Saskatoon Nine Dragon Baguazhang
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Albert Community Centre
610 Clarence Ave S.
Saskatoon, SK
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Reflections in A Dragons Eye
March 15, 2007
Reflections in a Dragons Eye
“Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty four”. - Beatles 64
As I reflect back on being on this planet for 64 years there are many things for which I am thankful. I am thankful for my departed parents who supported me in my endeavors no matter how strange they may have seemed to simple East Texas folk. I miss them both terribly.
I am especially grateful for my faithful and patient wife, Vivian for putting up with me for all these years and for my loving and beautiful grown daughters and their children.
I owe a great dept to my one and only Gong Fu Teacher Li, Long-dao for his often severe but always patient teaching and to Master Jou, Tsung-Hwa who, although not my internal martial arts teacher encouraged me to continue teaching these arts and provided me with his Tai Chi Farm to begin our branch school project. Without the guidance and council of these two men I could not have attained even the most minimal of skills in the internal health and martial arts of China.
It is also dedicated to all the students who have helped serve as a laboratory for testing these methods over the last twenty-eight years.
I am grateful for the wisdom of Lama Trangu-Rinpoche for his guidance in Tibetan meditation and for Dr. Sun, Lung-Pao of Hong Kong for his instruction in Chinese massage and acupressure, knowledge which eventually became the subject of my doctoral thesis in Chinese healing arts.
I am thankful for having three Gong Fu sons, Robert Castaldo, Andrew Garza and Alan Marshall who have all three trained hard for well over 20 years in the Li family arts and who now have become Shifu’s.
I am especially happy that people like Mike Leach have served so selflessly to help run our rather overwhelming office here at the Gompa. Mike helps manage not only the local school but also the branch schools and the American Rangers Police Training business. I could not do it without his help.
I am also thankful for my study group leaders who work to bring our arts to people around the world and who sacrifice much of their time to study and train in this art.
I am humbled by the well over 3,000 students who have trained in the Li family systems since I started teaching well over 30+ years ago and to Inside Kung Fu Magazine for publishing so many of our articles on the Li family methods over the years.
I am grateful to Sgt, Rick Krausman who has helped our dream of saving lives in Law Enforcement through our PKC programs for military and law enforcement with out American Rangers Martial Law Enforcement Institute courses. We now influence over 30,000 officers many of whom have been saved by these methods which are all based on the Li family arts. Daoqiquan is truly an ancient art for modern times!
I have had some level of success over the years in teaching our arts. We have operated the oldest Gong Fu School in Texas for well over 30+ years. As publisher of Internal Arts Magazine we brought some sanity to the pseudo-science that permeates the world if Chinese and Tibetan arts of healing and martial skills by publishing scientific research and alternative explanations of what Qi and internal energy really is. Our success has generated thousands of fans and  hundreds of detractors and even a few enemies. We have received awards and death threats alike during our run. The accolades are inspiring and those who do their best to discredit our work only serve to strengthen my resolve to forge ahead at introducing as many people possible to the Li family arts. I thank our fans and enemies for helping keep me on track over the years.
About Daoqiquan
For those of you who are new to our family here is a capsule introduction to what these arts are all about. As a young boy growing up in East Texas I was fortunate to have learned a complete system of Chinese martial arts, from Mr. Frank Li (Li, Long-dao) of Sichuan Province, who after moving to Texas lived in my hometown. He was the last living master of the Daoqiquan internal family system and, like his father he, Master Li, Zhang-Lai was a professional (Baobiao) bodyguard. Daoqiquan was the last name given to their family art possibly in the 1900’s. Before this the art had numerous other names. Dao Qi Quan literally translates as, Way of unseen energy boxing.
Mr. Li was also known to be a barefoot doctor of traditional Chinese healing and a scholar of the Yijing. So our training also included philosophical studies of the Daoist classics, meditation concepts, massage, herbs, acupressure and other healing modalities to supplement the martial training. As bodyguards the Li family was only interested in what was practical. They rejected much of the so-called magical skills often associated with "quack" boxers of this period as being impractical. Methods that would ensure strength, health, longevity, tactical skill in battle and fighting prowess were most important. I attribute this pragmatic attitude to my constant desire to find the truth of these arts and to discard the mystical and pseudo-scientific concepts embraced by so many in today’s Chinese martial arts world.
Their attitude of ferreting out what worked from what was impractical made for an art that would undergo continuous change and distillation, weeding out the esoteric and extracting the practical. Li, Long-dao said, “If the methods work and will produce the promised results in the student that is all that truly matters and I will use it!” After much research I feel that over the years the Li family adapted many concepts into their Daoqiquan practice. Each reigning master would go out, learn some style or method, and bring back certain principles that were functional, modify it to fit his own personal ideas and introduce it to the system. In time they developed their own unique take on Taijiquan based on Chen and Yang style intermingled with their original method of the five circles. Xingyiquan was introduced by master Li, Zhang - Fu 1739 – 1829 who was partial to the five element moves and rejected the 12 animal concepts, later Master Li, Zhang - Lai 1850 – 1946 founded his own version of Xingyiquan within the family derived from Zhang-Fu’s method and his own study of standing meditation which he called Natural Style Mind Shape Boxing. Master Zhang-Lai, my teachers’ father, also learned a style of Baguazhang; he claimed it was from his cousin famous Daoist master Li, Ching-Yuen although there is no historical evidence to support this claim. This method was called Nine Dragon Eight Diagram Palm / Jiulong Baguazhang. These internal martial methods combined with Chinese and Tibetan Yoga were developed into the family style of the Li clan. Their integrated system Daoqiquan continues to evolve over time and while rich in both ancient and modern knowledge there is still a continuing adherence to traditional methods and moral values to be found in the system and its instructors.
Master Jou, Tsung-Hwa (1917-1998)
The late master Jou, Tsung-Hwa became a very close friend and advisor to me over the years. He was the owner of the Tai Chi Farm in Warwick New York. We had met at Pat Rice’s A Taste of China some years before and he had been fascinated with the Li family version of Baguazhang. As a recognized scholar of the Yijing (book of changes) Master Jou was very interested in the way the Li family had connected their Baguazhang to the Yijing concepts through mental visualizations. I had shown him a very large chart, part of my work on the Li family  Baguazhang’s connections to the Yijing and was impressed with my 20+ years of research into the Yijing and the way it connected to the Nine Dragon Baguazhang system. On the strength of this meeting he invited me to attend his annual Zhan San Feng Festival at the Tai Chi Farm. The first year we had fair attendance at our hour long workshop, but the next year our workshop drew such large crowds that some of the other presenters became jealous. Each year the crowds got larger and larger. Master Jou seeing the hunger for this type of knowledge offered us the entire week after his festival to teach a 6 day workshop on Nine Dragon Baguazhang a tradition that has continued even today with Jim and Loretta Donnelley the founders of the New Zhan San Feng Festival. It was Master Jou that made it possible for us to branch out and teach so many people year after year and begin what has now become 14 branch schools of Nine Dragon Baguazhang teaching students world wide, but I digress.
One chilly night at Tai Chi Farm in 1997 Master Jou came to the instructors’ cabin where I was staying to tell me of his new plan. We talked about the Yijing and Qigong, and explored his ideas on my system of Baguazhang until midnight. As he was leaving he turned to me and said, “John, you are very clever you must do with your Baguazhang what I am trying to do with Taijiquan. Then the internal martial arts can be open and everyone will believe in its power.” I resolved to do as he asked. I pledged to devote myself to search for truth, share openly and teach holding nothing back and to foster the spirit of brotherhood and honor among martial arts students and teachers without regard to style or method. Jou, Tsung-Hwa encouraged me when I began my career in bringing Jiulong Baguazhang to the world. And he inspired me again that night as he has done for so many others with the desire and the courage to face difficult odds and suffer much in the pursuit of excellence and truth in the internal arts. Now he and my teachers are gone I must forge on without their help and encouragement. I will keep trying, “to make a little progress!”
So as for feeling old at 64 I can only say, “For a mountain I am barely begun in years, for a cabbage I am very old, and for a man I am just right!” - Chun
John P. Painter