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I was fortunate enough to have Willie come to Tempe recently to get some extra training in with me and he had a question about Zen and how it applies to our training in the Martial Art Of Awareness.

"What is Zen?" is one of the most common questions posed by beginners to I Liq Chuan and how that actually applies to training martial arts.  In this quick video I attempt to address that issue as simply as possible.

Bartosz Samintowski was so kind as to come to Norway to have a seminar on the melting pot.
Everyone was glad to see Bartosz again and he grew on us like family
All the students helped in taking care of him in there own way.
Special thanks to Sandra and Zoltan for housing the host.
What is really grate whit Bartosz is hes way of explaining things and his structure of instructions and least of all his enthusiasm to share.

On friday we had a outdoor session in the beautiful scenery by the sea.
We worked on standing meditation and general ideas of the system.

As i read through student posts I get the sense that you all want to hear something more about the training process.  In short, each of you are recognizing the difference between the Tai Chi Chuan mindset and the I Liq Chuan mindset. Although tai chi principles support both training methodologies, the training approaches are very different.

In faburuary this year Master Sam Chin visided Scandinavia for the first time. The avent took place in Oslo Norway. We where provd and honored that sifu whould take his time and effort to come see us. There were about 20 people participating in the intro seminar. Everyone was stunned by sifu's skill level! We hope we can do it again soon

Here is a little something I put together:

Sunday's class ended up being a private lesson with Moose, and since he's working on his student level two, we spent a long time talking about the hip roll, finding the limits within the hip roll and triangle energy and m

One of the things that I find painful to observe when I go to the gym is watching people do squats.  It’s a basic movement that gets butchered since our sedentary lifestyles have made us forget how to move from the hips.  Instead, what happens when people squat is mostly poorly coordinated movements starting from the knees.  Rather than try to explain this in text, I find that Kelly Starrett’s video post about squatting is easier to visualize:

Thank you to everyone who made the 1st Annual ILC Winter Retreat an amazing success.

Thank you Sifu Sam Chin and Simo, Yen Lee and Yin Yin for choosing Tucson as the location for the ILC Winter Retreat and the first public 7 Days training intensive in the US.

It was wonderful seeing students from the US get a chance to meet and train with Alex Skalozub, Daria Sergeeva, as well as see, in the Russian visitors skill, where our training curriculum can take students dedicated practice.

In order to know what I know and do what I do, you must train like I train.

Thank you all for your dedicated practice. As this Year of The Dragon commences let us all feel deep and abiding gratitude for the great treasure that is our lives and in our curriculum that helps to enrich our everyday experiences. I wish each of you the best of health and prosperity in the coming year. Train well and regularly.

Achieving proficiency in a martial art requires certain abilities.  However, the abilities themselves do not equate to high level proficiency.  To achieve mastery of an art requires developing skill.  Skill and ability are related concepts, but are distinct.  The difference between the two is subtle, and I have not always had the best explanation to distinguish them when I get into a discussion with others.  But after reading through Geoff Colvin's "Talent is Overrated," I see that the difference between the two can be succintly stated: skill is not automatic.

For UCB Program students who have completed the 8 week course, I am making live classes availble over the web. If you are an active student paying tuition, there is no additional charge. For those who are not active students, please setup an automatic payment for distance learning using the form on the 'classes' page.

Chi factory students are eligible once they have completed Stage 2 training and have been designated as 'Ongoing' students. Create an account on UCB Program using a different email address than the one used on Chi Factory.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out fajin, but you might want to use a little rocket math to understand it. The force equation is a fundamental relationship for understanding how rockets get off the ground.  In the last blog post, we left off mentioning how we need acceleration to generate enough momentum over short distances.  For our purposes, we can use the force equation to analyze how it is possible to generate enough velocity and momentum for a short distance attack.

Being a science sort of guy, I like understanding mechanisms of how things work. Tying in concepts from biology, physics, and neuroscience into martial arts training is something I can totally geek out to. In my mind, demystifying martial arts esoterica using science is a good thing. However, science is sometimes used incorrectly to justify certain principles and phenomena  Fajin--the issuing of power--can be understood within the framework of sound science; it does not have to reside solely in the realm of qi, magic, superhuman abilities, or hand waved pseudo-science. 

Now UCB students can train anytime, anywhere.

Weekly live online instruction and self paced curriculum.

Find out more at http://ucbprogram.com/distancelearning

Enjoy!

The real trick of pursuing a martial art like I Liq Chuan over the long term is recognizing the end of the duality of "on the mat" and "off the mat", so that one is always training.

The I Liq Chuan system guide opens with the following;

The breath is used as an indicator for when you are going beyond the limit of strength. Part of tai chi is to recognize things as they are, or as such (Dao 道, or the nature of things).

I have strength, why can't I use it? We all have a certain amount of strength, this is our nature. The thing is when I try to go BEYOND the limit of my strength that my action turns into struggling, and I will lose the tai chi balance in my body, because everything has it's limits.

Below is our official translation, however one of my students was kind enough to have a non martial artist friend translate. I have found it helpful to shed some light on a very challenging read.

Hi All,

Just a short post to state that we over here in Oz were lucky to have Sijo come for a visit.

He held a 1-day workshop and we had good numbers in attendance.

It was great to see him in good spirits and top health. He shared on various topics of the curriculum. These included jamming, splitting, stationary and moving push-hands along with breathing.

It was a fantastic day. 

Ever notice the gentle smile on the face of most Buddha and Bodhisatva statues?

Here's a sample of our Chi Factory Distance Learning Program.

When gaining the upper hand position, getting to the horizontal usually works to your advantage. Dropping your opponents into the horizontal plane in effect closes them in the up-down dimension. This makes it much more difficult for them to project force against you and is getting the upper hand into position to attack. From the lower hand horizontal position, it is tougher to achieve the spacing necessary to strike in. To strike from the lower hand position, the elbow extends and the shoulder flexes to straighten the arm.

When gaining the upper hand position, getting to the horizontal usually works to your advantage. Dropping your opponents into the horizontal plane in effect closes them in the up-down dimension. This makes it much more difficult for them to project force against you and is getting the upper hand into position to attack. From the lower hand horizontal position, it is tougher to achieve the spacing necessary to strike in. To strike from the lower hand position, the elbow extends and the shoulder flexes to straighten the arm.