We believe it is important to be on the same level of information as young Chinese people in order to truly understand their story. This presentation is a little above average Chinese folk knowledge of their history.
This is by no means a complete Chinese history lesson, but we have picked out the things that we think are most interesting for our school in order to understand certain backgrounds.
The material for this video can be downloaded here!
Taiji Quan (Taiji = the highest, ultimate primal principle, Quan = fist, fistfight) is a highly developed form of the internal martial art and is based on the application of Daoist principles. According to tradition, Taiji Quan was developed in the Wudang Mountains by Zhang Sanfeng, the legendary founder of Sanfeng Pai, and spread across China in several styles from the 17th century. Today, Taiji Quan is better known as a health and wellness exercise around the world.
In the Sanfeng Pai schools, Taiji Quan is an integral part of the whole system, i.e. the Taiji principles are applied in all forms and styles. The seminar offers the unique opportunity to get to know and deepen the Taiji principles and basics in their original form. Suitable for beginners!
In our academy at Siebenbrunnenfeldgasse 12/1, 1050 Vienna – there are hotels nearby – please convince yourself of the accommodations.
Clothing that you can move in – comfortable training shoes with flat, light-colored soles.
Price: 350 euros (including 150 euros as a reservation fee, payable in advance)
Seminar Reservation
150.00 €
After Tai Ji Quan, Ba Gua Zhang is the most famous style of internal martial arts in China. Ba = 8, Gua = oracle sign, trigram, Zhang = palm, open hand; Ba Gua Zhang, therefore, means “martial art of the 8 trigrams”. As in Tai Ji Quan, inner energy is also generated and cultivated here and the use of raw strength is dispensed with. Ba Gua Zhang consists of 8 “small” forms and is practiced walking in a circle, with 8 steps completing the circle. Like the other internal arts, Ba Gua Zhang is also very beneficial for health, concentration, and physical and mental stamina.
Since it is very difficult or even impossible to learn authentic Ba Gua Zhang outside of China, the Wudang Academy offers. For the first time in Europe the opportunity to get to know this art under the guidance of Master Ziji.
In our academy at Siebenbrunnenfeldgasse 12/1, 1050 Vienna – there are hotels nearby – please convince yourself of the accommodations.
Clothing that you can move in – comfortable training shoes with flat, light-colored soles.
350 euros (including 150 euros as a reservation fee, payable in advance)
Baguazhang – Seminar Registration
€150.00
Ba Duan Jin Qi Gong and Wu Xing Qi Gong are part of the basic routines of the Daoists in Wudang and are practiced daily into old age. Qi Gong promotes self-cultivation through coordination and control of posture, breathing, and energy flow.
Qi Gong can be learned and carried out by anyone regardless of age and training status. The prerequisite for this is the instruction by an experienced and qualified teacher in order to understand the basic principles and to avoid mistakes in posture.
Under the guidance of Master Ziji, it is possible for the first time to experience and learn authentic Wudang Qi Gong outside of China. Only with a solid basic understanding can you benefit from Qi Gong and use it as a basis for further cultivation.
Basic exercises from Ba Duan Jin Qi Gong and Wu Xing Qi Gong. These forms are the daily routines of the Daoists in the Wudang Mountains and the absolute foundation for Taiji and Gong Fu.
Basic exercises to coordinate yin and yang. Breathing plays the main role for our body – with the breath we control stress, qi (energy) and influence our concentration.
Individual corrections and advice on daily training.
In our academy at Siebenbrunnenfeldgasse 12/1, 1050 Vienna – there are hotels nearby – please see for yourself the accommodations.
Clothing that you can move around in – comfortable training shoes with a flat sole.
05.-06. September (weekend)
In between, there are short breaks and a Sunday lunch between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
350 euros (including 150 euros as reservation fee, payable in advance)
Maximum participants: 15 people
Registration is possible here, after payment we send the confirmation by email:
Fix Your Body Workshop
Registration
€150.00
The following content in this video is about a very important topic for every student in my school – also including my students who are committed to training online via our platform.
First of all, we are trying to structure the difficulties of modern life.
Laozi states that we should enjoy things and let them pass like we do not care. We have to understand that nature is about change, and there is no everlasting. The only rule beyond nature is the realm of heaven.
I am very grateful to my online student Sina who pointed out these difficulties. He agreed that I could show his video below:
Thank you. Sina for your effort in pointing all this out, I believe everyone can benefit from it, and we should always be able to get back to our path, focus our efforts, and accomplish our life.
Below is my video response for you to watch:
You can join our online school here!
The body and mind are deeply connected. We need many things to work efficiently. Some theories are mostly very fragmented and do not explain the whole universe of these principles.
If one portion of our primary needs is not satisfied, we lack energy or cannot use it efficiently. The Daoist understanding is to reflect on nature and understand what we really need. The natural principles lay the playground for the way of humans.
First, we need to understand how the individual is built to store and use energy.
The human body has a specific capacity and sensitivity for using energy; this is depending on the physical properties of the body. Let’s think about like a vase, or a vessel of some sort, it is possible to hold energy inside depending on its shape or form. Muscles, for example, do not mean we are energetically stronger; It is essential to find the balance in the body to be able to work efficiently, excessive large muscles will make your energy consumption higher and fatigue faster.
In general, it can be said if one physical appearance is stronger, than the potential for more energy capacity is there, but it can also mean the individual is more emotional and mentally unstable or lacks focus. The opposite is true for individuals with a weaker physical appearance; they have it harder physically but developed because of this a healthy mind and sharp focus. As I said, this is only general, and everybody cannot be generalized, but it is obvious to see that imbalance can bring these results.
It is the master who intends to balance these principles to pave a straight path of harmony for the student.
I will list the essential understandings for cultivating Qi in its importance:
There is no magic formula in cultivating Qi. But there are several other things you should keep in mind:
This information should all sound logical and natural because the way of the Daoists is a natural way. It is the media and alternative approaches that wake the interest of people who do not know this natural order. I guess that the main reason is to make money to learn special methods. As I said, there is no magical formula or a way to fool your body and mind. The path of Daoists is a way of consistency, hard work, and determination. I am sure it is not a suitable way for everyone, but from my experience, it is that most people change their way of thinking at a certain point in life and realize that their own body and mind is vital for preserving the life quality, and then they start training. In China, people lack social insurance, and self-preservation is an important topic. When people tend to make others responsible for themselves, it will only lead to ignoring our own needs.
As recently discussed in this post, Zhan Zhuang is an important pillar in internal martial arts. But what skills does Zhan Zhuang actually bring to Taiji practitioners? We want to go into that today.
Through the continuous practice of Zhan Zhuang, we become aware of areas of tension. Like others train for more strength, we train Zhan Zhuang on the way of relaxation. Constant standing means no change for body and mind, but something will change constantly in this exercise with untrained students. It is about accepting situations and perceiving the state. When the body is calm and controlled, the focus should be on the mind next, otherwise, the mind will always find something to deal with. In the state of absolute calmness, we will really experience the states of Yin and Yang. Therefore, a connection to the extreme can be made next.
In Taiji, yin and yang move, it is like the balance is held in two glasses so that none of them drips over. The movement out of balance is the direction to harmony. When someone can keep a close focus on Yin and Yang, the body and mind are in control of the movement. Taiji is thus controlled at the extremes and harmonized therefrom, which is an important basic understanding for self-cultivation.
Zhan Zhuang is one of the most important pillars in the inner martial art of Wudang. This exercise is a relaxed standing with open arms and shoulders. In Wudang, it is one of the Qi Gong exercises that everyone should do every day.
For beginners, Zhan Zhuang is important to feel the tension in the body and to become more relaxed. For advanced users, Zhan Zhuang is important to be able to control the flow of energy. It is also the only exercise that builds up Qi effectively.
Zhan Zhuang has a positive effect on the entire body. The reason for this is breath control and relaxed standing, which calm the brain waves. This significantly reduces stress and the body can concentrate on the stimulation and circulation of blood and oxygen and thus also on qi.
The body requires a certain basic condition, but also a strong mind, to make progress with Zhan Zhuang. It is recommended to exercise at the same place and at the same time every day to avoid further internal conflicts. The duration between 15 and 60 minutes is recommended. Under 15 minutes, Zhan Zhuang is not effective because our brain needs time to adapt to the exercise.
Hello everybody! Because of the coronavirus, our seminars are canceled for the time being, and so are our local classes. But as a Taoist, there come new opportunities with every situation.
Today I want to write about a topic that has kept me thinking for a very long time. Basically, when I was in China, I had to get high internet speeds and a reliable rendering computer for all the videos I was making in Wudangshan. The following post is interesting when you need the following points:
First, to have access to all of this, we need an internet connection with at least 15mb/s download. So there we should try to optimize your hardware to get the most out of the available internet connection.
For our case, a normal smartphone would work – but it is a little inconvenient to operate a workstation from a smartphone. I recommend at least a tablet or a low-tier laptop. Android, Apple, and Windows work. Since the hardware doesn’t matter for our situation, I recommend a device with functional IO connectivity and battery life.
Here I recommend some devices which fulfill these requirements in a very cost-efficient way:
You should get an AC1200 USB stick. In most cases, this is much faster than any WLAN module inside a laptop and also has a higher range. I recommend not to choose a too cheap one. The antenna should be powerful, and most of the higher-end antennas have beamforming abilities, meaning they can focus the WLAN signal to get the most out of it. Even with the most badass integrated WLAN card, you will have more success with a powerful USB WLAN antenna that can catch the signal properly and give you the speed we need. In most cases, this should get us a download speed of about 15MB/s, even in very bad environments.
Look up these links to get it:
Make sure your WLAN stick has at least an AC1200 module and a large antenna! This should give you at least a 30% performance boost to integrated WLAN modules to reach the required speed.
On the mountain, it can sometimes be a bit inconvenient, but from my experiences, I never needed to take this last resort. If the country is still in development, channel bonding can be a real life-changer.
I am not a partner, nor am I sponsored, but the only VPN that is supporting channel bonding is Speedify. I still recommend VPNexpress service over Speedify, but in terms of channel bonding, it does the job! Channel bonding means you basically use the integrated WLAN card plus the USB WLAN stick to connect to two different internet sources – this can be expensive. Still, it will negate the package loss issue, and you will be able to have decent internet speed for working or even streaming. The two internet connections will be combined, and you will receive a faster internet overall.
If you have the choice – one fast internet connection is still better – and VPNexpress will deliver the faster VPN speeds in China – I tested it and can only confirm this.
Ok now we talked about the requirements – we get internet speed of at least 15mb/s – so what are we talking about exactly? Here comes the real game-changer for your Wudang travels:
We are talking about Virtual desktop machines – they are expensive if you take a glance at what is available. Amazon will ask for this over 100$ a month, and you still would not have the power to render a video properly on it.
The only option that gives you a GTX 1080 and a high-end computer for only 15$/month is Shadow PC. They are market-leading in the US, UK, and EU.
Visit Shadow PC over this link for the friend bonus:
With Shadow PC, we can successfully render on Adobe Premiere or other software 4k videos with ease and fantastic speed. Shadow is a virtual machine, so it will also unblock all websites that are blocked in China, and you will not be affected by lousy internet speeds in China if you want to upload your videos or photos on Youtube or other platforms. Shadow has direct access to high internet speed lanes and provides at least 900mb/s down and 250mb/s upload.
Ok Shadow is excellent and fantastic, but now we come to our next problem:
Since most services are blocked in China, google drive without a VPN is not an option. I had google drive before, and it was not as fast as the option I am about to tell you. It is possible to have a streaming drive that will upload automatically to the cloud regardless of filesize. Onedrive, dropbox, and so on are not optimized for large file sizes, so they are not really an option, and amazon cloud is expensive. We want cloud storage that we can access without a VPN to have the best upload speeds from our local internet connection.
Pcloud is optimized for enormous file sizes – like video files and only offers a one time fee – no monthly costs. The best deal is the 2tb lifetime deal! Check it out here!
I tested Pcloud myself, and I am very happily using it for most of my work and travels! It works in China and has excellent upload speeds for what I need. I use the cloud storage as a bridge to send these files to my Shadow PC. Once the data arrived on the cloud storage, the Shadow PC can instantly access the data because of its high internet speeds, and we can use it for rendering in Adobe premiere.
Workflow: record your videos during the day and upload it overnight – the next day, you are ready to work. Uploading the files is then the shortest part. In China, uploading is usually the most prominent issue, and with Shadow PC, you entirely go around that issue and upload it to Youtube almost instantly.
Shadow PC requires us to have 15mb/s and for an enjoyable experience around 40ms Ping. Due to the significant distance from China to a Shadow datacenter, there can be a lot of latency and ping issues. This is also why it is not recommended to work over a virtual machine over long distances. If you don’t want to go around this issue – shadow can still work as an uploading machine for you, but working on it will be inconvenient.
How we fix this issue:
We can use the fastest VPN available to bridge the distance between China and Shadow PC. There is only one option available actually because we need the fastest VPN we gonna choose VPNexpress. Check it out over the link for a bonus!
Balancing latency vs ping:
With VPNexpress, you can choose a location between Shadow Datacenter and China. The closer the location is to Shadow, the better your ping will be but with higher latency. Choose a location closer to China to improve latency but worsen your Ping. If the internet speed is fast enough, it should be better to place the VPN location closer to Shadow. But if the internet is borderline, it would improve your experience by placing the VPN closer to China. In this situation, you should experiment a little since there are many factors involved, but this is the general rule, and you should get the idea.
If the internet is good enough, you can choose TCP connection to improve your package loss. If the internet is borderline, you should select UDP connection; this will make your package loss higher but will keep your internet connection faster overall. There is simply more to it then a fast internet speed. To work properly, you should take all these factors in mind, and you should aim to get a stable and reliable connection instead of the fastest one for connecting with Shadow.
I hope this post was informative for you, and maybe this can be your new travel layout. I dislike carrying lots of hardware with me, and in countries still in development, this can make you feel more secure. A smartphone can also be used with the exact same setup – like mentioned before, and if you need a bigger screen, you can simply connect your smartphone to a TV over an HDMI cable; most smartphones have this functionality and work this way. All you need is an HDMI dongle for your smartphone, and you can work over the TV connected with a mouse and keyboard if you like that. For me, a small laptop felt the most convenient way to make use of this setup, but this doesn’t mean it has to be for you.
Pcloud, VPNexpress, and ShadowPC are the market-leading solutions for this specific workflow, and I hope this will help you as much as it did for me! Note that even if your internet connection is unstable and tends to disconnect – your uploads will be secure on Shadow PC and continue to upload. The virtual desktop will work even when you are not logged in!
Thank you for taking your time and check out one of these links!
Best regards
Master Ziji
Your direct master or the direct teacher of the school is addressed 師父 (Shī Fù). The grandmaster, the teacher of your teacher, is addressed 師爺 (Shī Yé )
The more senior (not by actual age, but by the time of the study) students of the school, the males are addressed 師兄 (Shī Xiōng), the females are addressed 師姐 (Shī Jiě). The master is one generation above the students. The grandmaster is, therefore, two generations above the students. The order is defined by the teaching-learning relationship, not actual age. The more senior people can address the more junior by name. During class, the teacher must be addressed by the title, no one should address the teacher by name even if you are very acquainted in private. This is very different from western society. For Chinese people, no one ever addresses a teacher by name when talking to the teacher.
The conventional Chinese greeting is 拱手禮 (Gǒng Shǒu Lǐ)
Hands together in front of the chest, extend arms out. The right-hand holds fist, left hand holding the right hand.
Greeting grandmaster
師爺好 Shī Yé Hǎo
Greeting master
師父好 Shī Fù Hǎo
– When more than one teacher shows up together, greet the most senior one.
When a training session ends, the teacher declares 下課 (Xià Kè) (off class). The students respond with the salute hand gesture and speak in unity 師爺／師父 辛苦了（Shī Yé / Shī Fù Xīn Kǔ Le）(Shī Yé / Shī Fù , we appreciate the effort).
Interact with full attention
– No looking at the phone or having another conversation in parallel when talking to a teacher
– When giving or receiving objects, present both hands
Do not refuse in the learning process
– When asked to demonstrate something, do not be shy or afraid. To refuse to get involved in the learning is considered very rude, and by doing so, you are turning your back on the learning opportunity. Doing something wrong is alright, refusing to try is not.
In the headquarters of the Wudang Academy in Vienna, there is a new beginner course on the topic of Tai Chi. Tai Chi has a high learning curve and it is difficult for beginners to get into this topic.
Tai Chi changes us on a physical and neurological level.
Tai Chi gives us a new level of freedom. Tai Chi enables us to work on ourselves in a targeted manner, which is why corrections and the logical understanding of movement and coordination are so important.
This seminar is especially for beginners or advanced Tai Chi users who want to get an overview of the Wudang Tai Chi School for the first time.
Since it is very nice in June we would like to hold the seminar outdoors, in bad weather we would offer the seminar in our academy.
Wear comfortable clothes and shoes with a flat sole.
400 euros full price and 300 euros for members of the Wudang Academy. The discount does not count for course participants.
Please fill out the following form for your registration:
After our Qi Gong courses are so well attended. The Wudang Academy would like to offer a small intensive seminar.
Most have heard of Qi Gong somewhere or have been to a Qi Gong school. The knowledge of the Wudang Academy is unique in Europe and is one of the best Qi Gong schools internationally. Every year thousands fly to Wudangshan to learn Qi Gong properly.
With this offer, it is possible for the first time people to learn these Wudang arts in Vienna.
Qi Gong is effective – in the first hour. The body needs targeted exercises under the guidance of Master Ziji so that the body feeling can be learned anew and the energy for the day can be cultivated.
Master Ziji explains as usual on his YouTube channel of the Wudang Academy the connections between Yin and Yang – the coordination with strength and relaxation and how these exercises exactly work in connection with breathing.
Since the Qigong courses are very well attended and the time for each student is limited, this Qi Gong seminar is held in a small group of a maximum of 15 people!
Qi Gong is the absolute foundation before Tai Chi and Kung Fu!
In our academy at Siebenbrunnenfeldgasse 12/1, 1050 Vienna – there are hotels nearby – please check accommodations for yourself.
Clothing in which you can move around – comfortable training shoes with a flat sole.
Full price 350 euros and for members of the Wudang Academy: 250 euros – course participants are exempt from the discount.