09/09/2021
Ben Lo workshops were just the same. 20 minutes in each posture as he walked around and corrected was standard. 🙏
"Many people talk about standing postures and ask me if Professor taught us standing postures and I have to say no, not in my experience...but...without specifically teaching standing postures, Professor would nearly kill us with his technique of correcting a large class. There were sometimes up to one hundred people in each of his classes at the Shr Jung School, and he corrected slowly, one person at a time. By the time he was finished correcting, you had stood in a posture for an extremely long time, to the point of exhaustion. It was up to you how deep you stood, and many a stance got deeper just before the Professor arrived at someone’s spot to correct them. I always took a deep stance, but watched out for him whenever I hit my fatigue level. If he had his back turned, I'll admit that I stood up for a few seconds and relieved my legs from the pressure. However when I did this, Professor seemed to know, almost psychically, and would turn and look as I was dropping back down in the posture. Perhaps he was amused by the situation, and he never reprimanded us. My legs were strong when I began to study t’ai chi. When I arrived at the Shr Jung for advanced form correction class, I climbed the four or five flights effortlessly (we were on the top floor of 87 Bowery). Yet, after a class with the Professor I had to hold the banister going down the stairs, my legs were so fatigued and rubbery. I just about fell down those stairs." - Sifu Bill Phillips, Excerpt from In The Presence Of Cheng Man Ching: My Life And Lessons With The Master Of Five Excellences. Pre-order In The Presence Of Cheng Man Ching on Amazon (also available Amazon UK, Japan, Europe) or from your local bookseller:
https://www.amazon.com/Presence-Cheng-Man-Ching-Lessons-Excellences/dp/0648283127
Photo: Professor Cheng Man Ching correcting the form class at the Shr Jung School. The author, William C Phillips is to the far right in glasses, beneath the calligraphy. See if you can spot Professor Cheng.
"William C. Phillips, a devoted student and master teacher with over fifty years experience, takes us on a journey into his lifetime in the martial arts and in particular, his lessons and experiences with the Master Of Five Excellences, the incomparable Cheng Man-Ch'ing, the master who brought tai chi to the West in the 1960s."
