I have encountered Tai Chi Chuan many times in my life and I knew how to recognize it early on and call it by its name. I wasn't interested in it for a long time. When I was no longer able to move properly for a long time after a dance injury, I encountered it again in a film that I was watching with my 8-year-old son. It was about magically influencing the elements and the filmmakers borrowed movements from Tai Chi Chuan to influence water. “What is that?” asked my son, “I want to learn that”. I researched for him on the Internet and on YouTube.
What I found changed everything: relaxation exercises from a Tai Chi master, which I only interpreted based on my dancer experience and half-knowledge of physiotherapy (Dorn/Breuß), but which got me fit again in a month made. I was able to walk upright again without pain.
That gave me the impetus to seriously learn Tai Chi and to look for a teacher. It should be training 1-3 times a week and practicing daily for the next 5 years. Soon I took over the warm-up training every now and then, and later I often showed the form I had trained for training in the group, while our Sifu taught specific corrections to individual students.
What I was for What I learned was to stay with myself, to relax, to ground myself, to find peace, not to have to counteract every force (physical or mental), to limit my ambition a little, because what I do is more important than that achieve... but there is always another step on the way.
Which Tai Chi Chuan style was I taught?
All the forms I have learned come from the Yang style. I have been able to gain a little experience with Chen style, but you can't talk about learning here yet.
The first Yang style that I learned from my Sifu Michael Punschke comes from this traditional line:
- Old Chen style origins
- Yang Lu-Chan (first representative of the Yang style)
- Yang Ban-Hou and Yang Jiang-Hou
- Yang Cheng Fu (1883-1936)
- Hu Yuen-Chou (1906-1997)
- Doc Fai-Wong
- Michael Punchke
My teacher placed a lot of focus on this deep anchoring of Tai Chi principles in every movement. Therefore, the lessons initially focus on short forms and a lot of precision. I learned the 8, 16 and 24 forms, a short fan form and a short sword form. There were also various partner exercises: firm Tuishou (push hands) forms, application of movements from the form, exercises for grounding, loosening up, dissipating forces and standing training.
I supplemented this knowledge with courses in Tuishou (Push Hands) with influences from other teaching traditions and experiences in free push hands.
Later, Michael Punschke taught us the 13 Postures form and a partner exercise from a different Yang Tai Chi Chuan tradition, the Yangjian Michuan.
This is in the following tradition:
- Yang Luchan
- Yang Jianhou
- Zhang Qinlin
- Wang Yen-nien
- ???
- Michael Punschke
When Michael Punschke gave up his studio in Munich in order to devote himself more intensively to his own studies, I and a few students continued to train the forms we had learned together, and I often did that Training as an equal among equals.
What I offer
- Introduction to the Yang Tai Chi 8, 16 and 24 forms with explanation and correction of the movements with an eye on health and martial arts backgrounds
- Introduction to Push Hands: preliminary exercises, fixed forms, free Push Hands game
- Warm-up training optimized for body awareness, relaxation and mobility < li>Warm up together and then run the forms
- Openness regarding my experiences and ideas about Tai Chi.
What I do not offer: comprehensive mastery, secrecy (either I know something, or I don't). I think there are many places to learn and you don't have to learn everything in one place. Open and clear communication about this is what I have always wanted and hope to now offer myself.