Better late than never... Indoor Rock Climbing

Once upon a time in 2013...

Modern/Contemporary wushu training usually consist plenty of lower body workouts and to keep things in proportion we (Khoi, Chris and I... everyone else was too lazy) decided to do some rock climbing while checking out each others' behind :)

Always happy and ready for any challenge.

Making sure he will still have babies later.

Making sure the knots are done correctly

He must be praying to himself up there.

Going the orange

Checking that bum out :)

Giving up :( ... nah I'm quite sure he made it all the way :)

.....After a few hours of climbing we had forearms of steel :) Great for eagle claw training!

What Is Tai Chi Anyway?

More than ten years on, I still can't recall what made me choose tai chi over wushu, but I think it could have been what it did to my mornings.  In those days, our coach Sam Gold taught a 7.30 - 9am class, and it was the first taste I'd had of how your physical condition can change your perceptions:  you'd walk in feeling like you dragged yourself out of bed just to be there, then you stretched and meditated and when you left you couldn't remember a time when you were ever tired.

That was the hook, but what pulled me in and kept me there long-term was the open-ended potential for skill development.  It's an incredibly deep martial art, and there seems to be no limit to how much you can cultivate your skills.  I can understand if this isn't the impression you have.  There are plenty of misconceptions held about tai chi, but generally these are held for fairly good reason, and without prejudice   As a martial art, it's in absolutely dire need of some better PR.  What I found was that underlying the mysticism (or 'bs', you might call it) there was a deep and quite profound effort to understand the human body and mind on their own terms.

Sick and/or Old?

People mostly think of tai chi as remedial, or at least very basic. Something people do when they're too old, injured, or inexperienced to do anything harder.  This is absolutely true, but tai chi is not a ladder you climb to reach the bare minimum of ability for a real martial art.  It's more like a spine. Fundamental skills that are completely off the radar for most martial arts are front and centre in taichi, and improving them improves everything.  Things like relaxation, balance, and breath control underpin every technique you will ever perform, but they're jumbled together and ignored, or just called 'talent'.  Or not given a name at all, and left to improve on their own while you focus on other aspects of training like learning forms and doing pushups.  Nothing in tai chi is left to chance.  Some people will need this kind of focused training more than others, but nobody is above it and everyone has room for improvement.  I needed it badly and I noticed a difference almost immediately.   

 taichi has potent anti-ageing powers

This kind of focus on the tiny details does mean there's huge potential for tai chi to become dry or boring, and I admit it's done this for me many times in the years I've trained.  Turns out that was all part of the plan, because finding a way to deal with boredom is just as important as being able to balance or throw a punch.  It takes decades to get really good at a martial art, and you won't always have a master who feeds you fascinating are carefully paced classes.  Tai chi is a daoist martial art, so while you train to maintain a receptive spontaneity in your movements, you also strive to maintain this as a state of mind.  My old master saw a tendency in me to overtrain then stagnate, so he would always tell me that aimless, random training is far better than sitting on your arse trying to come up with the perfect regimen to suit every state of mind, then failing and not training at all.  If you're sick of meditating, you should stop meditating.  Come back to it later, when you feel like meditating again.  Faced with a teacher who keeps your classes varied and dynamic, you might never realise the limits of your self-discipline, and so you would never surpass them. The only correct answer to 'how long can you hold a horse stance for?' is 'I don't know'

Relaxed, Considering the Circumstances

I said earlier on that tai chi was an effort to understand the human body and mind on their own terms.  If that stank of empty mysticism to you, I can't say I blame you.  If it was the first thing my teacher had said to me, I would have run screaming into the waiting arms of the Cobra Kai's Quicksilver Method.  All those words meant was that from day one, the goal is to become a master of using your own body, and you do that using the sense of proprioception: how your body 'appears' to your mind, based on the information your muscles and tendons receive from the effects of gravity, posture, their own tension, and so on. Basically, you're seeing the body from the mind's perspective, not the eye's perspective.   It's remarkable how many people - and not all of them beginners either - turn up to training and honestly do not know what it means to relax a muscle.  That kind of basic body awareness and control is where tai chi should start, and I think meditation is the best way to teach it.

There's a variety of ways to meditate, but I prefer standing meditation.  You stand with arms out to ensure 'good qi flow', which basically means you're in a position where you're not cutting off blood to any part of your body (like you would when kneeling).   From there, you maintain this posture and go through a series of 'stages' where you first relax your muscles, then control and regulate your breathing, your thoughts, and so on.  Maintaining a posture while you simultaneously try to be as relaxed as possible teaches you efficiency. If there's little excess tension in your muscles, you use less energy and take longer to get tired.  Yes, the stance training will make you stronger, but that's not the only reason this training will help you improve.  Outside of class, the skills you pick up meditating can help you realise when you need to get up from your desk and stretch, help you calm down if you get stressed or panicked, or keep your mind off the next episode of Banshee while you're trying to study.  The benefits of meditation increase the more you do it, and there's no real ceiling to how long you can meditate for.  Holding the stance will strengthen your muscles, but it also teaches you to discipline your mind.  

Define 'Stronger'

At the end of the day though, tai chi is a martial art.  It's not just a martial art, but the skills are useful in a fight, and that's always nice to know.  When they say 'tai chi chuan can be used to defeat a stronger opponent' your mind might go to those ludicrous demonstrations where buff guys are sent flying by a frail, maybe even crusty, old man.  I won't go right ahead and say 'these are absolute crap', because there are certain tricks of posture and balance that make it happen.  It's not likely that you'd find somebody that strong with so little awareness of balance and posture; it's absolutely possible to subtly throw somebody off balance or to rob a punch of its power by twisting out of its path... but it's rarely that dramatic.  The youtube channel 'Team WuJin' has some good stuff on this; he's a far better martial artist than I am, and he's got a lot of interesting things to say about internal styles such as tai chi.  Anyway, the point to all this is that when you say somebody is 'stronger', you're probably just thinking in terms of raw muscular power.  You'd want to know how much this person could lift, how many times, and how long it took, but this really only gives you an idea of their power in certain situations.  When you add in all the dynamics of a fight; things like angle, purchase and leverage, it's damned hard to actually put yourself in a position when you can generate power in a movement, and then deliver that power into your opponent's body.  This is fairly obvious if you're talking about throwing a punch that misses because it got blocked, but it gets a bit more interesting if you actually manage to lay your hands on somebody and find that when you try to shove them or trip them, you just can't quite get the angle right.  You give them a real shove, and they just 'disappear' like you tried to catch a bubble.

pushing hands practice

In tai chi, you train these skills with an activity called 'pushing hands'.  The most basic practice is a constant, circular exchange of pushing and yielding that takes its form and philosophy from the 'tai chi' symbol of daoism.  At at extreme of force there is weakness, and at the extreme of yielding there is a potential to create power. This is basically teaching you that if you overcommit on a punch, or hyperextend a joint, you are highly vulnerable to being thrown off balance.  If you yield, you are creating the potential to counterattack, but if you give too much groun you'll be constantly retreating, or your movement might became hard and stagnant and you'll be easy to throw off balance.  While these rules apply at the extremes of movement, they also apply at every point during a move, and as you progress in pushing hands, you might become more competitive and gradually abandon strict form as you try to unbalance your opponent at any point during the movement.  As you train, you will become more and more sensitive to subtle changes in your opponent's posture and muscular tension, and learn to exploit them.  These skills are later utilised in joint locks and more aggressive elbow and shoulder attacks.  

If I'm being perfectly frank, I have to admit that in fighting, tai chi has numerous limitations.  It does at my level, anyway.  Tai chi does really well when it's supplemented with other styles, but it is not magic - it's just physics and perhaps some human psychology - and in my experience it's mostly built for close-range fighting where you react to touch, not vision.  As an exercise philosophy though, it sets itself apart.  Tai chi starts you out at a level more fundamental that nearly anything else you'll find.  You re-learn your whole body, and develop skills that will be with you through injury and old age.   

- Ben M.

Floating Yum Cha

Sonny reporting in.

On this day, I was joined by my family and friends on a boat full of people waiting to be fed... it wasn't a true yum cha but more like a limited buffet. Slightly disappointed, but for the price you pay you can't really complain. I would still recommend it.

The weather played out well and there were just enough food to sit in my stomach to enjoy the rest of the cruise passing Williamstown to St Kilda and back. We chatted about nonsense, Zhou reasoning for dieting, our hopeless pick up strategies, Alexander not being born in 1984 and my bad memory of remembering names (Claribelle...). Oh yes, and Wu Shu of course.

Waiting

Still waiting

He says he's from 1984

Plenty of Cargo ships, getting up close to these things makes me feel like I'm in a Transformer movie.

Self reflecting... look down Khoi

New leather jacket for the ladies ;)

Clearly there wasn't enough food to sick this boat...

Thank you to Mr Lee for organising as usual. If it involves food, he'll get the job done, even though he is eating less.

2013 Wushu and Taichi Competition

 [original text by ZZ, edits by Ben © 2013]

On Sunday 25 August, MUTW competed in the annual WTPA Wushu and Taichi Competition, held this year at Monash University Clayton.  Until 2013, most of the competitors we sent were senior club members, but this year it was junior ranks filling out our team.

In her opening address, WTPA President Tara Brayshaw spoke on the long history of Chinese martial arts and the discipline, humility, and righteousness that can be found in dedicated training.  The ceremony concluded with a lion dance, dazzling the audience with feats of acrobatic strength.  The best was yet to come.

 

For many of our juniors, it was their first time competing at a state-level wushu event, so as they set foot in the hall they must have felt some apprehension.  Once the ceremony was over and the events began, they walked onto the mat like veterans and let the training kick in. It was a clear display of their hard work and dedication to wushu, and the accomplishment they felt was clear in their faces.  Our more experienced members, maybe no less nervous but far better at hiding it, also came away well decorated.  Xingda Chen and Shan Bandara won medals in everything they entered.  Shan was also awarded the 'Best in Wushu - Male'  award for his outstanding performance across a range of events.

 

 

 MUTW faced some stiff competition from other schools and individuals from around Victoria.  Children as young as seven brought their effortless agility and flexibility, and far older competitors used their experience to dominate the tai chi chuan section, but the day's most intimidating wushu athletes came from that regular fixture of WTPA events: the Monash Wushu Club.  Their drunken cudgel was a fine display of balance and sudden power, leading the way for the more exotic longsword, double-straightsword and mantis style forms.  It was a Monash Wushu Club senior who become Shan's counterpart, winning the 'Best in Wushu - Female' award.

 

To round out a hard day's work, MUTW and Monash Wushu Club joined WTPA organisers and competition judges for dinner. Friends and family from the audience came along too, and found out from the hungry and eager competitors exactly how much work goes into a day like this.  

MUTW members would like to take this opportunity to thank our master, Lily Sun, for her passion, dedication, and hard work in training us for the WTPA competition.  Without her, the medals we won would have remained a dream.  We would also like to thank the crowds, be they friend or family, who came along to lend their support on the day. Your cheers helped us jump higher, and kick harder.

 

MUOSS Festival of Nations Performance

MUTW will be performing during Festival of Nations! Please come along and support us :)

When: Thursday, 12th of September at 12:50pm
Where: The University of Melbourne North Court

MUTW Winter Camp 2013

Arrival
This year, our annual winter camp was held in the Moonah Ridge Holiday House. This house was located at the top of a hill with a great view all around and a decent walk from the beach. It was also a pain to get to. Well... not really, the car I was in had the wrong address, it didn't help that we were trying to find the place at night either.

When I finally arrived, my group and I went through the motions of calling dibs on beds, I wanted the bottom bunk but lost. I never really understood picking the top bunk, not only do you risk hitting your head when you sit up, it's both figuratively and literally a pain to get into after a long day of exercise. Anyway, the people who arrived earlier that day had already done their training and had dinner, so they just started chilling. Some people were watching Kung Fu movies, while others were making full use of the table tennis and pool tables while socializing. The sky was clear that night and a lot less light pollution than in the city, allowing us to see the many stars that paint the night's sky, which made sitting on the viewing deck quite a treat. It was quite an uneventful night.

More people arrived on Friday, and we even had a few drop by on Saturday to say hello as well!


Training
In the past, training in these camps were quite rigorous and followed tight schedules that always lead to an unmistakable feeling of pain in my entire body.This time round there wasn't a strict schedule, however I was pleased to see that many people took the initiative to train together and train hard. Each day during camp, we generally follow the same routine.


In the morning before breakfast, we would wake up for a Tai Ji session run by our very own Ben Morgan. Everyone was freezing, but after warm ups, everyone warmed up. We did some basic Tai Ji movements, and then some Qi Gong, and then we warmed up some more. After that we move on to applications of these movements. The main goal was unbalancing your partner, which resulted in some falling over and many hilarious arm motions before said falling over. We then finish up in time for breakfast.

After breakfast, we get some free time to ourselves. While most people would have taken this opportunity to slack off, I was impressed at the number of people who used this time to self train. Taking advantage of the great weather, some went for a run and training along the beach, some did basic exercises and stretches on the balconies and viewing decks, taking in the sun while admiring the great view.

  

A reasonable amount of time after lunch, group training started again, this time it's within the premises of the house. We ran up and down the very steep hill that stretches from the gate of the premises to the parking area, racing against each other. This was followed by standard procedure: stretching, lines, forms. The forms section was pretty fun as we were trying not to "accidentally" hit Andrew's car which was pretty close to us while we were training. I also got the chance to guide some juniors in refining (more like reteaching) the form that they learned last semester, not only did I gain insight into how the new guys were doing, I also realized that I'm not cut out for teaching at all  ╮(╯︵╰)╭. This also gave people a chance to learn things they normally wouldn't learn in class. After everyone is satisfied, we warm down and take a break before dinner.

Dragon Warrior Challenge
Every camp we have what's called the Dragon Warrior Challenge, we want to see who makes the best use of their training in a fight to the death. Just kidding. This is just for fun and of course we did have fun! Every challenge presented can be represented by one of the five major elements, Water, Fire, Earth, Metal and Wood. Don't ask me which is which. I can't remember.

We started off with a tag pulling challenge. 2 people faced off, trying to pull tags off their opponent's waist, light contact, no funny business. It was neat, every round saw different styles come in to play. On one hand, you had people being all serious, going down to low stances and proper defensive postures, on the other, some people just reached and tried to grab till someone won. Some were one sided, some weren't, all round pretty fun.

Moving on, we had the horse stance challenge. Very straight forward, last to stand up wins. Now I wasn't around for this but I can imagine legs shaking and people moaning in pain. Neat.

After that, it came to the box stacking challenge. 5 origami boxes are to be stacked on the participant's own forehead. Seem's pretty simple, but it turned out to be kind of hard, thus only some managed to complete the challenge.

Next, we had jump as far as we could from a stand still, onto aluminium foil without tearing it. Our foil seemed to have a mind of it's own, deciding to tear at the strangest times. When it was my turn, I jumped long and landed very heavily with a loud thump, it didn't tear, and yet someone else who had a lighter landing just shredded it. Physics, how does it work?

Then came the highlight of the Challenge, our own version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Participants were paired up with their respective opponents and sat down facing each other. Placed in front of them was the cardboard roll from the tin foil we had just finished using, and a plastic salad bowl. The Rock, Paper, Scissors part was exactly the same, after that the winner gets to pick up the roll and hit the loser in the head, while the loser can use the bowl to protect his/herself. 1 point is earned every time someone is hit on the head, first to 3 wins! When played at high speed, the entertainment value of this challenge when through the roof. So many mistakes can be made on both sides, which can result in so much confusion that I was literally rolling on the floor and laughing.

Chilling
The Dragon Warrior challenge only accounted for 1 night out of the 3 that we spent there, so what did we do the rest of the time?

We watched lots of  Kung Fu movies, this was a Wushu camp after all, what better way to get immersed in it even more? Besides, they were all freakin' awesome! We saw many movies from greats such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Donnie Yen, as well as some lesser known titles. We even watched some of them in the theater (that's right, the house had that too), with popcorn and juice, oh and did I mention the many recliners that were in them? Sweeeet.

We also played lots of table tennis and pool. Why not? They were provided along with the house, of course we have to use them! I bet some people returned from camp with new skills that weren't just in Wushu, I know I did.

We socialized. We also just sat down on couches and chatted, was pretty chill.


Food
I just thought that this topic required a special mention, because the food was nothing short of amazing, and was all pretty much done single handedly by our member Christopher. He has been the chef for our camps many times and has provided us with so many impressive meals with lots of variety, I feel we are lucky to have him! So, special shout out to Chris, and THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I'd put more pictures of food, but our photographer is the eat first, take pictures later kind of guy... So yeah... However, we were lucky to have some people who took some pictures of the food to show you guys.


Final Thoughts
Overall, it was a great excuse to exercise again after an entire month of non-stop study and also extremely fun and relaxing to be hanging out with friends for the weekend with nothing to worry about. Great environment, great food, great atmosphere and great company. I'm looking forward to the next camp!

Welcome to Semester II @ Unimelb Taichi Wushu!!!

Over winter we have had our annual MUTW camp and commenced training during the winter period.  I hope everyone who attended winter training enjoyed it and found it useful.

More updates about camp are impending but...

Please be reminded that official semester training starts again on the Tuesday the 30th of July.  Also please bring along a membership form filled in and this semester's fee.

Membership forms can be found in the following link:  [labelled:  Memberships-Generic Club]

http://www.sport.unimelb.edu.au/clubs/club_resources.html

For all RETURNING Wushu students there will be imposed a late fee of $20 if fees and forms are not in by the 9th of August (we shall make concessions for extenuating circumstances, of course). [Please do not rely on the committee for forms, we may/may not have them however we shall expect you to abide by these dates.]

 

FAQ

1.a.   If I am a returning student do I need to fill in a new membership form?
Answer:  Yes.

1.b.  ...Even if I've been part of the club for 5+ years?
Answer:  ....YES.

2.   Winter Training??...I never got that e-mail.
Answer:  This means we do not have your e-mail. Please write it on your membership form clearly.  If you still do not receive any e-mails from us, then please tell us.

3.   I am a new member.  How can I purchase the super-awesome-new and compulsory club t-shirt that everyone has?
Answer:   Please estimate your size from the already existing t-shirts and then tell a committee member.  We shall be sure to get you one when we put through an order.

4.   I am a new member but I do not have any flat soled shoes.  What do I do?
Answer:   Runners are fine for the first week or two but for the whole semester flat soled shoes are a must.  We do not want to see anyone injured during jumps.

The club sells Feiyue shoes for $30 a pair. 

But any flat soled shoes from Target, Kmart or the like will work fine the cheapest I've seen are around $10. [These are cheap for a reason. Last year I went through four pairs of these.] Also, if you choose this option be sure to get ones that are cut beneath the ankle for flexibility.

5.  Who do I pay and give my membership form to?
Answer:  You may give both forms and payment to our Treasurer.  Please see him after training.  This may mean waiting around for a bit after training.  If you are unable to do this, another committee member can accept it.  For the sake of simplicity please hand in both forms and payment together.

Semester 1

End of Semester 1

 

Thank you to all our members for making a truly memorable semester 1

 

We hope everyone has enjoyed Wushu and Taichi classes this semester.

This semester everyone was really please to find a multitude of new faces interested in learning Wushu and Taichi.  As the semester progressed we were elated that many of these new faces became new members. 

We had our O-Week stalls-at which I distinctly recall talking to a few of our now new members.

We held our first welcome dinner of the semester, which was a brilliant event as we filled two tables at Yunnan restaurant.  This certainly set the tone for our regular Friday, after-training dinners.

Thanks to Chris Leow, our Night Market food stall was a smashing success!  Sadly though our performance for Night Market was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions. But we still need to thank all those who put so much effort into the performance, especially our performance co-ordinator Sonny.

WTF Taekwondo and MUTW held their first ever cross-trainings in which we were fortunate enough to be given a taste of a different martial art, and make some new friends.

Now over the winter holidays we are able look forward to...

MUTW's annual camp

MUTW's Winter Training Initiative, every Friday in July with Master Lily!  *NEW*

 

 

 

Kai, our Secretary, designed the T-shirts and membership cards which are now in use!

 

[A membership card for a student of both Wushu and Taichi]

[Some members in our new T-shirts]

 

Everyone has progressed really well this semester and we look forward to Winter Training and the Commencement of Semester 2!

 

 

[Kai, our Secretary, almost a Super Sayan.]

 

 

 

Shantastic!

Hi guys! Today's post is something that I have been holding on to but never really got round to posting, so I may as well share this today. This is about one of our members that we all know as Shan. Just some extra information on him, he received a diploma for Nanquan, Nan Gun, Nan Dao styles from Shanghai Qing Pu Wushu College in Shanghai. He was also a Wushu instructor from 2003 to 2011 and was a judge in a couple of tournaments.

Last year, we attended the 14th WTPA Wushu & Taiji Competition and the turnout was pretty good. A large number of us took part in it and some managed to do exceptionally well, one of those guys is Shan. Having won quite a few medals, his story was picked up by a number of Sri Lankan newspapers.

In addition to the awesome exposure, he also wrote a good article on Shaolin Kung Fu and is of course well worth a read.

There isn't much else to be said in today's blog, so I'll just leave it at that. I wasn't there to watch the latter half of the competition, but from seeing how he trained in the months leading up to the competition, I'm sure the medals and recognition was well deserved. Good Job, Shan.

All of the images were provided by Shan.

PS: New Club Tshirts, Wooooo!