On January 1, 2013, Sensei Robert Leong, Hanshi, passed away. In the 90th year of his life, Sensei was actively teaching, living, and breathing the martial arts. In celebration of Sensei Leong’s life, we created this memorial page.
Sensei Robert Leong, Hanshi, Passes Away
Dear Steve; You make mention of Standing as a martial art . There are many fine books here at Plum that deal with Yiquan, and yiquan is the usage of standing as it can be applied for fighting. Kenichi Sawai in his book Tai Ki Ken, used what he learned from Wang Xiang Zhai for fighting purposes. In Standing you gain a definite exchange, a remuneration if you will; by standing you gain excellent root. Excellent root is what keeps you standing upright as your enemy tries to knock you down. Wang Xiangzhai published quite a few fine books on his take of Yiquan, as did my Teacher, Paul Moon Wai Dong. Paul’s books touch on what some might consider the esoteric end of the standing meditation skills; going into external qi healing and also Lin Kong Jing. Those skills exist depending on how far you wish you go down the Rabbit Hole, and how much of your mind you wish to give up in the process of gaining them. They work well for some, so-so for others, and not so much for others. I spent my time training for many many years, and had great fun, but at last my body could no longer keep up with the requirements demanded of me for the training at it’s deeper more esoteric levels. What I came away with was tremendous strength; both internal and external, a youthful appearance; I am now 52 and look 25-27 years of age, great blood pressure, etc. I am happy to remain at the stage I am at, and if I live to the age of 120, I will chalk it all up to Paul’s training and unstinting giving forth of his copious knowledge to a white boy with dreams of Daoist immortality running in his mind. I love Paul as a son loves a doting father for all the other information he eagerly shared with me over the past 2 decades. I have done right by Paul in passing along his knowledge all over Europe and here in the USA. The thousands I have taught in England, Ireland, Scotland, The Royal Air Force Martial Arts Association, Germany and Belgium and here in the USA from coast to coast; East to West and North to South will be the ones to carry my work further down the centuries, and I hope that many of them uncover the riches of Standing Meditation, where I could only plow into the basic depths during my training. Of course, there are many who just wish to delve into the basic physical training skills, and totally avoid any of the esoteric skills that are there waiting for people just to dive into and explore, and I also wish those who wish to only grasp the physical strengths the best of wishes as they explore those avenues of training.
I would agree 3 years would be the absolute miiumnm even if with a very high ability. It’s not just ability that carries you through you obtain an increasing level of understanding that can only come with time. Think of karate as a lifetime process of improvement. Although the black belt for most is the goal that’s probably around the point that you really start to understand. It’s a bit like driving you can learn what to do but you only really learn to drive once you have passed your test. Although once you have learnt a technique you think you know it your knowledge of it becomes deeper and probably a couple of years into your training you will start to realise just how much you don’t know. Good Luck with your training. Keep an open mind Get facinated not frustrated.