June Retreat 07

With global warming causing floods and much rain Northern Europe it was a great to be able to stay outside in the sun and practice the Hun Yuan set on our French retreat. There were 10 people taking part on the retreat. As usual we flew in our regular retreat chef Josep. Below is an excerpt from the Hun Yuan set. crc

Hun Yuan 6-Heaven and Earth Open and Close

Some clips for the many people who visit the site! enjoy CRC

Master Ma Bao Guo
left: a young Ma in his army days practicing

Master Ma is a disciplined man dedicated to his practice of the Taoist Internal Arts. He lives in Zhangzhou with his wife in a modest government owned apartment block. This block is a stark contrast to the multitude of private apartment blocks that are springing up all around China.

Master Ma talks straight and I think he understands Westerners quite well, in his four and a half years of living in Newcastle he talks fondly of his English inner door students, basically his private students. In China mostly people would not try out the master quite as much as the North of England boys did, who it seems insisted on try to down the master if they could on what seems a regular basis. He beams as he explained how he took this as a little rudeness or brashness at first. In China you generally give face to masters and not take advantage. Master Ma came to realise that these Northern barbarians simply wanted to know if his art worked and of course they found out!

In his turn Master Ma it seems has come to appreciate the North of England's lack of necessity to give face to someone simply because of their position in life. My Aunt Lily, from County Durham , would definitely impress upon him her ability to disregard face with horrifying swiftness.

And so Master Ma does pursues his Gong Fu practice daily and diligently. Master Ma is rich in knowledge and experience, his wealth comes from his ability to feel life and to constantly invest in developing his health and martial skills, and in never holding back one iota of information that can help others in their practice.

I could only dream that men like Master Ma existed when I was a young boy growing up in Durham and thankfully such men of creative skill and genius do exist! Boy, those Northern barbarians were so fortunate that this guy dropped in!

Master Ma's teacher Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan Grandmaster Wang Chang Hai 1940-

One of Master Ma Bao Guo's main teachers is 67 year old Grandmaster Wang Chang Hai, he is well known in China but in the West. He is an 11th generation successor of Chen Tai Chi and 2nd generation successor of Hun Yuan Tai Chi. The Hun Yuan Tai Chi that Grandmaster Wang teaches is the modern Chen style of Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang.

Grandmaster Wang studied in 1965 with Chen Style master Zhang Fu Ju, Zhang had Chen Fa Ke's son Chen Zhao Kui living with him. Wang then began training with Chen Zhao Kui in 1974 until Chen's death. He then went on to study 10 years from 1982 with the now world famous feng Zhiqiang.

Both myself and Jan were taken to GM Wang's house in Zhangzhou where we were warmly welcomed by him and his wife. GM Wang the took us to the park to let us in on the basic Chen training exercise of developing the Peng, Ji, Lu and An energies of Chen Tai Chi Chuan.

Wang is a very humble and calm man and according to Master Ma has the best push hands skills out there as well as fine locking skills. Grandmaster Wang was a classmate of Chen Xiao Wang. He has taught approximately 1000 students over the years and has 20 indoor students.

An indoor student is one who gets the full package of teachings including combat secrets. Whereas the general public in the main train only for the health and some martial benefit.

left, Feng Zhiqiang far left, master Wang centre sitting with Chen Xiao Wang resting his hands on his shoulders and below is master Wang far left with Chen Zhao Kui sitting two places to his left front row.

Master Ma's Hun Yuan 21

There are many people in the areas of Art, Music, Dance, Writing, Martial Arts, and Sports of all kinds who are great copiers, skillful people who can create and perpetuate great forgeries for the public and the connoisseur. To simply re-enact and blindly follow and never question the validity of what you practice is quite simply a waste of time. In the so called internal arts world many teachers including some so called masters, (even famous masters ) live in a self deluded state. You may have a teacher who is great a push hands but lousy at combat, or the opposite may be true, you may have a teacher who is good at combat but lousy at push hands. Besides the above two categories one must add the third category, this is the teacher who can neither use the training for developing sensitivity or Qi development nor in application for self defence.

These arm waving sycophants are legion and the situation is set to get worse with the inclusion of Chinese Wu Shu and by association Tai Chi as a sub category of Wu shu into the Olympics at the upcoming 2008 Beijing games.

Never, ever mistake mass marketed qi gong or internal arts practice as the real mcCoy. These arts were never about organisations, certificates, rhetoric, relentless theory, competition, in the main they are about money, the ego and acquisition. Never, ever mistake hundreds of silk clad, 'corp de ballet' as having anything remotely to do with the Taoist influenced art of Tai Chi Chuan. The real McCoy was never as easy . You can never buy these arts. You can never copy. You need a living master and his or her willingness to let you in.

Master Ma Bao Guo is an interesting man. He has not written books or made videos and become famous. I personally think he should be more well known than he presently is. Why? Well, he can clearly demonstrate that his art works either as combat or push hands or health. He will gladly let you have a go, if you really want to take a pop at him he is happy to comply. One better he will laugh hysterically if you really go for it, he is confident in the efficacy of his art and his gong fu.

In China many masters only show what is termed a demonstration of their art. We are then left to assume that they have a rocket fueled Atlantean version hiding under the bonnet waiting for a flick of the booster button for them to unleash it. Well, Ma can unleash and its truly like witnessing a force of nature. It reminds me a little bit of witnessing BK Frantzis back in his heyday and before his decline, this was in 1988 in his father in laws back garden in North London, I was literally blown, hurricane like into a fence only to find that Frantzis towering over me as if pausing before the final kill.

To use a quote from a much later BK Frantzis public event, he leaned over and whispered into my ear at one London seminar , 'lets not frighten the bunnies'. Bunnies I assumed meant the punters. There you have it again public and private. Don't cut loose to much in case the punters head for he hills, and understandably so, if I had over 100 people in a room paying £110 then I would not want to scare them off either.

You have to feel what these types have under the bonnet to appreciate their art, the pretty smooth arm waving stuff disguises their gong fu.

Master Ma is a modern creative artist of classical gong fu. His area of expertise is in the internal arts of Hsing-I, Tai Chi Chuan, Ba Gua Zhang with a smattering of useful Shaolin techniques, this has then been road tested and measured alongside the internal body, energy mechanics of Ermei and Wudang qi gong. His Hun Yuan forms are numerous and his Hun Yuan 21 is one of them. Zajian Cr.

The Shaolin Temple

On a smoggy morning after practicing early with Master Ma, we consumed a swift lovely breakfast cooked by Mrs ma and headed for the bus station. Master Ma felt a trip to Shaolin temple would be welcome considering its only about 100km from Zhengzhou and we needed the break.

The Shaolin Monastery was destroyed and has now been somewhat restored. The region for many miles are firmly entrenched in the marketing phonemena which is Shaolin , for make no mistake the art practiced and perpetuated now is for performance only and bears the faintest of resemblance to the the original combat warrior monk Shaolin system.


Many Shaolin Wu Shu academies exist in this area. Little kids going through their gymnastics on any spare piece of ground.

Would Damo the founder of the Shaolin tradition approve of these holiday camps for Jet Li wannabes? Not sure on that score. A heady mixture of theme park and Butlin's. Still it is good exercise for the kiddies and prepares them possibly for a future in the military.

About 500 or so extras perform western style kickboxing exercises?

The Arhat hotline

Graveyard of the former abbots of the Shaolin temple

Two Qi Gong explorers gate crash the lobby of the Crown Plaza 5 star Hotel

A familiar sight in the reception of the Crown Plaza in downtown Zhengzhou are two white devils reclining on palatial chairs befitting a Hollywood sequel to Dallas.

Jan Golden aka Jin Yang and Chris Ray Chappell aka. Ke Rui Hua hijack local wireless networks to report on their Qi Gong findings for the benefit of mankind. Reporting from Henan provinces major city is not so easy. Even if the internet at our own hotel worked for apple laptops it would be almost impossible to get any work done due to constant phone calls from the hotel ladies touting for work. Its not that they keep calling our room but you can hear every phone on the 5th floor kicking off every few minutes like a deck of cards falling.

I had never heard of Zhengzhou city until we arrived and to be frank its really not worth hearing about. A soul less mass of cranes, concrete and shit coffee. The average downtown Zhangzhou person eyeballed us with such contempt that my kidneys sung silent prayers.

Anyway back to our humble but perfectly comfy hotel uptown, zaijian C

Master Ma Bao Guo and his Hun Yuan 21 form

Master Ma is not a man to be evasive with his ideas, he admonishes teachers who propagate empty forms that have no function martially. So therefore it is no surprise that upon witnessing his Hun Yuan 21 form you are witnessing a combat oriented ( and health ) form from the start. he also emphasises that at higher levels you can transcend the form to be able to deal with whatever comes at you whether it be a punch, kick, push, throw, lock from any angle.

His Hun Yuan art is a merging of the forces-energies that are the trademark of all the 3 internal art systems of Tai Chi Chuan - Hsing-I Chuan and Ba Gua Zhang. He has developed the form over many many years of investigation and practice. He credits all his teachers but the highly eccentric Guo Sheng Hai seems to have been pivotal to he young Ma. Guo was the best all round combat exponent that Ma encountered in the research. Gou was educated at a Buddhist monastery from the age of four. Guo was a Buddhist and Taoist (not uncommon in China) qi gong exponent of both Emei and Wudang Qi Gong and martial arts. Gou taught few people his secrets, but taught Ma specifically because he was instrumental in saving the old mans life around the time of 1987-88.

The above is the only photo that Master Ma has of the young Guo Shang Hai taken from a small pamphlet on martial arts.











Ma lets me feel an application of his Hun Yuan 21, this was not set up for the camera my shoulder was close to dislocation.

Crc

Master Ma demonstrating Hun Yuan Qi Gong 1.




























Here are a few photos of Master Ma demonstrating the first hun yuan qi gong