Weekend sword seminar ... and mooovies :)
The weekend sword seminar is over and it's been fabulous. Well, my legs hurt - now wonder, after 12 hours swordform practice in 2 days - but otherwise, everything is fine, even the strained sinew came to its senses and stopped protesting after midday on Saturday.
Funnily enough, it was a different form than the one I'm learning in the Monday class (oh yeah, it's sword training tomorrow again), the 32-form, which I've seen for the first time, but as the techniques are all the same, it doesn't really matter ... I just know most of yet another form now. Since sifu Wang divided us into beginners and - let's say not-so-beginners - we were advancing really fast. The advanced group was very variegated, but most of us had tonnes of experience with martial arts and taiji before, so it was also a very interesting exchange of different approaches. I was the only one with Chen taiji background (sifu Wang teaches - for me unfortunately - Yang style, so I can only do the sword form, not the bare hands form with him), and so was quickly dubbed the "warrior" of the group. If you know the difference between the two styles, you know why :) There are more courses, more weekend seminars, and after all these years, I am really starting to understand the principles, and it's more fascinating than it has even been.
Next weekend, now that I have done the training myself, it's swordfight-watching time. Berlin hosts the Asia Movie Festival, and I have tickets from three movies that feature sword (as opposed to gun) fighting: Blood - The Last Vampire (Japanese), The Sword without a Name (Korean) and The Red Cliff (Chinese). The trailers look fabulous!
Funnily enough, it was a different form than the one I'm learning in the Monday class (oh yeah, it's sword training tomorrow again), the 32-form, which I've seen for the first time, but as the techniques are all the same, it doesn't really matter ... I just know most of yet another form now. Since sifu Wang divided us into beginners and - let's say not-so-beginners - we were advancing really fast. The advanced group was very variegated, but most of us had tonnes of experience with martial arts and taiji before, so it was also a very interesting exchange of different approaches. I was the only one with Chen taiji background (sifu Wang teaches - for me unfortunately - Yang style, so I can only do the sword form, not the bare hands form with him), and so was quickly dubbed the "warrior" of the group. If you know the difference between the two styles, you know why :) There are more courses, more weekend seminars, and after all these years, I am really starting to understand the principles, and it's more fascinating than it has even been.
Next weekend, now that I have done the training myself, it's swordfight-watching time. Berlin hosts the Asia Movie Festival, and I have tickets from three movies that feature sword (as opposed to gun) fighting: Blood - The Last Vampire (Japanese), The Sword without a Name (Korean) and The Red Cliff (Chinese). The trailers look fabulous!