Chen Yun-Ching's workshop at Wu-Lin

The official course was held from 7 to 10 January 2010.
I flew out on the midnight flight of the 6th and managed to grab 3 hours sleep on the 3 1/2 hour flight (I told them not to serve me dinner and breakfast!).


Over the next 3 days we revised:
- xingyi 5 elements
xingyi suba form (a short form linking some of the xingyi elements with the animal movements)
xingyi lienquan form (the standard form linking the 5 elements of xingyi)
xingyi kun (the xingyi staff form)
chung yang sword form (the "mother of all sword forms")
bagua 8 palm changes (the basic 8 palm changes of bagua)
feng quan 1 and 2 (Chen Pan-Ling's "Mountain Top Boxing" forms containing elements of xingyi, bagua, taiji and shaolin)
taijiquan

As temperatures soared into the low 40s (Celsius) I sweated through about 6 t-shirts and drank several gallons of water (and several gallons of beer, wine and James' Serbian slivovitz/rakia at night!).
One of the things I love about Wu-Lin is Shou Mei's Taiwanese cuisine: it suits my stomach perfectly, and there is always more than you can eat.

I was impressed to see a new building on the grounds - an elegant tea room that was dedicated to Master Chen with a plaque erected on the final morning.
I started the course with a significantly swollen knee (among other aches and pains) caused by my immune-related illness, but curiously this resolved over the (intensive) training so that by the last day I was able to go into the deepest postures with only a modicum of discomfort. I have found this on each occasion I've trained with Master Chen and I can only put it down to the movements "flushing" the rogue immune cells from the synovial tissue around my joints. If ever there was a testament to the health benefits of the internal arts, then this is it - along with the fact that Master Chen (who is 71) is an outstanding advertisement for his art: Watching him effortlessly fall into the lowest postures and jump high into the air, I am continually made aware that his body is healthier and "younger" than mine!

And so, on the last day I was quite content to take a bit of a back seat and watch the demonstrations, including a very impressive display of the "Iron Fan" form by Master Chen's talented niece, Xiao Yi (who is a highly respected teacher of taijiquan and other Chinese arts, living in Kyushu, Japan). I was pleased to see my own student, Dave Ryan (who recently moved to Melbourne) making the trip up to visit for the afternoon.

I plan to fulfill my promise to Master Chen - starting with a series of seminars introducing his arts to the Western Australian public (the first being an introduction to his father's xingyiquan on 31 January 2010 - see here for details).
Copyright © 2010 Dejan Djurdjevic
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