NOTES FOR INTENSIVE TAIJIQUAN AND SHAOLIN KUNGFU COURSES
To derive the best benefits from the respective course, it is helpful to have a clear idea of the aims, objectives, content and methodology involved so that you can assess the success or otherwise of your participation by examining how well you have achieved these criteria.
The main aim of the Intensive Taijiquan Course as well as the Intensive Shaolin Kungfu Course is to enable you to achieve within a few days the best available help we can offer to enable you to get the best benefits from your own Taijiquan or Shaolin practice, especially in enriching your daily life. The main objectives are to enable you to experience Taijiquan or Shaolin principles, to develop internal force and to apply Taijiquan or Shaolin skills and techniques for combat, which can be transferred for our daily non-martial purposes.
For the Taijiquan course, some of the important principles to be experienced include Taiji originating from Wuji, differentiating yin-yang, controlling movement from the waist, starting later but arriving earlier, being simultaneously heavy and light (or forceful and fast), and attaining six harmonies. For Shaolin Kungfu, they include flowing breeze and swaying willows, being simple, direct and effective, internal and external cultivation, energy and mind in abundance, and light like feather and heavy like mountain,
The skills and force to be developed in both courses include internal force from stance training, internal force from Taijiquan and Shaolin patterns, correct timing and spacing, sensing an opponent's movements, exploiting an opponent's weakness, flowing with an opponent's momentum, using minimum force against maximum strength, movement with grace, balance and speed, fa-jing or exploding force, breath control, and co-ordination of form, energy and mind.
Training for combat application will involve Pushing Hands, Striking Hands in Taijiquan and combat sequences in Shaolin Kungfu, as well as techniques covering all the four categories of attack and defence, techniques against martial artists of other styles, tactics and strategies.
It is a well-known fact that our intensive courses are really intensive, covering many important areas in some depth within a very short time. The teaching, however, is methodical and systematic, enabling you to progress from scratch to fairly advanced levels. You need not have prior experience in the various areas mentioned above, but you need to be able to perform basic Taijiquan or Shaolin patterns (even just their external forms) reasonably well before attending the course. And when you have returned home you need to practice what you have learnt so that the benefits can become lasting.
The following Wahnam Taijiquan sets shown in Wahnam Taijiquan Sets for Intensive Taijiquan Course and Shaolin Kungfu sets shown in Shaolin Kungfu Sets for Intensive Shaolin Kungfu Course will be used during the respective courses for the training of the various skills and techniques mentioned above.
It will be a great help to you if you familiarize yourselves with these forms or routines before you attend the course. You need not be perfect in them, as fine-tuning will be done during the course, but it will be very helpful if you can perform them without worrying about the accuracy of their forms and sequencing of their order, so that during the course you can focus on developing skills rather than learning forms. But if you are unable to do this, don't worry. We shall do what we can during the course to help you.
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