Chuang Shiou Huey, chief instructor of Wu’s Tai Chi Chuan Academy, London Regent’s Park
22nd November 2006

(also see A Weekend With a Master below)

A group of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan enthusiasts started to contact me via email in April, 2006. Their leader, Dionisis Tsetselis, began to learn Wu Style TCC in Athens 22 years ago with a Greek teacher. He continued for 15 years until 7 years ago. Now, he wanted to learn from a proper lineage and hence the communication. With Grand Master Eddie Wu’s consent and blessing, I arrived in Athens on Friday evening, 10th November 2006.

Over the 2-day seminar, we went over the warm-up exercises, Tai Chi walking exercises, the first 9 movements of the 108 Standard Form, Single and Double-Offset Push-Hands, Basic Four-Corner Push Hand, some basic applications related to the 108 Form. The main focus was on the basic requirements according to the Tai Chi Chuan principles –Posture alignments, Relaxation, Balance, ‘Han Shuon Bai Pei’ ( relax the chest and stretch the back), Relaxed Breathing, Reverse Breathing, etc, etc, as well as the unique characteristics of Wu Style TCC, such as the ‘parallel feet’, looseness, ‘Ruo Hua’ (soft-neutralising) in Push Hand, single-weightedness, ‘Turning of the hip’, etc.

I was impressed by the enthusiasm & open-mindedness of the group. They were hungry to learn. It was an emotional experience for everyone. It was necessary to give up the past, in order to go forward. It took courage and humility. We worked hard for 5 hours a day, with only 10 minutes break each day. They put on the Intl’ Federation Wu style Tai Chi Chuan T-shirts with pride and bought DVDs so that they could learn more. On Sunday, we had two Wing Chun teachers from the north of Greece, Sifu Costa and Sifu George, students of Master William Chen, joining us for the morning. They were very interested and invited me to do a workshop for their group. A 14 year old, 3-time world champion in Tai Kwan Do, Andrei, who comes from a family of Tai Kwan Do experts, attended with his mother who is also a Tai Kwan Do expert. At the end of the seminar, Andrei said ‘I am going to continue learning Tai Chi from Dionisis. I never learnt how to relax before. The relaxation in Tai Chi training would be good for my Tai Kwan Do.’ Smart kid!! There was also another kid, the 11- year old Jason. This kid had some stamina and discipline. His father, Constantinou told me on Sunday morning that Jason couldn’t go to sleep on Saturday night as he was so excited about the next day’s training.

At the end of the seminar, the group asked me, ‘We had been told before that the Chinese martial arts teachers do not speak when they teach. They show you some movements and go away. Students are supposed to just copy and practise. It’s not true then.’ Well, what can I say?

Well, it was hard to say goodbye to the group after the seminar. They would continue their training under the leadership of Dionisis Tsetselis. I would go back to help them out every few months. However, some of them are coming over to Grand Master Eddie Wu Kwong Yu’s 3 Days training course in London in June 2007. Of course, Jason and Andrei are coming too!!

The experience from this weekend seminar really brought home how important it is to learn and to teach the art properly. It is not only a way to show respect for the art. It is also to show respect to the people who are dedicated to the learning.

"Looseness is an important gateway to your mind opening up." - Master Eddie Wu

“Bad Tai Chi Chuan is better than no Tai Chi Chuan.” That was part of the opening statement by Master Wu Kwong Yu at a weekend Tai Chi Chuan seminar in Fredericton, New Brunswick. When he finished the sentence, the fifth generation Gatekeeper of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan, shook his head sadly and with a sardonic grin on his face looked around the studio at the students gathered for his seminar and instruction. He was laying the groundwork for what would be the underlying message of the next couple of days: “Train the body; train the mind.” He said bringing a degree of precision and care to the exercise, and coordinating mind and body, would maximize the physical and mental benefits of practicing Tai Chi Chuan. Master Wu Kwong Yu doesn't want people practicing bad Tai Chi Chuan.

Sifu Wu was speaking with fourteen students gathered at Wu's Tai Chi Chuan Academy, on the second floor of a nondescript downtown building. It was his first visit to Fredericton in three years. His seminar was about getting back to some of the basics of the Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan – posture; looseness; mind/body coordination.

Of these basics, coordination, posture, and their interconnectedness stood out as the overriding theme of the weekend. Whether physically demonstrating brush knee and push, or speaking casually during informal chats over tea, Sifu Wu consistently stressed the important role proper posture plays in developing one's forms. Dressed in black trousers and a black polo shirt, Sifu Wu demonstrated his point about posture, holding one hand above his head with his fingers pinching an imaginary thread drawn up from his pelvis, through his spine, to a slightly tucked chin and out the top of his head. Beyond the improvements in breathing, Sifu Wu said proper posture firmly connects you with the ground and leads to improved balance, without which there can be no coordination. Tellingly, as he coached the students, the most frequent words uttered by Sifu Wu throughout the weekend were, “watch your pelvis.”

There were periodic breaks for tea and a bite to eat – fuel is important in such an exercise – and it soon became clear that even though the breaks were a small part of the weekend’s seminar, they constituted a large part of the transmission of Sifu Wu’s message.

It was during these informal conversations, often in the tiny ante-room that served as a tearoom, coatroom, and lounge, with Sifu Wu relaxed on one of the plush brown leather couches, that his conviction in his words was most pronounced. Addressing the dozen or so students arrayed in a circle around him, Sifu Wu's language was that of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan. It was a language spoken not just with words, but with his body. Explanations of his approach to Tai Chi Chuan, and to life for that matter, were emphasized by liberal hand-gestures. Always, his wrists, elbows and shoulders moved with the same fluidity, precision and purpose as exhibited on the studio floor while demonstrating forms: throughout the weekend Sifu Wu never took a break from practicing Tai Chi Chuan.

It was also during these more informal moments that he talked about his family, his early introduction to Tai Chi Chuan, and the state of Tai Chi Chuan around the world. He said his own beginnings with the practice were met with resistance: “I was six-years old. I didn't want to practice. I wanted to play.” However, he noted that by age 12 it occurred to him that none of the other kids picked on him. Fifty years later he speaks with pride that he is able to communicate the teachings started by his great-great-grandfather more than a century ago. He drew a comparison between Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan and the British Empire, “It doesn’t have a sunset,” said Sifu Wu, “it’s a truly international practice.”

On Sunday afternoon, during the last break for tea, Sifu Wu talked about the state of Tai Chi Chuan practice in general. He said, with a note of disappointment in his voice, that even in China, in the birthplace of the practice, there seemed to be a lack of precision in the forms. He said it seemed people had forgotten the underlying purpose of each form. But with a shrug of his shoulders, and a grin at the corner of his mouth, he looked around the room and repeated his opening remark: “Even bad Tai Chi Chuan is better than no Tai Chi Chuan.”