STANDING IN THE VOID =prologue-

From all of the Ba Gua Zhang practices standing is the one that I enjoy the most.My first introduction to it was around 2000 when I started practicing Chen style Tai chi chuan and Qigong with Nancy Lee.My real interest was on Qigong and the class consisted mostly of standing.We would do some warm up exercises and then it will be standing all the way.It was excruxiatingly painfull to say the least!.But as the weeks went by I got more used to it,I learned to relax.There were no directions to follow other than to stand with feet parallel,knees unlocked.But ,as I said before.I started enjoying it.There was some sense of quiet and of a space different to everyday time and my energy levels were up the roof during the following days of the week.Although I did not continue studying with Mrs Lee standing became somehow a part of my daily training at that time.
A few years after that it was featured again in the Qigong practice with Master Wu Weizhao, a lovely Chinese gentleman with little command of English but great spirit.Standing was a prominen part of his approach to health improvement.Again few directions other than adopting a fairly wider stance and a new word:song.It was like meeting an old friend I had not seen for a long time.Nothing had changed-I was still enjoying it but somehow I was not getting what I tought I should get which was that feeling of Qi Master Wu was eager to get me to experience and cultivate.He was a great man from whom I learned a lot although I did not realized it at the time.After Master Wu's passing away I continued my practice but I knew that something was missing.
I continued my search and this time it was Wu style Tai chi chuan.Again standing was a part of the practice although not as prominent as in the other ones.Nevertheless I still was not happy .I was deeply into studying the I Ching and although many claimed a link between Tai chi chuan,Qigong and the I Ching,I personally could not find it.After two yearsI decided to go back to my first "love":Taoist Tai chi chuan which featured almost no standing at all as a separate practice...Taoist tai chi chuan was my introduction to Eastern Martial Arts which I was not interested at all and really turned me into a die hard tai chi chuan fanatic.But this time around the thrill was gone as B.B.King said.What was I to do?Let's try LOK up Ba Fa....
One day I learned how to do a Google search and tryed Bagua.At that time I was reading Kumar Frantzis'books where standing was featured prominently and was surprised to see there was a class here in Toronto!!I tried it and it was love at first sight,,,Standing was a feature of the practice but also the connection to the I Ching was there.The approach was very different here.Nothing was taken for granted,every single detail was examined and incorporated into the practice.What I mean by that was that there was more attention to detail-posture, alignments, breathing, imagery,purpose of and in the practise.song,balance....I finally found my way home...