Meditation

[ben]

Hey all
Not sure if you all are doing some already, but ive taken up doing some meditation recently and its really helped me focus on my wing chun technique. If you want to give it a go, i found this website

www.ehow.com/how_12861_develop-chi-martial.html

It details some steps on how to achieve a state of meditation. If you havnt tried it, i highly recommend it!

[Dan]

when we were in mallorca sifu kwok showed us some good chi gong exersices

[ben]

oh yeh i remember going over that really briefly once, you got any info on it dan?

[Dan]

yer will look for it tomoro after work and post it up if i find it

[Dan]

cant find it yet but my room is a state so ima clean it and it might turn up soon, ill post it when i find it.

sorry for the deley
Dan

[ben]

cool cool cheers

[Dan]

Sorry its late here is the info that sifu told me to post on our website a while back

‘‘What is Chi Gung?

Chi Gung is the Chinese term used to describe the study and practice of living in harmony with nature. This ancient philosophy and way of living amongst other things, prescribes simple, yet profound, meditative exercises to aid mental and physical well being. Chi gung utilizes a variety of techniques such as, relaxation, harmonious breathing techniques, wholesome body movements and mental focus to help promote physical and mental harmony.’’

if i find more ill post it up

[wingchunseeker]

Our Sifu in Glasgow uses Chi Gung as part of our warm-up at the beginning of the class. It is a great way to focus on the upcoming training as well as helping concentration. Highly recommended

[tjwingchun]

Simply think of the first third of Siu Lim Tao as your meditation, learning to focus on 'yourself' your movements, stance and posture and remove all 'little ideas' from your head.

All meditation is, is the process of developing the ability to concentrate and focus on single aspects of 'self' without outside distraction, whether mental or physical this process of isolation highlights the individual skills you are trying to attain and allows you to visualise clearly the goals you set.

Siu Lim Tao sets the benchmark for how you train everything else in your Wing Chun, with isolated focus.

[agni]

I use the forms as a moving meditation.

Having done yoga for over 2 years I am very much used to reaching the meditative state of mind while moving around. Proper breathing technique is very important in meditation, and indeed in everything we do!

While breathing in meditation be sure to breathe only through the nose (you should always only inhale through the nose and not the mouth anyway as it is the body's natural air-filter), keep your inhalation and exhalation at the same length, pause between breaths and keep the breath DIAPHRAGMATIC (breathe with the stomach and not with the chest).

I find Yogic breathing practices compliment martial arts in many ways. Here's a good link -

www.swamij.com/breath.htm

[Tom]

Whenever I'm doing any sort of medetitive excercise, I tend to use the chi gung breathing techniques Sifu showed us in Majorca, which is quite similar to what you described. I think they come from Tai Chi.

[agni]

A lot of those breathing exercises are similar to what you find in Tai Chi and the like, but then according to legend all Chinese martial arts are descended from yoga anyway! (Bodhidharma)

[levi]

Just had first hand proof that Chi-Kung excercises really do benefit you whilst training. It's been about three years since i have trained properly, and in last nights lesson after about 5 minutes of continuous chain punching i thought my arms were going to explode (yes...five minutes...don't laugh ;D ). I have previously appreciated that controlled breathing (Chi-Kung) can certainly put you in that place where where your worries, stress and tension dissolve but didn't quite realise how much it can help until the painful burning in my arms dissipated and turned into a pleasant warmth. No doubt my concentration wandered and the pain came back when it did, but still.. i have a new found respect for chi-kung.

[finalpath]

Feb 14, 2007 0:44:42 GMT agni said:

I use the forms as a moving meditation.

Having done yoga for over 2 years I am very much used to reaching the meditative state of mind while moving around. Proper breathing technique is very important in meditation, and indeed in everything we do!

While breathing in meditation be sure to breathe only through the nose (you should always only inhale through the nose and not the mouth anyway as it is the body's natural air-filter), keep your inhalation and exhalation at the same length, pause between breaths and keep the breath DIAPHRAGMATIC (breathe with the stomach and not with the chest).

I find Yogic breathing practices compliment martial arts in many ways. Here's a good link -

www.swamij.com/breath.htm

The legend is that Bodhidharma had difficulty training the New Chinese monks in Zazen (sitting meditation) and so taught them a set of Yogic movements to develop their meditative abilities. These movements are said to have developed into the fighting forms still trained at the Siu Lam Monastary today.

Whether or not you believe this to be true, the deep sense of oneness required for effective Wing Chun cannot be denied. Also the dropping of the 'I' in combat is emphasised in many martial art forms. Allowing the techniques to react naturally to imputus helps the practitioner to become one with the moment and survive to live another day. With 7 years of Zazen training I can say that this is key in meditation as well, though survival is not the end by which the means are applied.

Wing Chun is crutial in my spiritual and martial arts development and, contraversially, I would say that Wing Chun is applied combat Chi Gung! Slowing down the movements of all of the forms, I can certainly feel definate hard and soft energies being cultivated, especially in the palms.

Tear me apart on that one if you wish