Visiting a master or two

One of my objectives during my stay in Asia is to visit as many Internal Martial Arts (IMA) masters as possible, but I not sure yet how realistic that plan is. Taichung in Taiwan was home to a very famous IMA master called Wang Shujin, inadvertently I have visited two of his disciples on two separate occasions.

Once was three years ago when I was introduced to a master by Serge Dreyer, I visited there for one evening practiced some of their routines, watched the Xingyi and Bagua practice, chatted with some of the guys and played some free-style pushing hands with them. One guy in particular was very powerful and a lot of fun was had by all, shame that I didn't have longer to practice with them, maybe I'll make a second visit sometime. From what I was told at that time they didn't appear to practice master Wang's Tai Chi form, but practiced a Cheng Manching form, I didn't get to see a performance though.

The second occasion was just last week. I was taken to visit another disciple of master Wang by a friend of my wife's who has been practicing under this guy for around 4 years. This class was altogether a different kettle of fish from the previous experience 3 years ago.

Last Thursday evening was very cold and windy and I was led into a courtyard situated directly under a block of flats. There was a group of guys standing in a group practicing various standing and moving postures. When the master saw me he gave me a kind look that was a kind of mixture of surprise and curiosity.

You know, I spent years studying Mandarin Chinese and that has now, on occasion, been more or less rendered useless by my immersion into a Taiwanese speaking environment. Taichung people freely mix their native Taiwanese (a variant form of the dialect from Fujian Province know as Min Nan language) with Mandarin Chinese. Some older people speak very little Mandarin and the little they speak is pretty much unintelligible to me. This master fits superbly into that category!

Anyway, I was guided towards him and asked to introduce myself. Words were spoken to introduce that fact that I practice Tai Chi. The master immediately gestured for me to open my jacket and he briefly examined my belly and then showed me the power of his Dantian.

The master is a large stocky guy of 80 years young, still looking very strong and clearly very powerful. I have also been reliably told that he has fathered a child also in recent years, which I guess lays testament to quality of his Gongfu.

He proceeded to reposition my body into a desired posture that he said was the basis of good Neigong practice (different though from anything that I've practiced before) and asked to stand in that posture for as long as possible. I think I managed about 15 minutes of the expected 30 minutes-not bad for first attempt. I stood there with much correction from various members of the group, hair blowing around in the cold wind, feeling well kind of suddenly involved and not all at the same time.

On reflection, I suppose the striking difference between these two disciples of Wang Shujin is that their teaching methods are completely different. The first is more like a class that I am used to, with mixed types of Gongfu practice, where as the second is directly focused on Neigong practice or Zhanzhuang and practice little of any practical applications.

To round off the evening I was invited to strike one the top disciples in belly as a demonstration of "Qi" power. I hit him quite hard three times and his belly was very hard indeed. I was not asked to demonstrate anything and I didn't offer either, I like to be in the position of prospective student and enjoy that experience. I do not enter a situation like that in order to set out to prove anything to them, myself or anyone else.