The last blog post about a ZXD seminar was the October 2018 by GM Sam Chin, my introduction to this art. Since then I have participated in various seminars to get a better overview of the system and philosophy, as well as have an opportunity to train with and learn from different ZXD students. It seems excessive after typing this all out, but some of them happened to be tied into trips around the area already. They have all helped with the journey in Zhong Xin Dao I Liq Chuan thus far, in different ways.
- GM Sam Chin seminar in Oakland, California - December 2018: convinced about the consistency of results from ZXD students
- Sifu Ashe Higgs seminar in Vancouver, BC - March 2019: further introduction to basic exercises and partner drills
- GM Sam Chin seminar in Phoenix, Arizona - May 2019: immersive environment with many senior students; tested and passed ZXD ILC Student Level 1
- Group class with Lipyeow Lim in Honolulu, Hawaii - May 2019: side trip to group class while on vacation; detailed training about looking for the bone
- Sifu Joshua Craig seminar in Barrie, Ontario - June 2019: amazed about the details in basic exercises; realized that there is much more to look for in Student Level 1 basic exercises 1-10; surprised I passed one month ago and realized my condense/expand was just choreography and not internal
- Sifu Joshua Craig seminar in Vancouver, BC - August 2019: After Chris Chinfen (Vancouver group leader) also gained exposure to Joshua Craig's teaching, Joshua was invited to come to Vancouver; again I was floored by his teaching abilities
- GM Sam Chin seminar in Paris, France - September 2019: side trip while in Europe; excellent training tips from various European students
- GM Sam Chin seminar in Vancouver, BC - October 2019: 1 year since my first exposure to ZXD; easier to recognize and realize what we should be looking for during training
- Sifu Joshua Craig seminar in Vancouver, BC - February 2020: More details about level 1 basics; also had an excellent 2-hour private lesson on Basic Exercise 11 - concave/convex
In today's blog post though, I will take you through my experiences from the seminar in Oakland, California.
Oakland, California - December 2018
After the introduction to Zhong Xin Dao in Vancouver, BC I wanted to find out more. As mentioned in the previous blog post, I was immediately intrigued by the philosophy. The feeling of the art felt similar to Hänel-WT in effect, but perhaps different in cause.
Thus, in December 2018, I went to the seminar in Oakland, California organized by Guru Bernard Langan. My goal was to have another exposure, and also to see what the longer-term students were like i.e. were they able to manifest similar abilities to GM Sam Chin. Deeper down the question was if this was a path I could see myself train in.
I was not disappointed. I met many other students from the west coast, from Oregon to California. One of them, Mike, reminded me of a Wing Tsun Si-Hing Armando, as he was "light" yet responsive and structured. There were others like Sonjue, Artem, and Kaiwe and who gave excellent tips from their backgrounds in anatomy.
It was also here that I learned even though one can be "successful" in a push-hands type drill/exercise, I may have still relied on past experience. Although, I still believe that the Hänel-WingTsun Core Concepts training approach, especially in the last 3-4 years, helped get my body structure and function to its current state. I could see a deeper level of refinement via Zhong Xin Dao.
I also learned from GM Sam Chin that I was preferentially moving in a sagittal plane. That actually makes sense to me, especially as a result of more Biu-Tze training.
After this Oakland seminar, I was even more convinced about not only I Liq Chuan, but the Zhong Xin Dao philosophy to its training.
This photo below is not a demonstration of the frontal* plane, basic exercise 10, or otherwise. It is a still from a Happy Holidays greeting.
Until the next post... happy training!
*a former version of this article incorrectly stated "horizontal plane"; thanks Sifu Joshua Craig
