Augab is Bagua backwards, and backwards is the way many people approach martial arts.

People who approach martial arts backwards try to control their bodies so they can recreate a series of shapes and styles of movement in the hope that this will give them special skills or powers just like their teacher (or worse the story of a long dead teacher).

The more refined the martial art the greater the tendency for this.

The way to approach a martial art forwards is to remember that a martial art is just a series of exercises to develop body control and condition. 

That's worth repeating:

A martial art is just a series of exercises to develop body control and condition.

Understand what you are trying to develop through an exercise and you take away the mystery, and with that the need to put the art on some kind of magical pedestal to justify its existence. When you look at a martial art through this filter a lot of nonsense becomes apparent, and a lot of logic leaps into clarity.

It's that simple. You can work it out yourself from here, so I won't write any more. 

Unless you have a strange desire to suffer to value health is a no brainer. A key to staying healthy is exercise. Some people get enough exercise as part of their daily life, but most of us need to take time to stay in shape, and some of us don't.

If you fall into that last category and don't like what is happening to your body as a result and do want to get in shape I have created a special package for you. How to Be an exerciser:

• Have more energy for what you want
• Get compliments from friends and strangers
• Set an example for your children, or future children
• Avoid medical expenses

You see I get tired holding people's hand to get them fit. I want to help you BE an independent exerciser so you can:

• Make exercise a natural part of your daily life
• Enjoy the process of exercise and look forward to it
• Take pleasure in creating your own routines
• Choose the level of fitness you want and know you can achieve it

I promise not to turn you into a self obsessed body fascist (but you are free to become one if you want!).

If you sign up for How to BE an exerciser you will learn:

• The keys of physiology and metabolism that support exercise and health
• To find opportunities to exercise whatever your schedule
• Exercises that you can do anywhere with no special equipment
• Dietary guidelines for a lean healthy body
• How to create your own workouts
• How to make anywhere your personal gym

I will also coach you to:

• Take on the mindset of habitually healthy people
• Remove blocks and let go of unhealthy habits
• Set realistic fitness goals
• Relax deeply for faster recovery
• Maintain your motivation over time

I will not:

• Shout at you and make you feel bad about your shape or your condition
• Bore and burden you with uneccessary information
• Impose how I think your body should look 
• mystify you with new age nonsense

So whether you want to be on the cover of fitness magazine, walk up stairs without getting out of breath, have a body you like to show off or just have the energy to play around with your kids then How to be an exerciser is for you.

Once you've done this course you won't need to spend money on gym membership, or have an expensive relationship with a personal trainer and that makes the programme much more valuable than anything else I have seen out there (by the way I like personal trainers, I just think you should pay them because you want to rather than need to).

Because How to BE an Exerciser is truly a mind body programme you will find you can apply the principles that you will learn in all kinds of situations, and enjoy the benfits throughout your life:

• Innoculate yourself against stress
• Develop focus you can use in work and play
• Learn skills faster
• Increase your personal presence and charisma
• and yes it will make you better in bed too

Now if you know me you then you also know how enthusiastic I am about martial arts, the grace of the movements, the depth of the principles. Because I love sharing this information if you sign up for How to BE and exerciser I will offer you a free month of Kungfu classes, or a place in my powerful self defence training Do you want to feel safer?

If you follow the How to be an exercise programme I guarantee you will get results. If it does not work I'll gve you your money back.

What do you get.

• 5 personal coaching sessions
• A workbook containing all the exercises and key information that you need
• Files that you can use to track your progress in fitness
• A method to develop good hbits in any field
• a free month of Kungfu training or a place on self defence seminar

The price of how to be an exerciser is €395

Not much for lifetime of fitness

To book your place send an e-mail to

info@transformativemartialarts.com

or call +33 (0)6 80 28 86 39

The rentrée* is not always an easy time, with the holidays behind and the days shortening into winter. But there ways to maintain your summer glow and stay healthy until the year begins to turn back up towards the light. Here are some things you can do:

1. Stock your kitchen with healthy food and get rid of your junk food. If you do't want to throw it away have a party and invite your friends to help you eat it! If you are not sure what healthy food is I know a man who does…

2. Exercise regularly. If you don't already exercise this is the time to join a class, or learn to be a self exerciser. It does not need to take long to stay fit and healthy, especially when you know how. It's good to mix vigorous and relaxed activities. There are plenty of options out there as well as Kungfu and Tai Chi classes, or take a course to learn How to BE an exerciser.

3. Focus on what you love about the rentrée. Make a list of friends you can get to see, places you can pass through or visit, activities that you'd like to take part in.Know youtr treats. How are you going to reward yourself this year. Keep yourself motivated by having simple things that you give you pleasure available for when you've done good.

4. Get rid of what you've had enough – or too much of. Free up your time and energy and say no to the offers and demands that you realise are draining and no lo longer sustain you. Now is the perfect time before the year's rhythm establishes itself. Need help with setting your boundaries then get some coaching.

5. Connect. Take a moment to recognise the person in front of you, whether in the boulangerie, the metro, the street or your work. Even if they don't notice the world will be a better place for it. Give the blank anonymity of the big city a kick in the teeth (or a relaxing massage if you prefer that as a metaphor deepen and enrich your relations at the Intimacy Experience.

*the rentrée is a Fench cultural event. France pretty much closes down in August, and is already crawling along at the end of July. Then come September it's back to work with extra bisous (kisses)for colleagues,  ritual holiday stories, school starts again and people enrol in courses for the year.

Join me in the woods for a long weekend of fitness, meditation and martial arts August 13-15th

This is for you if:

• you want to get away from the city 
  
• You want to develop your body, balance and coordination 
  
• you need reflection time 
  
• you enjoy intelligent company that goes beyond superficial social trivia
  

We will stay on a green, wooded property which we share with deer, foxes, wild boar, rabbits, hare owls and many other animals.

Each day we will practise:

• Meditation – seated or standing 
  
• Qigong – for health and body conditioning 
  
• Bagua circular and linear forms 
  
• Partner exercises – to understand angle, distance and application of power and sparring
  
• Natural movement – awaken your animal vitality 
  
• Sensory awareness exercises – clean your city blunted senses 
  

and have time to just enjoy the woods. None of these activities is obligatory – if you need to simply rest, or concentrate one one of these areas you have that option.

You can come for just one day, or for all three days: The price for a single day is €70, and for €180 for all three.

Accomodation: 
There is a large house with a number of bedrooms on the property. I will sleep in the woods, and people are welcome to join me (if you are not used to camping I have some spare equipment and can help you set up).

Food: 
We will eat simply. Cooking and cleaning will be communal. Some cooking will be in the kitchen, but we will also use a campfire. I will supply vegetarian food. If you have special dietary requirements please let me know, you are welcome to bring your own food and treats too (in moderation). Remember this is a retreat so this is not about luxurious food, or alcohol

There will also be some good wild foraging, and ripening fruit on the trees in August.

You responsibilities: 
This will take place in a private property. While we are there it is our job to look after it and clean up after ourselves.

Getting there: 
The property is near the village of Betz in Picardie about one hour from Paris. The closest train station is Crepy-en-valois, from which you can take a taxi. there are regular trains to Crepy-en-valois from gare du nord. Train tickets cost about €40 return, and taxi is about €20. We can arrange taxi sharing if you arrive at the same time. I can send a map in case you want to come by car.

You can arrive on Thursday 12th, set up and settle in so that we can start on Friday morning.

If you have any questions you can call me 06 80 28 86 39.  Call or e-mail to book your place.

I will be in the woods before and after the retreat, so I may not be contactable by e-mail.

On July 20th at 19H15 I will hold a seminar that looks at these questions.

This is not a physical training, it will be a practical investigation of how your goals, expectations, and thinking patterns effect your health, how you exercise and how you eat, and how to change those patterns.

Over the evening we will go into how you can use your mind to 

• improve your performance 
  
• recover faster, and decrease risk of injury 
  
• maintain enthusiasm and motivation 
  
• eat healthy food with pleasure 
  
• say no and drop your unhealthy habits 
  
• develop the body that you want 

This is for you if you are training hard already and want to boost your performance, and also if you are just coasting along not quite reaching your ideal, or perhaps even drifting further and further away from it.

I will welcome you from 19H15. We will start promptly at 19H30. We will work together until 22H30. Bring a notebook. Over the evening you will

• develop your individual body and fitness goals 
  
• learn the beliefs and attitudes of regular exercisers and healthy eaters 
  
• develop your self concept to help reach your ideal body shape 
  
• build individual strategies to say no to temptations without sacrifice or offence 
  
• receive skilled individual coaching 

Naturally you will find that you are able to apply what you will learn here to many areas beyond your fitness, sports and diet.

The seminar will be at 15 Quai de Gironde, 75019 Paris and taken alone the price is €20,  it is part of the Urban Summer fitness series

I just came back from a weekend teaching bagua for at the Shen Yi school in Valencia. It was my first time there, and whenever I come to teach somewhere new there is a degree of uncertainty… What kind of people will I find? Will they have any skill? What kind of attitude will they have? Spacey and new age, or edgy and aggressive?

What I found were an enthusiastic and welcoming group of people who supported each other in their training, worked hard and laughed. The school and the atmosphere is carefully supervised by Johan Duquet. Johan is a dedicated practitioner of Shaolin and Chen Taiji who really cares for the people who come to train with him. He was also a wonderful host to me. Johan’s Taiji teacher is Fu Nengbin, a younger brother of Alan’s teacher Wang Haijun.

I am especially glad to have spent time after the seminar exchanging with Johan. It was fascinating to see some of the similarities between his Shaolin, Chen Taiji along with the Xingyi and Bagua that I am more familiar with. The differences were equally fascinating to both of us. I think we both enjoyed the opportunity to engage in some playful push hands with someone else more interested in learning than saving face!

If you are near Valencia and you want to learn something that is both ‘traditional’ and intelligent, testing but friendly go and visit Shenyi.

Johan is seeking official recognition as the Belgium beer ambassador to Valencia, another reason to visit. I believe he deserves to be recognised as such by the Belgiian government, and varoious monastic brewing establishments soon. To support him in this worthy goal you can write to the Belgian embassy for Spain, and the Belgian chambers of Commerce in for Spain and Catalonia.

Johan is also not bad ambassador for sangria and Paella…

During the Summer I taught a number of introductions to Bagua outdoors in the jardins de Palais royale. I had a variety of people come to train, but two young women stood out for me, even if each attended only once. While they were both distractingly pretty what I really liked about having in them in the class was that they moved simply.

Simple natural body movement is something so obvious that it probably needs explaining, and the best way I can explain it is through contrast.

I have seen a lot of martial artists in my classes and seminars, as well as the ones that come to Luo laoshi’s seminars. These martial artists are mostly male, and come from a variety of styles. When I watch them copy a movement, or try and perform and exercise it is clear that their prior conditioning makes it very hard to move naturally.

Actually I think that their conditioning makes it hard to even see what was demonstrated. They see what they think martial arts should look like, and in imposing these ideas they warp their natural movement.

I see two main ways that these people to warp their movement.

The first is that they try and make a movement snappy and forceful– more common from shaolin or karate backgrounds.

The second is that they try and make the movement conform to some idea of what they think their art should look like. As a result their movement is excessively flowery, complicated and contrived. Often the more contrived the movement the smugger they seem in their ‘achievement.’ Often I see both in the same person. I call this martial arts disease.

In the case of Bagua these people think that Bagua is circular, so they try to move in a circular manner and twist themselves into bizarre contortions.

It is not Bagua that is circular, it is human movement that is circular.

Trying to move in a straight line is like trying to stop change. It is difficult if not impossible. If sometimes we do give the impression of moving a hand or an object in a straight line it is the result of a whole range of joints circling around each other.

Look at people involved in other sports. The legs of football players swing in arcs as they run, as do the arms that harmonize and add to the overall motion. Football and basketball players curve around each other as they aim to conserve their momentum on their way to their goals. Cricketers and golfers swing their implements through circles around their centres, bowlers and pitchers transfer the momentum of their bodies into a roundly whipping arm that releases a projectile at a tangent which gently curves downwards in gravity’s embrace.

None of these athletes needed to be told to move in a circular fashion. While they may have spent time developing their fitness, strength, reflexes and coordination their movement is essentially natural.

Natural movement means using the anatomy we have to perform a function. For example to get somewhere fast, lift something, throw something, kick something, or dodge something. The movement is derived from the function, the intention to achieve a certain result. Natural movement does not come from trying to micromanage the body, or make it conform to an idea.

Internal martial arts may seem complicated and a long way from natural, simple movement. After all they give so many instructions as to how to hold the body – sink the shoulders, drop the elbows, hollow the chest, raise the back, unify the upper and lower body.

It is simple if you just think of these as useful tips to maintain integrity through the body while applying force in different directions.

Now let’s take a step backwards. The first requirement is internal martial arts is ‘to relax’ which really just means to use appropriate natural power – not too much and not too little. But due to movement habits, bizarre ideas, stiffness from lack of use, poor coordination or emotional over reaction actually not many people in our society have very relaxed movement.

Is there a remedy for contrived movement? Yes, there are several. The hard part is to show people that they are doing it.

Some people are so invested in the contrivance of their movement that they find it hard to give them up. They fear that simple movement would make them less special or unique. After all simple movement is just every day and ordinary, like babies or sunsets or cats. They may have forgotten that just as we do not have to try to move circularly we do so automatically, we also do not need to try to be unique – we already are.

I have decided that the best way to make them aware of their unnecessary complication is through relentless teasing.

You can divide the antidote to contrived movement can be divided into two parts. The first is in simple movement, for example easy qigong with no application, just feeling the weight of the body and moving with minimal force. Gentle Yoga or Feldenkrais serve the same purpose.

The second is in joyful exertion. Run faster than your mind can coordinate. Give the controls back to your body. Play football, basketball, frisbee, rugby, tennis or anything that you do not associate with a style.

All our movement is based in (but not reduced to) the transfer of mass through the medium of bone, tendon, connective tissue and supported by the earth. We can go into levels of refinement but that’s the foundation. We can explore an intricate pattern of angles, shapes and directions but they still come back to a dance of mass.

I do not know if the two women who I referred to at the start of this article will come back explore the swirl of arcing physical forces, animal emotions and human ideals that I love in martial arts. Their natural movement will be welcome.

If not I’ll simply have to ask them for a drink.

The first is to find a good teacher since you cannot really learn from books or videos even if they can be a useful aid when used with intelligence and some prior understanding.

The next big challenge is how to put enough time in. To really develop skill you need to put in hours every day, yet most people practise for just a few hours every week. Within internal martial arts there are many areas to develop. There is body alignment and coordination, forms, body conditioning, techniques, drills and meditation.

In a typical hour and a half class to try and cover all of these is likely to skim over the surface. That’s why I get very enthusiastic about teaching weekend seminars and retreats, since it gives the opportunity to get below the surface, to explore and learn more richly.

Traditionally teaching would be very slow. It was expected that students practise a few simple basic exercises for as long as it took to understand and integrate them into the body. This approach still works, however faced with the distractions of modern living it appeals to very few people.

I find the greatest benefit in terms of keeping the training interesting is to offer opportunities to deepen the understanding of specific skills and areas of training. If you spend a period of time going into one aspect of the art, it will tend to carry over into all aspects of the art.

If you work on body structure then this will become apparent in forms and techniques, if you work on meditation for a period then the mental qualities will integrate into other practises.

You can focus to an extremely fine degree and benefit from it. You can focus on the quality of the hands and fingers, the alignment of the head and neck, the quality of the breath or the regard (is that English or French? By regard I mean the way of looking). You can focus on qualities such as heaviness, smoothness, sensitivity, or extension.

All of these can unfold with a richness of valuable insight. If you immerse yourself in what you practise this unfolding develops in its power to fascinate. You can discover a whole world within the simplest movement, boredom disappears and the experience of time opens beyond the stricture of wristwatches, minutes, hours and years.

If you deepen one aspect of your training for a period of time you will find it easier to return to the quality that you found when you concentrated on it. It is as if you create a sign posted route back to the state or skill through the meandering pathways of your nervous system.

Part of the job of the teacher is to recognise which aspects of the training a student will most benefit from practising. Sometimes your whole practise can be transformed through the understanding that comes through focus on a single element.

As a student it is your responsibility to do this practise yourself and outside of class. Follow the instructions and leads of your teacher, and also explore on your own initiative. Then you can bring what you learn back to the class as questions, and in your body as skill that contributes to the evolution of everyone that you practise with.

So whether you choose to go on seminars, retreats and intensives, or just decide to take some extra time to only focus on one aspect of your training. Take a single movement, principle, or quality and develop for as long and deeply as you can. That way when you have just a couple of minutes to practise (and two minute practises will be a topic that I address soon) you can recover those qualities quickly.

Once you stand up from your computer what will you focus on first?

Some years ago I read an article by a martial artist whose name I do not remember. He would walk into a bar and size everyone up asking himself ‘Am I the hardest man here?’ that desire to be ‘the hardest’ was important to him. Not surprisingly he got into a lot of fights, which in turn reinforced his belief in the importance of being hard.

One day he met a new mentor who taught him a healthier attitude to his training. His mentor explained:

‘As a martial artist when you walk into a place, look around you at the people and know that everyone there is a little safer because of the training that you have had.’

One reason I like this is because it takes the emphasis out from the individual to a wider and inclusive group. Everyone will be safer. Not just me, or my friends, or the people I like. Everyone.

Once he adopted this attitude he stopped getting into fights. I’ve known many people who have made a similar shift. They realise that the fights were not coming from the outside, but from some attitude or belief that they held about themselves and the people around them.

In my reasonably civilized life violence is rare. There are situations where I see it just below the surface. Sometimes I notice it below my own surface (my sense of vulnerability is often tweaked on my bicycle), and sometimes in the faces, postures, tonality and words of others. But it rarely reaches the point of blows being thrown.

When someone complains that they get in a lot of fights, or are attacked I get curious how exactly they manage that. Is it that they repeatedly put themselves in dangerous environments? This is the case for many people, and is sometimes unavoidable. Do they miss cues that would tell them that there is something dangerous about to happen? Or do they give out signals that either attract aggression, or tweak the sense of vulnerability of others?

Our bodies are extraordinarily sensitive to the cues and potential aggression of others. It is very rare for someone to just ‘snap’ and explode into violence. There is a progression that you can read in facial expressions, posture, tension and tone. If someone really does just snap chances are that they were walking along the edge of violence already, and that will already be visible or tangible in their body.

Our social, rational minds also have an impressive capacity for ignoring, filtering out or talking around the information that we do not want to face. That can include the knowledge that human beings, despite being cuddly, lovable and refined are also aggressive, territorial and predatory. It only takes a little snarl to expose your canines.

Our whole social education has been put in place to control then make this most basic animal truth vanish from polite, politically correct sight.

However this is the playground of martial arts. Martial arts are where the refinement, culture, and science meet with the bloody toothed beasts inside to make friends.

Even if that’s a little dramatic martial arts come from the physical reality that someone is attacking you. Your primate body is definitely involved. What happens next? How much of you will take part? Will it just be the beast, running or raging? The animal has to be intimately involved. It is the base level at which this communication of violence (and all other communication) takes place. But can you also integrate different layer of awareness, rational, moral even spiritual?

If you can do this then your training will not only add to the safety of everyone, but it will add to your vitality and enthusiasm as well.

I take a deep breath feel through my body and relax. I take another breath and imagine my focus for the next sprint to the top – I picture my spine stretching upwards while I maintain both relaxation from my arms through my shoulders, into my body then into the ground arms combined with speed and intensity right until the top. I picture where I plan to stop, smile and recover before jogging down for the next sprint.

Another deep breath and I kick off to start the sprint. One step after another, my legs feel heavier as I climb, my heart accelerates. The desire to tense up and fight the fatigue arrives. I do not raise my eyes, one step at a time, lifting my spine, relaxing my arms and shoulder down into the ground. One step at a time, there is so much to perfect in each step.

I reach the top, smile, breath lift my eyes open to the glory of trees and sky while thanking myself for the work I’ve done. I feel my metabolism has kicked itself up a notch, an inner fire turning fat into heat and action. I imagine how my body learns and adapts to the exercise, then jog back down for another round.

If you feel caught in an endless track of action spurred by the pressure of cramped schedules, hounded by inner dialogue then you can use your training to create a new healthier habit.

Our lives cycle through phases of planning, preparation, action and recuperation. You can deliberately incorporate this in how you train, and through regular practise make it a part of your daily life, and use this to break the headless chicken haboit of endless action. It is a more efficient way to reach where you want to go, and enjoy the process of getteing there.

1. Planning. Whenever you train you can take a moment be aware of the goal that you want to achieve, and what it will be like when you reach it. That can be for a whole session or just an individual exercise as I have described above.

2. Preparation. Once you know what you are going for then you can picture the key elements, feel them, and describe them to yourself. These are the most important aspects of body use that allow for efficient, elegant action.

3. Action. Then launch yourself into the exercise. Pay attention to what is important in the moment, the key elements of body use. Develop your trust that this will take you to where you want to be at the end.

4. Recuperation. Once you arrive at your destination then it is time to acknowledge and celebrate what you have achieved, to enjoy and learn from it. Settle into a moment of appreciation and simple being before choosing or designing the next goal.

It may take some time to develop your goals, and take practise to picture them swiftly and clearly. I will go into some detail on this in a future post. It is important to know what the appropriate focus of attention is during the action. Teachers and mentors are helpful here – as different foci will bring very different results, and sometimes the most effective foci are not always obvious.

Like any other skill it is useful to put practise these steps in easier conditions at first, and then learn to apply the process in more challenging ones as your familiarity and ability develop.

Now you have read this post. Congratulations, you have successfully made your way through my prose! Now what is next? What result are you going for, and what will you pay attention to take you there?