The Way through Baguazhang - 八卦掌道

☳/☱ Hot off the press: Dudley drinks tea ダッドリー喝茶 and bashes heads! ☵/☷ Tea 茶 is a man's drink. And that is why British Pro-boxer Dudley drinks it. ☶/☲ Even though Dudley is a fictional character from Capcom's Streetfighter universe, I challenge any man to go twelve rounds with him in the ring. Are there any takers, or do you know of any other manly men out there who drink tea 喝茶?...

☰ I've been doing Baguazhang 八卦掌 martial arts full-time for more than sixteen years. And that for me has literally meant doing it everyday whatever the weather conditions or locations. ☳ And while I am this and that now, I have reached a place where it's getting harder and harder to express or explain the journey I am on, because the Tao 道 can be truly a weird place. ☵ Instead, those experi...

☰ Many years ago during a particularly stressful time in my business I felt the need to get away from stresses of big city living and took a three day weekend down to Wollongong - A small seaside city about 1 to 2 hours south of Sydney along the coast. And I stayed at the Novotel hotel. ☳ Since that time, I have gone back at least two times. And both those times were spent at the Novotel. The ho...

☳/☱ Somebody once asked me if there is a way to learn an activity and get good at it without using a teacher (of sorts), books, school (of sorts) or any audio-visual aids? ☵/☴ As a martial artist I have been pondering on this as part of my Baguazhang 八卦掌 practice because for me, martial arts is my way of life. ☶/☶ As a tea 茶 trader I have also been wondering about it, because, let's face...

With the ascent of coffee, for a lot of people, tea 茶 was relegated to a quiet drink in the afternoon shared with nobody. Or tea 茶 drunk quietly at home in the evening; in private. In those quiet moments alone, a lot of people are actually in their way practicing Tea Time equals Me Time, even if they didn't realise it. It is in these private moments that some of our daily pressure can come off a...

☰ People have been drinking tea 茶 for about 3000 years. And in that time for those in the tea business it have been profitable. ☷ The only downsides were mostly to do with the weather and pests, if you were a farmer. And then maybe robbers or the government. ☳ These days the government tends to support us. Robbers find no value in tea 茶, and ripping people off just isn't worth it commercially...

☰ Matcha 抹茶 drunk au naturel with a straw and iced.  A Russian Spy in Ginza, matcha 抹茶 with vodka 伏特加酒. Great drinks to have while out partying late on a Friday night with friends. Life can sometimes be totally sweet. ☷ On the weekend it is about recovering from the hangover, taking it easy and/or making amends with the Big Boss upstairs about the sinning. All-in-all, weekends can be jus...

☳/☴ Tea time equals Me Time. By now everybody that reads my posts knows this. Tea time equals Me time is the simple art of taking time out from whatever is the issue at hand and using tea 茶 to find the still centre that is our power-base. Very useful when we can't meditate or do our martial arts. ☵/☲ But is it possible to do Tea time equals Me time and make money at the same time? ☶/☱ To fi...

☰ Today I had a lesson in Mindfulness 正念: The practice of being aware of your body, mind and feelings in the present moment and/or thought to create a feeling of calm. ☱ It came like a gentle wave that almost went past me without me ever knowing it was there. The proverbial feather from Heaven that did not come from meditating, martial arts or any of the typical mediums people use. ☲ I was at...

☰/☳/☵ Today I was asked if tea 茶 (Tea Time equals Me Time) can help during painfully stressful difficult moments at work? ☳/☵/☰ And the answer was yes. But saying yes is hard for me because I know what is coming next: The follow up question of How so? ☵/☶/☶ Truth be told, while tea 茶 can help a person, the tea industry itself is a difficult one that lacks the pizzazz of coffee, the plea...

☰ Who remembers Bryan Adam's song "Summer of '69" from 1984? ☳ Remember it now and savour that cup tea 茶. It's all good! ☵ Those who can, will remember the words. Some say it was about the music. Others say it was about the sex. For me it was about a bunch of friends getting together and starting a band. And then disbanding for reasons outside of their control even though they promised they wo...

☰ The Way of Tea 茶道 can lead a person to interesting places. Especially if that path is about reaching out to others for a nice cuppa and maybe a good game Go (Weiqi/Baduk) 圍棋. ☳ Such a time and place of bonding happened recently with my oldest daughter. ☵ What I like about the game of Go 碁, is that it can suck players into a world of infinite possibilities at the beginning and lead them t...

☰/☵ Once upon a time in a land far far away called Japan 日本國 during the days of the Samurai 侍, there lived a man named Genmai 玄米. ☷/☰ In those days, Japan 日本國 was divided into feudal estates ruled by powerful lords called Daimyo 大名 (矦). These Daimyo lived by the sword 劍 because in those days it was a very violent country, always at war 戰. ☵/☶ And Genmai 玄米 was a lowly servant...

☴ I once visited in Hong Kong 香港 a tea master named Master Chan 陳師傅. ☲ To learn the Way of Tea 茶道 from him was a very humbling experience. Lots of tea and lots knowledge from teacher to student. ☱ Amongst all the cups of tea, he told me a story of how from time to time, people from around Asia would come to him in search of the oldest and rarest of tea. To which he had great access to....

☰/☷ Let's face it: Too much coffee can be bad for you. Coming from a coffee drinking family, I had to find it out the bad way. Not from others but from my own caring body... When enough was enough, it said enough was enough. ☳/☰ And so to make a long story short, after eight years of doing Baguazhang 八卦掌 I learnt the hard way, that for me at least, Baguazhang 八卦掌 and coffee were not comp...

☴ Recently, during a bit of Tea Time equals Me Time, I hit upon a bit of good fortune... To find it, it only took about four (4) months of toil. And then within a couple of hours, poof! It was half gone. ☲ So there I am, staring at the Matcha Mille Crepe Cake. And noticing it starting to tilt slowly over because the real cream used between the layers was starting to melt in the warm weather. Hen...

In the movie Red Cliff 赤壁, there is a scene where warlord Cao Cao 曹操 is served tea 茶 on the eve of the battle for which the movie is named after. I love the scene, after all I am a tea drinker. It just so happened during that scene that I received a mobile text message from a beginner martial artist, who wanted to know why we do katas and forms 形. Why indeed - why do we do them? Those who ar...

☵ The sword most powerful is the sword least used. ☰ "To win without fighting is supreme victory." As loosely quoted from Suntzu's book The Art of War 孫子兵法. ☶ It seems for a lot of us, during our daily grind, we are constantly at war. Who and what the enemy is, is often poorly defined. And there never seems an end to it. So we get up in the morning, go into battle and then come home in the...

Once upon a time there was an elephant that wanted to be a lion-turtle. Now every animal had heard of lion-turtles and some even looked up to them as wise, noble and holy, but the problem was that no animals had seen, heard or met a lion-turtle. The elephant had the added problem of being so small as far as elephants go, that the other elephants sometimes dismissed him for being a guinea pig. Whic...

☴/☳ The Way of Tea and Martial Arts is sometimes like chasing a pretty goal up the escalator of success; Always just out of reach but close enough for us to keep going. Some take it slow and others race to where they need to be to win. Neither way is good or bad. ☲/☵ I know that for some people, coffee is their drug of choice. And I get it because I too, came from a coffee drinking background....

☴ Tea Time equals Me Time. This morning I forgot that. Not exactly Qigong 氣功. ☲ All I wanted to do for a Monday morning was to find out what's been happening in the world. And Boom! My world turned dark. ☱ At that moment, in front of the screen, my world was definitely not Tea Time equals Me Time. It was something else. What happened? ☷ I went outside, did some of my Baguazhang 八卦掌 forms...

☴ We, who live in the modern world, live in a hectic busy life of constant doing, doing and more doing. To the extent where we may have forgotten why we are doing what we are doing. And this can be draining on our chi 氣 reserves. ☲ Here I use the phrase 'Chi Reserves' because for ninety percent of the people on this earth, that is what they rely upon to live. Apart from the other immediate nece...

☰ Nigori sake drinks tea 濁り酒喝茶 literally... And then... Tea Time equals Me Time became Tea Time equals Matcha Sake 抹茶酒 Time. ☷ Sometimes in life, as we look to ways to make our lives easier, a person like myself may look towards the 'old' ways and embrace things like Wabisabi 侘寂 or Chanoyu 茶の湯. Things that have helped me to find my sanity in a world that tries its best to be not so...

☰/☳ Tea Time equals Me Time. For me, whether it be through Baguazhang 八卦掌 and/or Tea 茶, this concept pervades everything I do now. ☳/☵ Today, just happens to be one of those days in which I am not really here. Physically I am. Materially and energetically also. But spiritually I have succeeded in ascending my Baguazhang Mountain 八卦掌山 for the fourth time in my life. ☵/☶ Every time I a...

☰ Recently while enjoying Nigori-style saki 濁り酒 and oolong tea 烏龍茶 overlooking a beautiful garden, I found myself ruminating about what Baguazhang 八卦掌 means to me. ☵ And then as if a little nudge from heaven decided to join in, a dear close friend of mine asked me why I like to mix martial arts with tea 茶? ☳ Shouldn't I just play it straight and stick to the path laid out by the maste...