- Feb. 10, 2012 Private lessons for James Tam, Ken Huang of Toronto and Daniel Mroz of Ottawa.
- Sat. Feb. 11, 2012. Morning workshop on foundations, corrections and form practice. Afternoon was devoted to push hands. Main topic was on how to lock the top and only rotate the knees up and down.
- Sun. Feb. 12, 2012. Morning foundations and explanation of the previous day’s training drills. Afternoon more push hands and the concept of using another part (other than contacting point) for movement and power.
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Ottawa Workshop Review.
I was once told that the mark of a good writer is the ability to know his reader.
Claiming to be no such thing, I am feeling less guilty about writing this in a very generalized, and most likely, aimless fashion.
To the reader, whomever you may be:
A) If you are new to the Practical Method, anything I say about this workshop will not make any sense. There are already plenty of videos on the website and testimonials about Master Chen’s abilities, but none of that will resonate with you right now. Neither will your curiosity or doubts ever be resolved unless you feel the effect of those abilities directly on your own body during an actual first-hand encounter with Master Chen. Afterwards, it won’t matter what I write anymore, as you will have decided then and there on the value of the Practical Method in your own pursuit and study of taiji.
B) If you have been to several workshops, and you are still in the very beginning stages of training in the Practical Method, you are going to be in the same boat as me – the explanations and analogies now come as brief breaks of light and illumination in an otherwise very foggy and murky place of overall understanding. You find out that the themes of each workshop all center around the same concepts such as Rotation, Alignment, Yin-Yang separation. You face the fact that your body does many things you are not aware of, and yet it won’t do the things you want it to do. What is left is the number of circles and yilus you will do until the next workshop.
C) If you are already a dedicated student and practitioner for some time now, I have only seven words to say: See you on the Mountain someday soon!
No matter which category you belong to, I have – as I suspected from the beginning – not really said much. I do however want to leave you with this question:
Besides Master Chen, who else in the world do you know that has the ability to throw you to the ground for an entire hour without hurting you, regardless of who you are, all the while smiling and not breaking a sweat, and yet still agree to explain to you exactly what happened and have it recorded on video for you to watch afterwards?