Hey everybody!
I was surfing on the net and came across this website of some guy named Lao Ma. I just thought it was kinda funny. here is his website: http://www.magictortoise.com/teachers.htm Has anybody here heard of this guy?
You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet.
Guo Bao-Lo
Promise me you will never reveal what I am about to tell you.
I have never personally met these people, however, they are rooted in what I learned from my first teacher Tom Phillips.
Tom was one of the first students to learn from Jou Tsung Hwa in the 1980s. I met up with Tom in 1983 at John Ng’s school in Lexington KY. John had escaped from Hong Kong and Tom, who previously practiced long fist (from New Jersey, met Jou at Rutgers), gave it all up for taijiquan.
He taught me the Yang’s long form, parts of the Chen form, parts of the sword, pushing hands, fajing exercises, silk reeling exercises, taiji qigong. It gave me a good foundation but was quite different from Yang Laoshi’s forms. I doubted Yang Laoshi’s martial arts for at least 5 years thinking his Chen’s taiji was simply longfist and he was holding the secrets from us. However, looking back, I was naive, and in many ways I can see the overlap.
For about 4 summers, I attended Jou Tsung Hwa’s summer camps on Chen’s taiji. However, his ideas were drastically (form performance) different from his early days. Nonetheless, these were some of the best times I ever had in the martial arts. Relaxing being on a 100 acre farm for a week, playing on a clay ground in a forest near a flowing stream—4:00 watermelon on a hot summer day. Good times.
If they are teaching the material from the early days, then they are doing some very substantial, yet orthodox training. I had a friend who knew of Lao Ma and said he was quite a character. His story is in one of the first printings of the early Taiji Magazine. I suspect he was teaching English in Wuhan and Wuhan is a fairly large area. I cannot comment on Wudang taijiquan because Jou only thought that Chen Yang and Wu (hao) was the logical progression of taiji—from form to formless. Everything else was a deviation including the Sun and Wu styles.
If I had not gotten involved with Yang Laoshi, I am sure I would be at or learning from the Magic Tortoise School. There are many things I disagree with regarding Jou’s teaching, but there are many hidden pearls of wisdom and training techniques in his martial arts perspective. Eg I find his reeling silk exercises as useful as the bagua exercises I learned from Yang Laoshi. Unfortunately, after my kowtow into the Wu Tang system, I have back all of my material from Jou Tsung Hwa.
In closing, I respect what they are trying to do. They are not really new age but they are trying to blend the East and West and probably do a very decent job. Anyone who could spend 3 years in China in the 1980s surely wins my respect. I saw pictures with him and his master (Lao Ma maybe translated as Old Horse). What he learned from his master is another thing but the pictures are there (of course, I have many pictures with myself and Wu Bin in Shanghai–friendly pictures but maybe I could claim…naaahhhhh, I’ll stick with GM Liu’s material). One of their instructors is listed as living in Anchorage, Alaska—Warren Pretlow. Maybe you can check him out.
I do warn you that you will meet a lot of strange characters in that part of the martial arts world. Again, not new agers, but also not hard core martial artists–they blend the daoist philosphy with the art but don’t underestimate them regarding applications–they can be sneaky. Jou knew, at one time, many applications but at his point of development, Yi was everything and fight techniques (other than push hands) were thought to emerge naturally.
Thanks for the memories. Don’t you breath a word to my Wu Tang kungfu brothers about my past (just kidding, they know where I came from)
A question for RAF?
Greetings,
I see you have brought up the name of John Ng. One of my sifu's main teachers was John Ng? I am wondering how you came to meet John? Any info will be apprciated.
Humbly yours
Johnny
In 1983 I was living in Richmond KY and a kenpo karate friend of mine insisted that I try martial arts. Dr. John Ng had a school called the Four Seasons and taught drunken boxing and monkey boxing. Tom Phillips was teaching the taiji courses and that is where I started.
Supposedly John floated out of mainland China and into Hong Kong. I really liked him, pleasant, funny etc.. However, I never took any martial arts from him. He had Dr. Yang Jwing Ming come down for a seminar or two but I did not attend.
I wish I could tell you more but my involvement was strictly with Tom.
At another site, someone posted and told me John is still alive and living in KY
Thanks!
Thanks for the information Bob. Actually I also have a story, not Lao Ma, but about Warren Prettlow. When I came back from the Philippines, I was searching for a Chen Stylist instructor. I was originally studying Filipino Kali but to my dismay my guro here in Anchorage left for Seattle. I had read a lot of material on Taiji and wanted to learn the Chen style. There were only two teachers I could find who taught this system, Warren Prettlow and Sifu Kurt Wong. I called up Prettlow first and and left a message I was interested in learning Chen Style. A couple of days later, I visited sifu Wong’s school and was impressed with his charecter and felt he would be a good teacher. A couple of weeks later Prettlow called and had told him I found a teacher.
Anyways, one of my kung fu brothers whom studied with Prettlow at his free taiji classes told me about his experience learning from him. At one time a student asked Prettlow to explain the how to perform a certain posture correctly. Prettlow, whil stroking his beard replied, “Taijiquan is a mystical art to understand. You must consult the I-Ching to understand its complexity.” I though my kung fu brother was just messing around about Prettlow trying to act like a charecter from those old Shaw Brothers flicks, but apparently he wasn’t messing around.
I am glad that I chose my path with sifu Wong, he is an excellent teacher and that is very rare to find up here in Anchorage. He doesn’t hide any secrets and tells you the truth what needs to be done to excell in kung fu…hard work and basics
You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet.
Hey Gao
Since this is my 1st posting I’ll try to keep this short. I thought I was the only one in this part of the country that read KFM Forum ,I guess not.This Lao Ma dude & Jiang Jianye are doing seminars May 4th - 11th through Pretlow’s organization. This should be a very interesting upcoming week.I for one am interested in the affore mentioned’s techniques with fa-jing. See you there.
Guo Bao-lo
Yeah, unfortunately, they do attract some strange characters. Although the Taichi Farm was a great experience, I am please with the Wu Tan(g) material and will stay on this path.
I went into Pretlow’s website and its a bit on the edge. Too far out for me but hey, it will fit someone. Meditate on the Yi Jing to figure out an application? Just read Jou Tsung Hwa’s book on the Yi Jing and he stole some of the idea from him. Jou knew most of the standard training but in his later years went off into the spiritual world so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, I am not making fun of him as many do. I just couldn’t follow it and GM Liu’s material made more sense. GM Liu had an indepth command of the Yi Jing but that is about all I know and how he used it has yet to be revealed to me. However, I just attended an academic workshop on the Yi Jing and the professor, not a martial artist, stated that the Yi Jing was probably the most influential piece of literature in Chinese culture. That emperor in 200 something BCE buried all of the scholars alive and burned as much of the literature of time as was possible. Its seems he only saved the Yi Jing. If you can, in Alaska, either rent or buy at Borders the Chinese film, the Emperor and the Assasin–its about that emperor. Gong Li is in the film and its worth it just to watch her (although many of my mainland Chinese friends cannot understand what I see in her). As a result of the workshop, I am reading the Ta Chuan (Great Treatise) regarding the Yi Jing. More interested in how it influenced Chinese culture. Not really interested in meditating over applications (kinda of stupid, and I am being kind).
Please give my regards to Wong Laoshi and have a great summer. Has it warmed up there yet?
Bob,
Thanks for your insight on this material. That was one my of my main reasons why I decided not to pursue the other Taiji school, from what I heard of it, it was too weird for me. I also like GM Liu’s material. It made much more sense and is very practical. What I love about GM Liu’s teaching is that he did not make the martial arts as some kind of mystical art. There are no secrets in Chinese martial arts, just hard work.
About the weather, it is warmer, but today was unusually cold and windy. At least all of the snow is gone. I’ll let Sifu know that you said hi. He is really excited about the tournament this year, we are trying to get at least 8 people to come down this year. Unfortunately I won’t be able to go this year. My fiancee and I will be going out to Norway to meet her parents. But hopefully we will have a bigger group that will go down this year. Anyways, please tell Yang Lao Shi that everybody here says hi.
You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet.