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Simply chi newsletter number 7
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SIMPLY QI
Tai Chi and Qi Gong Newsletter |
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Vol 7 2007 |
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Page 3
To the second lady he said: your
digestion is not strong, you have loose
bowels at the moment, your right knee is
painful and your right ankle lets you
down from time to time and you stumble,
you also have a painful tooth.
The two ladies were dumbfounded as were
my friend and I, we turned and said ‘now
that’s the kinda diagnosis I want to
do’.
After the diagnosis there was a very
surreal impromptu Qi gathering exercise
with a Buddhist monk joining in with the
meditation and chanting all the way
through the exercise and then he got up
and asked if we wanted to push hands at
which he was very good.
A day or so later we asked the Master if
he knew of the temple in Hangzhou where
the goddess Guan Yin was made a goddess
and the reply was made with a great big
smile and ‘of course I do, the abbot of
the temple is a friend of mine, do you
want to go and see him??
Well duh yes! It turns out that in the
cave that the temple surrounds, is where
the Goddess did most her good works and
lived there for many years until she
became enlightened and went to live on
the island of Putou Shan.
Character
for Guan Yin (I think) |
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Legend has she still resides on the
island as the goddess mercy and of
fishermen and if you want a boy child
you prey to Guan Yin and if you are
lucky she will give you your wish.
When we went to the temple it was a calm
oasis where the farmers were praying and
dancing for a good harvest in the year
to come. It was one of the most serene
places I have ever been and the energy
levels were so high there was an almost
audible buzz in the air.
The Abbot, Ding Ben, met us and he
chatted about his philosophy in life, to
give from the heart and not to expect
any repayment, to bring happiness to as
many souls in our world as we can and
not to expect enlightenment for our
efforts as this would or could cause us
disappointment and set us back on our
own personal journey.
The best way is to simply give and to
receive the smile that giving has
produced as the only reward.
What a truly lovely man Abbot Ding Ben
was, in his late 70’s you could see that
he had lived a hard life and learned
many hard lessons from the wonderful and
terrible things he had seen in his time.
Our
group with Abbot Ding Ben (middle)
Grand
Master Yin Zhu Yan has given me his
blessing to teach Da Yan Gong and we
will be announcing a workshop to give
you all a taster of this beautiful style
of Qi Gong and then we will set up a
class, stay alert for the flyers.
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PAGE 4 |
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TIAN YIN JIA’S STORY
As we know, China
is opening up its doors to the West and, as we
begin to explore the little known areas of China
more of the top Masters in their particular
fields are popping up. Masters that had, for one
reason or another, gone underground for fear of
persecution are now beginning to tell their
story and teach others their craft before such
skills disappear from this world for ever.
My areas of
interest are the TCM / Qi Gong / Tai Chi areas and have for many years (18), trained under
and with western teachers such as Brian Jones
and Earle Montague, however we all crave that
special teacher, that master who can guide us to
the font of all knowledge so that we too may
drink our fill and become one of ‘them’.
In the field of
Yang Family Style Tai Chi I have been lucky
enough for the universe to bump me into one of
the truly greats, a Master by the name of TIAN
YIN JIA, there are a handful of people in the
U.K who know this name, fewer still who have
trained directly under him and fewer again who
can say they are one of his Tu Di (indoor
student, disciple), I am proud to say I hope in
future to be one of them.
It was a strange
meeting, an e-mail from a man (I did not know)
telling me of a visit from a Chinese grand
master (that I had never heard of) in one of the
most popular styles of Tai Chi in the world today. He was travelling outside of
China for
the first time to promote his fathers name not
his own.
I
am extremely fortunate and honoured to
personally know the last remaining son of Tian
Zhao Lin , 76 year old Tian Yin Jia who himself
is a 4th generation inheritor of Yang family Tai
Chi Chuan. It is from him that I now know his
fathers story. The late Tian Zhao Lin was an
extremely important figure in Yang Tai Chi
family history. He was one of the most
famous practitioners of Yang Family style Tai
Chi in
China who sadly has been sidelined out of the Yang family
lineage. Tian Zhao Lin
was adopted into the Yang family by the son of
Yang Lu Chan the founder of the Yang style, this
sons name was Yang Jian Hou,
Tian Zhao Lin became the adopted brother of Yang
Shou Hou and Yang Cheng Fu and became one of the
Yang families top students.
Tian Zhao Lin was taken in and trained
specifically to become a fighter and to promote
the name of Yang Tai Chi, legend has it that in
a challenge he was never beaten.
There has been
some writing on the history of Tian Zhao Lin
that you may find on your own time, indeed there
is an interesting and not well known tale about
Tian Zhao Lin and how Tai Chi became so popular
in China that I will tell in the next issue,
today I am interested in his son and my Sifu
(teacher/master) Tian Yin Jia.
Tian Yin Jia’s
journey through Tai Chi began when his father
started him training in Tai Chi at the age of 6
years in Hang Zhou city, Zhi Jiang province;
it’s about 300km west and south of Shanghai. In
Hang Zhou the names of Tian Zhao Lin and Tian
Yin Jia are very famous and there is even a
statue by the West Lake in honour of Tian Zhao Lin.
Even though Tian Yin Jia has not lived in the
area for some time the local Wu Shu / Tai Chi
community still revere his name and are proud to
say ‘he came from Hang Zhou’.
 
Tian Zhao
Lin Tian Yin Jia
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