Howard Choy, a well-known internationally Tai Chi, Qigong and Feng Shui expert, will be
Register for the lecture at Macquarie University on Tuesday 12 June 2018 at 6.30 pm.
For more information: see http://wushu-council.com.au/event/2057/
Places are limited – Register now!
By Dr. Khoo Cheng Choo
It was with great anticipation & trepidation as the Health Qigong Forum approached. The excitement was about the three Qigong Masters – the representatives of the International Health Qigong Federation based in China who would be teaching at the Forum.
They would be instructing us on the current Health Qigong standardised routines and techniques. Thus, this would be a good opportunity for us to confirm, learn and query on any aspect of Qigong that we had an interest in.
The Forum & Workshop hosted by Tai Chi Australia in Melbourne, comprised three hectic days of intensive but very rewarding talks and workshops. Topics ranged from “What is Qigong?” to the practice of Dao Yin, Yi Jin Jing & Ba Duan Jin. The third optional day catered to those seeking to learn the Qigong Stick routine.
While Qigong practice is ancient, and practitioners have harnessed its energy for health purposes for centuries, Western medicine has only recently taken a keen interest in the use of Qigong for disease treatment. Hence the report on the integration of Qigong in Parkinson Disease treatment research by Dr Liu Xiaolei was both timely and informative.
Despite the fact the instructors spoke mainly in Mandarin (with Master Han Jin Song acting as the main interpreter) it was comprehensible and little was lost in translation. This can be attributed to the enthusiasm and professionalism of the teac
hing team and the keenness of the participants to absorb and learn.
In the workshops, I was transfixed by the elegant, precise and intricate moves of Master Zhu Jingyuan as she systematically and passionately spoke about the intricacies of different moves and demonstrated how they were to be performed correctly. With her movements during the workshop, I felt less clunky and was able to flow more naturally and comfortably. As Helen R put it, “The Professors were very good in respect to training a large group. I have been practicing the Dao Yin and Stick for some time and I picked up a lot of movements I could improve on. I enjoyed the atmosphere, and everyone was very motivated to learn.”
The Professor Zhang Wenchun spoke on the theoretical aspects of Qi and got us to practise building a Qi ball with interplay with our hands. The session on Qigong practice by Parkinson Disease Patients Research by Dr Liu Xiaolei was interesting but a tad short. Chris S, another Wushu & Tai Chi NSW member who went to Qigong Forum & Workshop said that “Having read “Effects of Health Qigong Exercises on Relieving Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease” by Xiao Lei Liu et. al. I was keen to attend the Health Qigong Seminar in Melbourne. On Day One, although a novice (just two lessons in Tai Chi), I was made most welcome to participate in the exercises and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. On Day Two, under the tutelage of Master Liu, we concentrated on Qigong exercises that were of most benefit to PD sufferers. I found this session both informative and challenging but will continue to incorporate these exercises into my daily routine.”
The Question & Answer sessio
ns were very informative as Mr Chang Jianping, the Executive Vice-President and Secretary General of the International Health Qigong Federation, spoke about the development of his organisation in China, the new programs they are working on and upcoming events.
The Workshops were followed by (optional) Qigong Duan Wei examination (Level 1, 2 and 3). Four people from NSW were brave enough to undertake it. It was a long and anxious wait for the exam because of an unbelievably slow online Qigong Duan Wei registration system and the exam in front of five highly experienced judges was nerve-wrecking and exhilarating at the same time. Tunde T said, “The Duan exam was a good way to show what we had learned, and I was happy we all passed.” Now, all we need to do is wait for our certificates!
Then it was home to Sydney, tired but satisfied that we’d had a great learning experience and looking forward to similar events in future, particularly, in August next year when we can all attend the International Health Qigong Competition Event in Melbourne.
Many thanks to the Professors and Masters from the International Qigong Federation, to Tai Chi Australia for hosting this wonderful event and Wushu & Tai Chi NSW for organising the NSW delegation and providing the participants with some financial assistance for attending the seminars and taking the Qigong Duan Wei Exam!
Published online: 04 May 2018
Wong Fei-hung was a Cantonese martial arts master from southern China who became associated with a melody called ‘General’s Ode’. Since the 1950s, over 100 Hong Kong movies and television shows have forged the link by using this melody as Master Wong’s theme. During fieldwork in a Chinese Canadian kung fu club, I observed several consultants claiming this piece as a Cantonese national anthem—a hymn for a nation without a sovereign state. Virtual ethnography conducted online showed that this opinion is held more widely, but that the piece also inspires broader Chinese nationalist sentiment. My analysis of speech-tone relationships to melodic contour in Cantonese and Mandarin versions of the song, however, has revealed a tight integration with the former that the latter lacked. By sharpening Anderson’s concept of unisonance, I explore how this song has become an unofficial transnational anthem for Cantonese people, arguing that Master Wong’s theme auralises an abstract sense of imagined community.
Full article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17411912.2018.1463549
Colin McGuire is an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Music at University College Cork, Ireland. He holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from York University and a Graduate Diploma in Asian Studies from the York Centre for Asian Research, both located in Toronto, Canada. His work looks at music and martial arts, with a current focus on Chinese kung fu, examining heroic display and somaesthetic meaning. Through investigations of intertextuality, resistance, transmission, diaspora, transnation, community and identity, McGuire contributes to broader discussions of embodied being-in-the-world.
Volume 21, 2018 – Issue 2: Application of Modern Optimization Algorithm in Management Science
Pages 601-605 | Published online: 20 Apr 2018
As a challenging topic in the field of computer vision, human action recognition has been widely used in many fields, such as virtual reality, intelligent man-machine and sports. Therefore, this paper proposed the method of decomposing and recognizing human body Wushu action based on computer three-dimensional image recognition. This method obtained the edge of body silhouette and extracted each frame of image silhouette edge to achieve accumulation in the same image, and used the image motion feature vector to compose three-dimensional image, decomposition process of Wushu action based on the image recognition. Experiment shows that using three-dimensional image recognition can effectively decompose Wushu action.
Zhaojin Zhu,Yujie Yang,Jiabao Guo,Yanning Yan,Kuicheng Li,Jun Wang,Jun Yu & Yi Zhu
Published online: 12 Apr 2018
This study proposes a novel occupational therapy (OT) practice tool derived from the native concept of the Tai Chi diagram. Four elements of the Tai Chi diagram, namely, Yang, Yin, Yang kernel, and Yin kernel, are matched to the elements of the OT practice, namely, person, environment, economic condition, and mental condition, respectively. The entire circle of the diagram represents occupational performance. The interaction between persons and the environment can be regarded as the interaction between Yin and Yang with balance as the focal point. This proposed tool may be an innovative means to facilitate communication between clients and therapists for OT in China.