Internal martial arts class

2:00 PM-3:15 Saturdays starting Oct 6

Location: Pagoda in Royal City Park, across the road from The Boathouse on Gordon St.

In this class, the basics of the internal martial arts of bagua zhang (Ba-Gua Jahng) and xingyi quan (shing Ee Chuan) will be taught. These arts are cultural treasures of Northern China and are very effective in promoting health and self defense skills.

Bagua is a martial art of Daoist origins that is based on constant circular movement and the principle of not meeting force with force. Xingyi is a forceful and penetrating style that focuses on forward movement combined with intricate small circles. It was mainly developed for self defense and follows similar principles to its sisters bagua and taiji (tai chi). Depending upon what people want to learn, there may be a stronger focus on one of the arts, or perhaps the focus will alternate weekly. The curriculum of the course will consist of: Bagua:

• stretching, standing meditation, and single movement exercise.
• Walking (in a straight line and on a circle)
• eight basic palm change movements
• self defense applications

Xingyi:

• basic stretching, single movements, and standing meditation
• five element fist movements.
• perhaps a short routine based on the five element movements, or five

element movements from different styles of xingyi (depending upon what the class wants to learn)

• Self defense applications.

I look forward to meeting anyone who is interested in this class and will do my best to provide an open and mutual learning environment. Wear loose fitting clothing and running shoes (preferably with flat soles).

-- AnarchistUGuelph - 25 Sep 2007