Tai Chi, Bagua and Hsing-I with Sifu Gary Stier

 

GARY STIER 68 YEARS OLD……..HOLDING UP, PRETTY WELL. I THINK….

I had been a gun collector, never a hunter, just a guy who enjoyed shooting guns at targets. That all changed when I found a dead girl in Lake Austin, who had been shot in the head, murdered.

It was a terrible week for me. In the same week, my dog was crushed by a car and I had to shoot her, in the yard because we couldn’t move her. The whole thing put me off guns for a long time. The only positive is that I started to learn Kung-Fu and that lasted 9 years. So, good from bad….I like that.

I looked around at various Martial Arts. A musician/songwriter friend Don May, who was proficient in Tukkong Mu Sool told of a very good Tai Chi master named Gary Stier. He said I should check him out because “Soft Arts” would be easier on my body, particularly, my hands, which I need for guitar playing. Gary is also a doctor of Oriental Medicine, Acupuncture and herbal medicine. I met Gary and we hit it off, right away. It turned out that another friend, who was a high level Wing Chun practitioner, was studying with Gary. So, I thought I would give it a try.

You would not know, by meeting Gary, that he is Master fighter. He is quiet, he’s a musician, has a great sense of humor and smiles a lot…..and…he’s a smallish white guy. His Chinese teacher is over 100 years old and was a student of Sun Lutang, arguably one of the most famous names in Tai Chi, Bagua Zhang and Hsing-I, soft Martial Arts.(Well, Hsing-I isn’t soft if you’re on the receiving end.) He is the creator of Sun Style Tai Chi.

Sun Lutang

I studied, very hard for about 6 years, with Gary and loved every minute of it. After about 2 years, He said “We are going “indoors”, now.” We didn’t physically go anywhere, it meant he was going to teach me applications and fighting techniques. You do it slowly, at first, as slow as you can, slow as Molasses…which teaches your body to move in a certain way so that you can react without having to think, “If he does that, I will do this”. Movements seem to slow down when interacting with another fighter. Gary knows where to strike a body, at what time of day, to have the most affect on any given organ. It’s pretty amazing stuff.

I worked at it for along time, but I have slacked of for many years now. Still, I don’t stub my toe or trip on the sidewalk like I used to. I catch things with my foot, on their way to the floor when I knock something off a table. It stays with you.

There was a time when he wasn’t showing me anything new and I got disgruntled. I was paying for lessons…..where’s my stuff? When I brought it up, he said, in the nicest way,  “I have shown you many things, many forms, sword and staff forms, Bagua and Hsing-I but you aren’t practicing. You can’t manifest what I have already shown you”, So I went home and pouted and didn’t really practice hard for about 6 months. Then I got a fresh wind, started working my program, again, and thinking about what I was doing, listening to my body talk. I got much better at Push-Hands. And, “Lo and Behold”, he said “Now you’re cookin’.” and started showing me new things. I have since used the same persuasion on some guitar students who would come, one week, and come back the next and it was obvious that they hadn’t worked what I had shown them.

I am very grateful for my time with Gary. He was a phenomenal teacher and is, still, a great friend. Thanks Doc! You educated me!