As the working pace slows down in Paris you find more opportunities for the important things that you've been putting off

Between July 20th and the 28th you can take part in a special series of fitness sessions to develop your fitness, energy, vitality and joy in movement.

It is for you if you want: 

• to boost your fitness, strength and flexibility 
  
• learn new exercises and a new approach to your health and fitness 
  
• develop exercise habits that will help you thrive through your life 
  
• exercise outdoors with interesting people 
  
• make Paris your personal gym! 

This will not be 'gym' fitness which pushes your body towards an arbitrary 'ideal' shape, but exercise that you can integrate into your daily schedules. This will be functional movement that does not require special equipment or special clothes, but prepares you to move through the challenges both of ordinary life and exceptional exceptional emergencies.

We will use a mix of natural movement, martial arts, yoga, qigong and of course the built environment.

We will meet 7 times, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday: Check times and locations for each day:

Individual sessions will include:

• fitness 
  
• quality of functional movement 
  
• awareness and aliveness 
  
• mental habits, attitudes to exercise and diet 
  
• flexibility and range of motion 

While I will encourage you to engage in everything in each session, you will always have the choice as to to what you do or do not take do. Wear comfortable sports clothes you can sweat and get dirty in!

the price for the whole programme is €108, or €20 for each individual session.

The dates and meeting points of the sessions are

July 20th 19H15-22H30, 15 Quai de la Gironde (Body in mind –  Bring a notebook).

July 21st, 22nd 26th, 28th 19H15-21H15 Jardin de Tuileries 75001 Paris, 

July 24th, 25th 19H00-21H00 Parc de la Villette, 75019 Paris – possibility to stay for open air cinema afterwards

meeting point Jardin de Tuileries

Meeting point Parc de la Villette

Afficher meeting point Parc de la Villette sur une carte plus grande

You can choose to attend one or both hours.

Each session will cost €10/hour

The dates of the sessions are May 25th, June 1st June 8th,15th, and 29th.

Take a look at the map below to see where we meet.

Afficher Meeting point – Palais Royale sur une carte plus grande

The contents of Luo laoshis seminars in Paris in June this year are here!  

Luo is exceptionally clear and no nonsense in his teaching style. His explanations make the the mysterious aspects of Chinese martial arts not only understandable, but directly practical as well. He is also extremely hands on in his style so you can learn as you watch, listen and feel how he moves.

Whether or not you practise Gao style Bagua the principles that Luo laoshi demonstrates can be applied to any martial art. His quality of movement is superb, with a bewildering mix of light nimble movement, control and convincingly heavy impact.

If you want to learn a skill it is advisable to find the best example of that skill to learn from, and in martial arts Luo is a excellent model.

There are five sessions open to everyone, with a 6th by invitation only. The days can be divided into morning and afternoon sessions. Every session will have a mix of form/solo practise and application.    

Friday June 18th, 19H00-22H00, 單換掌 Single Palm Change and circle walking

These two activities form the basis for Bagua practise – we will go over the most important points in practise and use. Whether you have seen Luo laoshi teach this before you will find new material to work on. This session will be the easiest for people who have little experience of Bagua

Saturday 19th June 10H-17H30, Circular Bagua, 八大掌  Big Eight Palms

Last year we covered the first 2 of these palms. This year we will review the snake and dragon palms, then continue with the next palm changes as time allows.

1. 蛇形順勢掌 Snake form smooth force palm

2. 龍形穿手掌 Dragon form piercing hand palm

3. 回身打虎掌 Returning body, strike the tiger palm

4. 燕翻蓋手掌 Swallow overturning covering hand palm

5. 轉身反背掌 Turn the body over the back palm

6. 擰身探馬掌 Twist the body searching horse palm

7. 翻身背插掌 Overturn the body, through the back palm

8. 停身搬扣掌 Stop the body, move and hook palm

Sunday 20th June 10H-17H30 2nd set of linear Bagua:  坎八式 kan gua

These straight line forms contain many techniques for striking with the hands, and also other parts of the body.

   1. 截肋掌, chui, intercepting ribs palm

   2. 葉下藏花掌 cang, flower hidden beneath the leaf

   3. 內砍掌 kan, inside chopping

   4. 外削掌 xiao, outside cutting

   5. 二仙傳道 er, two sages preach the way

   6. 惡虎撲羊 hu, ferocious tiger pounces on shoulder

   7. 鳳凰奪窩 duo, phoenix robs the nest

   8. 進退連環 huan, advancing and retreating continuing

Monday 21st June 19H-22H00 – sanshou -sticky hands

The sanshou (sometimes called roushou) of our school is a refined skill to link and integrate different techniques. This session is invitation only.    

The seminar will take place at  la Maison du Taiji, 57 rue Jules Ferry, 93170 Bagnolet on the East side of Paris. Prices: 1 session €60, 2 sessions €110, 3 sessions €150, Full weekend €190, Weekend+ Friday €230. Discounts for regular students, students, the unemployed and teachers who bring their students, call or e-mail me to qualify.   

To reserve your place please send deposit of €50 then cash on day. Make and send cheques to Edward Hines, 111 rue Caulaincourt, 75018 Paris until May 25th 2010, and then to 15 quai de la Gironde, Paris 75019.

The dates for Luo laoshi's seminars in Europe and the US are confirmed. It will be a little time before the contents of the seminars are decided, but in most places you can expect a long weekend of teaching that will cover an interesting mix of Bagua and Xingyi.

For people new to Luo laoshi's teaching there are usually sessions that are easy entry points for people without much previous experience.

Paris 17-23rd June

Switzerland 23rd-30th June

Brittany/Rennes 30th June-7th July

Manchester England, 7th-14th July

London England, 17th-21st July

Israel 21st-28th July 

then off to the US

DC 29th July-7th August

Denver 14th-21st August

SF 21st-30th August

then back to Taipei on the 30th.

I will post more information as soon as I have it, including contact details for seminar organisers.

My schedule will probably let me join in with Switzerland and London – as well as Paris, naturally.

I recently started a new class just for women in Paris who want to get fitter, more toned, learn some martial principles and have fun.  We train at the Palais Royale, a picturesque  setting in the centre of Paris. 

You can work as hard as you need/want, you do not need to punch each other in the head, and I can supply gloves.

You can find the next session here.

Luo laoshi will teach a seminar in Paris towards the end of June this year. I will keep you updated as we decide what Luo laoshi will cover and exactly when he will be here.

You know that whatever he teaches it will there will be an immense amount to learn.

I'll find some more video to post here as a teaser…

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.

Do you deserve to be threatened, intimidated or attacked?

Of course not. But what can you do to ensure the safety of yourself and the people you care for?

Join us for the self-defence and personal protection course On October 20th from 14H30-18H30 at Espace Nataraja, 12 Rue Hippolyte Lebas, 75009 Paris and will cost €55 for the day. During this time you will learn:

• Special awareness techniques,
• Body language to put off potential attackers and defuse conflict
• How to maximise your hitting power
• Angles that help keep you safe
• Surprise techniques and escapes
• Psychological blocks to acting appropriately
• Key points of the law
• Guidelines for future practise

You will also get a good physical workout (though this is not the focus of the course), and many opportunities to laugh. Wear comfortable clothes, and be prepared to work barefoot.

The last courses in Spring and Summer were well attended, and a lot of fun. If you attended a previous course and want to attend this one I can offer you a €15 discount. I will start running regular sessions to further develop the skills, characteristics and knowledge that make work to keep you safer.

Reserve in advance if you want a place. info@transformativemartialarts.com Tel: 06 80 28 86 39

Here is a clip from the September session. Can you see where Claire elbows me in the head?