There are some stalls selling martial arts gear, books and videos on the 2nd floor of the stadium, where the spectators go in. Also saw a Chen Taiji guy demonstrating how to beat people up, and other skill exchanges going on…could be more interesting than the competition itself.
p.s. There is a judo tournament going on in the next building (a little further along Nanjing East Road).
Yeah I like Chen style Tai chi chuan. I used to practice years ago. It has a nice mixture of slow and fast movements. Most of the form is done slowly intermitted with fast movements.
Balance of the yin and yang, if you believe in all that ?
I had a long talk with one of the guys I respect most about this the topic. He said there needs to be yang with the yin and too many Taiji guys are almost all yang, or all yin.
He pointed to the guys doing the forms. And was like (loosely translated from Chinese) “See them, their forms look pretty, but I could poke them like this I get poked and they’d fall over. Why? Because their too soft, always too soft.”
But then he also talked about the guys that use too much muscle and how easy it is to throw them off center when you’re relaxed. I got some video of this guy. I’ll get it up tonight.
Fixed step wasn’t really my thing. But I won those 2 matches the first day, lost my first match againt a good guy. Then got to compete for 6th or something and I just played around being REALLY soft (and still got some points.) I still had my last moving step match to do.
The cool thing was that guy I went against for 6th was the same guy I had my first moving step match with. I think he was pretty eager to beat me. After our match (that he won) he came up to me while I was sitting on the mats to chat. I told him I didn’t like the bell and stuff with the fixed step and like the slower starting style better. Then we played around some after that… (maybe I better save all this stuff for the blog :P) He invited me to his school (where he practices), that was cool.
My first moving step match of the day I totally smoked this guy. It was just BAM BAM break BAM BAM (it’s 2 points for throwing someone to the ground and 4+ to win a round, or most points after 2 minutes.)
My next moving step match was against a guy from the Taiji Pushhands “School” from central Taiwan. His experience got me, and I’ll let the video do all the talking for that one. He was just a much better moving step player than I was, but I learned a bunch and am addicted to Taiji again.
So I got second place and 6th (I think) place. I met a bunch of really cool and learned tons. Plus, it was free entrance for foreign participants and I got a free dinner last night 
.
I plan on getting a pushhands group together pretty soon. Hopefully we can have a Taipei Team full of a bunch of “foreigners” in 2 years. I’m also planning to make a trip to China now to compete in their big Taiji event (maybe we’ll have a team by then 
.)
I’ll post again with video sooner or later (bet on later 
.)
Oh and a team from the US brought like 40+ people. That was cool. I chatted with a bunch of them and they were all really friendly and excited about coming to Taiwan to compete where they “keep it real” on the Taiji tip. Plus the Grandpim…master himself Doc-Fai Wong was in attendance.
Here’s their site: plumblossom.net/
Considering that was your first push hands tournament and you were up against people that practice AN AWFUL LOT you sure did well. In fact exceptionally well.
I will lend you that book soon it has all the old writing on the applications of Tai chi written in English.
Well done Miltown ! Tai chi needs people like you to demonstrate how awesome it can be. Used to be an English guy here named Andy who was great at tai chi and used it more than once. There was also a scottish guy back in the 80’s who won south east Asian full contact gung fu competition in Hong Kong. He does a Hong Kong style of Tai chi called Wu dang tai chi chuan.
here is a link
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudang_Tai_Chi_Chuan
I said I’d hook up the video of the soft with hard, hard with soft guy and here it is: youtube.com/watch?v=3zaTeN60ttQ
Might still be getting processed by Youtube, give it a bit. And now I’m… going to sleep.
Juba, you mentioned that they had taiji books for sale at the tourney. Did anyone happen to notice whether the Chairman of the ROC Tai Chi Association, a guy named Chan Te-Sheng詹德勝, had his new english language book on the 13 Posture Form available. The reason I ask is that I was marginally involved in that project for awhile and then heard that the book was going to have its big unveiling at the big tourney this weekend.
So did anyone see it?
Take care,
Brian
I went up during the dinner and tried asking him if he knew my teacher, but I ended up saying my teacher’s Chinese name wrong (oops 
), then he just nodded his head and gave me a copy. I haven’t really flipped through it yet, but I have one.
Note: I already know he knows my teacher. Was going to see what he had to say about him.
Hi Miltown,
Congrats on the outstanding showing this weekend and thanks too for the infor about the new english language 13 Posture book by Chan Laoshi.
The reason I asked about the book was that I did what I guess we can call the first round of editing. Some other guy had done a rough translation (very rough) and then they wanted me to edit it and find an American publisher.
For a whole variety of reasons I departed the project, but when I left the english was still pretty rough and the book itself did not do a very good job of discussing what the deal is on the 13 core postures of Yang style…well, in any event when you get a chance to look at it in more detail please let me know how it looks.
take care and good luck on the new Miltown martial arts projects.
Brian
Kudos to miltown! He did extremely well, especially considering it was his first tournament.
I managed to get all of his matches on video and I’ll be putting them up on youtube as soon as I can get them converted over. May take a few days though. Sorry for the delay.
Brian,
They had the book, and I looked for your name but it wasn’t there. They got someone else to look at it I guess. I saw so many typos that i stopped reading it. Too painful. But strangely enough, the photos were much better than the Chinese edition. But no VCD.
BTW, I have a general review of the comp up on my blog if anyone is interested: formosaneijia.com/2006/world-taiji-cup-review/
I’ll try to get the vids up ASAP and post here when they’re up to let everyone know.
Netrealist, thanks much for the news. Glad my name did not crop up in it and that was what I was worried about. We talked a bit about that so you know what was up. In a development I never mentioned, about a month back “Tiff” (whom I am sure you remember) called and wanted us (yes, you and I) to be in the photos. I begged off saying “no time”, “no time” and told her I did not have “the other foreigner’s” phone number. Then a day later she called again and wanted my friend’s phone number. I told her, “Tiff, I am an attorney, I do not have any ‘friends’, attorneys do not have ‘friends’, who are you talking about”!
Too bad though, you said the photos were good; we could have been 13 Posture stars!
Oh well enough on that. Somebody really ought to do a good book on the 13 Postures. Maybe I will when I am old and gray…which should be soon the way things are going.
In any event thanks much and hope all is well with you and the family.
take care,
Brian
Brian,
Yeah, our impressions about that book were largely correct so I can see why you WOULDN’T want your name attached. It looked to me like they added some text and filled it out a bit. So it must have went beyond what you were given. The guy they gave it to was Chinese according to the front pages and I got the impression he didn’t know how to edit at all. I woder if he even spoke English. BTW, they also went with a local publisher or it was self-published, I wasn’t really sure.
Thanks for the news about them wanting to find us. Yikes! Wouldn’t that have been hilarious! You and me in the 13 book. LOL.
Still, it turned out better than I thought. My general impression was that it was better than the Chinese edition. Isn’t that ironic? But then it was the third time they published the material.
You can probably pick up a copy over at San Min if you’re interested.
Anyway, good to hear from you again.
MK, if u want a spar (haven’t done it for 10 years) I used to enjoy fixed feet sparing in this style. I think the rule basically was that the first person to loose their footing lost. (is it the same?) But winchun training was very similar and I remember sifu saying…“keep your toes clenched!” the rest was about speed and reflexes… strength not really needed.
I trained under this guy (doing the flying kick) and they didn’t have photoshop back then 
[/i]
[quote=“Tyc00n”]MK, if u want a spar (haven’t done it for 10 years) I used to enjoy fixed feet sparing in this style. I think the rule basically was that the first person to loose their footing lost. (is it the same?) But winchun training was very similar and I remember sifu saying…“keep your toes clenched!” the rest was about speed and reflexes… strength not really needed.
I trained under this guy (doing the flying kick) and they didn’t have photoshop back then [/quote]
They flying kick is sweetness!
Yeah, I’ll be way up for sparrin’/playing around. I’ll be setting up a group and place real soon and I’ll post the meeting times on forumosa somewhere. I’m sure we’d learn different stuff from each other because I’m suppose to be relaxed and the other person is suppose to throw themselves with me doing very little work (that’s the ultimate goal anyway.)
[quote=“Tyc00n”]
[/i][/quote]
Ah man, this is the stuff of dreams. Where could I learn this?
guys and gals,
Here are a few clips of miltown competing in the push hands tournament last weekend. Enjoy.
Nama,
The guy in that photo is Felix from Hong Kong and trained under one of Yip Man’s sons. The kick you see there is very showy, but he doesn’t teach it because generally its impractical. The most amazing thing about Win Chun Kung Fu (this is the style that Bruce Lee was taught) is sticky hands.
If you know where your opponents hands are (by feel), then your speed which is driven from the instinct from training, means that you are virtually unassailable and that you can have your opponent in some kind of lock / holding position, broken arms etc within seconds.
I’m sure there must be someone in Taiwan who teaches this style, but I doubt that you’d learn as fast as under Felix because he gets people sparring from day 1.
If you want to move to Adelaide, Australia (city of Churches and serial killers) then I’m sure he’d be happy to take you as a student!
[quote=“Tyc00n”]Nama,
The guy in that photo is Felix from Hong Kong and trained under one of Yip Man’s sons. The kick you see there is very showy, but he doesn’t teach it because generally its impractical. The most amazing thing about Win Chun Kung Fu (this is the style that Bruce Lee was taught) is sticky hands.
If you know where your opponents hands are (by feel), then your speed which is driven from the instinct from training, means that you are virtually unassailable and that you can have your opponent in some kind of lock / holding position, broken arms etc within seconds.
I’m sure there must be someone in Taiwan who teaches this style, but I doubt that you’d learn as fast as under Felix because he gets people sparring from day 1.
If you want to move to Adelaide, Australia (city of Churches and serial killers) then I’m sure he’d be happy to take you as a student![/quote]
Thanks for the info. Yea, flying kicks would be impractical,but they’re cool to do. 
And Felix sounds like my kind of teacher, but I’m not moving to Australia in this life. So I’ll wait 