There never was a good knife made of bad steel.
(Benjamin Franklin)
Part 2
Part 2 of the beginners syllabus takes you from
basic strength building and awareness onto self defence study. This is quite a
big step-up in terms of practice.
Students are only permitted to commence part 2 if certain skills are in place.
Without the fundamental skills you will flounder in self defence.
Basic skills
The basic skills are pretty straightforward. You need to have completed the following:
Full circle qigong challenge
Qigong ticksheet (column 1)
Neigong - 5 qualities
You must also know these drills:
Chin na escapes
Group work/melee (intro)
Monkey paws (intro)
Penetrating defences (intro)
Posture testing
Pushing hands
Pushing legs (intro)
Yielding
Without these fundamental skills, you are not ready for part 2 and will run the
risk of injury.
You must also demonstrate:
Composure
- no tensing, flinching, panicking or aggression
Yielding
- create space, follow the line of force, avoid any demonstration of
strength against strength
Standing qigong
You
must be capable of performing all of the basic qigong and should find the
challenges physically easy.
Ideally, you will also be
shaking.
If you are not shaking, then you are too tense and have not done enough
practice.
Connection can be trained through standing and you should incorporate some of
the initial neigong into your training.
Standing qigong also teaches you to
endure. Conditioning and
composure are vital.
Moving qigong
Moving qigong teaches you how to
move the body as a connected whole in order to
imbue every
movement with power and release
jing.
You learn not to
stiffen up the limbs and let-go.
The skills learned through moving qigong are absolutely vital for your
self defence training.
Our approach to tai chi calls for softness and connection at all times, with no
gaps or deficiencies.
Form
You need to be making progress with section 1 of the form and not require any
help at all in remembering the pattern.
It does not need to be perfect; you will have plenty of opportunity to work on
it further in part 2 of the beginners syllabus.
Neigong
Without neigong, you are not even training tai chi.
The
tai chi simply will not work without
neigong.
Tensing-up and using force cannot be called tai chi; they are external and not
the way.
Pushing hands
This is your basic
sensitivity drill and teaches you how to
yield to force whilst maintaining wardoff, and then return.
Pushing hands contains the essential nature of the system and demonstrates how
tai chi must be used in partner work.
4 ounces of
pressure and
softness are the cornerstone of tai chi in our
school.
Escapes
The
ability to escape is a simple skill that you must master in part 1.
You learn how to use a variety of adaptive responses against single and multiple
attackers, getting them off without using local muscle power.
If you simply use your arms, you are clearly not ready for part 2.
Joining part 2
To join part 2, you must:
Pass beginners (part 1)
Wear the class T-shirt
Wear plain black kung fu trousers
Pay the annual membership fee
Page created 5 April 1998