Thur. - Sun., May10-13, 2012: Hello everyone. Sifu came to Tennesee this weekend in Nashville to bring his son (who is quite something) Connor to the National Chess Championships. Prince Bell and I got to spend some time training with him. As Prince lives in Nashville he had to tend to his daily responsibilities and came out as often as he could get away, as I live a bit away from Nashville I used it as a vacation and simply stayed with Sifu, 24 hours a day for the whole weekend. So I got quite a bit (constant) of training in. And not only training, but direct, personal, one-one-one training. It was all the stuff we do right here on chifactory, but with Sifu in the flesh. The work we do here online really is very significant. The quality, as you guys already know well, of the instruction in the videos is so precise and specific that Prince and I already had a decent foundation from which to engage the curriculum with Sifu in-person. I can't speak for Prince's experience (it's not over for him by the way, I believe he did some more training today) but I felt, and I believe Sifu did as well, that the training via chifactory prepared me with the foundation to be able to meet Sifu for the very first time and be able to go through the material without any real problems. We didn't have to spend so much time with introductions to the concepts, philosophies and principles, and Sifu didn't have to spell out everything (albeit a lot of things simply to nail them down) as if it were brand new. The solo training I've been doing this whole time (you know... the training I've been constantly worrying myself sick about and obsessing over, whether I was even making progress or not, etc.) put me in a position to be able to make a very smooth transition from online to live instruction from Sifu. We were able to cover quite a bit of material in a matter of days, all because of the quality of the videos provided here on our site, plus the time put in punching the clock at home.
I don't want to bore you guys with all of the stuff we went over because it's all here online...same stuff!! Just with Sifu there in the flesh to put it into my body in real-time for a more direct experience.
Sifu was everything I was hoping he would be, plus some. And as ass-kissy as that sounds, I wanted to make that point because I've went out of my way many times within the last couple of years to go see people with great expectations, and much of the time it was never as I'd imagined it, and most of the time I was somewhat disappointed. I was not only relieved but grateful that this was not only NOT the case with meeting Sifu....but it was exactly the opposite.
And moreover, I wanted to address something (warning: kind of sappy but it was a big deal to me so just bare with me) that I found and will continue to find as, if not more, important as Sifu's crazy skill. I say 'crazy', because aside from some of the amazing stuff we see him do on the vids, especially for those of us in 'ongoing' training seeing him do with some of his Tuscon class, Sifu went a little further this weekend and showed me some things that I can't quite put my finger on and wouldn't have the slightest clue as to how to describe or understand. Let's just say.... they were strange, eye-opening, and opened my awareness to another realm of development and possibilites (you know, freaky kinda stuff). But anyway, I'm getting sidetracked, what I wanted to talk about was what kind of person Sifu is.... He lives 'wude', he is a living, breathing, walking talking manifestation of the principles we are trying to get a handle on. I don't want to go on and on about it, but he's a good person, a genuine Sifu in the truest since of the word and showed me nothing but openness, humility, unbelievable generousity, patience, comfort and all the other things that make for a sincere seeker and leader. I can't imagine that I would have any other Sifu, and he showed me truly what it means to be learning in a FAMILY STYLE tradition, as he treated me like I was part of his family, and expressed that I was (as are all of you) part of the I Liq Chuan family.
I hope that we can all continue in this type of relationship to one another. Prince and I are going to try and set up a community here in the region for ILC. If anyone is or will be in or around the southeaster United States, or knows someone who is, have them contact me as I am beginning an effort to bring people together in learning ILC, an ILC community. We have our Sibat Ben Fisher in Durham, NC, I have been to see him on a few occasions to learn in-person and plan to continue to do so. It would be great others can join and we can all train and learn together, and pull and utilize all the resources available to us in our training.
So, anyhow, I wanted to leave you with a peak at the weekend so I'm going to try and upload this short vid I managed to snatch from some of our time together.... I hope I do it right.
I think i did! You guys enjoy... here, Sifu is showing me a few things like leading the mind, sticky hands, trapping, freezing, 3 circles of engagement and a bunch of other things that all happened faster than I could keep up with, as is obvious to see, haha.