Which direction to face when practicing?

[beiquan]

just looking for some opinions on this: in Wan Lai Sheng's 1934 manual "Wushu Hui Zong" (A Collection of Wushu Teachings), he states: "As for the direction of practice: in the morning do not face east; in the evening do not face west; at noon do not face south; never face north!"
i can understand the first two rules, which seem practical enough, but i am confused as to the second two, anyone have any ideas?

thanks
beiquan

[bean curd]

beiquan,

ok first off you have to remember this is in relation to china, second good pick on the writting, amazing man wan lai sheng, terrific history/skill/lineage and a pretty mean guy when it came to fighting, took no nonsense at any age and even in his later years he still was one mean looking guy, still had the arrows coming out of the eyes, a true chi yin mun player.

he speaks of the four directions they are in relation to three things, chi/shen/yi.

in the first two it is relation to disruption of shen and yi, the third is realtion to chi regarding air,and the fourth is to chi again regarding the concept of polar region and the disruption of chi from the body.

basically on north, it is believed if you face north, the pull of magnetic will take your chi from your body with obvious affects.
south is reagarding the winds and disruption to chi and internals due to probs with sinking to the dan tien.

beiquan if i may ask where did you find this book, i have not seen it for many many years , do you have a copy or a link that i can follow to obtain, hope you don't mind my asking

cheers

[NorthernShaolin]

Beiquan,

I must have missed that. What page is this quoation on?

I understood that we are always to face north because monks were encouraged to pactice in the mornings when the air is fresh. Movements in the our sets are mostly performed away from the raising sun in the morning by facing North.

However, when Wan Li Sheng wrote his book in 1925, he was in Beijing and during this time people were practiing early morning at 5 AM to 8AM, breaking for breakfast then returning to practice at 10 AM to 12 noon. Break again, return to class at 4 PM and practice until 7PM. Only Disciples return for special instructions at 8pm to 10pm.

So the part about 'never facing south at noon' may be again related to where Beijing is located in the earth's latitude and where the Sun sits relative to the horizion at Noon. The Sun will not be directly over head at noon in Beijing as compaired to say in Mexico City or in Canton.

The sun at Noon will appear to sit lower in the sky in New York City as compaired to Tampa Bay in Flordia.

Maybe the part 'Never face North' has something related to the 'Ching Barbarians', i.e., not giving them respect since they were never accepted by the Chinese people.

[beiquan]

thanks, i thought you guys might be able to help me with this.

i got the book out of my school (UCLA)'s east asian library, imagine how surprised i was to find it there! they also have his "Guoshu Jiao Ben" and i'm attempting to translate some of the articles for my teacher and classmates. this particular quote is from page 9 (in my copy), in the section on "Wai Gong", second part, article two, entitles "Wushu Lian Fa". the exact quote is
"zao bu chao dong, wan bu xiang xi, wu bu chao nan, yong bu xiang bei!" (my chinese input wasn't working)
thanks!