An Open To Everyone Push Hands Group

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Casey

This is just a quick announcement. I’m starting a weekly push hands group open to everyone of any skill level from any school or martial arts background. The goal is to get a day once a week where I can take my instructor’s hat off and just push and get pushed (although I’ll gladly teach a newbie the basics).

I also want to get a list of all of the different push hands groups that meet each month so I can post them to the website (and attend! :D ) I know the T’ai Chi Ch’uan Center of Milwaukee does their push hands sessoins from 7-9PM on Sundays, so I might start an hour earlier in the future to accommodate anyone from that crew that’d like to stop by.

Here are the details:
Sundays, 6-8PM (or so) at Back Bay Park
2100 N. Terrace Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
Call me with questions 414-455-0683


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Posted in Milwaukee, Push Hands | Leave a comment

New Dates, Times And Material from Patrick Kelly

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Casey

Last weekend I was in England participating in a tai chi seminar with Patrick Kelly. If you don’t know who Patrick Kelly is you can find out more about him on his website. ;) But I’ll tell you who he is to me.

One of my first tai chi teachers (Master Eddie) told me about Patrick Kelly over 10 years ago and I’ve been following the content he puts online ever since. What I love about how and what he writes is that it’s straight forward and focuses on the more spiritual aspects of not just tai chi, but life. He also trained under the same teacher as Master Wang, so he’s part of the same lineage.

I told my senior student about Patrick Kelly and he was also really drawn to him, except this time around there was YouTube, student websites and books to purchase (my student purchased them all!) Between reading the books, my own and my students excitement about Patrick a trip to see him was eminent and it finally happened last week.

New Dates And Times

Starting this week you’ll have 3 opportunities to train.

Tuesday: 7:30-9:00 (Regular Class)
Thursday: 7:30-9:00 (Regular Class)
Sunday: 6:00-8:00 (Open Push Hands at Lake Front Bistro)

Tuesdays and Thursdays will be class as usual and Sunday will be a meetup open to anyone that would like to try and train push hands. I won’t be formally teaching the Sunday meetup, but I’ll be happy to answer any and all questions.

Everything is still being done on a donation basis.

New Material From Patrick Kelly

I wanted to see Patrick Kelly for 2 reasons. The first was to get more things for myself to work on. The second was to improve my teaching by getting clarification on the 5 loosing exercises and learn the 8 fixed pattern push hands exercises. I got all of that and so much more. :)

Now I’m going to be teaching all 5 loosing exercises (as taught by Patrick Kelly), the 8 fixed pattern exercises, the tai chi form, search center (as taught my Master Wang) and we’ll spend time on freestyle pushing… That’s a ton of stuff! I’m going to do my best to get this all organized in a fashion that is efficient and fun. The first step was adding the two extra days for class each week. Next I’m going to try to give everyone a heads up about what will be taught each week with a blog post.

That’s all for now and I’ll see you guys in class!

Posted in Class Update, Tai Chi | 3 Comments

Milwaukee’s 2011 World Tai Chi Day

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Casey

World Tai Chi Day 2011

Click Photo To Enlarge


How Much: FREE!
When: 10AM-12PM, April 30th
Where: UW-Milwaukee Student Union (West Ballroom) 2200 E. Kenwook Blvd. (link to Google Maps)

Our school was invited to participate Milwaukee’s World Tai Chi Day this year. Me and my most senior student/co-instructor Shane are going to demonstrate competition push hands. Stop by to check out all of the forms or to catch me before or after the event to do a little pushing. :)

What’s World Tai Chi Day?

It’s a day to promote and share the awesomeness of tai chi! It happens on the last Saturday of April and events take place all over the world. You can read more about it on the World Tai Chi Day website or it’s Wikipedia page.

Who Else Is Participating?

All of the information in on the flier, but clickable links are always easier. :)

Tim Duehring/Chen Style Taijiquan

Alice Kuramoto/Sun Style Tai Chi
www.taichiworks.me

Angela Laughingheart/
Interactive Qigong Tutorial/Demo
www.ymaawisconsin.com

Casey Payne (that’s me ;) )/Yang Style Pushing Hands Demo

Robert Thoreau/Yang Style Tai Chi Ch’uan

Eric Wentorf/Chen Style Old Frame
www.linkedin.com/in/ericwentorf

Posted in Milwaukee, Push Hands | 1 Comment

Chinese Wrestling (Shuaijiao) Competition Videos

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Casey

I’ve been interested in Chinese Wrestling for a long time and in January I finally got a chance to not just watch but participate as well. I didn’t have any experience with Chinese Wrestling before these matches, but I have entered a lot of BJJ competitions so I wasn’t a total newbie. One thing I noticed right away is that I didn’t know any useful throws! All of the take downs I used in BJJ were ones where I ended up on the mat as well. The goal in Chinese Wrestling is to take down your opponent and be on your feet when you’re done. The other thing I noticed was Chinese Wrestling was similar to moving step push hands, except you can grab the Gi (which, at the same time, makes it completely different.)

Next Level Wresting Competition

I’ll talk about it more in future posts, but I’m really looking forward to creating a hybrid wrestling system that would allow practitioners of BJJ, Judo, Chinese Wrestling, Push Hands, Akido, etc. to come together and compete. Like a wrestling version of MMA.

I also want to give a quick shout out to the rum soaked fist and dojorat. It’s cool when someone thinks what your doing is cool enough to tell other people about. :)

Anyhow, on to the videos!


Continue reading →

Posted in Tournaments | 1 Comment

Classes Are Free All Month

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Casey

This month is suppose to be “Free February.” I did a terrible job of telling anyone about it. At least you’ll know early for next year. ;) Class is every Tuesday and Thursday so there are still four more classes left this month. If you don’t make it down this month the first class is always free. Plus you can push with me during your first class if you want to. :D

Up next: Full clips from the push hands tournament.

Posted in Fixed Step, Push Hands, Tai Chi, Tournaments | 2 Comments

Teaching To Learn. Learning To Teach

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Casey

The idea for this post has been sitting in the back of my mind for a couple weeks. The original idea was about how I only wanted to learn how to teach tai chi in order to continue learning.

It’s a little different now.

Teaching To Learn

That statement could be read two ways:

  1. Teaching people so I can continue to learn.
  2. Teaching people how to learn.

I was originally only focused on Continue reading →

Posted in Teaching | 4 Comments

Afternoon Classes Start Today @Bucketworks

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Casey

Things have been moving faster than I expected with this teaching tai chi stuff. I guess you could say Black Horse Tai Chi is “partnering” with Bucketworks to provide afternoon classes during the week.

The times aren’t set yet, but this week class will be:

  • Today (Monday) starting at 4PM
  • Wednesday starting at 4PM

If you’re a bucketworks member, feel free to pop in and check it out.

How does 4PM work for you? Would earlier be better? Later? Let me know! :) If you have any questions just give me a call (414-455-0683.)


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Posted in Class Update | Tagged | Leave a comment

Kung Fu Championship in San Diego – Tournament Time!

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Casey

There are some other things I want to talk about, but I figured I should get this out there sooner. Me and some students are going to attend and compete in next month’s Kung Fu Championship in San Diego (January 21-23).

Interested in coming along? :D

There are 3 styles of push hands to participate in: Fixed Step, Restricted Step and Moving Step. Besides the push hands competition, there will be sparring, form competition, weapons and a bunch of other stuff (check out the website for all of the details).

Getting Ready For Competition

I should probably be training like Rocky right now or something but… I’m not. It’s tai chi! I should be able to overcome the hard with softness right? ;) As far as I know, the best thing for me to do is push as often as I can with as many different people as possible. That would mean making that trip to Madison and pushing with the group there like Brain suggested in the comments of the last post or being a regular at Jim’s (secret?) push hands class. :)

If anyone in the SE Wisconsin area reads this and would like to help me get ready by practicing at closer to competition intensity let me know! I’d be happy to get thrown or throw you around. :D

Posted in Tournaments | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Secret To Mastering Tai Chi Is…

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Casey

Top Secret!
Whether it’s from watching videos online or experiences you’ve had with different teachers or masters of tai chi, one question that comes up AT LEAST once is: “What’s the secret?” Even though I’m young, I’ve had the secret passed down to me from my teacher. It’s simple and you can start applying it today! Before I tell you what the secret is, I’ll tell you what it is not.

What The Secret Is Not

First off, the secret… is not a secret. There are no secrets! There are people that will disagree with me and talk about some secret qigong/neigong exercises, or talk about “secret” insights into the form or push hands techniques. While I won’t disagree with the idea of there being “inner circle” exercises and discussions, all the information one needs to gain the health benefits and push hands expertise is in plane sight (now more than ever with the internet). Don’t believe me? Here’s a quote from Patrick Kelly’s website (interestingly hidden as white text near the bottom of the page):

There are no secrets in Taiji – just things much deeper than people can see.

Sifu William C. Phillips had this to say in an article he wrote on secrets (off-topic comment: If you follow the Sifu William link there’s an EPIC martial arts highlight reel with equally epic music! lol):

Cheng Man-Ch’ing was known for saying, “There are no secrets,” and he meant it quite sincerely. There are no hidden skills.

See! There are no secrets!

And even though I already mentioned it above I want to mention it again, there aren’t any techniques, exercises, meditations or anything else that will “unlock” your hidden tai chi power except for what I’m about to share with you… Are you ready?

And The Secret Is…

I hope this doesn’t disappoint you. The one and only secret to tai chi is *drum roll*

Question Marks Continue reading →

Posted in Tai Chi | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Uniting The Tai Chi Schools In Milwaukee

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Casey

I want to get a blog post out once a week or so and I thought to myself “What can I write about today?” Since I want to increase my “Google page rank” for “Tai Chi Schools In Milwaukee” I thought writing a blog post about it would help. :D What exactly could I write about the Tai Chi Schools In Milwaukee? You already ready the title… uniting them! Before I get on the subject of uniting the various tai chi and martial arts schools, I’m going to post the links to the schools I found around the web and whatever I know about them.

Tai Chi Schools In Milwaukee

The T’ai Chi Ch’uan Center of Milwaukee – I actually took classes here for 3 months with my mom when I was 10 or 11. Classes are run by Mike Milewski, a cool dude that’s been doing tai chi for longer than I’ve been on this earth. :)

Everyday T’ai Chi Ch’uan – The instructor here is Jim Bayer, another really cool dude and a student of Mike’s. I was introduced to Jim through Eddie K. because of our mutual interest in push hands.

Chinese Kung Fu Center – I have a lot of history at this school. This was the first martial arts school I attended as a young adult. The school is a totally different place now from what it was when I attended. The Chinese Kung Fu Center was started by Grandmaster Yin and taken over by his students in 1988 after he passed away. When I started there were several of Master Yin’s senior students teaching, now the school is run by Jeff Nickel.

I don’t know much or anything about the following schools, but perhaps I will in the near future:

I’m certain I’m missing a lot of schools and meetups focused on tai chi, but that’s what I was able to draw quickly from the web. Besides, I’ll have a links page up soon listing all the schools in Milwaukee I can find (on or offline).

Uniting The Schools

I’ll be totally up front about why I’m interested in uniting the various schools. To have more people to practice push hands with! :D It would be really cool if once a month or every few months there was a get-together where all the schools were invited and we practiced tai chi and shared ideas.

What I love about push hands is that even though there are many “competing” styles of tai chi, push hands is always the same. It’s just two people working together to test each other’s balance, sensitivity, relaxation, etc.

I’m just planting a seed of an idea for myself to expand later… :D

Posted in Milwaukee, Tai Chi | 6 Comments