Heard of these styles?

[nzric]

Hey all, I've been recommended this teacher and I'm going tonight.

http://www.ziranmen.com/artsframe.htm

Just wanted to check if anyone's got any experience in the following:

Wudang taichi
Liu He
Zi Ran Men

Should be interesting. Also will give me an opportunity to hit things for the first time in ages!!

[Ceicei]

Hey all, I've been recommended this teacher and I'm going tonight.

Should be interesting. Also will give me an opportunity to hit things for the first time in ages!!Let us know how it went. I'm curious to find out what you learned....

- Ceicei

[Syd]

Yup, heard about Ziranmen a couple of years ago, it was just starting to break in the U.S as one of the new styles out of China, of which there are thousands! It's allot like Bajiquan in the way it has become popular. Funnily enough ADC and I were talking about all these styles last week when he dropped by and he actually said he thought the next big thing out of China would be Ziranmen!

Tell us how you go.

[nzric]

Well last night was really just a qigong/ima practice, but I'm pretty impressed. the teacher definitely knows what he's talking about and he talked a lot about the meaning/intention of different qigongs.

Weird thing is the symbol of the school is the same symbol I've got tattoo'd on my chest. oooooooooo...

Basically did a lot of static qigong, which had stretching as much as chi intent. Then did some internal power training where the more practiced hung metal rings (...) on their wrists. Some stretching and a series of dynamic qigong, then some kind of moving qigong walking in a circle, pedalling the arms forward up the centre with the hands in a dragon claw shape.

After that we broke into beginners and more advanced and everyone practiced some kind of kung fu kata (lots of stamping and single step backfists), then partnered stretching.

Overall it's great - the teacher seems the real deal but he's pretty young and I don't know how he is able to teach about 15 different styles. Looks good though.

The class focuses on tai chi tuesday, taiji/bagua thursday and bagua in the weekend, so I'll go on thursday and check out the bagua. I'm trying to get back into the tai chi but a bagua teacher is so difficult to find around here I thought I'd make the most of it.

[Syd]

After that we broke into beginners and more advanced and everyone practiced some kind of kung fu kata (lots of stamping and single step backfists), then partnered stretching.

Sounds a bit Chen style with the stamping. Apparently they use allot of leg work in Ziranmen, they were known for kicking and feet

Then did some internal power training where the more practiced hung metal rings (...) on their wrists.

Thats very hard style of them, I'm surprised actually. Shaolin arts are very well known for metal ring training, they do allot of that in Choy Lay Fut also.

Overall it's great - the teacher seems the real deal but he's pretty young and I don't know how he is able to teach about 15 different styles. Looks good though.

Thats always my concern with schools, if they are teaching more than three styles I have to wonder where the room for specialisation is.

I'm trying to get back into the tai chi but a bagua teacher is so difficult to find around here I thought I'd make the most of it.

Hope you find one bro, I know you like your Bagua.

[nzric]

Not really chen style, looked more like a cross between hsing-i and traditional kung fu.

Yeah, still not sure about the sheer amount of styles - so far I know he teaches tai chi, bagua, hsing-i, a couple of kung fu styles and a bunch of others I don't recognise. Still, as I said I'll check it out - if he's good he's good.