Taijiquan
Visit to Taiji Teacher Ren Zhongxin
As part of a recent business trip I was able to visit a taiji teacher that I have been interested in for a while now named Ren Zhongxin, who lives in Tangshan, a large industrial Read more…
Interviews
Interview with Jarek Szymanski – Part 7
PART 7 Jarek’s Tongbei studies Jarek: Heyi Tongbei is originally a style from Tianjin. It was brought to the Shanghai area by Ren Heshan, who originally studied with Liu Yuchun. Due to his MA skills, Read more…
Interviews
Interview with Jarek Szymanski – Part 6
PART 6 Beijing Years Continued Jarek: I actually made two trips to Wudang in 1991. In the summer of 1991, I went back to Poland for the summer break, but didn’t have enough money to Read more…
Interviews
Interview with Jarek Szymanski – Part 5
PART 5 Jon: One phenomenon which we see in the MA world is that of people making a ‘combined’ art based on the arts they have studied. What are your thoughts of this issue of Read more…
Interviews
Interview with Jarek Szymanski – Part 4
PART 4 Jarek: And so it came to the end of my first year in China (1991) and the summer holidays. I intended to take full advantage of the summer holidays to go around China Read more…
Interviews
Interview with Jarek Szymanski – Part 3
PART 3 Jarek: So, as we discussed last time, it was my first year in Beijing and I was training at least 4-5 hours per day. This was not unusual for me, I was used Read more…
Interviews
Interview with Jarek Szymanski – Part 2
PART 2 Jarek: Actually there were a lot of twists and turns in me getting to China, there were at least two occasions which could have derailed my plans to study in China entirely. The Read more…
Interviews
Interview with Jarek Szymanski – Part 1
Jarek Szymanski, apart from being a linguist and professional translator, is a martial arts researcher who has been living in China for over 20 years. In addition to practicing several styles of traditional Chinese Martial Read more…
History
2 Heroes of the Central Guoshu Institute
In response to a request from a reader, I have been working on translating some information about Bajiquan, this first part of which is translated below. For a brief introduction to Bajiquan, see the wiki Read more…
History
The 1929 Hangzhou Leitai Tournament
My previous translation of an article on Pei Xirong sparked my interest in the 1929 Leitai tournament in Hangzhou, which seems to have been the largest bare-hand Leitai competition in recent history. The following translation Read more…