forms.This is done by interpreting first each trigram and,then,as one sees the combination of both arrangements ,as a hexagram, obviously interpreted as a combined posture.This yields four combined postures which we use to walk the circle once again to align ourselves and physically enact the forces most beneficial for personal health improvement.

But there is more.Shifu Painter went in great detail about clearly defining the Li Family concept of Qigong.that of Wu Ho-too much fire or balancing the fire(Qi).It is believed that emotions which are in extremes have harmful effects in our body.Also the Four Virtues become an essential part of Qigong.They are the most essential part of our Qigong practice.

But there is more.The concept of Xin fu Dao then comes into play so as you can see this system is not just a flapping of the arms in a certain direction.It is a way of life and a way to discipline ourselves and reap the benefits of this practice by appying Xin Fu Dao,Wu Ho Four Virtues concepts and then add the Ji Haoma and Flying Dragon Qigong methods in a holistic way.

But there is more.It is also a way to enact the I CHING making it come alive in our sitting,standing and walking.As Shigong LiLong Dao said the I Ching talks to you.
But there is more…..”

I hope these 2 posts gave you a small glimpse of what the experience of the gathering is like, but as Sergio repeated “But there is more”.

I arrived at the Best Western in Albany late Sunday evening and so I had very little sleep before my first day began at 7:30am with breakfast. We all met in the conference hall at 9am to have our greetings and then we split up in to 2 groups those who were part of the Advanced students/Instructors who would spend the mornings with Shifu Castaldo and the rest who would stay with Shifu Painter and study Ji-Haoma Qi-Gong.

During the mornings I spent with Shifu Castaldo our focus was on Jiulong Baguazhang combat games. Primarily Willow Bends, this is a training exercise to devlelops sensitivity in the forces being applied on you and that you apply on your partner. Sense memories, to name a few things that are learned. This exercise becomes very informative because every person you train with is different in every way. So you learn very much from each person you train with.

During the course of the week we went from stationary willow bends to single legged, single step to a more freestyle format. By moving through each of these stages with each partner I started to notice many changes for the better in my willow bends play. “Invest in loss” was one of the quotes stated many times, throught the week. From what I understand that this means is perform the exercise slowly and correctly and don’t worry about “winning”. By this I mean don’t worry about not getting unbalanced or unbalancing your partner. These will only distract you from the real win, moving with full body power and coordination and being able to control your partner from first touch as efficiently as possible.

On the final day with Shifu Castaldo, we spent much of our morning work some multiple opponent games. The first game we were devided into groups of 4, 1 person in the middle and one at a time the other three would come in at them. The willow bends game would continue until 1 person was unbalance. This game was escalated, until we were devided into 2 groups of 8. 1 person would be in the middle and 3 peopler were constantly in contact with them and this was then escalated to a 7 on 1 situation. These were done slowly keeping in mind that it was a learning tool with many valuable lessons.

Our Afternoons were spent learning Luoxuan Zhang(Spiraling Palm) aka Kun Zhang(Earth Palm). One of the very interesting features of this palm is its soft, receptive nature. Ir’s almost impossible to detail everything that was learned during the course of the week with Shifu Painter learning this palm. We went from some of the very basic standing and shifting exercise, to linear walking, some special features of the turns used with this palm, primarily pendulum turn and white ape stepping. We even got in a fair bit of circle walking and some circle walking Anzhangfa drills and some applications focussing on joint locking/throwing techniques. Just to note these “techniques” are not to be learned and memorized, they’re examples of what could be or techniques of the momemt.

A big part of working with Earth palm is to keep it soft, you must really work with the intent and attitude, the mental parts of this palm. On the Tuesday to Friday mornings, 6:30am to be exact we had quite sitting and Qi Gong. This initial part of the day was used to help us with practicing some specific intent exercises to assist us with the earth palm in the afternoon.

During the course of the afternoon working with the Standing and shifting exercises. There was a focus on not just getting the physical posture correct, but also working with the Yi(intent) and Xin(attitude) of the palm. There were a number of partner assisted exercises to help get feedback on the exercise being performed. This feedback is very beneficial since much of this art, let alone this palm has many very subtle movements. This focus was carried through into the walking and application sections.

We ended on Friday with a focus on creating a daily training program that was approximately 30minutes in length. As well, we spent a lot of time working on some YiXinGong exercises and testing these exercises. I’ll go into this on another posting in the future. Shifu Painter’s workshops are always entertaining and full of humor and great stories. His workshops are not to be missed and this 5 day intensive annual event should not be missed. I’ve been informed that there is expected to be another Gathering of the Circle in 2011, so start saving now so you don’t miss next years.

In the next week or so I’ll be posting some pictures from the event and I’m hoping a commentary about the Ji-Haoma Qi-Gong sessions.

Here’s a link to the Jiulong Journal and a article from Shifu Painter, http://jiulongjournal.com/gathering-of-the-circle-2010 .