Winter Camp 2010 Brenna

Brenna, the little Polish village received us with bright sunshine, blue sky and meter-high snow.

We lived in the sports-hall in small but comfortable rooms; it was good to be just beside the training scene.

Our program was carefully planned: Taiji form, Ball Quigong, Chin-na, Pushing Hands and Stuff basics. In this latter one we joined together with the Shaolin group, it gave us a chance to become stronger. We were challenged by this class.

The participants were mostly from Poland, 6 people from Spain, 2 Portuguese and 4 Hungarians. It was a bit hard to understand the explanations because we had translation only on the weekend, so I had to ask somebody if I didn’t understand something. Only one of the instructors asked us whether we understood him.

Our only one guest-instructor Erik came from Belgium. He’s wide knowledge, deep understanding and nice personality impressed everyone. He speaks English, but also didn't have a  translator all the time. I think, the organizators should have paid more attention for this.

 I agreed to repeat the same 5 techniques in both Chin-na classes, but didn’t understand, why we didn't switching partners (even in the Pushing Hands classes too). So if somebody couldn’t find a partner, the instructors let him/her stand and just watch, without practicing. One of the Portuguese guys was so disappointed, that he didn’t come down the second Chin-na class.

The last Pushing Hands class was totally chaotic, without any conception or system.

My biggest problem with the conception of the entire training was that in my opinion Taiji is not a “Kungfu-light” To strengthen the muscles cannot be the main goal of practicing. Muscle power is external, Taiji is an internal style. I didn’t hear a word about rooting, Chi circulation or a lot of very important principles. I saw hundreds of mistakes without any correction, except: “ lower”.  So it isn’t easy for the beginners to reach a deep understanding in Taiji.

So, in spite of these things, we had fun and got a lot of useful information and practical exercises for the future, so I'm planning to join the camp next winter again.

Master Yang's seminar 2010 Krakow

The entire YMAA society was happy to see Master again. After four years in the Retreat Center He decided to travel in Europe in 2010 September and October.

We drove to Krakow with Benedek's car - He's the leader of hugarian YMAA Kungfu. One of my students, Marci and a Polish girl shareds a room of the sports-center's hotel.

On the first day we did form correction. We larned a lot of new applications. Master checked the entire form and answered a lot of questions. Some movements became clearer. In the afternoon we were separated into two groups. One of them practised Taiji wrestling, the other one did basic pushing hands. I tried to be in both groups at the same time. I practised the technics by wrestling and ran to the other group to hear Master's explanations.

On the second day we had martial applications class in the morning and Chin-na in the evening. On third day we practised Vhite Crane. Noon we trained soft and hard Chikung, while we did Kungfu in the evening. That was very intresting for me, we learned the form of White Crane, with a lot of soft Jings. I learned some new things and widened my conception of wiew.

Unfortunetly in the evening of the second day the nail of my toe got injured at a door, so the last day was a little bit hard for me.

The hotel-room and the sportshall were nice, in the restaurant they served good food.

We are looking forward to joining Master again at the International Summer Camp in Poland to be held in the summer of 2011.