INTERNATIONAL YIQUAN ACADEMY

Variants from basic to a bit more advanced.

This is in reply to a question after posting previous 4 parts. Question was: "If openness and competition are such a good thing for the CMA's, why set up a separate competitive format (like Yiquan PH comps), where the level of competition will inevitably be lower than in other established formats? Why not just train for and enter judo, boxing, MMA comps etc.?" Practitioners of various CMA should think for themselves which is the way more suitable for the art which they are practicing. Do they want to practice that art in depth or do they want to switch to those modern established formats instead? I was already addressing this issue above. So some would practice a traditional art, and they would not engage in tournament testing, because their art is not suitable for this. Then because of the same reason, some would rather give up that art and switch to training for modern established competition format. And some would try to do both, training some CMA and par...

A few minutes from Yiquan Academy Summer Courses 2013.

This was part of disscussion in one of Facebook groups. Planned to make a proper article based on those notes, but it would take quite a work, so finally decided to publish it in original form. Again about the practical verification, testing of skill, as important part of the learning process. When talking about regular testing of skill, I don't mean everyday hard full contact fighting. That would be something crazy. Even boxing training is not just all the time hard fighting, it is only one part of the whole training, and still it is possible to this extent due to relatively limited scope of possible situations, with keeping tight guard with big gloves, which makes it relatively safe. And in Muay Thai, training regularly like they compete would create too many injuries. So in fact in Thailand they don't really do full contact sparrings regularly. Usually they spar light contact, and only with bags and pads they hit full power. Their tests of hard fighting are at com...

Handan city Yiquan team led by Xie Yongguang (master Yao Chengguang's disciple) participated in 2013 Beijing International Wushu Culture Exchange Conference.

A few minutes from July 21st. Yiquan Academy Summer Courses.

Just a few minutes from Summer Course, July 20th 2013

This was part of disscussion in one of Facebook groups. Planned to make a proper article based on those notes, but it would take quite a work, so finally decided to publish it in original form. So with traditional chinese martial arts we have situation that even if they are very good in a way, they were created for fighting in conditions different from present day sports formats, and they are just not good for this. But this means, that basically practicing them you will not have opportunity for regular testing your skill in conditions for which they were designed, so your perception of your skill and your ideas about fighting might be illusions. Of course people might practice some of such styles, just because they like practicing it, learning it. But if you are serious about seeking the truth, you should not deceive yourself, you should understand things like: you cannot be sure about something, if you are not testing it, you cannot really understand it, until you put it in p...

This was part of disscussion in one of Facebook groups. Planned to make a proper article based on those notes, but it would take quite a work, so finally decided to publish it in original form. You can touch hands with someone, and be impressed, feeling something unusual. But then, will this person will be able to exhibit what you expect under conditions of actual violent fight? Now, Wang Xiangzhai's thinking, especially in later years, when he called himself "Contradictions Old Man", was based on dialectic philosophy. In situation of contradict ions creating some balance, which creates next level of contradictions and so on. Relating it to developing fighting abilities and skills: when you start, any opponnent can destroy your "balance", hitting you, projecting, throwing etc. You develop some basics, and it turns out that you can deal with some opponents easily, maintaining your "balance", but still there are some who are able to destroy this ...

Xie Yongguang (disciple of master Yao Chengguang) published a new book "Introduction to Yiquan fighting method").

This was part of disscussion in one of Facebook groups. Planned to make a proper article based on those notes, but it would take quite a work, so finally decided to publish it in original form. You can practice yiquan or taijiquan or other art for various reasons, not necessarily the fighting efficiency. But as the question is about this aspect, I will focus on this. As in many discussions I hear various people expressing oppinions which come from looking at this subject from various perspectives, I will try to talk at least about a few aspects. Some people have kind of very idealistic and unrealistic view of asian martial arts. Actually the popularity of traditional asian martial arts in the west is in very big part due to this unrealistic ideas about them. There wouldn't be that big boom in 1960s-1980s if people were not nurturing unrealistic dreams... But later quite many became disillusioned and disappointed, in time of growing popularity of mma, muay thai, k-1 etc, wher...

Yiquan seminar was organized in Moscow, Russia.

Second yiquan seminar was organized in Barcelona, Spain.