Second Semester Underway

9 January 2009

After a restful holiday break at home with family and friends, Dr. Yang and the YMAA Retreat Center disciples are ready to get back to work. The second semester will run from January until July 2009, when the Summer Seminars series will then begin. The disciples will continue the work and training that they started in 2008, starting with a focus on refining their training foundation. The semester will start off with some more body conditioning before sequences and forms are trained. With a strong foundation both physically and mentally, the disciples will be in a prime shape for beginning the forms training, as listed in the training curriculum.

For the second semester, the daily schedule will continue to be:

• 6:00am - 7:00am, Meditation and Embryonic Breathing (Jingzuo, Taixi)
• 7:00am - 8:00am, Qigong Basic Training
• 8:00am - 9:00am, Breakfast
• 9:00am - 11:00am, Taijiquan and Martial Applications
• 11:00am - 12:00pm, Chinese Language
• 12:00pm - 2:30pm, Lunch and Rest
• 2:30pm - 4:10pm, Mountain Running
• 4:10pm - 7:00pm, Miscellaneous Body Conditioning, including running and jumping with weights, climbing ropes, and Taiji Ball Qigong to develop the spine and torso.

The jumping training currently includes jumping over sticks (Tiao Gan) and jumping over short walls (Tiao Qiang). To improve wrist, tendon, arm, and grabbing strength, which are all particularly useful for Chin Na, the students practice wrist conditioning with staffs and weights. Balancing on bricks in Horse Stance helps to improve the students rooting and overall feeling of balance. Finally, stationary reaction training, with basic blocks and punches, are being heavily emphasized to build hand-eye coordination, sensitivity to movements, proper execution of the major blocking techniques, and most importantly, speed.

Additionally, each student will now be required to write an article regarding a specific aspect of their training during each semester. Once edited, revised and finished, these will be published. Several of the students are also writing blogs. Aside from the training, the disciples have been working hard to study video editing and DVD authoring so that they may document their training in the near future. Craig Atkinson and Rii Kanzaki frequent the Retreat Center often to teach the students about media production.

The full training curriculum can be viewed here. The disicples will continue their training independently when Dr. Yang visits Boston to teach winter seminars during the month of February. While the students maintain a strict training schedule, there will eventually be some flexibility to adjust the training curriculum as Dr. Yang sees fit. The training schedule may change every 3 to 6 months depending on the students' progress.

A recent interview with Dr. Yang about the Retreat Center has been published online. You may read the article here.