Long shot question

[Miles Teg]

Hi
Im from the Wing Chun forum.

Im going to Japan to live next month. Where I am going there will not be any Wing Chun. But I was wondering if anybody knew of any Tai Chi or Bagua schools in Aichi prefectur, Japan.

Or just tell me any at all that you know of in Japan.

I would really like to keep doing internalised Chinese martial arts, but I may be forced to take up one of the Japanese martial arts if I cant find any.

BTW I will be close to Nagoya city.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Daniel Madar]

I used to live in Nagoya. I dont know any internal there though, it was before I got into IMA. What are you going to be doing there?

[Miles Teg]

I'm going on the Jet Programme. Its a scheme that gets thousands of foreigners to come and work in Japan. They offer many positions like assistant language teacher at public schools and cordinator of international relations which involves working in the town hall (thats what I am doing, just in a small city 30 kms away from Nagoya). And they pay for your airticket and sometimes accomodation.

Anyway they can put you anywhere in Japan, but contrary to my request I got put in Aichi ken.

Anyway, as you have lived there, perhaps you know of some good Japanese martial art schools in Nagoya that you could recommend to me?

[Daniel Madar]

yeah, I worked for Aeon. Jet teachers have it made! Congrats. As for good schools in Nagoya, go ask on www.e-budo.com. There are several traditional martial arts schools in the area, so ask in the Koryu forum.

Oh, and when you are in Nagoya, either make friends with, or completely avoid the Brazilians. When I was there they had a habit of kicking the crap out of europeans for fun. I found this out after I made friends with them though.

[Shadow Dragon]

Miles.

There is quiet a bit of IMA around Japan.

Remember that the arts will be called using the Japanese reading of the Chinese Characters, plus, some got an extra Character tagged on.

Cheers.

[Miles Teg]

Daniel Madar
Cheers, I've gone there, registered and waiting for the e-mail that says I can start posting on that site.
Brazilians eh? Those are tough *******s. I didn't know there was a commnity of them in Nagoya. Thanks for the advice, I'll be carefull. Where do you train in Tokyo?

Shadow Dragon
Good point, I haven't done that yet. Mainly because I wanted to find out what I could find out in English first as my Japanese is a bit rusty. I only know that:

Tai Chi = Taikyokuken
Wing Chun = Eishuken

but as for Bagua, Xing Yi and others, I have no idea. Please tell me if you know.

[Shadow Dragon]

Hi Miles.

Tai Chi = Tai kyoku ken
Wing Chun = Ei shu ken
Yi Chuan = Tai Ki Ken
Ba Gua = Ha ke ou (sic.)
Xing Yi = Kei Ii Ken(sic.)
Yi li Chuan = Ichi Ri Ken
Shaolin = Sho rin shi

I know there are also a few off-shoots of other IMA that were taught and developed for the japanese Military.
They can still be found.

Hope this helps.

[Miles Teg]

Awesome!!
Thanks a lot. I've got something more to work with now.

I take it you've lived in Japan a while.

[Shadow Dragon]

Hi Miles.

Yes, I lived there for a few years, and still visit whenever my travel plans allow me.

If you got any specific questions feel free to pm me, so that we don't bore the good folks of this board.

Cheers.

[Daniel Madar]

Bagua is also called Hakke Ken or Hakke Shou. Hsing-I is occasionally called Shin-I, as well. There are a few CMA martial arts mags in the stores, so just check the kinokuniyas, etc in Sakae.

There is a lot of IMA here, but so far I have only found it in the tokyo/Osaka area, and I used to be pretty involved martially in the Nagoya Area.

As for brazilians... Well, you might want to do a bit of research on Nagoya. It is effectively the detroit of Japan. The majority of the carmakers are located there, and as a result it has a large, but predominantly Nigerian/Brazilian foreigner population. Both of whom liked to get into fights while I was there... Nagoya was actually the most violent place I had lived, compared to DC, NY, and a few places in Europe. Just because there were many more street fights.

That being said, I had fun.

As for what I do, I practice independently. I have permission to teach, but dont want to. I just work on what I know.