Woody and Moms Jeanne’s Joint Birthday Celebration!

/ Black Bamboo Pavilion Taijiquan School/
Moms and son Woody...

Moms and son Woody...

This year’s annual summer vacation to visit his moms in her retreat to her Sierra Mountains cabin, where at 100 venerable years of experiencing the foibles of our human species, she sill lives self sufficiently independently alone, they retreated to the surf-filled beaches of the Mendocino beaches to celebrate their joint birthdays totaling 176 years!!

I met Moms Lomas at her summer visit to the east coast to visit her son at his home and instantly fell in love with her, and if I maybe  permitted a smug, self-serving conviction, that she did the same with ME!  (At least I can safely surmise by her saving and displaying all the Asian New Year’s lunar calendars I’ve brushed and sent to her as though they are some sort of Tang Dynasty art treasures — even I don’t do that!).

I really feel fortunate and proud to have a genuine centenarian as a loving friend!  I am looking forward to having a supercentenarian friend in the near future, “Long Live Moms Lomas!”  “Moms Lomas Wan Sui!”

Life begins, fr’sure at...  100!

Moms and son Woody...

       生日快樂!

Sheng Ri Kuaile!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

LaoMa talks to Dragon Yawn about his beginnings

/ Black Bamboo Pavilion Taijiquan School/

A few weeks ago we posted the first installment of Dragon Yawn with LaoMa. Today we are posting the second interview. This one is a bit longer, so we’ve included a quick list of topics covered and short cuts at the bottom of this blog post.

As many of you know, LaoMa is known to jump around in topics a little bit, so take the time to listen through all his stories in this episode! Please be forgiving on the start times for each of the listed topics - you may come into the conversation a little early or late to the topic but you’ll be in the general vicinity if you click on the link.

However, it is best listened too in the proper order here!!

Dragon Yawn talks to LaoMa

/ Black Bamboo Pavilion Taijiquan School/

Many of you will remember our close friends Tactical KungFu and MMA in Durham. We held classes there for a few years and made close friends we cherish!

Michael has started a great video series named Dragon Yawn in which he interviews local martial artists and talks on various other subject. And he’s snagged LaoMa into that web!

We’re excited to present the ‘teaser’ version of Dragon Yawn’s stories with LaoMa. This video is a little rough because it was meant to be a test run of the equipment. However, as his students will know, once LaoMa starts, he can talk for a while. It’s interesting stuff - as would be expected - so instead of letting the start of the story of his journey to China fall away, Michael has posted this rough cut of the interview.

We are looking forward to many more stories and laughs coming our way through this collaboration with TKFMMA and Dragon Yawn!

Feel free to use the “Comment” link below to leave thoughts or suggestions of favorite stories we can ask him to recount in future episodes.

Throw Back Thursday: Boxing!

/ Black Bamboo Pavilion/
taichi Boxing1.jpg
taiji Boxing.jpg

Teacher Laura Stone, Bloomington, Indiana Taiji School. Laura, now living and teaching in the Netherlands (www.thestudiotaichi.com, has been a long time senior student of William C.C. Chen of NYC. I was first introduced to Taijiquan by William in his NYC school in 1964 and studied with him during the 70s and early 80s. I would accompany Laura for weekly trips, staying with William's students and taking all the classes he offered, and would host him in workshops at my taiji school in Norfolk, Va. Laura would accompany and assist him in these workshops. I finished his short form and studied both push-hands and taiji boxing. Laura is very adept with the boxing techniques and here shows her pummeling me with a couple of them!

Throw Back Thursday: First photo

/ Black Bamboo Pavilion/
YeYe 1985-1. August, Year of the Ox.

YeYe 1985-1. August, Year of the Ox.

YeYe 1985-1. August, Year of the Ox. First photo I took of Ding Hongkui as I was being led by the Pavilion on my first trip to Snake Hill. I was so impressed with this man. Three days later he accepted me in his school as first foreign student in 60 years of teaching at Snake Hill Pavilion. Though known, respected and admired throughout China (as I was to discover over and over in my travels carrying his photos) for his Wushu expertise and overall reputation in Chinese Martial Arts, he was addressed simply as YeYe, or Grandfather. Ding YeYe's special knowledge concerned the Tang System and in this photo he was teaching Bagua Jian, the straight sword form of this system. Although I initially thought I would be studying taijiquan only, when I arrived for my first class (at 5:00 a.m.) I joined this class and began studying this waigong sword form. It was the first of some 30 forms I learned during this sojourn.