Wahnam Tai Chi Chuan (Taijiquan) Thailand

Last year I travelled to Europe from Thailand to teach Wahnam Tai Chi Chuan workshops in London, Zurich and Switzerland, and I am really happy to be doing the same this year. Teaching the workshops for me is a great chance to pass on the art that I am so passionate about and also to spread the benefits of the art.

The schedule looks like this

Switzerland-Zurich 10-11 March

• 24 pattern Set with applications and more

• Contact Sifu Andrea for more info info(at)taichichuan-wahnam.ch

I am really looking forward to teaching the 24 pattern set in Zurich, it’s actually one of my favourite Tai Chi sets.

Sifu Andrea’s page   http://www.taichichuan-wahnam.ch

U.K.-London 17- March

• Tai Chi Chuan- Cloud Hands Set course

• Day Spar- Sparring for competition workshop

• Contact Sifu Fleur for more info fleur_chapman@yahoo.co.uk

It’s great to get a chance to visit home and do some excellent workshops organized by Sifu Fleur. The Cloud Hands set is a fundamental set in our school that contains all of the important patterns and is great for beginners. The Sparring workshop should also be a lot of fun too, participants can get to grips with using traditional patterns while wearing protective equitment.

Germany-Frankfurt 23 – 26 March

• Tai Chi Chuan workshop- material, times etc. TBC

• Participating in the Sparring weekend hosted by the Frankfurt family

• Conact Si Tai Heng Kai/ Karo for more details wahnam@operamail.com

Always a joy to visit my Si Heng Kai and the Frankfurt family, the sparring weekend organized by Anton should be fun too.

Check our Frankfurt’s website     http://www.shaolin-wahnam.de/

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A video of the fundamental Wahnam Tai Chi Chuan set “Cloud Hands” with commentary

A video of the fundamental “24 pattern Tai Chi set” -Wahnam Style, with commentary

What is Tai Chi? This video hopes to answer that question.

Our school’s Wudang Tai Chi set, performed by my Sifu, Grandmaster Wong kiew kit-Part 1

Our school’s Wudang Tai Chi set, performed by my Sifu, Grandmaster Wong kiew kit-Part 2

Our school’s Flowing Water, Floating Clouds Tai Chi set, performed by my Sifu, Grandmaster Wong kiew kit.

(read more…)

'Fisherman casts net'-an excellent Taijiquan felling technique.

Have you ever see a Taijiquan practitioner dodge a kick, swiftly jump forward, strike the would be kicker, capture him in a joint lock all before felling him forcefully to the ground!!!??

It’s fair to assume that you probably haven’t

But if you have, you are very lucky, because you may have seen Taijiquan as it really would have been practiced around 80-100 years ago, as a traditional, effective and respected martial art, this is also how we aim to use our Taijiquan in Wahnam. Today, unfortunately, Taijiquan is mostly thought of as retirement activity mostly practiced in the parks of Asia by the elderly, or as a ‘new age’ dance practiced by hippies! Incidentally, I have nothing against hippies, who are generally very sweet people and I certainly have nothing against the elderly or their practice of Tai Chi as a recreation activity that helps them relax and socilize but what they do is quite different from high level Taijiquan practiced for healthy vitality, combat and spiritual cultivation.

In fact if you mentioned you train Taijiquan as a genuine martial art to many hardened martial artist nowadays they may laugh at you! Indeed this has happened to me! Even if Taijiquan is practiced as a martial art more often that not traditional Taijiquan patterns and tactics are thrown out of the window when the art is used under pressure, (like in sparring) in favour of boxing, wrestling or just random fighting.

Even when we see beautiful traditional Taijiquan training taking place, the training normally reaches its limit at pushing people away and ignores the fact that when faced with other trained opponents, they will not simply be pushing you in combat, but punching, kicking and picking you up and slamming you into the ground if they can, Oh dear!

This of course leaves the modern Taijiquan practitioner who aims to use traditional Taijiquan (and who is just trained in pushes) at a huge disadvantage.

Was this the case in the past, when Taijiquan masters were noted for their skill in combat?

No. Of course not, Taijiquan masters of the past could handle and counter all types of attack, and here is why.

Chen Fake- A Chen style Taijiquan master who lived in the first part of the 20th century defeated many skilled martial artists using Taijiquan.

Genuine Taijiquan as practiced in the past was and still is a complete martial art. As such it includes with in its repertoire, attacks and defenses in the four main categories of combat, as do all Chinese martial arts. These four categories are; hand strikes, kicks, felling techniques, and Chin Na. Chin Na includes the gripping, breaking, dislocating of limbs, bones and joints and also the tearing of muscles, tendons and skin.

That Taijiquan includes these four categories of attack and defense is not by any means new information, it’s actually a many centuries old fact, but how often do we actually see the evidence of it in the Taijiquan practiced today?

This is what I intend to have fun with in this up coming series. In this series I will give three examples of traditional Taijiquan applications in all four of the categories of attack and defense. In fact some of the techniques are genuine favorites of mine, and I can honestly say I’ve used 80-90% of the techniques to be shown in friendly un-cooperative sparring, and also some of them in rough and un-friendly sparring! I should add I much prefer the former of the two!

Sifu Wong Kiew Kit, 1st generation of Wahnam Taijiquan, teaches Taijiquan as a complete martial art.

I hope you enjoy the upcoming installments.

Robin (read more…)

Taijiquan application of Swinging Fist.

First we will have a look at some basic hand strikes in our school. In our school of Taijiquan the power required for hand strikes comes from internal force training and is “soft” and internal in nature. With dedicated daily training over a relatively short period of time quite a bit of power can be developed, so that within a year or two (of dedicated daily training) enough force should be developed to deliver a ‘knock out’ blow or to break a brick for example. It should be stressed again that hard conditioning of the hands is not required to develop this power, and the increased energy from this type of training will greatly benefit daily life, giving you vibrancy and vitality.

Strike No.1 Fierce Dragon

Fierce Dragon

The first pattern shown is ‘Fierce Dragon’ it is a beautiful pattern and very effective, with sufficient training this pattern can be executed with some speed to overwhelm an opponent. It is especially effective when applied with the Taijiquan tactic of “The opponent initiates, but I arrive first”. Below you can see I am sure to cover on the way into the attack.A mid level attack.

A mid level attack.

Mid attack is countered with 'body movement'.

The attack is countered using body movement. Then the palm strike is executed.

Two more hands strikes will be coming up next. (read more…)

Swinging Fist.

The next pattern is ‘swinging fist’. This pattern has many excellent applications, and works very nicely when executed with some speed. Below it is shown as a counter to a mid level punch. Using body movement it is possible to avoid the mid level attack and use the left hand to parry the attack to the side then swing the right fist over to strike at the temple or nose. It is important the striking arm is relaxed when striking to make use of the whipping motion of the attack.

A mid level attack.

Mid attack is countered with 'body movement'.

Swinging fist is aimed at the head.

Taijiquan application of Swinging Fist, from another angle.

Still another Taijiquan Strike to come. Keep posted. (read more…)