Transcript
Speaker: The Gung Fu Crew Podcast, bringing together practitioners of various styles in schools and their unique perspectives to explore the world of Chinese martial arts.
Speaker: In this episode of the Kung Fu Group podcast, we will be talking about the martial art Yi Quan, which has a relatively recent history.
Speaker: It came about around at the change of the century from the 19th to the 20th century.
Speaker: And it developed out of mostly Xing Yi Quan, but also a few other practices.
Speaker: It's quite interesting, it's considered one of the internal martial arts also because of its heritage.
Speaker: And my guest Paul Rogers, he actually has an extensive background in Chinese martial arts.
Speaker: He practiced Taiji Bagua, we'll talk about this as well.
Speaker: But one of his main practices is Ichuan and he was kind enough to share his insights and his experience with this particular style of martial arts and the training method.
Speaker: and I hope that you find it as illuminating as I did.
Speaker: Enjoy listening to this episode.
Speaker: Welcome to the next episode of the Kung Fu Group podcast.
Speaker: Today we will be focusing on the method of Yi Quan, more on that later, but first I would like to introduce my guest, or actually give my guest an opportunity to introduce himself, Paul Rogers.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast Paul.
Speaker: Maybe you want to say a few quick words about who you are and your connection to martial arts so that people know who I'm talking to.
Speaker: Okay, what do you want to know?
Speaker: What do you want to know?
Speaker: Where shall I start?
Speaker: How did you get into martial arts?
Speaker: I mean also, where are you located exactly?
Speaker: I'm in England, in the south of England at the moment.
Speaker: I'm quite often in China, sometimes in Germany.
Speaker: But I'm here at the moment.
Speaker: So yeah, I live in the south of England.
Speaker: I've been practicing martial arts a long time.
Speaker: Long, long time.
Speaker: I lived in China for a long time.
Speaker: I lived in Malaysia for a long time.
Speaker: I practice Yi Chuan.
Speaker: I practice a lot of different martial arts, but I practice Yi Chuan for, this is the 27 years.
Speaker: So it's quite a long time, I guess.
Speaker: Practiced, and I still practice, Wutaiji.
Speaker: I learned first when I was young in Malaysia.
Speaker: And then when I lived in China, I practiced, I learned Ba Gua and some Xingyi, a lot of Xingyi.
Speaker: Eventually, I started to learn Yichuan in about 1990.
Speaker: Really, I met my teacher in 1997.
Speaker: So I think that adds up to about 24 or 20, anyway.
Speaker: 27 years, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, a long time.
Speaker: Long time.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So there we go, a few basics there.
Speaker: All right, nice, thank you.
Speaker: So one of the first questions, or actually the first question that I usually ask is, how would you define martial arts just to get like a baseline or like a frame of reference?
Speaker: Like what is martial arts to you?
Speaker: What would they, like a training method, what would it need to have for you to call it a martial art?
Speaker: Okay, that's quite interesting.
Speaker: It's quite an interesting question because Wang Xiangzai, the
Speaker: creator if you like of Yi Quan.
Speaker: He divided martial arts, he divided Yi Quan for example into seven stages.
Speaker: In his experience and he was a very famous fighter obviously, he suggested that seven stages so he when he taught his Yi Quan he developed seven stages and he said a good martial art should really have these seven stages, you know any martial art.
Speaker: So the first, I have to think now, so I have to use my brain.
Speaker: So the first stage, not necessarily in any order.
Speaker: If you've ever been to China or if you lived in China or if you know Chinese culture very well, it's completely random.
Speaker: The place is very random.
Speaker: It's very chaotic, if you like.
Speaker: It's very different to Japanese martial arts, which is very organized, like Japan.
Speaker: China is crazy and chaotic and the martial arts is the same.
Speaker: Teaching styles are the same.
Speaker: It's not, and Westerners like things very organized.
Speaker: But Chinese martial arts is not organized, which can sometimes be very difficult for the Western mind, especially the German mind, to grasp, you know, is very random.
Speaker: It's not organized.
Speaker: It never has been.
Speaker: But anyway, so
Speaker: The seven stages that he suggested and talked about.
Speaker: First one was standing, which I guess Yi Quan is kind of famous for.
Speaker: But like I've mentioned, there's seven stages.
Speaker: So standing is just one.
Speaker: Second stage would be, again, not in any particular order, but the second stage would be Shirley.
Speaker: We call it in Chinese, we call Shirley in Yi Quan.
Speaker: Shirley exercises are,
Speaker: soft moving exercises.
Speaker: Like if you practice Tai Chi, for example, and you said you did, traditionally you would take one move out of four or before you even learned a four, and you would practice it single practice.
Speaker: In Chinese, they call it Dan Lian.
Speaker: So you would single practice one move, and then you'd link lots of moves together four.
Speaker: So, Dan Lian practice is a kind of Shirley practice.
Speaker: So if you practice just whatever the move is, soft and slow, that's a kind of a Shirley move.
Speaker: So that's the first two stages.
Speaker: Stage one, like standing.
Speaker: Second stage, Shirley.
Speaker: Third stage would be footwork.
Speaker: You've got to have footwork.
Speaker: You can't stand still.
Speaker: You'll die.
Speaker: So footwork, obviously.
Speaker: And then, for example, in Yichuan, there's a lot of different footwork.
Speaker: you know, triangular stepping, bai dan bu, gung bu, san jiao bu, there's all these, there's different stepping methods, every martial arts stepping methods.
Speaker: Fourth stage would be tue shou.
Speaker: Tue shou is divided into different categories, but basically tue shou.
Speaker: So some kind of, what that means is some kind of handwork, you know, some kind of method where you can actually test what you've learned.
Speaker: So that kind of self-explanatory really, tue shou.
Speaker: Next stage would be Shisheng, for example, which is breath training and sound training.
Speaker: So coordinating the breath or more specifically the sound, certain sounds with your breathing.
Speaker: So that would be, say, stage five, for example.
Speaker: Again, not particularly in any order at these stages.
Speaker: They're like cups.
Speaker: Each stage is like a cup, an empty cup.
Speaker: It's your job to fill them up.
Speaker: So you don't really need to do it in any order.
Speaker: They're just, the more full up they are, the better your skills.
Speaker: So that's five stages.
Speaker: Six stages.
Speaker: Six stage would be fali, which would mean to release power, to release power.
Speaker: A bit like in your Chen Taiji, there's releasing of power occasionally.
Speaker: You need to learn how to release power.
Speaker: Go from long power to short power, very short power.
Speaker: So you need to learn how to release power.
Speaker: So that would be stage six.
Speaker: And the seventh stage would be free fighting, sparring.
Speaker: So there's your seven stages.
Speaker: So Wang Shenzi's theory was good martial art,
Speaker: must have these stages.
Speaker: They might be called different names, but they will, they must, they should have these seven stages to make it a very effective martial art.
Speaker: I mean, if you don't spar, it's not so practical.
Speaker: You can go so far, but you can't go.
Speaker: If you don't Tue Sho, forget it.
Speaker: You're never going to develop any practical skills.
Speaker: It's like wrestling.
Speaker: If you don't wrestle, forget it.
Speaker: You know, you get it.
Speaker: And so on, so on.
Speaker: You know, standing has a specific training method.
Speaker: Surely soft movement, why we move soft, why you move slow, and so on, so on.
Speaker: So all the stages are...
Speaker: important.
Speaker: That's interesting because in my mind I tried to kind of map this because it's an interesting, it's a very Chinese perspective obviously but even because I also train boxing, European boxing on the side and actually it does kind of fit, like it's not that.
Speaker: Oh yeah, I mean they have the footwork.
Speaker: They have the toy show, basically handwork.
Speaker: They have sparring.
Speaker: They have the breathing.
Speaker: You have the breathing.
Speaker: If you don't breathe properly in boxing, you're dead.
Speaker: You have to breathe properly.
Speaker: Probably one of the only, they have Fali.
Speaker: You have to learn how to release power with a bag training, partner glove training.
Speaker: We've seen Tyson, the power that he generates with his explosive power, Fali.
Speaker: Probably the only thing boxing doesn't do is standing.
Speaker: Not as much here.
Speaker: It's interesting though, because in the beginning there was a lot of this like, okay, take your stance and then they would actually correct your boxing stance.
Speaker: Yeah, that's interesting, that's a very good point.
Speaker: Well pointed out.
Speaker: So you could say, in theory, boxing has pretty much all of those stages, which is why it's a very effective martial art, if you like.
Speaker: But I would say, you know, standing in every martial art I've seen, and I've seen a lot, I've seen stuff that you would never know, you would never have heard of and never known existed, honestly.
Speaker: I mean that.
Speaker: I've seen so much stuff, especially living in China.
Speaker: Only Yi Tran standing is very unique because of the mental training and what you have to do in the training.
Speaker: Most people stand.
Speaker: They don't know why they're standing.
Speaker: They don't know what they're doing.
Speaker: They just stand still.
Speaker: We call it dead standing.
Speaker: In Yi Tran we call it dead standing.
Speaker: So if you follow that kind of map,
Speaker: And if you don't have those stages, then you should look for them.
Speaker: If you're a listener and you're thinking, well, we don't do that,
Speaker: than they should.
Speaker: I think we will go back to that because it's quite interesting also to what you mentioned that the standing and the content of the practice.
Speaker: Before that, one question, because you already, when you started eTrend, you already had a lot of martial arts background.
Speaker: What was it that interested you in eTrend though when you started?
Speaker: Was it your teacher and did you think like, oh, wow, this guy has skills that I want to learn that I've never seen before?
Speaker: What was it?
Speaker: He scared the living shit out of me.
Speaker: Yeah, he's very famous in China, in the city.
Speaker: He's a very famous guy.
Speaker: He's famous for a reason, you know, he's a famous fighter.
Speaker: When I met him, I met him, he was teaching in his house with a lot of students, you know, and yeah, I mean, he just scared the bejesus out of me, you know, that's an Irish word.
Speaker: And that was amazing.
Speaker: I've never seen
Speaker: I told him what I'd done and who I'd met in China.
Speaker: And basically, he didn't laugh, but all the students laughed when I told them who I'd been training with.
Speaker: And I thought, why are they laughing?
Speaker: So they asked me to push with the teacher.
Speaker: And oh my Jesus, he played with me like a toy.
Speaker: Just like you would play with a four-year-old child.
Speaker: And he still does, which is even more scary.
Speaker: So, yeah, I was amazed.
Speaker: I was shocked.
Speaker: And this was pretty much pre-internet.
Speaker: I mean, I certainly never heard of the internet.
Speaker: So there was very little information, which in retrospect was probably a good thing because now there's too much information and most of it's bullshit.
Speaker: So it's kind of good going in blind.
Speaker: You know, I'd never really heard of Yichuan, although I'd been in China for several years.
Speaker: I'd heard of it, but I had no exposure to it.
Speaker: I just knew because I was looking to learn how to fight.
Speaker: You know, I just tell the truth.
Speaker: You know, I wanted to learn martial arts.
Speaker: I wanted to learn how to fight.
Speaker: And everyone said, you have to go and see this guy.
Speaker: You know, he's the most famous fighter in the city.
Speaker: We're talking a city of 13 million.
Speaker: You know, it's a lot of people.
Speaker: But I can never find him.
Speaker: I mean, I couldn't find him.
Speaker: And then through contacts and, you know, long story, I got there in the end.
Speaker: And so yeah, it was great.
Speaker: And he was and still is.
Speaker: Although he's quite old now, he's still terrifying.
Speaker: To be felt, to be believed, you know.
Speaker: I know Chen Yu, I know he's good.
Speaker: He's good.
Speaker: So not dissimilar in the Fali, Pushing,
Speaker: And when you started, because you mentioned those seven stages and said it's not necessarily in that order, but I mean there's probably some kind of training progression certainly that you went through.
Speaker: The first thing I learned was, well we're pushing from day one.
Speaker: So pushing is one of the seven stages.
Speaker: If you want to learn how to fight, then you have to push, you have to develop handwork, and you have to develop footwork, which you do in the pushing, handwork, bodywork.
Speaker: So pushing from day one.
Speaker: And then the first thing I really learned, I suppose, were some basic standing postures and some Shirley exercises, like one or two Shirley exercises, a couple of standing postures.
Speaker: And then the teacher...
Speaker: Because all the shirley exercises have applications, so the teacher will show you how to apply them.
Speaker: All the standing postures have applications, so the teacher would kind of explain, although there's no way you could utilize them.
Speaker: I mean, you know, there's no way at that stage.
Speaker: Yeah, so that was basically how I was pushing.
Speaker: And then standing, learned some standing, which you would never do in the teacher's house.
Speaker: You'd always do that at home, obviously.
Speaker: Shirley exercises and starting to learn theory.
Speaker: Talk about Yi-Tuan specifically.
Speaker: Yi-Tuan is very, in Chinese they call it scientifically based, you know, it's very theoretical martial arts.
Speaker: It has a lot of theory, practical theory, but it has a lot of theory.
Speaker: So you start to learn the theory, why things work, how they work, and how you can apply them.
Speaker: Because you need theory.
Speaker: Otherwise, if you don't have... It's a bit like music.
Speaker: I mean, I'm a musician.
Speaker: I play music my whole life.
Speaker: And if you don't have theory in music, you can only really go so far.
Speaker: It's very difficult.
Speaker: You hit barriers, and it's very difficult to break through barriers if you don't really have them.
Speaker: You can, but it's difficult.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: With theory, when you have a barrier, you can use the theory to analyze, and then you can break through a lot quicker than somebody, for example, who doesn't have theory.
Speaker: They struggle.
Speaker: But if you use your theory to analyze, you can break through.
Speaker: Because we all have practice and then there's no progress.
Speaker: Or the progress is very slow or blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: So with a very good theoretical base, you can
Speaker: progress a lot quicker really.
Speaker: But it's already very interesting to hear that because most people would assume with each one like oh yeah you have to do a lot of standing in the beginning but you said like okay you actually you started out also with push hands.
Speaker: What happens when it gets you know in the hands of white people or you know it crosses the waters it turns into a right mess.
Speaker: Traditionally it's just
Speaker: It's just fighting.
Speaker: If you're going to fight, you better start as soon as possible.
Speaker: If you go to a wrestling class in China, you'll be wrestling the first day.
Speaker: No one's going to make you stand and do nonsense.
Speaker: Just waste your time.
Speaker: So no, it's straight away.
Speaker: Straight away.
Speaker: And again, the stages are very...
Speaker: Of course, in the beginning, you don't know the seven stages.
Speaker: You don't know anything.
Speaker: It's just over time you learn.
Speaker: But everything comes fast.
Speaker: Theory comes fast.
Speaker: And then pushing and then standing.
Speaker: Everything's coming very fast.
Speaker: And everyone there is learning different things because some people have been there 20 years.
Speaker: Some people have been there like me for like a week.
Speaker: Everyone's learning.
Speaker: Some are better than others, some are smarter than others, some are stronger than others, some are younger, older.
Speaker: So everyone's learning different things and everyone's on a different skill level and absorbing different things.
Speaker: So some have learned a lot of Shirley, some have learned a lot of standing, some have learned none, whatever.
Speaker: So everyone's learning.
Speaker: Like I said, it's not very structured.
Speaker: China is not like what you would expect, for example, in the West or in Japan.
Speaker: It's just
Speaker: It's just you're thrown in.
Speaker: You're just thrown in and you kind of grab, hang on, grab what you can.
Speaker: But you mentioned this idea.
Speaker: I think that's quite interesting for people who are not familiar with each one.
Speaker: I said, OK, so there's something that you consider dead standing, you know, like standing practice that may not be that helpful.
Speaker: A lot of people will stand standing.
Speaker: I can tell you a funny story that happened recently, a year or so ago, but a lot of people just stand.
Speaker: They don't know why they're standing, or they don't have any, you know, there's nothing going on internally or mentally why they stand.
Speaker: And usually what happens, they stand too long, and they just get stiff.
Speaker: And stiffness is, you know, it's taboo.
Speaker: It's, in martial arts, you can't be stiff.
Speaker: You can't be stiff.
Speaker: You need to be relaxed.
Speaker: You need to be soft.
Speaker: You can't have any stiffness in your body.
Speaker: You need to train the stiffness out.
Speaker: So most people, they just stand and then they stand and they keep standing.
Speaker: So they just get stiffer and stiffer and stiffer.
Speaker: And there's nothing going on internally.
Speaker: There's no mental imagery.
Speaker: There's no, you know, there's nothing going on.
Speaker: So we just call it dead standing.
Speaker: It's just pointless.
Speaker: All it does...
Speaker: If you meet people, I mean yourself, and as you progress in your martial arts, if you meet people that stand a lot, you will find them very strong, very stiff.
Speaker: And people that are very stiff, they're very easy to push and play with.
Speaker: It's not going to help you at all.
Speaker: If you meet someone, for example, like a BJJ person or a wrestler, they're very soft.
Speaker: They have internal strength, of course, they have structure and physical body mechanics, but they're very soft, they're fluid, whereas people who do a lot of dead standing, for example, they'll be so, so stiff.
Speaker: So how do you counteract then when you do the standing practice in each one?
Speaker: Well, I mean, and that's a big subject, I mean, you need a whole season.
Speaker: I'll just give you a basic introduction, for example.
Speaker: When you're standing, you're not standing still.
Speaker: It's the complete opposite.
Speaker: You're moving all the time.
Speaker: So if you don't know that, if you're looking from the outside, you might think a Yi-Tuan practitioner is standing still.
Speaker: They're not standing still.
Speaker: There's a lot of movement.
Speaker: The idea is the movement is very small.
Speaker: So therefore, from the outside observer, it looks like they're actually standing still.
Speaker: But of course they're not.
Speaker: I mean, that's just stupid.
Speaker: Why would you stand still?
Speaker: Doesn't make any sense.
Speaker: So the idea is if you imagine like a propeller on an airplane, it's moving very, very fast, but it looks almost stationary.
Speaker: So that's what you're trying to achieve at a higher level.
Speaker: I mean, that's a very high level.
Speaker: There is no standing still.
Speaker: It's movement all the time, up and down, left and right, back and forward, all planes of motion, coronal planes, horizontal planes, vertical planes, and that's just the beginning.
Speaker: So it's not stationary by any means.
Speaker: It's everything moving from the fingertips to the toes.
Speaker: Everything's moving.
Speaker: It's just that.
Speaker: like I said, from the outside, it looks like you're not moving, which is the idea.
Speaker: Is that what, because I think I read somewhere, I don't know who was credited with saying it, but the idea was that Zhang Zhuang or standing would be small, Shirley and Shirley would be big, Zhang Zhuang, like big standing, like the two types of... You could say that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of, I mean, Shirley is, that's quite, I mean, yes, you could say that.
Speaker: It's simple, but you can say that.
Speaker: I mean, the idea is the Shirley, you put the Shirley inside the standing.
Speaker: Let me say it like that.
Speaker: So anything you have on the outside, you bring it on the inside.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: I often think of like in England, we have what we used to, we have a lot of oak trees.
Speaker: I'm sure you do in Germany, but England's famous for the oak trees.
Speaker: And the seed is an acorn.
Speaker: And I often think of the acorn
Speaker: contains the forest.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: So the acorn is like the standing.
Speaker: It contains everything.
Speaker: In Yichuan, we have a saying, it's like inside the school saying, Yichuan contains the universe.
Speaker: So standing contains the universe.
Speaker: When you're standing, it's like the acorn.
Speaker: which contains the forest, okay?
Speaker: There's birds, there's trees, there's animals, there's flowers, there's, you know, everything's inside the acorn.
Speaker: It just hasn't really, you know, obviously hasn't turned into a forest yet, but it has that potential.
Speaker: So standing is like that.
Speaker: It contains everything.
Speaker: So it contains all your shirt, it contains all your handwork, your bodywork, your footwork.
Speaker: For example, if you were to do your Chen style Tai Chi, for example.
Speaker: So if you just did one move and you practiced it, and then you worked on a straight line, and then you practiced it, and you practiced it, and then suddenly you stood still, you almost feel the body is boom, boom.
Speaker: You feel like the body is kind of like moving.
Speaker: It's a bit like that.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: You stand still, but you feel like everything is moving very big, very out on the outside.
Speaker: It's a little bit like that.
Speaker: Is that also the visualization that you mentioned before?
Speaker: Yeah, that's the Yi.
Speaker: I mean, that's what the Yi of the Yi Quan is about.
Speaker: It's all about what you do with your mind and how you create visualization imagery.
Speaker: So I understand the connection, so Chan Zhuang was standing and Shi Li, and you mentioned you would start with push-ends though, like at the same time, which totally makes sense to me.
Speaker: What about Fa Li, like the expression of force?
Speaker: Would that also be something that you would start to?
Speaker: No, they wouldn't normally teach that in the beginning, because there's no point.
Speaker: Because you really, I mean, you could learn it, but to be honest, the teacher wouldn't
Speaker: and I don't.
Speaker: There is no, actually no, because if you don't have the handwork, the footwork to get in and to do damage, there's no point in learning Fali.
Speaker: It's just stupid.
Speaker: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker: And also Fali is actually, it's very simple if your Shirley is very good, because it's basically, it's just a small version of the Shirley.
Speaker: So
Speaker: But the teachers don't really tell you this in the beginning.
Speaker: It just takes a long time.
Speaker: So when your shirley is very good and your body is very harmonized, then it's easy to get power out.
Speaker: It's not a big deal.
Speaker: So, I mean, that's just power on its own.
Speaker: But power on its own is useless.
Speaker: You need to have handwork and footwork.
Speaker: Because if you can failee, I mean, if you can break shit, whatever you want, snap and
Speaker: you don't have the handwork and the skills to do it on an opponent and it's also a waste of time so finally on its own it's just it's just pointless you know if you don't have the skills to to make use of it yeah so yeah so it's better to learn handwork bodywork pushing you know all the techniques first and then you can learn the finally which will come naturally anyway you know it's like i imagine i mean i learned
Speaker: Chen style when I first went to China.
Speaker: I learned from one of Chen Fa-Khu's, believe it or not, I learned from one of Chen Fa-Khu's disciples.
Speaker: It was the first week I got to China.
Speaker: It was amazing.
Speaker: This was an old dude in a big, huge coat.
Speaker: And this was all China.
Speaker: I mean, Jesus Christ, you can't imagine what it was like in those days.
Speaker: And he was teaching.
Speaker: But everything he did was soft.
Speaker: There was no fali.
Speaker: I mean, Chen style chaiji, everyone knows they've got some fali moments.
Speaker: I think even Chen Yu teaches a fali form now.
Speaker: But you certainly wouldn't teach that to a beginner.
Speaker: It doesn't make any sense, because they don't have the body mechanics in place to do it.
Speaker: They just end up hurting themselves.
Speaker: It's insane.
Speaker: The expression is there when you need it.
Speaker: You certainly wouldn't teach that to a beginner.
Speaker: It's just pointless.
Speaker: First learn the mechanics of the form, the mechanics of the body.
Speaker: And when you're ready, yeah, you can express it anytime you want, really.
Speaker: They're just examples of failing.
Speaker: You can failing at any point.
Speaker: That's the point.
Speaker: But so yeah, file is a stage.
Speaker: You need it.
Speaker: You know, traditionally in Chinese martial arts, file is important.
Speaker: But don't learn it too early.
Speaker: There's no meaning.
Speaker: Because it's just, if you don't, it's a martial art.
Speaker: So if you can file it on your own, and you know, who cares?
Speaker: Who cares?
Speaker: If you can't apply it,
Speaker: And with applying it, do you mean that, because what I often see is that people have explosive movements, but what I'm interpreting into what you said is that they cannot do it from contact, like if they're actually... They can't do it in the pushing, they can't do it in the hitting, they can't put it in a ring, you know, go in a ring, go and put it on a live opponent, you know, if you can't do that, then you can't do it.
Speaker: So, yeah, I mean, really apply it.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: And you also mentioned sparring as part of the training.
Speaker: How would you move from pushing or from tuisho to sparring?
Speaker: What would it look like back then?
Speaker: Well, when the teacher says you're, you know, usually you would, actually, that's quite a good point, because, I mean, in the Yitran, for example, and a lot of Chinese martial arts, I mean, I don't know all the Chinese martial arts, obviously, but usually, for example, in Yitran,
Speaker: is divided into three stages.
Speaker: I imagine you'll find the same in Chen's style.
Speaker: First stage we call tui shou, which is basically learning handwork, bodywork, footwork, techniques, if you like, that kind of thing.
Speaker: The second stage in the yi chuan we call da shou.
Speaker: So this is all under the tui shou umbrella.
Speaker: but it's divided into three.
Speaker: So the first one will be Tuei Sho, the second one we call Da Sho.
Speaker: Da Sho is, you don't really lead your opponent, so it's a bit like Tuei Sho, but you put in some strikes.
Speaker: It has more intention behind it.
Speaker: So it's a lot more dangerous, if you like, a little bit more dangerous, a little bit more, you know, you up the pressure.
Speaker: You up the pressure a lot.
Speaker: So you have to deal with that pressure.
Speaker: So that would be the second stage.
Speaker: And you wouldn't do that stage, and you would usually do that stage with the teacher.
Speaker: Because if you do that stage with another student, it's dangerous, you're just going to end up hurting each other.
Speaker: So that would be the second stage.
Speaker: Third stage would be Sancho, which is when you can separate.
Speaker: San means separate.
Speaker: So you separate the hands.
Speaker: So like usually with Tue Sho, I mean, traditionally, you always start off touching, which, you know, that's a good way to learn, to start, to learn.
Speaker: But touching is not always that practical until you get into the position.
Speaker: But so the third stage would be Sancho, which means you don't touch.
Speaker: So then you have to learn how to get in, how to make that connection, if you like.
Speaker: mentally and physically to meet an opponent.
Speaker: And when you, I forgot to ask, but when you say pushing or to show, I think a lot of people will have patterns in mind.
Speaker: I would assume that it's more freestyle what you did or was it... No patterns at all.
Speaker: It's 100% free.
Speaker: Which is great.
Speaker: I mean, patterns kill a martial art.
Speaker: They kill it dead.
Speaker: Traditionally, there's no patterns in martial art.
Speaker: If you know Chinese history and
Speaker: If you study, well, I mean, I used to, but if you read a lot of Chinese martial arts, I used to read in Chinese martial arts.
Speaker: It's very interesting history, history of styles.
Speaker: There's no patterns.
Speaker: There's no patterns.
Speaker: That's just something that's been devised since the 1920s or later.
Speaker: If you want to learn how to fight, there's no drill.
Speaker: Patterns will kill your martial art, and they will kill you.
Speaker: They will help you.
Speaker: They will kill you.
Speaker: They will help you at all.
Speaker: So, I mean, they'll help a beginner.
Speaker: They'll help a beginner.
Speaker: It's like music.
Speaker: If you learn a scale, that'll help you.
Speaker: It'll help you understand and hear, and then understand your ability to move around an instrument.
Speaker: But that's not going to help you on the stage.
Speaker: If you want to go out and play with a jazz band,
Speaker: just knowing the scale, they kick you off the stack.
Speaker: It's not going to help you at all.
Speaker: They're okay for a beginner, maybe, but that's it.
Speaker: That's why I asked because I also have an ambivalent relationship with drills because like you said, for beginners it can be helpful.
Speaker: At the same time, a lot of the drills beginners don't even understand what they're trying to do there.
Speaker: And I think a lot of people stick to the drills too long.
Speaker: Like you said, suddenly it's freestyle and they don't know what to do and nothing works.
Speaker: Nothing works.
Speaker: And that's why a lot of Chinese martial arts, they get a bad reputation because they're too drill based.
Speaker: People rely on the drills to make money, to enhance their ego.
Speaker: It's a normal thing to make money, to make your ego big.
Speaker: It's kind of a human condition.
Speaker: So, of course, drills are great for that.
Speaker: But when it comes to fighting, drills aren't great.
Speaker: You don't have drills in boxing.
Speaker: You go and you spar, you spar.
Speaker: There's no drills.
Speaker: Maybe in the beginning, for a beginner, there's a few drills.
Speaker: but it soon stops when you spar.
Speaker: You just have to spar.
Speaker: BJJ is the same.
Speaker: There's no drills.
Speaker: Also, everything actually in boxing, everything that you do as a drill is very much the same, then you can immediately apply it to sparring.
Speaker: It's usually just like a smaller... Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So, drills will kill a martial art, unfortunately, but as I'm sure you're aware, most martial arts aren't
Speaker: very much.
Speaker: It's an old thing, you know, it's an old thing, you know, sort of dying from the modern world.
Speaker: Yeah, so drills, no, in Yichuan there are no drills.
Speaker: There are single hand drills, but again, they're very early stage and eventually they're also freestyle.
Speaker: So no drills, not really.
Speaker: And in terms of application of fighting technique, I mean my exposure to each one has been limited but I'm mostly associated with strikes and kicks and stuff like that, not so much with joint locks and throwing or is that... No, you're right.
Speaker: I mean it's there, you just don't really see it so often but of course it's there.
Speaker: It's there but
Speaker: Not like, for example, what you would see in Bang Hua.
Speaker: Bang Hua or Tai Chi has a lot, a lot.
Speaker: You mean Yuji Chen style, and it's the same with the Wu style.
Speaker: I mean, Wu style, Chen style, to me, they look very similar.
Speaker: I know people will disagree, but to me, there's so many locks and so many throws.
Speaker: It's just a wrestling-based style, but it's just nuts.
Speaker: But with the Yi Quan, no.
Speaker: The locks are there, but it's mostly striking.
Speaker: Head, elbow, shoulder, knees, feet, whatever.
Speaker: One thing that we haven't touched upon at all so far is strength training and conditioning.
Speaker: Specifically, are there any types of strength training exercises?
Speaker: Not really, no.
Speaker: Standing is hard enough.
Speaker: I mean, reasonably physically demanding.
Speaker: And the thing is with strength training, like I said in the beginning, with dead standing, it makes you very, very stiff.
Speaker: It makes you very, very stiff.
Speaker: So you have to be very careful with that kind of thing.
Speaker: There is training in a way.
Speaker: I mean, we have spear training in each one.
Speaker: We have a spear.
Speaker: There's a few weapons, believe it or not.
Speaker: And spear is one of them.
Speaker: Or stick.
Speaker: People usually use just a stick, but a spear.
Speaker: But that won't be practiced until you're soft enough.
Speaker: Put it like that.
Speaker: Because people, my students often ask me about the spear.
Speaker: And I say, you're not ready to learn the spear.
Speaker: You're too stiff.
Speaker: But I want to do it.
Speaker: I want to do it.
Speaker: I want to do it.
Speaker: OK, you do it.
Speaker: And then they end up with headaches or sore arms.
Speaker: And the pushing goes downhill because we're just getting stiffer and stiffer.
Speaker: So you have to introduce that kind of thing at the right time.
Speaker: But apart from the spear and hitting the bag, there's some bag training in each one, but it's not like boxing hitting the bag.
Speaker: It's just, it's nothing, not really like that.
Speaker: There's no, there's nothing really,
Speaker: nothing apart from that.
Speaker: That seems also to be a commonality, a lot of styles use weapons and sometimes also heavy weapons as kind of a more organic strength training, a more maybe... It is, but like I said, if you do it wrong too early,
Speaker: you just end up stiffer and stiffer.
Speaker: How is it, I mean, I think in a lot of places, each one is kind of sold as like the perfect health training, I think because people emphasize the standing so much and then it has a connection to Qigong.
Speaker: Did health play a big role when you trained it?
Speaker: No, no, never.
Speaker: It's real old school.
Speaker: No, that's a new thing and no.
Speaker: The answer is no, I'm afraid.
Speaker: You get benefits from practicing form, obviously.
Speaker: You get health benefits from toisho too, but it's more of a byproduct.
Speaker: Traditionally, tai chi is martial art.
Speaker: If you practice martial art, you will get stronger, for sure.
Speaker: You will get healthier.
Speaker: Everything will improve.
Speaker: But it's not its primary focus.
Speaker: The primary focus is martial arts.
Speaker: It's the same with each act.
Speaker: It's a martial art.
Speaker: You will get softer and your health will improve, obviously.
Speaker: It's funny because I was teaching yesterday, for example, and I was pushing with one of my guys.
Speaker: Six foot five, 250 pounds.
Speaker: I mean, the guy is huge.
Speaker: He's younger than me.
Speaker: And two minutes of pushing, he's panting.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: For me, it's not a problem.
Speaker: Absolutely nothing.
Speaker: So this also improves your health indirectly.
Speaker: Push it.
Speaker: But as far as the emphasis on health, no, nothing, ever, not ever.
Speaker: 100% martial.
Speaker: But that also means essentially the health benefits would be baked into the training, like there's no separate, because some styles have that like, oh, separate Qigong systems or something, but that doesn't really... No, not in the Taiji, not in the Baoba, not in the Xingyi, not in the Yichan, nothing.
Speaker: How about this, because you mentioned this visualization training, so obviously there's a lot of introspection going on, but I would assume... No, introspection is not the right word.
Speaker: What would you call it?
Speaker: I call it training the yee in your mind.
Speaker: Introspection seems to be, it gives me the thought that introspection seems to be like you're thinking, you're pondering...
Speaker: a problem, you know, but it's nothing like that, no, absolutely, 100%, nothing like that.
Speaker: Also, I mean, I think it's interesting to talk about the terms because a lot of people, I mean, you have terms like mindfulness or meditation, I would assume that these would also not fit meditation?
Speaker: No, 100%, no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because, for example, most people would think about meditation as emptying your mind, but each answer is the complete opposite, you're trying to fill it up.
Speaker: So it's completely opposite.
Speaker: That's why I'm asking because I find it quite interesting that there are a lot of things that usually get interpreted into those training methods that may originally not have been there.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I mean, for example, in the Yi-Tuan, I might be standing and I'll be thinking about, like I said earlier, if you consider the phrase, Yi-Tuan contains the universe.
Speaker: You have to bear that in mind when you embark on this journey.
Speaker: So for example, I can literally think about anything.
Speaker: That's the beauty of the art.
Speaker: You're not limited.
Speaker: I noticed, and I was not guilty, but I also, when I was younger, much, much younger, when I was a young guy, I lived in Malaysia and I learned Tai Chi.
Speaker: And the Tai Chi is amazing.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic.
Speaker: but you're very limited.
Speaker: You're very limited.
Speaker: Where are you limited?
Speaker: You're limited by the form.
Speaker: The form dictates really how you move to a certain degree.
Speaker: Not so much with Bagua because there are different training methods, but we'll take Taiji as an example.
Speaker: You're quite limited.
Speaker: It could be Wing Chun or whatever.
Speaker: You're very limited by the form.
Speaker: The form almost dictates how you move.
Speaker: if that makes sense.
Speaker: If you have your hand in the wrong position, the teacher will say, no, your hand can't be there.
Speaker: But you might say, well, I like my hand there.
Speaker: It's like, you know, but the form says you can.
Speaker: Put your hand there.
Speaker: Or you can't step this way because the form says you have to go right.
Speaker: But you say, well, I want to go left.
Speaker: But the teacher said, well, you can go left because the form says we have to go right.
Speaker: So you're kind of limited by the form, which is not necessarily a good thing because that stems the creative mind and martial art.
Speaker: There's two sides.
Speaker: One is martial, one is art.
Speaker: So the creative side is very important.
Speaker: It's as important as the martial side.
Speaker: So one of the good things with Yichuan is this creative side.
Speaker: It's not compromise.
Speaker: You're never told, you have to emphasize the have.
Speaker: You have to develop this art side.
Speaker: You have to develop the freedom side, which can be a good thing.
Speaker: It can be a very scary thing.
Speaker: Because now you have the ability to move where you want.
Speaker: There is no one saying, you can't do this, you can't do that.
Speaker: For some people, that's scary.
Speaker: That sudden freedom.
Speaker: But anyway, back to my point, the standing.
Speaker: So if I'm standing, I can think of anything.
Speaker: But in the beginning, you would learn simple imagery.
Speaker: You would learn simple things.
Speaker: So obviously, you can't really do anything.
Speaker: And the more complicated the imagery is, the easier it is for you to lose that image, the easier it is for your body to get stiff, and then you're just going down a different rabbit hole.
Speaker: It's not good.
Speaker: It's really not good.
Speaker: So if you start off with simple images, you can keep your body soft and try to build up the image.
Speaker: So for example, you might start off thinking about water, like being in the water, for example.
Speaker: How far does the water extend?
Speaker: So the further the better, but that takes time.
Speaker: Water by your feet, water by your arms, water around your back.
Speaker: Which direction is the water moving?
Speaker: So the water is going up.
Speaker: So there's training methods for this.
Speaker: It's not completely, you're not just thrown in and find out yourself.
Speaker: There are proper methods to train.
Speaker: The water's going up, the water's going down, the water's moving left, the water's moving right.
Speaker: And then you start to sense the different directions of the water.
Speaker: You start to feel like the water.
Speaker: The water's soft in this scenario.
Speaker: And you would try to extend the feeling of the water away from the body.
Speaker: Try to get it as, well, in the beginning, it's very difficult.
Speaker: But slowly over time, you learn to extend the mind further from the body.
Speaker: And you can take it to extremes.
Speaker: I mean, I'll give you another example.
Speaker: This is a bit esoteric, but it's part of the practice.
Speaker: Yi chan is very esoteric.
Speaker: It's just so out there.
Speaker: It's just incredible.
Speaker: As far as the training and the mind is concerned, for example, one of the images, you might have chains coming out of your body.
Speaker: And the chains are attached to the stars in the sky.
Speaker: So when I move, I pull the stars down with the chains.
Speaker: That's just another example.
Speaker: Completely different to water.
Speaker: Obviously, a lot more complicated to do.
Speaker: I mean, you would have to build up to an image like that.
Speaker: But even if you can do it, you have to know how to use it.
Speaker: It all goes back to application.
Speaker: If you can't use the image of the water in your pushing, for example,
Speaker: or you can't use the image of the chains attached to the stars.
Speaker: That's also no good.
Speaker: So everything you learn in your standing, your surely, all has to go in the pushing.
Speaker: All has to be buttoned.
Speaker: And then when you learn everything in your pushing, it goes back into the standing, back into the acorn, contains the forest.
Speaker: In the beginning, you've got an empty acorn shell.
Speaker: You don't understand anything.
Speaker: It looks like an acorn, but it's empty.
Speaker: But after 27 years, the acorn, what's inside is very different to someone who's been doing it for a week.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: Although on the outside, the two acorns might look identical.
Speaker: If I plant one, come back in 200 years, I'll have a forest.
Speaker: If I plant the other one, there's nothing.
Speaker: Because the practice is still empty, there's nothing.
Speaker: So if I stand and someone next to me is standing, they would look the same.
Speaker: But they're not the same, 100%.
Speaker: One is different on the inside.
Speaker: One is empty on the inside.
Speaker: But I guess these esoteric elements or what you call esoteric elements is what drew some people to the practice but then they, I find it super interesting, it's very arbitrary in the sense that people take out some of these ideas and then they connect it to like, oh you know this is like you said, like I said health practice or whatever and they leave out the specific purpose of the original exercise.
Speaker: Sure, I mean that's common Daniel as we know, I mean
Speaker: Most martial arts, as I'm sure you're aware, are very watered down versions of where they started from, whether it's Tai Chi or Xing Yi or Yichuan or whatever.
Speaker: They're very different to how they were when they were created 100, 200 years ago.
Speaker: They're very different versions.
Speaker: And it's very rare to find a version of a martial art that's very original or very close to the original.
Speaker: Anyone can learn a Tai Chi form.
Speaker: I mean, you can go on YouTube and learn.
Speaker: I can learn Chen Yu's form.
Speaker: I have lots of Chen Yu's videos.
Speaker: I mean, I know people.
Speaker: I know private videos.
Speaker: I can learn that.
Speaker: I could do the form.
Speaker: With my experience, I could do the form as good as anyone could do the form, I'm telling you.
Speaker: So what I'm trying to say is anyone can learn Tai Chi.
Speaker: And anybody can learn standing because it looks that simple, although there's seven stages.
Speaker: you can fool people with standing.
Speaker: You could learn standing on YouTube for one week and you can go out teaching standing.
Speaker: Doesn't make it easier.
Speaker: Just by learning a form on YouTube doesn't make it tighty, does it?
Speaker: Very different from what really is the real thing.
Speaker: Although you can fool people and even fool yourself by
Speaker: by doing that I mean that kind of leads me to the next and also to the final question that I always ask how should Chinese martial arts and maybe specifically also each one or maybe also the community around it how should it develop in the future what would you be hoping for how people treat teaching practicing Chinese martial arts what do you have I think it's dying I mean it's definitely dying
Speaker: 100% is dying.
Speaker: When I first went to China more than 30 years ago, it was dying then.
Speaker: But if you got up at 5.30 in the morning and you went to the parks, you can see a little bit of Xing Yi, you can see a little bit of Chen style.
Speaker: I've seen some good Chen style.
Speaker: Back in those days, I trained with Chen Fao Kuo, a student for a while.
Speaker: I'd say a while.
Speaker: I mean, it was only two weeks.
Speaker: And you can see a baddie.
Speaker: I mean, some of the parks in China are enormous.
Speaker: They are mind-bendingly big.
Speaker: And, you know, if you travel around the park, you look between the trees, you know, you can see guys, a few old guys.
Speaker: Very rarely see young guys.
Speaker: You can see, you know, a few guys doing this, a few guys doing that.
Speaker: And that was 30 years ago.
Speaker: And I remember asking my singing teacher, I used to practice singing in the park, this great, fantastic guy.
Speaker: And he had young guys with him, students.
Speaker: And I remember asking him, you know, Bastard Lee, what was it like when you were young?
Speaker: You know, the 1930s, 40s, 50s, you know.
Speaker: And he said the park was full.
Speaker: He said there used to be five.
Speaker: I mean, these parks are enormous.
Speaker: He said there used to be five.
Speaker: in the parks because there was no room.
Speaker: Because that's what young guys did.
Speaker: The badgie would be fighting with the mantis and the mantis would be fighting with the wrestlers.
Speaker: Because everyone was merging into everyone's space.
Speaker: And some of these styles, like the singe, they just go in straight lines and they're always bumping into, you know.
Speaker: My teacher said there was always fights.
Speaker: And the teachers would come over and calm everything down and everyone was friends.
Speaker: And then, you know, this would happen all the time.
Speaker: So when I was there 30 years ago, there was nobody.
Speaker: There was loads of room.
Speaker: No one's going to be fighting because you've got half a park.
Speaker: But you could still see a few old guys, like little groups, occasionally with a young guy practicing.
Speaker: Pretty rare.
Speaker: But now, 30 years later, you go to China, you don't see shit.
Speaker: You don't see nothing.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: I mean, when I say nothing, I kind of mean nothing.
Speaker: It's just hard to imagine.
Speaker: You might just see one guy, you just want to see it really.
Speaker: I mean, it's quite often, not that I go really anymore.
Speaker: If I train on my own, I might go.
Speaker: You don't see nothing.
Speaker: is completely gone.
Speaker: If you're a young guy now and you want to learn to fight, you do MMA.
Speaker: My teacher student has three MMA gyms in the same city.
Speaker: He trains with the teacher, but he has three gyms.
Speaker: And all the young guys go to the MMA gym.
Speaker: They don't go to the park at half five in the morning.
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: They go to a gym with aircon and mats and the showers and
Speaker: China's changed.
Speaker: When I was there, it's such a different world, you know.
Speaker: When I was in uni there, we had half an hour in the morning of hot water, you know.
Speaker: It was crazy.
Speaker: If you didn't get there in time, that was it.
Speaker: That was it in the evening.
Speaker: It's a different world.
Speaker: It's a very, very different world.
Speaker: So, you know, that's sad.
Speaker: That's sad.
Speaker: I find that sad.
Speaker: Well, what's the glimmer of hope then?
Speaker: I think for traditional martial arts, there's not much hope.
Speaker: Really.
Speaker: I mean, there will be people still practicing it, like myself, like you, for example.
Speaker: Let me ask you a different question.
Speaker: What would it be that traditional martial arts can offer that, for example, MMA can't, in your opinion?
Speaker: The art, the creation.
Speaker: Martial arts is a very strange thing.
Speaker: It's very mysterious.
Speaker: What makes it mysterious is the mind, you know?
Speaker: It's the mind.
Speaker: And what can you do with the mind to push the body?
Speaker: It's like the petrol in a car.
Speaker: Without the petrol, the car doesn't work.
Speaker: It doesn't matter how good looking it is.
Speaker: It's useless.
Speaker: And one thing MMA doesn't really have is the mind.
Speaker: They don't have the art side.
Speaker: They have the martial side to the extreme.
Speaker: But they don't really, I mean, some people do.
Speaker: I mean, I can't say, you know, they all, because I don't know them all.
Speaker: You know, that's not fair.
Speaker: Basically, the art side, that side, the mind contains the universe, you know, what's everything you can think and see and imagine you can put in your, they don't really have this, you know.
Speaker: So the art side is not really there.
Speaker: The art side is...
Speaker: also fascinating, it's as fascinating as the martial side.
Speaker: And the two propel each other.
Speaker: So MMA, for example, which is very popular, and it's very good, is you can learn how to fight very fast.
Speaker: But when you're 60, 70, 80, then it's a different thing.
Speaker: Because the traditional martial arts, you'll still be soft, and you still have the skills, and you can still kick ass when you're 70s and 80s, you know.
Speaker: You won't have bad knees and a bad back and everything's falling apart, you know, and be brain damaged or whatever, you know.
Speaker: So I think the art side is one thing, the traditional martial arts, but they have to be real martial arts.
Speaker: And that's the thing.
Speaker: The real martial arts are very hard to find.
Speaker: They might have bits of the tradition.
Speaker: They might have bits of the martial arts.
Speaker: They might have bits of the art side.
Speaker: But to find...
Speaker: like a very round, you know, like a really good martial, really good art side.
Speaker: It's really hard to find that.
Speaker: A real gem.
Speaker: This is not so easy, even in China.
Speaker: I mean, don't get me, even in China.
Speaker: Because the culture has changed.
Speaker: The society has moved on from that kind of old... The world's changed.
Speaker: And, you know, and if you are interested in it, like I said,
Speaker: If you are maybe a very different individual, you might seek out an old master with some different skills.
Speaker: But your average person is going to go to an MMA gym.
Speaker: It's just so comfortable.
Speaker: It's so much more organized.
Speaker: It's just everything about it is appealing to the modern mind.
Speaker: I'll tell you a funny story if we have time.
Speaker: About three or four months ago, I had two Chinese PhD students come and visit me.
Speaker: Well, actually, one's a PhD student, one's a doctor.
Speaker: And they both, the doctorate is in traditional Chinese martial arts, which is kind of weird.
Speaker: They came to visit me.
Speaker: I did a teaching in Scotland.
Speaker: And they, well, they were over here doing the PhD.
Speaker: They did travel to China.
Speaker: They came to see me.
Speaker: One of them did Taiji in China, a really good Taiji.
Speaker: I mean, it's the Wu style, not the Hao style, you know, the strange one.
Speaker: He is a really good teacher in China, very famous, really good.
Speaker: And the other one, although he's doing his PhD in Taiji, what happened to Taiji is it spreads to the West.
Speaker: He practiced his sandai.
Speaker: He's a Chinese sandai champion.
Speaker: I've been a real champion.
Speaker: He is just a huge dude, a lovely guy.
Speaker: He's just a huge, strong, young guy.
Speaker: He's like 25, 6, 7, I can't remember, 6 foot plus, you know, just covered in muscles.
Speaker: He's just a monster guy.
Speaker: But after I showed him what Taiji really, I mean, he only practiced sandai.
Speaker: He specialized in sandai as his master's degree in what he learned in China.
Speaker: He's from Chengdu University.
Speaker: And after I showed him what
Speaker: Taiji was, when he go back to China, after his PhD, he's going to find an old teacher.
Speaker: It was just quite funny.
Speaker: It was just quite the whole thing, which was quite bizarre.
Speaker: Because once he saw, because to him, even though he's Chinese, he lives in China, he's at a Chinese physical university, you know, whatever they call it.
Speaker: He had no idea what Taiji was.
Speaker: He just thought, and he'd learned some form
Speaker: But he had no idea what the movements were.
Speaker: He had no idea about the fa-li, about the locking, the throwing, the joint destruction, the striking.
Speaker: He had absolutely no idea.
Speaker: And it's the same throughout China.
Speaker: If you're a young guy, you look at that stuff and you just think it's nonsense.
Speaker: It's just for old people.
Speaker: And he's the same.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: after I showed him what it was, he said after his PhD he's gonna find some old dude and he's gonna learn.
Speaker: I think that's a great story because that actually gives me hope, you know, in the sense that, I mean, it's obvious that Chinese martial arts has become very niche-y, but people who have experience fighting, they can actually see the value and I think that's really interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a funny, completely weird story, really, when you think about it, but, you know, it happened and
Speaker: I inspired him, I think, basically, to not look down at it, because he just looked down at it.
Speaker: He thought there was nothing in it.
Speaker: Which is, you know, I can't blame him.
Speaker: It's just the world changed, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, but that's nice.
Speaker: Very nice.
Speaker: It was funny.
Speaker: It was really funny.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So thank you very much for all those insights.
Speaker: That was very illuminating.
Speaker: And I do have a bit of experience with e-tron, but not that much.
Speaker: So for me, every interview is really interesting to understand those methods better.
Speaker: And again, I can see certain connections are interesting that maybe that aspect is there in my own training, but I never really focused on it that much.
Speaker: And it's also very enriching for me, for myself.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah, so thank you very much.
Speaker: Maybe there will be an opportunity to go deeper in another episode.
Speaker: Sure, you ask me if I have time then it's no problem.
Speaker: And I usually in Germany quite a few times every year teaching.
Speaker: So if you ever want to come on up and see us, the crazy guy, you're welcome of course.
Speaker: Yeah, let me know.
Speaker: Let me know and maybe walk out.
Speaker: Thanks for listening to this episode.
Speaker: I hope you had a great time.
Speaker: The next episode will air next month.
Speaker: And until then, feel free to check out our Instagram account, where we also feature some of the people we talk to, other practitioners and teachers of Chinese martial arts, and anything else that might be interesting in the world of Kung Fu.
Speaker: Thanks, take care, and hope to meet again.
