Hello everybody,
I came all the way from Berlin to Edmonton these days to spend some time with Master Chen Zhonghua to train.
I need to say that I’m very happy to have the opportunity to do this. It is very beneficial.
So to me the main benefit is to have so much opportunities to get hands-on with Master Chen all the time. “Externally”, beside of starting to learn the sword form by Alan, there was nothing new. Most time we spend on refining the “one move” we all need to learn.
Master Chen’s advice to me was to train the form at the moment mainly in order not to forget it and to get some body-training. Mainly I should look now for getting one move really right, so from there on this could be integrated in the form later on.
Main points we were working on:
– finding the line internally, e.g. hand out and fingertips pulling agains the opposite shoulder
– establish body alignment and keep it when beeing touched / pushed
– and of course one main key: don’t move …
Further I got the great opportunity to have push hands with other students in the studio in Edmonton these days. The sessions I spend with Khamserk, Blake and Rion to me where quite enlightening according to sending back incoming force with a passive move through staying connected. Thanks to a really good “working together atmosphere” this was possible.
Again a nice experience about how important it is to have good training partners!
Thanks to these guys I also got some ideas how to take all my new input home to my students.
Another bottom line for me is: learning through hands-on! As I did also realise through my own teaching I’m very happy to experience this now as a student again: it is so much better to learn not only by watching, thinking and analysing, but mainly by touching the master and trying to do the same moves right away.
So I can only recommend to everybody to take the opportunities we got with our master to do this as often as possible. Our hands, to me, seems to have the best ability to learn. I think we’ll never compensate by our eyes and even less by our mind thinking …
Thanks a lot to Master Chen Zhonghua for all the support. I’m looking forward to pass everything on to my students in Berlin.
[nggallery id=146]
