Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Local Introductory Seminars in Yin Style Baguazhang in and around Knoxville, TN

In an effort to achieve two goals, our study group has decided that we're interested in offering the opportunity for us to come in and discuss some of the principles of Yin Style Baguazhang with friendly local or regionally located martial artists, preferably at their schools. To be clear, let me elaborate.

Mission Statement and Statement of Goals:
Mission: We, as the Knoxville, TN, study group, officially recognized by Yin Style Baguazhang International, are interested in seeing the growth of martial arts and martial artists in the area as well as promoting interest and growth in the art of Yin Style Baguazhang itself.

Goals: Our goals with these seminars are twofold -- to introduce Yin Style Baguazhang as a martial art to local/regional martial artists to enhance their training in their own arts or to generate interest in studying and training Yin Style Baguazhang directly.
Furthermore, we'd like to drum up enough interest to have more folks attend our (hopefully) annual seminar (see here for some details concerning the one that we just held) with He Jinbao of Beijing, our teacher and a true master of the martial arts with nearly unparalleled skill.

What is meant by local/regional:
Local: We live in Knoxville, TN, and some of the very nearby communities. If you live or train in Knoxville or a town very nearby, then we'd be happy to come by and share a little of what we've seen with you.

Regional: If you don't live really close to Knoxville but are within an hour or two away, we'd be willing to consider visiting your group or school as well.

What we can offer:
There are three things, really, that we can offer to local martial artists that already train in some style or another.
  1. We can offer insight provided via our training in Yin Style Baguazhang into how you can improve your current training methods for real, remarkable results. We can do this by introducing some of the methods of training used in Yin Style Baguazhang and offering advice on how to tailor those methods to the arts that you already train.
  2. We can offer a basic introduction to the art of Yin Style Baguazhang including a variety of its basic practices, methods, and some of its underlying theoretical framework.
  3. We can offer Yin Style Baguazhang based applications and host the seminar in a self-defense-for-martial-artists perspective.
In all of these cases, you'd be guaranteed something different and interesting, and in the first two cases, an excellent workout would no doubt come as part of the package.

Ultimately, we feel that this art is very underrepresented given its effectiveness, and we'd like word to spread. Realizing it won't spread without someone spreading it, we feel that we can reach out and offer something to the local martial artists that they can really take home with them to enhance their training and potential. We'd also like to increase exposure of the art so that more folks will feel that it is worthwhile to take the opportunity to meet He Jinbao when he comes to this neck of the woods, his level of expertise in the martial arts being high enough so that certainly anyone that spends time training under his direction will be able to improve in their own practices substantially.

What we're not interested in:
Challenges:
I know it makes me look a bit the puss to say that we're not interested in challenges. We're offering to spread knowledge here, which you can reject freely if you don't like it. Our goal isn't to prove ourselves to anyone. I'm more than happy to have you leave thinking that I suck without anyone having to eat a knuckle sandwich to prove it or say otherwise. I'm also more than happy if you think I'm awesome, particularly if I don't have to kick you in the jangles to prove it to you. Personally, I tend to thank people for not kicking me in the jangles and like reasonable folks that feel the same way.

Making money:
Our goal with these seminars is not to get rich or even to make money. We would be, however, asking for a small honorarium or per capita fee for our time, and that money would only be used to offset our travel and training costs, which are rather modest and would therefore be reflected with a similarly modest fee (approximately $10 per attendee per hour or thereabouts). Furthermore, we're not interested in making money via invitation to the seminar with He Jinbao. We do not make money off those seminars: we are charged an honorarium/per capita fee for those (pay this much or however much you bring in, whichever is more) and do not retain any profit from them. Additional seminar income would be used to help us offset our expenses in hosting/lodging/feeding He Jinbao and his translator when they come to town. We're about getting more attention and interest in this art and recognize that direct access to He Jinbao is just about the most effective medium for that goal to be realized.

Gathering Students:
We do have a study group, and it does get together. It's nothing even closely akin to a martial arts school, however, and thus, while we do want our group to grow larger, it does not present realistic competition to an established, real (if you will) martial arts school. We currently meet once per week and have no set curriculum. We offer no ranks or anything of the sort, and we meet where it is convenient, as often as not in someone's yard or garage or in a public park. Generally, we get together and work on what we're individually working on in a community-like setting, and those with more experience help and direct those with less experience in that endeavor. This group is and always has been open to anyone that's interested in trying it out, no strings attached, no commitments to ever come back, no requests to put a halt to any other training you might be doing or interested in. Feeling competition from our group would be like an established church feeling competition from a small-scale Bible-Study group that meets once weekly. With the seminars, we are hoping to be able to come and share our slightly different perspective on the martial arts with folks that are interested in learning martial arts.

Don't hesitate to contact us if you're even remotely curious or interested in hosting us!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, It's great to see there's more people in this area promoting bagua.

If you're going to be over at the Maryville fall festival this weekend you should check out these guys:
http://www.streetkungfu.com/

They've been promoting Bagua and the internal arts over in Maryville for about 8 or 9 years. I bet if you guys worked together you could do a lot for martial arts in this area.

Keep up the good work.

Jim said...

Maybe they would be interested in our seminars then? We invited them to our seminar with He Jinbao, but we never even got a response. None showed up. We kind of thought it was a bit of a shame.

Ray said...

I just came back his seminar in CT seminar. It is awesome!!! I would recommend any one that is serious about training in bagua to attend. It would be an eyes opener. His bagua is very old school, it is very battle oriented.

Martial art aside, he is also a very good teacher and a very kind person. I wasn't expect him to be funny but he was really funny at time. I just want to say that I had an really awesome martial art training weekend. Any Bagua student should check out this branch bagua and most definitely attend his seminar =)

Ray said...

I'm sorry about the grammar... I was a bit too excited. I was just got home from the seminar.

"The most important thing when studying the martial arts is not to be lazy. These skills are not easily attained. For them, one must endure a lot of suffering." -He Jinbao