After we visited the Shaolin Monastery, we took the train to Huashan. The high-speed train took just over two hours to get to the little town at the mountains’ foot. The town exists almost only because of the Yu Quan temple, and of the famous mountain range where the Daoist sages took refuge to live [...] Read more – ‘Huashan’.
On the day following Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang‘s seminar, we left Chenjiagou and headed to Luoyang, to visit the Longmen Grottoes, south of China’s ancient capital. The grottoes were excavated in the limestone of the Longmen and Xiang mountains, on the bank of the Yi river. Inside the grottoes, directly carved on the mountain, are the [...] Read more – ‘Longmen and Shaolin’.
After visiting Beijing, we took a train to Luoyang, and then a bus to Chenjiagou. The village name literally means “Chen family ditch”, and refers to a small water channel that made the land fertile in the time when Chen Bu settled at the region, to repopulate it after a civil war. The ditch is [...] Read more – ‘Chenjiagou 2011’.
Back to China, after 8 years. This time, as a co-organizer of a group trip that took 39 brazilians to the craddle of martial arts. The trip was promoted by WCTA-Br in partnership with IFTB, with a special focus on the training in Chenjiagou under the auspices of Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang, and in Huashan under [...] Read more – ‘Beijing’.
It is impossible to learn Taijiquan (tai chi chuan) from the internet. I get a lot of questions about this on email. The answer is: no, it is not possible. No, there isn’t a secret that i will tell someone by email, write on a book, or show on a video, that will alow him [...] Read more – ‘About Learning Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) on the Internet’.
Martial arts practice is starting to be considered as an alternative for medication for coping with ADHD and ADD by some experts in the USA. Martial arts can have lasting effects, without the risks of drug therapy, they say. The concept involved is called Kinectic Linking, a process that connects physical movement to thought to [...] Read more – ‘Martial Arts and Atention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’.
Taijiquan (tai chi chuan) training, as taught by Grandmaster [Chen-Xioawang], requires daily practice of zhanzhuang, which is also called Standing Meditation. The name is not just due to poetic license: even tough in the first months this exercise may seem very physical, it should take the student to a meditative state. A recent research published [...] Read more – ‘Meditation and your Brain’.
There are no shortcuts in the learning process. A very weird belief has spread in the west, probably sprouting form some old chinese legend or story: the belief that once one unlocks the “secret” to the energy circulation, his body will be magically transformed and he will have mastered the art of Taijiquan (tai chi [...] Read more – ‘No shortcuts to practice’.
It’s been a month i have been teaching Taijiquan (tai chi chuan) in a gym which specializes in Yoga, so, all my students there have been practicing Yoga for some time. When i was hired, i had no idea what to expect – i had never attended a Yoga class. All i knew about Yoga [...] Read more – ‘Teaching Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) to Yogis’.
