Shifu started a group Taiji 13 class today; we recorded the first of it on video, the second Taiji class was in the afternoon. During our practice, we had live Guqin music from Chen Shiyus Guqin teacher and Chen Shiyu himself. Funny fact: I caught Shifu explaining a Taiji movement to a student by pointing in his book at a picture of himself.

We had a beautiful day at school with lot’s of practice, right now we are halfway through with our forms. We also filmed Long Hua Quan from Master Chen Shiyu in the morning, and in the evening we recorded a Gongfu Cha Ceremony with English translation from our Gongfu brother Yuan Kai.

Master Chen Shiyu explained today the Wuji and Yin Yang relation and the essence of Wudang Taiji. We documented it on video, but we still lack a proper translator. Afterward, we went to town and had some thing to do at the tailor. We ordered swords at the swordsmith but still don’t know the prices; we will properly learn more in the following week. We also made a very nice video of Chen Shiyu performing the oldest Wudang form: Tai He Quan.

Today we learned more movements; some still felt a little tired since the weather became very hot again. Our older Gongfu brothers are like a family and gave us very detailed instructions. I felt that the coach for Baguazhang has a different style with his movements and so we learned that he is a student from Grandmaster Zhong Yunlong. He promised to give us a Xuan Wu Quan performance before we travel back home.

Today is a free day, means no Gongfu training. Some went up to the mountains while some went to town. Our group is still not accustomed to the heat, and some underestimated the long term effects. That is why this day is lacking pictures. But we had a beautiful day still, and Chen Shiyu played the flute (Xiao) for us. Afterward, we had to sing our Austrian folk songs for Chen Shiyu in return.

Today we started our training, as some of us want to develop in a particular direction we all had different coaches. Before training we had a morning ceremony, reading the Daodejing.

Chen Shiyu showed us a section of the Taiji 13 form during the training session. Our training consisted only of required basic movements; later our group will learn Baguazhang, Xingyiquan, Taiji13, and Xuanmenjian. After training, we went to town and ordered uniforms at our tailor.

The Beginning

We started our journey at Vienna airport, from there we were flying to Dubai and had to wait 4 hours to get our next flight to Beijing. Both flights were tiring due to the lack of sleep but the time went over really fast.

As we arrived at 11 pm in Beijing, we slept 3 hours in the Three Legged Frog Hostel, from there we transferred to the next train straight to Wudangshan. As all were tired, we finally got some sleep on the train which took 22 hours to arrive at Wudangshan.

After a traditional Chinese breakfast in town, we went up the mountains over a secret passage which allowed us to bypass the entry fee through the Wudang gate. From there we finally arrived in Huilongguan, and Chen Shiyu welcomed us with a tea ceremony.

Here some pictures from today:

Tomorrow we start our journey to Wudangshan, and we decided to start a Journi blog.

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More about our journey soon under the tag #wudang travel group 2017