Little Nine Heaven Kung Fu
The Little Nine Heaven kung fu school is headed by Grandmaster James W. McNeil, who has trained for over 50 years in the traditional Chinese systems of internal kung fu, including: Great Grandmaster Chiao Chang-Hung's Little Nine Heaven Wu Tao and Ba Kua, Great Grandmaster Pan Wing Chow's Chen Tai Chi, Great Grandmaster Hsu Hong-Chi's Hsing-I, Great Grandmaster Ching Chen-Yen's Tzu Men, Great Grandmaster Haumea Lefiti's Splashing Hands, and Great Grandmaster Ralph Shun's Iron Hand. After decades of training, he was given the title of lineage holder for several of these systems, including Little Nine Heaven Wu Tao, Ba Kua, Tzu Men, and others.
As Grandmaster McNeil steps back from active teaching, he has authorized a number of students to teach and pass on the knowledge he was given.
This website was created by Grandmaster McNeil's student, Sifu Nick Bickbau, in order to make private classes and seminars available to those interested in the traditional Chinese internal arts.
The Taoist systems we teach are all based on the idea of simplicity, and on teaching the practitioner how to feel. Traditionally they were passed down by word of mouth, from teacher to student. I'm not a Taoist scholar; what I've learned is through practice, directly from my teacher. Theory has never been more freely available than it is today, and there is nothing wrong with theory — but a person can read many books and come away with no practical understanding. The old masters never put all their knowledge into books. Master Chiao, in his book The True Essence of China's Marrow-Washing Kung Fu (中國洗髓功夫之真諦), described our school's way as a "teaching outside the teaching": theory condensed and simplified until it serves practice directly. In that spirit — and to satisfy a natural curiosity for the theory — this website includes excerpts from my teacher's and grand-teacher's books, enough to give an idea of what we teach. The rest is taught in person.
More information about Grandmaster James McNeil and his teachers can be found at www.littlenineheaven.com
