Wing Chun Island

Taipei Wing Chun Recent happenings and changes

2011-09-20T01:04:00.000-07:00

All classes are starting on time right now at 8pm on Mon, Tues and Thurs nights. 10:30am on Tuesday mornings. We are tentatively starting a Friday class, but please mention on our facebook group that you will be there. Please wear appropriate clothing to classes as we will be upping the intensity and you may be eating some grass or laying in it.

A few people are going out to 228 park to work out with whomever on Sundays. Ask about or mention that you will be there in the facebook group if you wish company. If you are a new student, please email me or call 0987131444 if you have any questions.

We will be doing some kind of outing very soon. Please let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions.

Cleaning House - Wing Chun Island 台北詠春拳 (Taipei, Taiwan)

2011-07-04T02:39:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to catch up with some of the more mundane aspects of running Wing Chun Island. Here is what has been going on lately....

Started the facebook group Wing Chun Island 台北詠春拳 (Taipei, Taiwan). It is a closed group so let me know if I forgot to add you or you are a prospective student that would like to join.
I went through the blog and took out posts without much content.
I got google+ but will wait and see how it goes before I attempt to use it for any class communications.
Classes continue in the summer heat. Lots of people asking about classes. We'll see how many show up.
I will try to get some time to film more of our classes and put together something that I am willing to put up for the general public.
Have a great summer!

Wing chun interview on Radio Taiwan International

2010-11-15T07:01:00.000-08:00

I was interviewed for Radio Taiwan International last week about wing chun. The show is called In Mystical Taiwan.

There site is bit hard to navigate. Here is a link to the intro page.
Intro page
You can go here to find the interview. Click on "listen" and then "November 14" and finally "In Mystical Taiwan."
Listen to the Interview

The interview is fairly short and is intended more for people who don't know much about wing chun. Also, it was done outside where it was a bit windy so the sound quality has some issues.

Brené Brown on Vulnerability

2010-11-08T00:05:00.000-08:00

TED talks by Brené Brown that hit on some of the concepts of emotion and vulnerability that I have mentioned in the past.

Another Wing Chun Movie.....

2010-10-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

Wing chun craziness continues in Hong Kong cinema. A wing chun comedy called I Love Wing Chun is set to begin filming in November in Malaysia. More details here.
http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=53118

Badass wing chun update

2010-08-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

It's so damn hot and yet we continue to move forward. Lots of people on vacation right now. I am about to send out my first flyers next week to try to get some new blood. We could have a schedule change coming at the end of the summer for the Taipei wing chun crew. Check back here for details....damn....it's just too hot to write a blog today. Here is some badass stuff to help us get inspired to fight the heat and keep training.

They don't make videos like this...but they should. Red Fang's "Prehistoric Dog"

"What is this '6-pack' you speak of?" (Fedor...if you don't know then now you know)

C'mon...you gotta love the shoe on the floor

This hipster will whoop your ass (actually a professor)

I ain't messing with this dude

I wasn't a tattoo fan before...now I am (he lost the arm in a shark attack).

Suddenly my motorcycle don't seem so great. Damn, you would think a parrot and a cigar on a beat up motorcycle would be too much...apparently not.

Ok, me and Steve are outta here.

When to fight

2010-07-30T10:49:00.000-07:00

I often hear people say that fighting should only be used as a last resort or that they want to learn martial arts for self-defence. That sounds pretty good in theory, but life is a little more complicated than that. I wish things were so simple that you could just walk around doing your thing and then only resort to violence when ruffians rear their ugly heads and start trouble (always after they strike first, of course).

Unfortunately, violence is a complicated and touchy issue. There really is no such thing as self-defense. If you can handle someone without hurting them, they really were never much of a threat. I myself am pretty good with self-defense against 5 year-olds and old ladies. The real question is "when is violence warranted?" This is a moral question for most of us, but for many, it's more an issue of survival. People struggling to survive might find the whole concept of morality when it comes to fighting a bit silly. If you are in a situation, area or place where no one is protecting you, you may have little choice about when you have to fight.

On the question of "when is violence justified?" which I consider from the comfort of a middle class background and residence in a developed country, I think there are three basic situations when you should perhaps fight or employ violence.

1. Protecting yourself, friends or family from physical harm.

2. For long-term status and well-being: This is complicated so I will give a few examples. If there is someone that you live with or near that you often see that uses physicality or threats or implied threats, you need to be willing to have a physical confrontation in order to keep your status. This is usually more important for boys and men than women but can apply for them as well. There are almost always other ways to get what you want out of situation rather than fight, but you may not know how to do them. They are easier to learn if you are willing to fight. A lot in the rough and tumble world of status depends on willingness to fight rather than the ability to win.

Sometimes you see a little brother who is picked on by a big brother. When the little brother fights with everything he has, the big brother will often relent. In the adult world, there may be a big guy that uses implied threat to punk people out (pushing them, grabbing their head), strong objection and willingness to fight, can often put an end to this. When you use fighting in this way, you have to ask yourself if the loss in status, annoyance or humiliation is worth getting hurt badly and make a decision. One principle to remember in these kinds of conflicts is that it is easier to fight back or resist the first time someone messes with you. If you let someone hit you or grab you or disrespect you for a year and then object, expect strong resistance. The first time someone messes with you, they are testing what you will put up with and usually will back off at the first sign of opposition. After you have allowed the behavior for a while, they have already put you at a certain status, so when you resist you are upsetting the status quo in their minds.

3. Fighting over resources: Sometimes you have to fight to get or keep, food, family and/or space. This one is kind of a cop out on my part, because it encompasses the full gamut of war, murder and most kinds of "evil". Who knows what is absolutely necessary to survive? It kind of depends on each unique situation. Any animal understands this, but humans don't really have to think about it until their backs are against the wall. I suppose in extreme enough circumstances, almost any violence could be justified by the need to survive. It's complicated.

And that is really the point of this entry. When is violence justified? Its hard to say, but I don't think it helps to pretend that violence is not a fundamental part of our reality. It is not something that is avoided by good people and performed by evil people. It's easy to think of it as something done by base individuals, but in my experience, if someone thinks that violence is a horrible thing that should always be avoided they are being protected by someone else who will have to face the question of violence whether it be a husband, policeman or soldier.

Some people think violence is only justified when protecting yourself, which i find a little naive. On the other hand, I can't stand when people use flimsy reasoning to justify hurting someone that is not a real threat to them. Many people will attack someone for "insulting" their wife or girlfriend, but it seems to me that they only do it when they are sure they can "win". Or other times, there is an obnoxious but harmless drunk. Many people will line up at the chance to harm the guy because they get the chance to hurt someone and be "in the right". Harming someone who is not a direct or indirect threat is simply giving in to our most base instincts and is indefensible in my opinion. Doing it to punish those who are seen as being "wrong" according to some ever-changing arbitrary standard is perhaps the worst form of unjustified violence. Harming people who are "in the wrong" when you have the power is a human instinct that helps give rise to societies that begin to eat themselves as occurred in Nazi Germany, Cambodia, China and many other countries.

I guess what I am saying is that it is quite simple, violence against actual threats is often justified. Violence against non-threats is usually not justifiable. The hardest part may be determining what is a threat and what isn't.

10 ways to improve your chisao

2010-07-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

1. Intentionally lose. Let the other person win but keep your attention on the other person. Watch how they win. Concentrate on your balance and staying relaxed while they do whatever they want.

2. Make sure you aren't leaning at all. All your weight should be balanced in the middle of the foot. You should conceive of your arms and your body as being in front of you. Move the whole body forward from the bottom, not from the top by leaning. Don't lean ever... at all. Well ok, once you totally understand how balance works, then lean all you want. I promise I won't say anything.

3. Don't move until you are connected. Move the body forward until you can feel your partner's core down to the ground. At that point, (if your arms are relaxed) you should feel where to move almost as though your arms are moving themselves. Work on improving connection rather than your arms' position in relation to your partners'. Also, don't pull away from your partner to get a move off.

4. Don't speed up or do series of moves. Stay in the moment and do what you are doing at that moment. Don't speed up in order to get a move to work. Don't practice a series of moves to do something fancy. Just do what the system created by the connection between you and your opponent tells you to do.

5. Don't look down until you don't have any urge to look down at what is going on with the hands. Even then, nothing special to see.

6. Concentrate on your opponent as a whole body, not on his moves.

7. Don't look for openings or ways to "get" or hit your opponent. Keep connected and take ground. The good stuff will happen naturally.

8. Try chisaoing with only one foot touching the ground at any given moment. Make sure you are relaxed and "seated" on the leg. Change legs at any time as often as you like.

9. What attitude or emotion or mental state do you decide to have when you chisao. Try answering this question and changing it up frequently.

10. Treat chisao as an experiment. Decide how you will change your approach each time you do it before you begin. Try relaxed, stiff, fast, slow, hard, soft, intentionally bad, leaning, moving forward, stationary, aggressive....try anything and everything you can think of. Do things no one else would ever try. See how it works. Change it up even more based on what you learn from your experiments. Most people just try their hardest each time. Trying is for people who haven't decided what to do.

Ok, here is a bonus point.

Don't stop when you manage to hit or push your partner or get hit yourself. Continue working. If you are much better than your opponent, you can see openings but not take them and just work to deepen the connection. Keep the connection and flow going as long as possible.

台北千人打詠春 - Trip Report

2010-06-06T23:26:00.000-07:00

Well, things didn't turn out as expected. I planned to go to the 1000 people do wing chun promotion for the new Yip Man movie to do some filming. Unfortunately, nothing cooperated with that plan.

First of all, it was raining and pretty miserable for 7am on a Saturday morning. I told my camera buddy not to come since it was raining and not many people were there.

I will make this quick, because the whole thing was boring and lame. There was a second-rate drum and dragon dance performance that had nothing to do with wing chun. The MC was annoying as hell in typical Taiwan fashion. About 30 people performed siu lim tao on stage. The actors from the movie were visibly uncomfortable at being there. No one in the audience did any wing chun or were led through any forms. There was no chisao of any kind really except for like 10 seconds by the actors from the movie. Overall, just a huge boring waste of time.

I knew from the start that the whole thing was just a PR event for the movie, but part of me hoped it would be well done. It wasn't. They just built a stage and stuck some people on it to wave their hands around and smile. Oh, and there was a raffle for bottled water and little cans of some kind of meat. Awesome. Ok, I am done with movies and other people's wing chun. From now on, I am out of the wing chun news business. I will concentrate on what my students and I do.

台北千人打詠春 1000 people do wing chun

2010-06-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder. The "1000 people do wing chun" event to promote the new Yip Man movie will take place tomorrow morning, saturday, at the Taipei city hall. I will be going out around 7 or so to check the "scene" and do some filming. It could be cool or it could look like henchmen training in a kungfu movie. If anyone wants to join me, I am sure something funny and/or cool will happen at some point. Mostly it might rain. If that is the case, it might turn into the "10 people do wing chun" event. I should warn any of my students that hope to come out and chisao that the event will most likely involve a lot of people who have never done wing chun being led through the first wing chun form, siu lim tao. But, I could be wrong. Here is the official schedule.

起迄時間	活動項目	活動內容
0700~0800	參加者報到與集合	分為網路和現場報名
0800~0840	活動開始	文化大學鑼鼓開場、貴賓致詞主持人介紹活動和訪問演員
0840~0940	千人打詠春	盧師傅和演員們帶領千人打詠春
0940~0950	媒體時間	媒體拍照
0950~1000	演員訪問	電子媒體聯訪
1000~	活動圓滿結束

I guess I can translate that for those that might be interested.

Time	Activity	Activity details
0700~0800	Registration and collection of participants	Divided into the network and on-site registration
0800~0840	event begins	Culture University opening ceremony drums, opening speech, MC introduces activities and special guests.
0840~0940	1000 people do wing chun	Master Lo Man Kam and others lead 1000 people to perform wing chun
0940~0950	Media time	Media takes pictures
0950~1000	Q&A	Electronic media visit
1000~	End of event

Getting your wing chun to flow - an overview

2010-06-03T03:10:00.000-07:00

Right now, most of my students are working on what I like to think of as the first stage of wing chun. Over the next few articles, I want to try to lay out what I see as being necessary to get past this stage or at least to make interactive wing chun start to click and flow. Keep in mind that this is the way I personally see it. I make no claims that this is the only way to do wing chun or that it is the perfect way. I would say that it is the only way I see that it can work, but I am open to any ideas. In this entry, I will just lay out the main points and I will get more into specifics in follow-up entries.

The difficult thing about putting all these parts together is that it really doesn't work properly without all the parts working together. Missing one part causes the other parts to get corrupted.

1. Anchoring. You need to be relaxed and inhabiting your body. Who is it that is going to be having this interaction. Is anyone home? Intent should be focused outwardly in all directions. Physical, mental and emotional tension should be released and there should be no feeling of "preparing" to do something. Really let all the breath out and continue to breath fully and deeply. Be aware of gravity. Your attention should always be outward in a way that encompasses the opponent (or partner). Keep in mind that being anchored doesn't have anything to do with being hard to move. Don't look down or off to the side. Look forward and out.

2. The elbows and shoulders must be unlocked. Ideally this is done when "anchoring." I list it as a separate point because it is extremely difficult for most people to do. One thing that helps is to make sure the shoulders are down and let the elbows pull away from the body constantly. We want to avoid using the arms to lever out which will change the direction of the interaction and will not transfer power ideally.

3. Let the pressure that your opponent puts on you affect your core and or your position. If they push you hard it should move your body as a unit. If someone puts a lot of pressure on your arm, it will might turn your body. Don't rush to move the arms so that the other person cannot affect your core. Be affected. If they can't reach your core, you can't use your core to attack them. Slow down and interact rather than quickly react on your own.

4. Pressure in the arms goes outward with power originating from the elbow. Mostly following the trajectory of the forearms. Don't drag, pull back or wipe the arms. Let them flow outward from your anchored center. Don't let the conception of self go along with the arms which will result in leaning and levering. They must be leaving your core center at a constant angle.

5. The body moves forward as an anchored whole to "attack" the opponent. This, in combination with the outward nature of the arms results in constant attack on the opponent. Move forward at a steady pace. The important part is the amount of pressure, not the distance moved. You can't control how far you walk into your opponent. Only the amount of pressure. Whether light or heavy keep it steady.

6. The places where you are touching your opponent should always allow you to feel their bodies down to the ground. Don't try to control them. Just feel the system you have created from the ground under your feet to the ground under their feet.

7. Ideally, the connecting pressure and the relaxation of your body should allow the interaction to move. That means you don't absolutely control which moves are done. You set the conditions with your outward intent and movement forward. The arms only go outward but can move anywhere within certain conditions so allow it to happen more than try to control it.

8. Don't hurry or lock or try to speed up in the beginning. The important part is to relax and observe yourself, your opponent and what is around you.

9. Don't pay to much attention to the interaction itself. The chisao happens too fast to be interpreted. Put the proper conditions in place and see what happens. Trust your body more than your eyes.

10. It's easy to "find" your opponent. Just go into their attacks. Don't trust your eys about where they "are". Trust what is revealed in their attack. Meet the attack and continue to meet it and go deeper.

11. When you want to improve an interaction. Make decisions about how you would go about it before the interaction starts. After it has started you need to be fully absorbed in what is going on. It is extremely difficult to make changes at that point. Change your decisions frequently.

Chisao Videos

2010-05-31T23:18:00.000-07:00

One of my students asked me if there were any good chisao videos online. Unfortunately, there really aren't many at all. Here are all the ones I could find that were interesting. I am sure there are others that I just haven't seen. Some of them are not really chisao, by the way. I won't comment on the videos individually for two reasons. One, I am trying to keep this blog apolitical so I don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers. Two, you can't really know exactly what someone is doing right or wrong unless you can actually interact with them. So, without further ado.

Ok, that's all I could find for now. Please feel free to list any you feel are interesting to the comments below.

Another foreign wing chun teacher in Taipei - Richard Doell

2010-05-31T22:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a news report on another foreign wing chun teacher in Taipei, Richard Doell. The news report is more peripheral news due to the rash of Yip Man movies.

Interview with Lo Man Kam

2010-05-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

I interviewed Master Lo Man Kam last year for Fountain magazine. He is the nephew of Yip Man and easily the most famous wing chun teacher in Taiwan. This interview is pretty basic as it was meant for general readers and not for martial artists. Here is the interview.

Wing Chun
Master Lo Man Kam
On Yip Man, Bruce Lee and the art of wing chun

WING CHUN IS A relatively young martial art originating in southern China that was made famous worldwide by Bruce Lee. It is known as a aggressive close-combat martial art without fancy moves or adornments. Despite being as common as dim sum in Hong Kong, it is almost nonexistent in Taiwan. There is, however, one Taipei rooftop that attracts Wing Chun students from all over the world: the school and residence of Master Lo Man Kam. Lo is the nephew of perhaps the most famous Wing Chun master in the world, Yip Man. He has taught Wing Chun for over 30 years, acted as a combat instructor for the Taiwan Investigation Bureau and is the founder of the Lo Man Kam Wing Chun Kung Fu Federation which has numerous branches in the US and Europe.

I interviewed Master Lo at his school one morning surrounded by yellowing photographs, certificates and calligraphy of his own creation. He is a small, older gentleman with a spry step and enthusiastic smile. His size seems appropriate for a marital art reputed to have been created by a woman and known for redirecting power. As he sat down to answer my questions I could hear the thump of one his students on the rooftop upstairs pounding away at the wooden dummy.

Fountain: How did you first get started studying martial arts?

Lo Man Kam: I began studying Chinese gongfu around the age of 13 until around 18 when I started Wing Chun.

F: Why Wing Chun?

LMK: Around the year 1950, my uncle Yip Man [Lo Man Kam’s sister’s younger brother] moved to Hong Kong from. He had been a policeman and couldn’t find work so he began teaching Wing Chun on the rooftop of the Kowloon Mess Union to earn money. Five or six of us started studying there.

F: Yip Man was a legendary Wing Chun teacher. What was he like?

LMK: He was very welcoming and laid back. There were so few students that we all got lots of personal attention. We paid 20HK a month rather than the 5HK that most people paid to study other kinds of gongfu but it was well worth it. Studying with Yip Man required an introduction which also kept the number of students small. I ended up studying 10 years with Yip Man at a few different locations.

F: One of Yip Man’s most famous students was Bruce Lee. What do you remember about him?

LMK: He started studying after getting an introduction from William Cheng, I believe, in around 1956. He studied for a couple of years and then moved on. He liked fighting and moving as fast as possible, but wasn’t the most experienced. I think he learned the first couple of forms while there [Wing Chun has three open hand forms, a wooden dummy form, a staff form and a butterfly knife form].

F: You hear a lot about fights between various styles during that time. Did you ever see any of those?

LMK: Not really. Actually, at that time many people studied different styles of gongfu. We all got along and would talk to each other and trade information. Most people were more concerned with learning than trying to determine who was the “best”. We were more like gongfu scholars than guys trying to outdo each other.

F: What originally brought you to Taiwan?

LMK: I was originally studying electronics and decided to go to Taiwan to be a soldier in 1960. I joined the military and did special forces military training for over three years in Taichung and later became an Army Major. During that training I learned a lot of hand to hand offensive and defensive tactics. I also did a lot of judo and qin-na [joint locks] and the like. I incorporated much of what I learned there into the training that I now do for the police.

F: When did you start teaching and how many students have you had?

LMK: I started teaching in 1975 after retiring from the military. I had a few Taiwanese students and got my first foreign student later that year since I could speak English. Since that time I have had thousands of students from Taiwan and all over the world. I also do a lot of seminars abroad.

F: What do you think is unique about Wing Chun and its training?

LMK: Many martial arts emphasize techniques and forms. Wing Chun is designed to improve a student’s actual reactions. It develops your feeling and ability to react to situations rather than depend on your memory of a series of techniques. Chisao [a form of fast push hands with punching] is non-cooperative so that students learn to react to any situation as it arises rather than simply doing choreographed movements.

It also helps improve circulation and overall health. Since Wing Chun focuses on skill rather than brute force, it can be practiced by anyone of any size at almost any age.

F: Are there other martial arts that you find interesting?

LMK: Of course there are many martial arts that are interesting and effective. Most martial arts are really trying to accomplish the same things, and the basic principles of movement have to be followed by everyone. I try to follow the natural movement principles and go as long and as deep as possible using the Wing Chun way. I don’t have time to use a variety of approaches.

F: You hear a lot about “internal” and “external” martial arts? What is the difference?

LMK: Most are really a combination of both. The external is the obvious part of what you do. It can be measured, copied or taught. The internal is what you are doing inside to make the external actually work. Science can’t measure or determine that. That is the art.

F: How does one go about learning Wing Chun?

LMK: When a student first learns Wing Chun, he or she learns a few movements and a form. The Wing Chun form is not flowing like the forms of most martial arts. It is more like a dictionary that provides the most basic movements. These movements act as “words.” Later the student does chisao with other students. This exercise is non-cooperative and is similar to learning to talk. The student is soon forming “sentences” and later having full “conversations”. Just as every person talks and communicates in different ways, so too does each person learn to chisao and fight in different ways. During chisao, the students also learn to trust the feeling in their bodies rather than their eyes. This improves the fundamental reactions in the body to any new situation. These improved reactions help you when it comes to fighting at the most basic level.

F: What do you think most attracts students to Wing Chun?

LMK: Of course they come to learn to fight. They start out that way, but Wing Chun can change the way you think. Wing Chun looks aggressive, but it is actually an extremely conservative martial art. It teaches you to only hit when you can’t be hit. The philosophy behind it is that you can never lose if you never get hit. I mean, you might see two guys fighting back and forth and trading blows until one goes down. The guy still standing might say, “I won! I won!” Yeah, you won maybe, but…well…look at your face. Winning is not getting hit.

1000 People Wing Chuning with Lo Man Kam and Ip Chun

2010-05-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Masters Lo Man Kam and Ip Chun will be leading 1000 people in the City Hall Square a couple of blocks from where we train for the opening of the New Yip Movie on June 5. I will definitely go and try to get some footage. Will I be one of the 1000 people? I don't know. We'll see.

Here is a second extended trailer for the movie with English Subtitles.

I really promise to get off these movies soon.

The Yip Men Cometh

2010-05-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

So first there was the Ip Man movie which was pretty fun. Then, there was the sequel, Ip Man 2, which sucked. Now there is talk of a third film Ip Man 3 which would focus on the relationship between Yip Man and Bruce Lee. So, who are they thinking of casting as Bruce Lee? Holy crap.....Asian Pop superstar, Jay Chou.

But...that is just a rumor at this point. Apparently, the new movie may be delayed for a while. Donnie Yen doesn't seem so keen to do another one (who could blame him?) and....get this...there are two more fricken Yip Man movies coming down the pipeline in the near future.

The first is The Legend is Born: Ip Man directed by Herman Yau with film adviser Ip Chun and featuring a lot of the actors in the last Yip Man movie such as Sammo Hung. (I know I keep writing Yip Man rather than Ip Man, but Ip Man bugs me for some reason and Yip Man is more commonly used.). The film is due out next month and will supposedly be more "realistic" or based on the actual story of Yip Man's life. Here is a trailer.

Then, it gets better. In 2011, Chungking Express director, Wong Kar Wai, will release The Grandmaster. What is The Grandmaster you ask? Its a biopic about an obscure wing chun teacher by the name of....you guessed it...Yip Man. I got to be honest, this is pretty exciting. I love Chungking Express and Wong Kar Wai films in general. The film will be starring Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi. How can this be bad? Wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any fight scenes at all in it which would be fine by me. Damn, the movies be wing chun crazy right now.

Freddiew rocks

2010-05-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I have been concentrating on movies and media more than wing chun lately. I have been pretty down on action movies lately so I figured I would feature some action stuff I like. This is done by a fellow goon so I figured I would give him more exposure, not that he needs it or that it would really help. Mostly I just like his videos, especially his action videos. There is something quite inspiring about unbridled nerdiness.

Here is his latest action scene.

Asshole Jedi

Portal gun in real life (not that I have ever played Portal)

How to make youtube videos widescreen

Call of Duty tribute part 1

Ok, that is enough embedding. If you want to see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew?blend=2&ob=1 They are all well done and at least amusing. Keep on making videos, Freddie.

Constant Attack

2010-05-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

The reality of fighting is that you are probably fighting to get something while hopefully not getting hurt. There is constant analysis to see if the fighting is worth it or not. Sometimes, you have no choice if you can't get away or if someone's life is on the line. At that point, you have to attack, attack and attack some more. You have to win the fight.

Most of us hopefully won't be facing this kind of situation in our lives, but I believe that fighting is about attack. If you are defending, you are not fighting. Doesn't mean that is bad, just that you aren't technically fighting.

I teach that if there is a fight interaction, you must be attacking at all times. The points where you contact the opponent must be moving toward the opponent in terms of pressure at all times. If you back off or change position without attacking pressure, you are not attacking. You have to attack even when you are changing position.

Ok, that sounds like I am saying that if you fight, you just stand up to an opponent and start throwing non-stop punches and kicks. Not exactly.

Think of it like this. You are a body with extensions (arms, feet, head, shoulder, or whatever). You use those extensions to attack the opponent's core. They are your weapons in a manner of speaking. The opponent has these extensions or weapons too. If you bypass his or her weapons, they can attack your core as you attack theirs. If you chase the weapons, they can avoid your attack and still attack you.

In order to avoid this problem, we reach out and attack the opponents core through their weapons. The "weapons", usually the arms, are forced to resist in order to protect the core or the body. Now, here is the trick...the whole reason for chisao training, we try gain better position and collapse the arms, find holes or interrupt balance through constant attacking pressure. There is no need to keep upping the pressure when the opponent uses their arms to defend, you just have to put enough pressure to keep the opponent defending or holding you off. You must always be moving and improving on position. The situation is always changing so you have to have non-stop intent to improve position. To be honest, there is no room for thinking about defense. The defense has to be built into your strategy.

When you do this, you keep the opponent from being able to develop attacks since he is busy dealing with yours. You are also going to where the opponents attacks originate so they are much easier to deal with than they are at full extension.

So what if your opponent is doing the same thing you are? That is where chisao really comes in as you have to learn to take advantage faster than your opponent. You must make faster decisions. Someone can teach you the strategy, but how well you execute it is all on you.

What if the opponent has grabbed your core or you are grappling on the ground? The short answer is that the same rules apply. The long answer is to look at the way good bjj players are interacting. I will try to get into this more later.

Ip Man 2 Review

2010-05-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

Since I reviewed the first Ip Man movie, I figured I would watch the second. I didn't really plan on writing anything about it but good lord...it's so bad I don't think I can sleep without complaining about it a little. There will probably be spoilers, but trust me, you couldn't spoil this crappy movie with a crying baby and a roomful of rock-eating robots.

The plot doesn't really matter so I won't go into the details. It's Yip Man in Hong Kong. Basically there are three plot points: Yip Man has to fight in order to open a school, Yip Man fights a boxer for the honor of Chinese people, and Yip Man gives a dude a chicken (ok, it's a duck but chicken is funnier than duck) and loves to watch him eat it.

The first thing I want to complain about is something I mentioned when talking about the last movie. I was a little uncomfortable with using a real person that isn't really a historical character and just making up whatever you like about their life and marketing your movie with their name. I let it go in the last movie because it was basically a fun movie but this second one is just a cynical cash grab. So what is next? Made up crap about the relationship between Yip Man and Bruce Lee? Yip Man goes to Hawaii? The whole thing is embarrassing.

The fight scenes are pretty weak. Basically the fight scenes involve a bunch of blocking while punching, rapid chain punches, stupid wire tricks (check out super flipping Sammo Hung), and that silly thing where people are able to keep from falling off something by trying really hard not too or grabbing the ground with their toes or something. Also, Yip Man fights like 50 dudes with knives by spinning a wooden pallet around in second-rate Jackie Chan style.

Everything in this movie is a rehash of the last movie or another movie. There is nothing original in the least. The worst part is the second half that is exactly the Rocky IV movie except with kungfu and boxing instead of just boxing. Sammo Hung is Apollo creed who gets killed by the English man who is the Russian. Yip Man is Rocky obviously who gives a stupid speech and wins over the racist white people with his fists and words. Here are just a few stupid points and then I am done cause I shouldn't be wasting my time talking about this movie.

The main bad English guy is just called Twister. They don't even bother to give him a proper name. I thought he was going to have some kind of twisty boxing style, but when I heard the Chinese, they referred to him as tornado so I was like, "oh, that kind of twister....did they even use that word in 1950?...What a stupid name for a boxer, especially a boxer from England. Maybe they should have called him the Drizzle if they wanted to have a more appropriate weather theme."
There is a boxing match at the end and there are fricken ring girls. Somebody check the history on that one.
I love how the boxer wears boxing gloves because, hey, he's a boxer, but Yip Man doesn't. Yip Man also kicks and elbows and grabs and does whatever he wants to do. Who set up the rules of this competition?
At the end of the match I swear they play a second rate copy of the original Rocky theme.
The white people in this movie are all reprehensible characters, the actors playing them can't act and for some reason, they don't seem to be able to speak English correctly and can only yell and growl.
Old people can fly.
Here is what Twister says to set up the boxing challenge, "In order to protect my name [you know...Twister] and reputation, I have agreed to fight any Chinese person. Now from what I hear, the Chinese like to use these [he laughs and pulls out a giant joss stick] and I would like to stick to that tradition so I have agreed to fight any challenger for as long as this thing burns. And this is a pretty big joss stick so its going to give plenty of opportunity for any challenger to come forward. But be warned I will not hold back. By the time this thing has burned to the end, there will be no more Chinese boxers, because I will have killed them all. In fact, I don't think we are even going to need to use this thing because I doubt that there is any Chinese fella that has the guts to get in the ring with me." What the hell does any of that even mean? Basically Yip Man comes forward and challenges him and that is the whole end of the joss stick thing. Oh yeah, keep in mind that Twister is saying all this after he kills Hung (whatever his character name is) in the ring.
Here is the speech that Yip Man gives that makes all the white people stand up and cheer. "Hello, I didn't come here to prove which is better, Chinese or Western boxing. Although people have different status in life, I don't believe that one person's integrity is worth more than another's. I hope that we can start to respect each other. That's all, thank you." What the hell is that? He should of just yelled for his wife like Rocky did.

Ok, that's it, I am done. I just wanted to get this review out there since there aren't many reviews that would warn people away from this great big waste of time. Hopefully someone will google the movie and find this review and save their time and money.

Great Movie Fight Scenes

2010-05-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

I must apologize to my 2 or 3 readers out there as I have been sorely neglecting this website. On the bright side, my wing chun classes have been going quite well and I have lots of ideas to write about. Also, I have access to a really nice camera and camera man and my students have been coming along well so we should have some video up soon.

I don't have time to write an entry today so I will just lazily embed some youtube videos.

Here are a few fight scenes that I like in television and movies in no order in particular. Keep in mind that I don't really think that fighting has that much to do with filming a fight scene. But fight scenes have become an art of their own and I think most people who do martial arts appreciate them in some way.

The first is from Deadwood, probably the second or third greatest television series ever. This is the fight between Dan Dority and the Captain. I love the way it tries to capture the time and approximate fighting skills of the time and focuses on raw brutality.

The next is from Rob Roy. I remember liking this movie much more than Braveheart that came out soon after. This is fight between Rob Roy and Archibald played by Tim Roth.

Here is the best Bond movie fight with Sean Connery in his prime.

This one isn't realistic at all, but who doesn't love the duel in The Princess Bride?

Which brings me to what I think is the best fight scene of any kind put on celluloid. This is from Mark of Zorro. It features actors Basil Rathbone and Tyrone Power. They don't make em like this any more.

As for kungfu movie scenes, I must confess there aren't many I like since they often take themselves too seriously and are a bit too stiffly choreographed. I remember liking this one at the movie theater even though it is a bit obvious for this list. It's the fight between Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeaoh) and Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi) in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

When it comes to kungfu fight scenes I prefer the ridiculous like this scene from The Magnificent Butcher.

To sum up, I have to finish with my absolute favorite "fight" scene of all time from any movie. If I am flipping through the channels and this comes up, I stop what I am doing every time and watch. I am convinced that this scene will go down as one of the most hilarious of all time. It's like a violent/comedic Zen koan. I can't even make fun of it without watering down the overall effect. Of course I am referring to the fight of tolerance from Steven Seagal's On Deadly Ground.

Power generation

2009-12-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

There are many ways to affect the world around you or, since this is a martial arts blog, your opponent. In this blog entry, I want to talk about the most basic source of power and how this power can be applied to something or someone.

Gravity pulls you down toward the ground and you can always push against it to get power. When you walk forward, the momentum you have comes from the ground. When you turn at the waist, the power comes from the torque from the ground. When you bend over to push your friends car cause he ran out of gas, you are using the ground. You can easily see how this is the case when you consider how much power you would generate in a weightless environment.

So the first principle of generating power is to always feel the ground and how your are pressing against it to get power.

There are of course many ways to contort the body or move the legs to get said power from the ground. Lets leave all that for another time for now (it's late).

Instead, lets consider how we apply the power we get from the ground into something else. This is where people have the most trouble.

First, the point of contact with an object or opponent must lead the overall movement. That means if you grab my wrist and you want to move me in some way, the point where I am touching you, the wrist, must lead the movement that you do for maximum transference of energy. If you pull the wrist with your elbow or shoulder, less power will affect me.

Second, your body cannot be locked up at any point or that will interrupt the transfer of power. If you lock your elbow and shoulder when you push someone, you won't be able to use as much power from the ground as possible. You will instead mostly be pushing them with your arm.

I will talk some more later about how how to contort the body to generate power and why it is better to do it while staying in balance vs. contorting in a way that goes away from the connection to the ground.

I realize what I am saying here might seem overly simple or hard to understand depending on how you look at it so let me put it another way.

The best way to have power is to be powerful rather than do powerful moves. Relax and keep your attention outward and surrender to gravity. You use the legs to move this relaxed and sunken "base" around. Then when you want to use your arms to interact, you let them lead a move away from you. Don't push them out or "go with them". This takes you off your base and makes the arms weak. You can of course move your base in the direction you punch to get more power.

I don't know if this is helpful. I will read it again tomorrow and see if I can do a better job of explaining what I mean.

Self defense basics

2009-12-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

I don't teach self-defense, because i am not sure it makes sense as a concept. There aren't any easy techniques that will make much of a difference if you are attacked. Violence doesn't really work that way. I have always hated "self-defense" techniques in the martial arts because they don't work and can give people false confidence. When I did karate, we were once taught a knife defense technique that involved putting your hands on your hips and swiveling to intercept the knife with your elbow. Say what now? Were I to teach self defense, I wouldn't teach martial arts techniques, but would instead concentrate on awareness.

The most important single thing you can do to keep from getting mugged or attacked or run over by a car is to pay attention. That means paying attention to the world around you using all your senses.

If you walk around without paying attention, you will probably be clumsy. If you do it long enough, you may find yourself in an unhappy surprising physical confrontation.

When you walk around you should know where you are and who is around you and you should be paying attention to them. You should definitely be aware when someone is paying attention to you. That doesn't mean that you need to walk around suspiciously eying people down. It means that, in general, you should have your attention focused outward when you are out in the world. The more dangerous the place, the more you should pay attention. Do you hear people walking up behind you? How many and who are they? Do you look at the window reflections around you? What are the people around you paying attention to?

I got mugged when I lived in a bad neighborhood in DC. You know what fighting style I used to defend myself? None, I used Dumbass-not-paying-attention-to-what-was-going-on-around-him-while-waiting-for-the-bus style.

If I hadn't been sitting there in a daze, I would have easily seen it coming. If you are in a bar and a fight breaks out and you didn't feel it coming, you probably are not paying enough attention.

If something happens, the first thing to do is stay relaxed, say the unexpected and don't participate in any fight or mugging rituals. If someone wants to fight, don't act weak, but say or ask something incongruous. If you are about to be mugged, negotiate. "C'mon man, I got mugged 5 times this week."

My brother is a master at this. He used to skate on the edge of conflict just for fun. He was talking to my friend at a bar one time and said, "Dude, people take reflect your attitude if you lead them. Watch this." My brother is not a big guy, nor much of a fighter. This huge football player is walking by and he says, "What the hell do you think you are doing? You just walking around like you own the place. You want some?"

The football player is furious and yells, "What did you say, you little punk?"

My brother just breaks out a big smile and laughs, saying, "Ha! I'm just kidding, man, you're awesome! Gimme five! You want a beer?" They walk off to the bar like good buddies.

When people want to hurt you, you sometimes have a chance to "put them in your movie." Lead the situation. When I would walk around my neighborhood in DC, if I saw a group of young men sizing me up, I would walk right up to them and ask them a question. "You guys seen Tom around?" Tom was a badass dude who lived in the neighborhood so it would make them second-guess themselves.

Anyway this stuff isn't easy to do I'll admit, but it's easier than learning to fight a huge dude or ten people, or someone with a gun.

Also, always trust your gut (your body) and don't feel like you have to engage people on the street. Most of the time if someone is going to harm you, they use an opening to get close to you that makes you feel like you have to respond or you not being nice.

So then if all this doesn't work and you end up getting attacked by someone that can hurt you, you have to run. Run like the wind.

If you can't run, attack, attack and attack again until you can run.

Never go with a person because they have a gun or a knife, take the chance of getting hurt on the spot.

Also, last but not least. You would think I wouldn't have to say this one, but it seems to occur so often that I guess I will say it. Don't get drunk alone in a dangerous bar or club (unless it is "your" bar) or walk around alone and drunk in a dangerous city.

These are just a few basic principles that come way before martial arts, pepper spray or carrying a weapon.

Why fighting?

2009-12-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, someone will ask me what my classes are about. I sometimes say that they are about learning to move naturally, the principles of interaction or something similar but usually I am honest. It's all about fighting. When I say that, I can sometimes see the person get a disappointed look on their face as they imagine a bunch of homoerotic tussling jocks or that I am somehow glorifying violence.

Also, anyone that has seen the kind of things we do in my beginning classes is probably laughing at the idea that fighting is the end goal. I will get to that. But why fighting?

Shouldn't a grown man have better things to do besides learning archaic hand to hand fighting? What about music, curing cancer...hell, just about anything? Here is why I learn and teach about fighting.

First, you have to pick something to strive for in terms of skill. Aiming for being in shape, feeling good, and confidence won't really take you anywhere. There has to be a demonstrable skill that forces you to change as a person and grow. Your goal could be to move people with your words or to build the tallest building, but something has to focus your attention. It's best to go with something you are passionate about to sustain you through all the years it takes to get anywhere.

My focus on fighting has led me to learn how to move, dance, be confident and happy, and lots of other things. I get these things as side effects because I concentrate on the main goal and don't get distracted. You have to go deep rather than wide in a skill in my opinion to get to the interesting part.

There are other reasons. Fighting encompasses so many aspects of life. Attitude, movement, competition, fear, confidence, interaction, speed, power, size, psychology, intent and many other things have to be addressed to fight well. In some ways fighting is a convenient category title for all these skills.

As a human and animal, fighting is a part of life. It is just under the surface of everything we do. Every young boy knows how fighting or willingness to fight plays a big part in social status. The same is true for men, but it is much better hidden. When communication breaks down between two males and a serious argument breaks out, people have to break it up to prevent a fight. The same can happen with women as well.

When young males angle for the attention of females, status fights can easily break out. Bucks ram their antlers together, people push each other in bars or smash bottles over each others' heads.

If a people need resources or territory, they go to war to get it. That is essentially a tribal fight.

Many people use violence to get possessions or have to protect their families and possessions.

The original sport was fighting and fighting in the form of boxing or MMA continue to be hugely popular. Most sports are essentially means to deconstruct fighting into less dangerous forms. But if the rules break down, fights happen.

In some sense, all animals kill and fight just to live. We are animals and are in the same situation. Of course we have constructed a society that helps keep us from these realities. The more advanced the society, the more fighting seems silly. Ask someone who lives in abject poverty or in jail or who lives where there are limited resources if fighting is silly.

So fighting, killing and defending yourself are always there just under the surface. It's terrifying and yet it's what we are to some degree. That to me is very interesting.

So I look at the whole phenomenon. Why do people get in fights? How do they happen? What should you do? How do you move? What state of mind do you have to be in to move that way? How do you get in that state of mind? How does that state of mind affect the body?

After years of asking these questions and actually training fighting, principles start to emerge. Eventually, I found that to fight well, you have to really change as a person. You have to be passionate, feel, be vulnerable, move in a relaxed way, and grow up (as well as know how to punch, kick, clench, wrassle and all that kind of thing). All these things I should of learned to do anyway, but fighting helped me actually do it.

So if you see my classes and we are doing some kind of walking exercise or something that looks like two idiots slow dancing, we are getting our fight on. And if you are currently a student of mine and wondering if we are spending too much time on all this relaxed movement stuff. Don't worry, the hard stuff comes sooner than you would probably like.

In the interest of full disclosure, I love practicing and training to fight, but the actual stuff can be nasty. I feel terrible if I am too big an oaf to avoid a fight in a bar or something. And if I loved actually fighting so much I would probably be doing mma fights every weekend. I AM thinking about doing an mma fight in the near future, but getting injured would really suck. Do I have enough testosterone to even give a damn? Maybe. I will keep you informed. I asked my girlfriend what she thought about me doing some mma fights (thinking she would say, "don't do that, you idiot." Instead she said, "Cool!") Damn, now i am getting scared. Can I take back what I said about fighting being totally awesome?

Understanding vs. Skill

2009-12-03T19:11:00.000-08:00

Everyone wants to learn and knowledge about just about anything is pretty easy to come by. You just hear or read something and you know it. Spend some time on wikipedia and you know more.

But learning to do things is a little more complicated. Usually this is because it involves the actual doing of something which requires the senses and the body.

Knowledge about skills trails behind the actual development of skills. It is like a culture for the skill to reside in. First there was Jazz music in the form of players pushing the boundaries of what sounded good and "what worked". Later Jazz chord and scale theory emerged to explain what was happening. You can learn everything about how Jazz is played but it doesn't mean you can play it.

To play it would require integrating your instrument with your body learning how to listen and feel and developing a sense for harmonies and rhythm and a whole host of other things.

I have taught my share of English in Taiwan and I was often faced with the dilemma of teaching the skill of speaking English vs. teaching the students to be able to test well. The tests are often testing their knowledge of English rather than their ability to use it. You can memorize the dictionary and every rule of grammar but that doesn't mean you can communicate your emotions and ideas, tell a joke, convey how to do something or feel a poem.

One thing that is problematic is that when these "knowledge cultures" arise sometimes the skill gets forgotten. When I was involved with salsa, there were thousands of "moves" that people would teach each other. If you memorize enough moves, you were good. After a while, you might start teaching those moves. Meanwhile, almost no one developed the skill to actually feel music, interpret it and interact with a partner on a deep level that was fun to do and inspiring to watch. Sure, a couple of people eventually get some kind of skill, but they are the exceptions.

Martial arts as an activity is one of the worst about this. Go in and learn 50 forms and then the names of a bunch of techniques and your lineage and PRESTO, you're a martial artist. That's bullshit. You can't fight unless you develop the skill of fighting. End of story. This is why martial arts such as Muay Thai, wrestling, bjj, boxing, and judo tend to have better fighting skills. They emphasize skills over knowledge of techniques. It doesn't mean the other arts are inferior, just that they may be lost in the learning of knowledge penumbra.
If you are doing a martial art, what skills are you getting better at daily?

The worst thing about gaining knowledge without skill is that even that knowledge is often wrong or not completely right. Tell a musician that you can't play a certain note and he will probably show you a way to do it. If you tell me that you can't lean and do wing chun, I will show you how you can.

Get the skills. They are the only reason the knowledge culture exists. Skills open up your world, but knowing things doesn't change anything.

Interaction

2009-11-30T03:35:00.000-08:00

In a previous entry, I mentioned that movement comes first. You have to learn how to move around in a relaxed mental state and properly interact with the ground. After movement comes interaction.

In some sense, interaction is going on all the time. Gravity is pushing on you and the environment is interacting with you through your senses. Maybe a better way to think of learning to interact is to become more aware of the interaction that is always taking place.

You can interact with the ground as I said, or maybe a wall or a ball or any inanimate object. You can also interact with animals and people. No matter what you do, you are doing some kind of interaction, but how do we get the best interactions or at least improve them as much as possible?

The first step is attention. It's not good enough to see or hear, you need to actively look, listen and feel.

When you move around, in order to be balanced and move naturally, you should have your attention focused outward rather than inward. Some people call this "confidence". I think of it as the way a healthy person should be all the time. You should have a bubble of intent or attention around you. I don't mean a literal bubble...just think of it as a metaphor for how far around you your attention goes. It can be as small as just around your skin or up to 10 meters, 100 meters, a kilometer...I don't think there is a limit really. It should also be all around you and not just forward. If you are really focused outward, your body will relax, because your mind isn't telling it to tense up. Your mind is busy experiencing the world around you.

At the point something enters into the area you are paying attention to, you are interacting with it. I don't want to get off track getting into the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and how intent and attention can be real forces, but let's just say that interaction occurs when your attention is on something.

You start interacting with someone when they have their attention on you and you on them. If there is music playing, you interact with it only when you notice it, not when you just hear it.

All of this may sound obvious, but here is the problem that often happens. People forget this simple phenomenon. You can get so wrapped up in your head and what you want or need that you can forget to interact.

If you play in a band and you don't listen to your band mates because you are too busy trying to play perfectly or show off, that is not a full interaction. If you talk to someone and you just want to rant about something even if they don't want to hear it, bad interaction. If you are counting dance steps while you dance with a partner, bad interaction. If you are fighting and you throw out programmed moves, bad interaction. If you are having sex with someone and you are visualizing other people or situations in your head, bad interaction.

Luckily, bad interactions won't kill you in the short term or most of us would already be dead. They do do some pretty bad things though such as preventing fun, learning, energy and basically life in general. Living is interaction and the experience of that interaction is emotion.

Most people have been hurt physically and emotionally or they are too scared to let go to have real interactions with other people. Or perhaps they are busy wishing reality was different than it is or that people were different than they are so they can't let go and interact. Other people are busy trying to get people to react to them in a certain way.

Some people didn't get enough love and attention at a young age so they run around looking for people to give them energy, attention and/or approval. That isn't real interaction. Some people "fall" for a man or woman they know and start to see that person as the answer to their life. This expectation keeps them from really interacting with the person and perhaps starting a real relationship. Some guys never make friends because they want that person to first give them status and "respect" them before really interacting.

Ok, so on to fighting. Fighting is an intense form of interaction. It can be terrifying, dangerous, and the person you are interacting with may or may not have their attention on you. To be as good as possible, you need to really understand how interactions work. Dancing should be a snap. You should be able to have great, fun conversations with people. You should be able to be vulnerable and your emotions should express themselves naturally on your face. If you can't do these things, you need to keep working on interaction.

Of course, you can try to skip straight to fighting but in my experience you will have trouble going beyond your basic size, strength and speed. You will plateau and probably get really frustrated.

Nickname blues

2009-11-22T08:57:00.000-08:00

Names have weird mojo. There is a sound to them, a rhythm, a categorization effect. They don't define you and yet they seem to exert substantial influence. Everyone has a few names they don't like and people will even come up with character profiles based on a given person's name. "Oh shit, girls whose names end in -y are crazy!" For myself, I notice I seem to only be attracted to girls whose names start with B, M or S. Probably nothing to it, but it's a fun mental construct.

When a couple are expecting a baby, they have to spend a bit of time pondering a name because the name just might exert a bit of influence on how their precious offspring will end up. His or her destiny.

But in the end, you are stuck with a name just like you are stuck with premature balding or an unfortunate face. You can't change your DNA but there is one way to sort of change your name. The nickname. If you are "street" enough, you will probably get a nickname. Hopefully it's a good one. But, if it's not...(hurr hurr)

[This is the opening scene from The Wire, the greatest television show of all time in my opinion]
You might even be tempted to put a nickname out there for yourself, to push a nickname so to speak...not a good idea. In one of my favorite episodes of Seinfield, George decides to go for the name "T-bone" and it results in his co-worker getting the nickname. Here he decides to push the matter further.

You can almost always tell if someone picks their own nickname. It just doesn't have any weight or feel right. I met a woman in Thailand on my last trip. 5 minutes after meeting her, she says, "Everybody calls me 'Squish'." 5 minutes after that, she was fire twirling. I understand the feeling..."I want to reinvent myself so I will henceforth be called 'Squish the Fire twirler!'" Things just don't work that way.

I am the first born son in a family that follows the tradition of naming the first-born son after the father. The fifth in a row. There are only so many variations on Will, Bill, William, Billy, Willy and so on within a family before you long to be something completely different. Damn, I wanted to be know as Ozymandias or something.

Most of the nicknames I picked up were variations on my name. They were less nicknames than jibes. Wilma, Chilly Willy, the Mongrel, Mounger Man, War Monger, Fish Monger and the like. Luckily they never stuck. I almost got "Doc" one time, which ain't bad. Then later in Taiwan I fell asleep outside at a music festival and was seen passed out being attacked by a goose. That got me "goose" for a couple of weeks. Still nothing stuck. I seem to be doomed to go by my name.

Even things associated with me have trouble picking up cool nicknames. In college I had a yellow 1978 Honda civic that I bought for $1,500. It had an 8-track player and loads of character. I was on a road trip with some buddies and they even brought up the issue. "Dude, your car needs a nickname. What we gonna call it?" Some girl says, "well, if it's yellow, you should call it sunshine!" We laughed and made fun of her for not knowing how to nickname a car for almost an hour. "Ha, you need to go to the store? Hold on and let me go get 'sunshine'." After said hour passed, we looked at each other and my friend said, "You realize what we have done, don't you?" I said, "yeah, shit, now my car is named Sunshine." So I was stuck with an 8-track- playing Sunshine.

The whole reason I am writing this blog is that I was working on the bar I am building in my apartment in Taipei today. When I moved in, I noticed that a corner of my living room was a closed off stairwell that used to go to the lower floor. There was a metal railing that got in the way of using it for much of anything. I immediately saw the possibility and decided to build a cute little corner bar. I brought hundreds of bricks up 6 flights of stairs and have been working on making it "cool". My friends started asking me about it and I brainstormed ideas for a silly little name. Somebody mentioned "The Dojo" and that sounded great. I could run the bar with a little karate kid headband and put a rising sun flag behind the bar. Issue solved.

So, I get the bar partially finished and one of my friends comes over, a friend with a well-established nickname he didn't pick..."the Bull". That night he seemed obsessed with telling me about gay bars that he heard about where people piss on each other. "Dude, you should totally call your bar, splashers!"

"Ha ha ha, yeah right." Well, there were a few dudes over that night and we drank a fair amount. The next morning, I go to my bathroom and there was piss everywhere. I talk to my friends and say, "damn, Bull was kidding about calling my bar 'Splashers' but after looking at my bathroom, it really is...." I was just joking, but guess what my friends now call my bar.

I guess I am happy just to be known as Will.

Ok, this entry has gone on long enough, but I will leave you with a story that I feel conveys the real dangers of caring too much about nicknames. In Taiwan there is a sport group that meets weekly. They have a tradition that everyone who participates gets a nickname. Mostly the nicknames are stupid and vulgar. A woman might be known as "Roboslut" or something. One friend I had put mousse in his hair and became known as "Vassilino". Silly stuff.

Anyway, this one guy had been involved for a while and was kind of leader in the group. His nickname was "Flaming Penis". After a long time of being involved in the group this new guy comes to participate. He is a male model. Flaming Penis tells the male model that he has decided to give him the nickname of "XXX"...something really insulting and lame. The model says, "so what if I don't accept that nickname? Why can't I be 'Flaming Penis'?"

"But 'Flaming Penis' is my nickname."

"Ok, so how did you get that nickname?"

"I wrapped newspaper around my penis and set it on fire and downed a beer before I put it out."

"How long did it take you?"

"I dunno, like 10 seconds."

So, the male model announces to everyone. "I want to take 'Flaming Penis' nickname. I will wrap my penis in newspaper and light the paper on fire and finish a beer in 8 seconds. If I can do that I want his nickname." Everyone gathers around and agrees to the contest. The guy pulls it out, wraps it in newspaper and lights it and skulls a beer quickly and puts out the fire." The whole crowd chants, "Flaming Penis! Flaming Penis!"

The man formally known as "Flaming Penis" is not about to go down without a fight. He announces that he will beat Mr. Fancy Pants Male Model's time to regain his nickname. The crowd goes wild.

He pulls down his pants but stage fright and temperature seem to be affecting his performance.

Someone yells out, "Hahaha, Look! He got a vagina!"

The crowd yells out, "Vagina Boy! Vagina Boy!"

Take a guess as to what his nickname is now.

So, yeah, my name is Will. Let me know if you need me to pick you up with Sunshine to come to Splashers.

Movement

2009-11-19T03:44:00.000-08:00

I often divide up what I am teaching into three areas when people ask me about it: movement, interaction and fighting.

Movement means not just moving, but moving in the most natural way possible. You really can't move incorrectly actually, but you can move and not be in the right state of mind for movement or you can move inefficiently for what you are trying to accomplish.

Most people move quite well in many areas of their lives. It is not unusual to be completely awesome at putting on a sock or tying a shoe. Its usually the bigger movements where we run into problems.

One area where you can run into problems are simple whole-body movements like walking. If your intent is directed inward and you are wrapped up in your head, you will probably lean forward. This results in the body being out of balance. If your body is out of balance, you have to use muscles to compensate. Using these muscles all day leads to soreness and eventually chronic problems.

Some people have suffered stresses in life to the point where they can't let go at all when they move so they keep whole areas of the body locked up.

The body can only really relax and move naturally when emotions are allowed to flow. So some people have been given a reason to try to stop themselves from experiencing and/or expressing certain or all emotions. This will cause the body to lock up in reflection of the constricted emotion.

Some people can move well when they are alone but experience serious problems when around people or when doing specific activities. If you are worried about what people think or how you look, you can't move naturally (or you could say the fact that your attention is in the wrong place will cause interruption to natural movement). If you don't think you can sing and are worried that your singing (or any other activity) is inadequate, you will probably clench up in preparation for beginning to sing.

So I try to help people overcome these kind of issues and continue to work on my own. Some of the problems people have in this area tend to be pretty universal while others are specific to the individual.

These issues are also extremely "deep" in a person. What I mean is that it isn't a matter of showing or telling a person how they should move. That doesn't work. Their movements are tied up with their identity, their past, their parents, their culture, their everything. You have to go back to very simple slow movements and relearn things you already know how to do. Along the way, you also have to confront a lot of personal emotional issues. I find that I have to use a delicate touch (difficult for me) when dealing with these areas. It is no accident that there are whole schools of psychotherapy dealing with movement and emotional health.

All things being equal I would rather not get into the way people move and control their bodies and just teach straight fighting. It can be frustrating and messy stuff. So why do it?

Because you can't get really good at anything if you have fundamental movement issues and what's worse, the activity won't be fun on a fundamental level. If I teach wing chun without addressing these issues, people will do it, get better, then get a little better, then quit without much to show for it. If I teach 100 people, I will get a couple of people who already move naturally and they will learn to fight very well. Another couple of people will stumble upon the right way to move on their own or through some eureka moment. What about all the rest? Those people deserve to be great at something too, and I cannot in good conscious take their money and teach them just wing chun, when I know that they are not ready yet to make use of that fighting strategy.

Kungfu flying

2009-11-16T07:33:00.000-08:00

I need to make a flyer.

I have always gotten students by word of mouth, but now my students are getting better and I would really like for them to have more people to interact with. Also, I love teaching so the more the merrier.

If I were totally awesome, I would do something like this.

But I have learned from experience that people who are planning to study martial arts often don't quite see the humor in things the same way I do.

I think what you are supposed to do is put on some pajamas, pick up a staff and strike a cool kungfu pose and take a black and white picture in the mountains or maybe get a cool silhouette of a dude in a pose. Then you pick out a fortune cookie font and cut and paste some info about wing chun from wikipedia. Gotta be sure to say efficient and centerline a bunch of times for best effect.

I was going to post some funny flyers that I found on the internet, but it's kind of depressing. They are all EXTREME and often have people kicking, especially the Taekwondo ones...Oh wait, here is good one. I knew good ole Aikido wouldn't let me down.

Yeah, I don't think so.

Damn, if I am going to have a flyer, I need a logo. I think you just take a Yin Yang symbol and throw some Chinese characters on it, or maybe add a snake or crane or something, maybe some weapons. This is getting hard.

Ok, I will sketch something up in MS paint. Here you go.

That can be my logo. A dude chillin in hammock between two wooden dummy palms drinking a pina colada (I tried to draw a beer, but it was too much work and beyond my drawing skills.) Don't worry, this is just a draft. I will turn the sun into a yin yang symbol and draw a dragon flying across the sky or something.

Of course I am kidding. I still have no idea what I will do. Probably just get name cards with my blog address written on it. Whatever I do, I will post it here so you can make fun of my photoshop skills.

Now, what's the best filter to make a convincing chi blast?

Feelings, mental state and the body

2009-11-12T21:49:00.000-08:00

The body is a hugely complicated organism or maybe I should say the body/mind is a hugely complicated organism.

I think most people think that the mind "controls" the body, but actually its more like a symbiotic relationship. It may seem contradictory but the mind and body seem to be both one and the same and reflect each other. I mean to say that what happens in the body is reflected in the body and vice versa.

There are so many things going on in the body at any given time that you can't every hope to control it. You can mentally focus on one tiny thing and control it, but what is happening to the rest of your body while you are lost in controlling one aspect.

The rest of the things happening in your body are influenced or affected by your mental state or your emotions. If you are feeling anger, you can't just tell your body to relax. It can't happen. If you are agitated, so is your body. If you are trying to learn to fight, but you feel anxious, your body can't do the things it will need to do. The same goes for any activity.

This is why it can be so frustrating to learn new skills sometimes. If you think you can't play music or have no rhythm, then you will be tense when you try to play a piano. Your mental tension will be reflected in the body, or you could say that it is all the same thing and you can't separate the two.

This tension will mean that you can never connect to the activity you are trying to do. Certainly you will learn to fake it better, but it will never inspire you or anyone else until you get in the proper state.

Sometimes it happens naturally or by accident. It took an injury for me to do it in wing chun. But usually it never happens before the person quits the activity.

Of course there are some activities like human interaction you can't quit, so a person may just isolate themselves or just be awkward socially forever.

So, what does all this mean? It means you have to deal with the mental state before you engage in an activity, during the activity and after. Hell, you need to monitor your mental state all the time. Eventually, you can learn to just decide to be in a certain mental state.

To get started, get ready to do an activity like singing (this is what led to the creation of the Alexander Technique) and see what happens to you physically. Does your body start to tense up before you actually do the activity. You need to be completely relaxed and happy and direct your attention outward and not inward. Then start doing the activity with no expectation to do well. When you feel yourself getting tense or not having fun, stop. Start over and just have fun. Getting better comes from completely engaging in an activity.

How would you do the activity if it were easy or it came naturally? Stop worrying about outcome, you are exactly as good as you are. Trying doesn't make you better, it gets in the way of you doing the activity. You can't "try" and be engaged. Trying is just tension. Do and let what happens happen.

Always let yourself feel and express that feeling. Bottling the emotion results in tension and eventually disease and insanity. You have no choice but to experience emotion, its a side effect of life and kind of the whole point.

Escaping mental loops

2009-11-10T22:21:00.000-08:00

What I call mental loops is when you get caught up in your mind and have cut off your connection with the world around you. In general, the thoughts involve things you can't change about the past or the future. I think we all do it from time to time, but some people do it almost all the time. It can result in insomnia, depression, and paralysis (inability to act or proceed with life). It can be some nasty stuff.

I have certainly done a few rounds with mental loops in my time. At different times of my life, I have obsessed on...

death and its inescapability
afterlife religious possibilities
what I should be doing to be a better person, have more money, etc.
the seeming pointlessness of life in general
am I doing the right thing

Certainly all of these topics should be considered and thoughts in general are necessary and in no way bad. The problem occurs when you get these circular loops that you can't control. I think we often try to think our way out of the process when it is thinking itself that gets you in the loop. It's like curing alcoholism with beer.

As is so often the case the answer is to get out of the worries about the past and the future and be fully in the present. You can get that advice anywhere, but how do you do it? The answer is through the body. The body can rescue your mind.

First, it is important to understand how the body reflects the mind and vice-versa. When you are locked in a mental loop of regret or worry, your body will clench up and your breathing will be shallow. Lock up your body and you can find yourself going into a mental loop. Also, your attention is focused inward giving energy to the mental loop.

To stop it, you have to get out of your head and focus outward. Start looking and listening to what is around you and let your body relax. Breathe deeply. Feel. The instant your body relaxes, your mind will get off the treadmill.

I used to have terrible insomnia, I found that it was caused by three things. Caffeine, insufficient physical activity and/or mental loops. I would sit in bed and worry and I couldn't sleep. Relaxing the body and focusing outward, pretty much solved it for me. I still forget occasionally, because knowing something doesn't mean you will do it all the time.

Wing chun drills

2009-11-04T22:30:00.000-08:00

Drills

Here are some drills that will help you learn the basic principles. Do them the way they are written but then play with them. Change them and make up your own.

Basic Body isolation

Goal: Learn to move specific parts of the body while maintaining a relaxed sunk position.

Hierarchy of requirements: stay relaxed, move the body part, use as few muscles as possible to do so

Drill 1: Shoulders. Move a shoulder up, down, forward and backward. Move in a circle. Try as many directions as possible. Do it with each shoulder. Move them together. Try going in circles together and then while the shoulders are in opposite positions.

Drill 2: Upper body (at sternum). Move upper body right, left, forward and back.

Drill 3: Hip. Move right, left, forward and back. Also move in a circle.

Rag doll

Goal: To learn to relax, center and sink

Hierarchy of requirements: centered, relaxed, sunk

Drill 1: Stand with feet about shoulder width apart. Relax all muscles and find the most centered point in your body. Pretend that there is a string lightly holding your head up in a centered position. Find the center point where you are in balance and let all your muscles liquefy as much as possible. Become a rag doll that is just hanging on the skeletal structure. Imagine that there is a heavy weight hanging between your legs and weights attached to every joint (shoulders, elbows, knees, wrists). Relax the mind as well as the body. Take three big breaths and let go as much as you can with each breath.

Drill 2: Stand up straight. Fall into the rag doll position. Take a step in a stiff way. Fall into the rag doll position. Lean forward…rag doll. Lean back, to the right, and to the left always returning to the rag doll position. Get into all kind of weird positions with your arms raised or down and then return to rag doll position.

Drill 3: Get into the rag doll position. Move around while never leaving the rag doll position. Move from your waist or center of gravity. Feel yourself being as raggedy or liquid as possible. Stumble like a drunk and observe your body move.

Drill 4: From the rag doll position, turn your waist and let arms flap without controlling them. Do it fast and slow.

Assisted movement

Goal: To learn to DO something with the minimal amount of effort stemming from the relaxed sunk position

Hierarchy of requirements: rag doll position, accomplish the task, relax the moving arm

Drill 1: Have someone pick up your arm and place it somewhere. They should hold you by the finger, hand or arm. Give up control. Feel the weight at each joint. Feel the blood drain out of your arms, your bone marrow drain down your arms down through your body and into your feet.

Drill 2: Do the same thing as in drill 1. When your partner puts your hand at a certain point, he or she will tell you to “hold position”. Hold the position as the partner lets go. Try to move as little as possible.

Drill 3: Move your own hand or arm with the other hand. Make sure you give up control to the opposite hand. Do drill 1 and 2 that way.

Drill 4: Now use only one arm, hand or finger and move it in a direction while maintaining the rag doll position and feeling the weight on your joints and feeling the blood drain down the arm and into the body and into the feet. Stop in a position. Do this in multiple directions with the arm unturned and turned in the air and against a wall.

Drill 5: Put your arm in a position quickly and then go “rag doll”. Let everything drain down yet hold the position. Do it in the air and on a wall. Try putting your body in weird or leaning positions and do it as well. Sink down always.

Various “Wall” drills

Drill 1: This drill is better to do with something you can grab or hold onto. Get into the rag doll position. Push your body back and forth by extending your arm and retracting it. Maintain rag doll position and remember to feel weight on joints and to feel internal energy draining down.

Drill 2: Lean on the wall. Push forward and feel how it feels. Try pushing “outward”. Try single and double hands and all possible positions right, left, up, down and across the body. Try it without leaning.

Hold a distance/Maintain hand at a point

Goal: Learning to move whole body with the hand or independent of the hand

Drill 1: Hold one hand in front of you in at a set distance. Walk around holding that position. Try different positions with one and two hands. This should be pretty easy.

Drill 2: Hold your hand in a set position in the air. Move the body back and forth and in as many ways possible while holding the hand in a fixed position. Try it on a wall. Try it on a hanging rope or something that moves easily. Change the hands. Try revolving around the point.

Frame

Goal: Learning to maintain the hand and arm in space under pressure

Hierarchy or requirements: rag doll position, no movement of the arm

Drill 1: Place one hand and/or arm and put it in front of your body. Place a finger from the other hand behind it pointing forward. Have a partner push you (start gently and use increasing amount of force…never TOO much). Try different positions.

Drill 2: Same drill but without the finger. Try to imagine that the finger is still there.

Pinball

Goal: Learning to maintain the rag doll position under external force

Drill 1: Get into rag doll position. Have a partner push and pull you around. Start easy and increase amount of force. Start with back and forth and then add all directions.

Dance time

Goal: Learning to move others by moving self

Drill 1: Lock arms with a partner. Start by grabbing each others internal elbow (elbow pit?). One person is passive or in rag doll position. Take a step forward. Do not move the arms. Visualize yourself moving and not moving the other person or perhaps the two of you moving together. Go back and forth. Try right and left and diagonally. Try it holding the hands or wrists of the person.

Guidelines for new students Phase 1

2009-11-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

So many new students recently that I can sometimes overlook some of the basic skills they need to learn. Here are some of the basic concepts that I think are important in the first stage of learning.

Phase 1
What are we doing? What is this stuff?
Our primary goal is learning to fight. We are trying to learn the best and most effective way to fight using any information and technology available. One of the things we do differently is that we try to learn the principles of fighting rather than the techniques. Some of the things we have to master on the road to learning to fight are body and mind control and the principles of interactive movement. These things are all very interesting and apply to many things outside of fighting, but fighting is the primary goal.

How to learn
This is not the Will show. Ok, it’s my class, but I am just a guy who plays around with and looks for good fighting and movement principles. I learned these principles from people and books but mostly from trying them out and playing around with them. These principles exist for you to find (along with many better ones). They don’t belong to me. If you are interested in this stuff, make a commitment to figure it out any way you can. I will help, but you have to do it. It is easy if you just work the drills (and make up your own).

Class time
In class, don’t wait for me. Start working on this stuff the minute you get there. There is a lot you can do alone or with a partner. If I am boring you during class, go do what you want to do. Take responsibility for your own learning.

Homework
Any skill takes work. You must play with this stuff any chance you get. Even five minutes a day has a major effect. Play with this stuff when you are walking around, watching tv or whatever.

Mastery
You must master the basic skills in this phase in order to progress. If you proceed without mastering these skills, you will get confused and frustrated and stop learning. It is also not fair for someone who has mastered these skills to have to work with someone that is not ready for more advanced skills. The most advanced skills are just a series of smaller skills stacked on top of each other.

Wing Chun Techniques
These are the techniques I need you to know at this stage. Feel free to ask me about them at any time.
Stance - See rag doll
Siu lim tao - Do it while maintaining the rag doll position and thinking about weights on your joints
Punch
Tansao
Bangsao

Key Concepts
Body habit
We are all a collection of physical and mental habits. We learn one way of doing something and that is usually good enough. After you learn to walk one way, why change it? Who needs a more efficient way of picking up a beer? For what we are doing, however, we need to relearn how to do everything we do in a more efficient manner. We begin doing this by letting our way of holding our body go and going to the “rag doll” position. We then relearn to do things and use the minimal amount of effort required to accomplish it. This is that whole “empty the cup” crap. Let your way of doing things or of controlling your body go in order to discover a new way. Is it more important to do things your way or the best way? Let go mentally and physically and observe the differences.

Understanding vs. doing
If you hear something and understand the words, you think you understand. When learning a skill, understanding doesn’t count for much. You can do it or you can’t. Nobody cares how much you understand the guitar, only how well you can play it. Informational learning by itself translates to 95% failure. It is ok to not understand. In fact, it’s normal. Just keep doing the drills. If you really get lost, back up a step. Be careful if you think of yourself as “smart”. It is easy for smart people to “understand” stuff and never bother to master the underlying skill. Dumb is good.

Principle vs. technique
People love techniques. I don’t teach many techniques. If you deeply understand a principle, you can create an infinite amount of techniques that illustrate that principle. You own it. There are not that many principles. I hope to help you understand them as quickly as possible so you don’t need me (you don’t already).

This skill is easy
These fighting principles are simple if you take them step by step. If you learn little skills, they lead to great things.

You kick ass!
Ok, that is cheesy, but it is absolutely important. You have to believe you can fight first. I can’t teach you to fight if you want to learn to first before you believe. If you believe you can fight, you are halfway there. Start every class thinking how much ass you can kick (I can kick about 57 pounds worth). Finally, the best way to be successful is to help others be successful. Help your classmates and you will learn fast.

Halloween hair affair

2009-11-04T04:42:00.000-08:00

I have never been the greatest at preparation of any kind, and certainly not for Halloween.
My general rules for coming up with a costume are...
1. No pun costumes
2. Gotta make it yourself
3. No masks or too much make-up
4. No boxes or complicated stuff
5. No gory, or "cool" costumes, the more ridiculous the better
4. Gotta do it day before or day of.

Last year, I had two hours to get my costume together so I decided to be Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Here is what I came up with.

So I shaved the "bozo" cut in my head. Nobody knew what the hell I was supposed to be, but they loved the fact that I looked stupid, so I kept the cut for a while.

I kind of grew attached to the look, but after a while you get tired of talking about bald heads, mustaches and how stupid you look. I don't think it did me any favors for attracting new wing chun students either. It lasted about a week.

This year, I planned to do the "bozo" with much longer hair and a bigger mustache so I went into mustache training at the beginning of the month. Wasn't sure what I was going to be, but I was sure a-thinking. Then, a week ago, I had to shave it for a job I did so no more mustache. Oh well, what you gonna do? I wanted to do something involving shaving my head because I was tired of having long hair. So, I shaved it.

I wanted something good, but the best I could do was Mr. Clean.

Here is my version with Lady Gaga.

Ok, so the hair stuff doesn't end there. My friend with a shaved head was looking for ideas and all he had was some kind of flame wig. He wanted to go as heat miser.

I said, "no way, dude. You don't want your beers to get lukewarm in your clutch. Go as Super Saiyan Michael Phelps!"

"What's that?" he says.

"It's this."

Ok, he didn't know what the hell I was talking about because he not nearly as nerdy as I am. I just thought it would be cool for him to be the most obscure internet meme I could think of.

My friend didn't even know what Dragonball Z was (I promise I only know what it is, never read it) so he wikipedia-ed it and decided to go as that.

So this fool just happens to have a Dragonball Z wig and then on the day of Halloween puts together a costume that would make lifestyle cosplayers hard. He even had a perfectly cut out comic accurate Chinese character on the back. He was a hit at the party we went to, but damn, I wanted my Super Saiyan Phelps.
Then, I got my chance...I saw a huge dude walk in dressed as Michael Phelps. I grabbed my friends wig and did some fast talking. The outcome....

That's right, Super Saiyan Michael Phelps sucking on a bong.

Mission accomplished. Happy Halloween!

The secret of the one-inch punch

2009-10-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

The one-inch punch was made famous by Bruce Lee. He would occasionally demonstrate his ability to quickly generate force with very little movement. With his fist just one inch away from a target, he would knock larger men than himself back or even off their feet. Here is a demonstration.

Wow! Ok, not really...or maybe a tiny "wow". The one-inch punch is what I like to call a kungfu parlor trick like the bed of nails, or bending a spear with your throat. Certainly there is some technique to it, but it doesn't really demonstrate anything that unusual except maybe basic physics.

When you put your fist one-inch away from something, you can't effectively "hit" the way most people try to hit. You have to push or hit through the thing in front of you. Funny enough, you can push people at 1 inch or even zero inches. When you push someone quickly, they get moved backward quickly.

If you want a more dramatic result, you will need to use your body to generate power through the feet, waist, torso and/or shoulders. You can get the basic effect by straightening your arm (pushing) while turning your waist at the same time quickly.

Actually, doing it well does require some understanding of power generation and the ability to relax so it isn't a totally worthless demonstration. I call it a parlor trick because the way it was presented was designed to create mystery rather than illustrate principle. It's meant to make the puncher look powerful. I like the way they put the chair right behind the guy so he will pretty much have to fall onto it at an awkward angle, all done to increase the drama and mislead. Still, I suppose it could be worse. It's nowhere near as bad as the crap seen in this video.

Body isolation

2009-10-25T02:46:00.000-07:00

One of the very first things I have students do when they start taking classes is body isolation. There are many parts of the body that we don't normally use in everyday life. We have to open up the pathways and get used to moving them just as dancers do. First we have to isolate and get used to using the muscles by themselves. Then we can work on getting them to work naturally in concert.

This part of my class is completely stolen from dance classes so here is a video of a dancer doing body isolation. He is certainly better at it than me. A couple of things to note are: 1. He doesn't do the shoulders. They are extremely important to do, perhaps the most important. 2. Remember to keep breathing and relax everything other than the specific part that is moving.

You can't control your body

2009-10-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

People often say that the lungs are interesting because you can consciously control them, and yet, the body also unconsciously controls them so that you can breathe when you sleep or are engaged in other activities. I think the body works this way to some degree.

You feel like you can mentally control your body because you can give a mental signal to lift your hand and the hand will lift. You can stick out your tongue or shake your booty whenever you choose. Giving signals for the body to do something specific works for simple movements but something else happens when you engage in complex movements. The movements are too complicated for the conscious brain to handle and it has to get out of the way and let the body take over. Even standing or walking is too complex to be totally controlled consciously. When learning to do skills or "difficult" movements the faster your brain stops trying to manage all the delicate movements involved, the faster the skill can be learned.

The sensation of "trying" to do something is usually wanting to learn something faster or control an outcome with the conscious brain. This results in clumsy jerky movements because the wrong part of you is leading the movement. The body itself should be left in charge.

Another way that the body is influenced is by mental state. If you are relaxed, the body will relax. If you are nervous or angry, the body and face will show it. The body is constantly reflecting emotion and mental state. This is natural.

As I have mentioned before, problems occur when the brain fights the body when it is trying to reflect emotion and mental state. People try to lock down their face to hide anger. They clamp down on the body to keep it from showing nervousness. Tension results. If it happens often enough, people can locked in a tense movement or in an unproductive mental state.

When you are doing an activity like wing chun or playing piano, try relaxing and putting all your attention on the activity, but "let" your body do it. Have no concern about outcome or doing it "right" and see what the body wants to do.

Letting go is not easy, but it is extremely important. Grace is what results when the body is in charge.

Chinese Saints

2009-10-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

I promised I would write something funny so I started thinking about Yo Mamma jokes. In my opinion, there are only two really good Yo Mamma jokes.

Yo Mamma is so fat, her nickname is "Daaaayum!"

and

Yo Mamma is so fat, she sell shade in the summertime.

Anyway the reason I bring that up is because I once had a Chinese American friend (ABC or huaqiao in these parts) that was complaining about feeling left out as young girl when her friends would tell Yo Mamma jokes because her mom was skinny.

So I made up one up for her.

Yo Mamma so Chinese, she eat a hamburger with chopsticks.

Anyway, she loved it and that brings me to today's "humor" and the reason for the above title of "Chinese Saints."

Since I had to work all day writing fluff articles at a trade show, it got me thinking about what led a couple of my friends to start the website Expoextra. It was the boredom and absurdity of trade shows and writing about them.

So, as bad as the gig was today, it made me long for the days when we we had so little to do that making a website and magazines for no money to make people laugh seemed worth doing. Below is an article the three of us worked on together for an Expoextra magazine distributed at Spring Scream in 2001. Probably 50 people read the thing so I am bringing it back in honor of a shitty trade show gig. (Dave and Sean, If you guys got any problems with me putting this on the web, let me know). Here you go.

Chinese martyrs and venerable persons currently being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church

Though Catholicism has extended into China, there are currently no Chinese saints recognized by the Catholic Church. To correct several hundred years of oversight, the Vatican is considering the following candidates for sainthood in early 2003. Below are condensed versions of the potential hagiographies of the leading candidates.

Saint Chen the Chainsmoker (1897-1972)
This individual from Ningbo kept a single flame alit for 65 years using qigong breathing techniques and judicious cigarette management. The flame was sent from heaven in the form of a burning bush when Chen was only 10 years old. Upon encountering the divine blaze, Chen promptly used it to light a cigarette. He was able to keep the flame alive until his death in 1972 by continually lighting each new cigarette from the last. During the torrential rains of 1919, Chen single-handedly enabled the citizens of Ningbo to continue to enjoy hot meals while all other fire-starting implements were rendered useless.

Saint Li the Filial Son (1850-1895)
Li became a paradigm of filial piety for his community in Nanjing by never leaving his mother's side - not once in all of his 45 years. From youth to his mid-thirties, his favorite place of comfort was underneath his mother's skirt. It is said, when she passed away, he was forcibly restrained from joining her in the coffin, which considering her ponderous bulk, would have been a near impossibility. The devoted son died the next day of heartache, or possibly, acute arterial blockage.

Saint Wang the Noodle Maker (1850-1925)
Supercharged virility and a willing wife led Wang into a most difficult dilemma: how to feed a family that numbered 69 offspring. An intuitive farmer from Anhui Province, Wang ordered his sons to till the field while he made noodles in the kitchen. It is reported that poor Wang never took a break from his noodle making. During one 15-year period, he even spent 15 years making one noodle that his family consumed just as quickly as it was produced.

Saint Zhen the Cheapskate (1850-1895)
Though Zhen earned a good living as a civil servant, it is a well-documented fact that he never spent a single cent. Bills and coins were deposited into false walls, paychecks would lie uncashed in a drawer. Virtually everything that Zhen needed was scavenged from dumpsters and the rest was obtained through the kindness of gullible tourists. Needless to say, he remained a morally upstanding citizen.

Saint Dong the Dishwasher (1905-1990)
Dong took great joy in his standing position in the kitchen, where, starting at the young age of six, he remained tirelessly until his death at the age of 85. It is reported that Dong was locked in a near transcendental state as he continually washed one large platter. Apparently, he fell into a steady rhythm and with hand moving in circular fashion (suds and warm water were naturally used) is thought to be an inspiration for the popular Falun Gong sect now outlawed in mainland China. An emblem of dedication and commitment, the story of Dong inspires all of us to become more modest, and perhaps, seek less out of life.

Saint Hsu the Scholar (1850-1925)
Living out the maxim that "education is everything", Hsu spent the better part of his years completing his final year of high school study. He was perpetually locked in preparations for the "Joint University Entrance Examination". According to Department of Education records, Hsu took this examination no less than 60 times, revealing a lifetime of dedication that spanned nearly the whole of his adult life. Hsu came just one question away from successfully completing this exam before his untimely death at age 76. Friends and associates marveled at his dedication, and his repetitious zeal. Still, others thought it would be better to abandon this pursuit for the sake of more profitable interests like taxi driving.

Saint Lu the Livery (1850-1895)
Like all earnest young men, Lu from Southern Shandong Province had dreams of making it rich in the big city. He reputedly borrowed the sum of 300 yuan from a neighbor to purchase a pedicab that he would use to ferry goods and passengers throughout the city square. With the promise of financial gain and as much bicycle as a young man could buy with 300 yuan, Lu set off for the city. Little did he know that he would never pick up a passenger nor earn one red mao for the remainder of his 85 years. His misshapen face, rough disposition and lack of dental insurance kept many potential fares away form his pedicab. Still, despite the economic misfortune, Lu kept at his job and appeared in the city center every morning. Operating a pedicab did have its advantages as his community smile when they fondly remember Lu's angelic countenance in the midst of his mid-afternoon slumber.

Saint Tse the Sentry (1905-1998)
In a little known commercial building in downtown Taipei, Tse faithfully kept watch over the front door for over 45 years. It is reported that he never left his post, choosing to sleep on cardboard boxes kept under his desk in evening hours and peeing into a large thermos when nature called. Even during his sleep, his hacking snore and fitful shaking was enough to keep unwelcome visitors and Mormons at bay. He lived modestly with only a few possessions including a 19" black and white television, tea cup and the clothes on his back. Tse was also passionate about Chinese calligraphy, which he practiced daily at his post. Yet, due to a shaky hand and nervous tick, he was never able to draw a straight line, nor complete a discernible character.

Saint Xiao Bao the Hungry (1905-1950)
A snail of a woman, Xiao Bao survived in Northern Shanxi for 45 years on a single mantou, or loaf of Chinese-style bread. According to legend, she practiced circular eating that at times did not preclude the consumption of her own excrement (well, not that there was much of it at any given time - a mere flake or two). Xiao Bao would lick a corner of the loaf which had yellowed over the years. On feast days, she might flick a piece between her thumbnail and forefinger. [ From You Think You're Hungry:The Lean Years of Northern China, as translated by Dave Rudusky]

Ip Man movie review

2009-10-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

I saw Ip Man starring Donnie Yen a few months ago and I have been meaning to comment on it since it is a wing chun movie. Overall, it's a great kungfu movie, with fun fight scenes, reasonable plot and good acting. I would even say it's about the best modern kungfu movie I have seen in a while if you don't count the comedies Shaolin Soccer and Kungfu Hustle by Stephen Chow.

As far as the "wing chun" choreography goes, I would say they did about as good a job as you could do. For the most part it looks something like wing chun with a lot of movie poetic license as you would expect. I also give them points for keeping wire work to a minimum and resisting the urge to make the wing chun more flashy. Donnie Yen does a great job and I really enjoyed the humble character of his Yip Man. Here is my favorite fight scene from the movie. I think the actor who plays the country bumpkin villain is great and has great intensity.

On the negative side, I have to say I don't really understand the point of taking a real person like Yip Man or Bruce Lee and simply making a fantastic plot around them that has nothing to do with reality. There really isn't any reason to do that other than cash in on their fame. I also get tired of the evil Japanese with their inferior karate that is so prevalent in kungfu movies. I guess the real life history of people who teach kungfu is of little interest to anyone but kungfu nerds. Myself, I would just prefer that they make kungfu movies with fictional characters. I suppose that the easiest way to ruin a movie is to be too close to the subject.

Good MMA fight in Taiwan. Congratulations Demetri

2009-10-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

MMA is slowly taking hold in Taiwan and the rest of Asia. Here in Taipei there are two major mma/jujitsu schools and there are other schools in Taichung and Kaohsiung. There are currently two promoters of MMA events and just last week we had two events by the two different promoters (whoa...that a lot of twos).

Last Friday night, the promoter TMC held an event and there was a pretty good fight that ended in a little controversy.

The fight was between Demetri Telfair who trains at Taiwan BJJ Academy and Andreas Hesselback who trains at Tiger Muay Thai in Thailand.

Here is the first round.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Narouqu...u/1/t8uJBAyLYSE
And the second and third
http://www.youtube.com/user/Narouqu...u/0/HmJrTGI78NM

The controversy is regarding the decision, the excessive use of Vaseline and the lack of a point deduction for hits to the back of the head after four warnings.

Here is the fallout after the match.
http://www.bjj-asia.com/2009/10/tmc...selback-vs.html

My thoughts are that it was an exciting fight, but that for MMA to grow in a healthy fashion, there needs to be an organization to establish standards and help protect the fighters. I think the places where the fighters are training need to step up and create the organization and get the promoters to follow their guidelines. You can't leave it in the hands of the promoters. Let them focus on marketing. Of course, I also realize that all this stuff takes time and isn't easy. Good luck to all concerned and I hope that the current mini-controversy helps MMA events in Taiwan improve.

Mojo, intent, presence....whatever you call it, it's real

2009-10-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

In a previous entry I mentioned the issue of locking up the arms and how you might find that when you relax your arms, they collapse into your body. This is a result of where your attention is.

We often talk about presence, charisma, mojo and attitude to describe relaxed outward intent. It plays a big part in acting, dance, modeling, performance...actually most things and most definitely fighting.

On a simple level it is relaxing your body while you pay attention to what is around you. Your body will move based on how "big" your intent is around you.

If you imagine a person who is insecure, they direct their intent inward. The field of attention around them is very small so all their movements are close to the body. Imagine how that person dances. They take up as little space as possible, or if they make big movements, it is stiff and awkward.

Now, imagine a king, a confident person, a person with "mojo", or any personally powerful person. Their attention is directed outward while they are relaxed. They see and interact with what is going on around them. Their body uses a larger amount of space in a natural way.

Your body will make use of the space your give it. The bigger the sphere of your intent the more powerful and relaxed your body movements will be.

This "sphere of intent" is especially important in interaction. Interactions begin when your intent encounters something or someone. Before you even start to touch the person. If your intent is too small, the interaction won't begin even when you are touching someone.

When fighting, you need to have your intent pushed outward enough to encompass the opponent in order to fully interact with them.

All this may sound weird or esoteric, but it is easy to test and observe. I will talk more about this in other entries. For now, the best way to increase your field of intent is to relax and try to see, hear, smell and feel everything around you in as big an area as possible while you relax. Then continue doing it as you move around, then do other activities and try it for fighting. Don't let the doing of the activity get in the way of this process.

Locked arms are useless

2009-10-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

If you have somebody coming at you, or you are moving toward someone, it is only natural to lock your arms at the shoulders and elbows. This is essentially turning your arms into two sticks.

When you are doing chisao or fighting, people lock their arms all the time. It might work fine if your sticks are strong enough and the other person doesn't do anything else, but they probably will. Most likely the other person will lock their arms as well so you might be all right.

But there is a better way. Your arms should be completely relaxed when you do almost ANYTHING. Locked arms prohibit you from doing any delicate activity like drawing, playing music, and especially fighting.

Of course, it's completely natural to lock up. You are trying to protect yourself and hold the person off while you figure out what to do. All it really serves to do is lock you out from the interaction. You want to let the person in so you can beat them, not hold them away.

If you commit to keeping the arms from locking up, you will probably find that they won't keep your opponent at a good distance and completely collapse. That is because your attention isn't big enough or in the right place. I will deal with that issue in a future entry.

Why did you get injured? It's your fault

2009-10-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok, it's not necessarily your fault, but you are better off treating your injuries as if they really ARE your fault. Obviously, if you get hurt somehow, you should consider how it happened and think about what you could do to avoid something similar happening in the future. That is just common sense. Be sure to do it especially when it seems obvious that it wasn't your fault at all.

Actually, what I really want to focus on is how you are interacting with the environment. Clumsy people trip and fall and knock things over and think "I'm just clumsy". That is usually not true, they aren't paying attention to what is around them when they move and are stuck in their thought processes. Certainly there could be physiological reasons why someone is clumsy, but I am just talking about normal people not paying attention. If you are getting injured because you aren't paying attention to what you are doing, think of it as the universe talking to you. It's telling you to wake up or you are going to get really hurt.

Other people have problems with trying to force outcomes (this is almost everyone). If you constantly mentally and physically try to force outcomes, don't be surprised when you get injured. You can only push and clamp for so long before something pushes back.

On the bright side, injuries should be seen as opportunities. Maybe you need to change or evolve but you are lost in your own mental loops and can't change yourself. The universe steps in and helps you by forcing a new mental state on you. It doesn't matter whether this is actually the case or not, it is simply a good metaphor that can help you out.

It worked for me. I never would have made any real progress in martial arts without my hand injury. It happened right at the right time for me. I also currently have a student with a much more serious injury that is making loads of progress right now while it is debatable whether he should even be training at all. Meanwhile, I see people who get hurt all the time, but don't take the time to think about how the kind of person they are could be causing them bodily harm.

Are you stone facing?

2009-10-06T02:51:00.000-07:00

Stone facing is what I call it when you don't let emotions come out on your face. Some people walk around with their face on lockdown all the time. There are reasons why people do it and a few negative consequences.

Babies are wonderful to watch because you can see their emotions and reactions play out on their faces. At some point, many people find reasons to stop this from happening. Maybe the family or environment is not "safe" enough for honest emotions to be expressed. Or sometimes just living in a modern society makes it difficult or even dangerous to express natural emotion. I don't want to get bogged down here so let's just say that there are many reasons why it occurs.

Your face is the most directly connected part of your body to your emotions and the way you are feeling. Now, here is where it connects to movement and martial arts. When you are locking down the face, you are also physically clamping down on the rest of the body so that you can't move naturally. Natural movement can't occur without naturally flowing emotion.

Other effects of stone facing are social problems. It is hard to connect to people who aren't allowing their emotions to show as they are occurring. It's hard to make friends and get people to trust them. This leads to the person feeling alienated from people. When they do show emotion it can seem fake since it is tightly controlled.

Some people are photogenic and some people aren't and most people seem to have no idea why. In my experience, if you are not locking up your face, you are photogenic. If you are locking up, you probably have the same expression in every photograph you are in.

If you are stone facing, don't feel bad...most of us do it to some degree. Some ways to reconnect up are to make sure you relax your face when you are doing activities or talking to someone. Let yourself look stupid. Start making exaggerated expressions just to see how they feel. Open up and be vulnerable. Hiding your emotion doesn't keep you safe, it imprisons you away from life. Be patient though, because it will be a long process to recover from all the damage that has been done from all that locking up. (Or you might say, recovery from all the stress and pressure that makes someone lock away their emotions is not easy.)

If those aren't good enough reasons, you can't move well with a stone face so your wing chun or whatever activity you do will suffer.

Martial arts suck (Exhibit A)

2009-10-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

"Hey, let's go rob that guy with the silly stick."

If you like that, maybe you want to purchase a katana, here is a review for you katana shoppers.

Actually, even though I find this funny, I think that guy is pretty cool in a supernerd kind of way. I would hang out with him any time as long as he brought the whole family.

Benjamin Zander got the good gongfu

2009-10-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

I used to read a lot of stuff about martial arts and watch a lot of videos, but I find it very difficult to find much that is inspiring or even interesting. I find I have to look at other fields for that. My favorite books for martial arts are often by musicians, artists or psychoanalysts.

Here is an example. I occasionally listen to TED talks. I like this one by Benjamin Zander because it has so much to say about martial arts and interactive connection. The topic is classical music, but he makes a lot of universal points.

Benjamin Zander TED talk

The first point is about impulses. When you start to learn a skill, you bring your presence or attention to the activity in bursts. You haven't learned to be delicate. To get better, you have to tame these brute impulses and smooth them out. How do you pick up a baby? That is being delicate and that is the direction we are heading when learning a skill.

He also brings up a good point in his demonstration about emotion and being present. Music means nothing unless you are actually listening and feeling. The same for wing chun. You can't really practice it. You have to actually do it a lot. You have to feel something.

Redemption through Connection

2009-10-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

Let's be honest. Life ain't easy. You're going to get gut punched, heart stomped, and at some point doubt whether the whole process is worthwhile. In the end we "lose", we end up broken, bed-ridden and fade away, that is if you are lucky and don't get hit by a truck.

Part of the struggle in life is to find something to make it worthwhile. That is what "redemption" is all about. You find something to make your little flash in the pan worth something. This is a deep, personal question and I am sure there are an infinite number of answers, many of which I will never know nor understand.

I would like to offer one "answer" that seems to be universal and that is connection. First we have to connect to life itself. That means letting go and fully experiencing the world around you through the senses, the body and through emotion.

Emotion may be the most important part of being human as it is quite simply a reaction to living. Emotions must be fully embraced and allowed to flow. Modern life has a way of pushing people into their heads and giving them reasons to clamp down on emotion. You can spend your life worrying, wishing and planning rather than experiencing. This route leads to malaise in your younger years and eventually leads to insanity. I see it all the time.

You have to breathe naturally and relax the body and get out of your head as much as possible. Yeah, it's the whole "live in the moment" thing. You have to do it while you are relaxing, walking, talking, doing your taxes, fucking and, of course, fighting.

Once you are paying attention directly to reality rather than your mental map of it, life becomes richer and more beautiful and makes a lot more sense. When you are fully opened and have your attention directed outward to the world around you, you can start to connect to other people as well. You can have those amazing fulfilling conversations that are so much fun. You can dance with someone and experience something so fulfilling that you walk around for a couple of days just smiling. You can get together with someone to accomplish something and create a collaborative cooperation that is greater than just two people. You can truly love another person.

When you don't find a way to really connect with people, they can seem to be obstacles more than anything. When you do connect with them, it easy to see how people make life worth living.

As I continue to post about the details of wing chun or fighting, I would like to make something clear. This connection I am talking about is at the heart of the art as I see it. If it isn't there, not only will it not work, there is really no point of doing it. I use wing chun as a way to study the principles of connection and interaction rather than the other way around.

Also, if you have trouble letting go and connecting with people, there are probably good reasons for it. Nothing inherently wrong with you. It may take time to overcome these obstacles. Its not as easy as just saying "I am going to let go and really feel my emotions and connect with people." I will try to offer some suggestions in the future. The first suggestion is if you are locked up in your head in thinking loops, check to see if you are breathing relaxed and naturally.

Ground to ground, feet to feet

2009-10-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

Whenever you are doing an activity where you touch hands with another person and move in an interactive fashion, it helps to remember that the point where you are touching each other is NOT the important part. When you touch the other person, you need to feel their entire body down to the ground in order to truly affect their movement and interact with them.

You should also be moving from your feet. Your power comes from the ground. If you move from the arms or the top of the torso by scrunching up the body, your ability to control the interaction is limited. If you don't feel them down to their feet, you won't be affecting their whole body and balance.

If that doesn't make sense, think of it this way...Put your hands out and have your partner put his or her hands out. Move forward and don't change the arm position until you can feel the persons feet (that means you could make them move their feet with a small amount of pressure). When you can find their feet, make them move by using your feet pushing against the ground. Only then should you move your arms in coordination with the feet.

If this still doesn't make sense, just focus on this: we connect up with someone to interact or fight through touching. The point we touch is a way to feel deeper into the person. Don't get stuck just trying to move the connection point. The cable between your television and the electric outlet isn't important. The socket and the tv are.

Stuck in a rut? Stop trying.

2009-10-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to try or try harder when you are doing an activity? Will trying harder allow you to lift more weight, dance better, play guitar better? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what you mean by "try".

If you mean "concentrate more", ok that might work, but most people seem to be "trying" to do more than they are capable. If you jump as high as you can, that's all you got. You don't need to scrunch up your face to get more out of it. "Trying" is often wishing you were better than you are. It is thinking about doing something while you are doing it and, worst of all, it is clenching up muscles not involved with an activity.

Watch someone do an activity that they are new to like playing a musical instrument or rock climbing when they really want to do it well. They try to do better by flipping the "ALL SYSTEMS GO!!!!" switch and start moving like a prehistoric robot (ok, now I want someone to draw one). The wishing to be better doesn't do squat. Most activities are complex and demand subtle movement. You have to try out certain methods and slowly exchange them for better ones in a relaxed fashion.

Now, lets move on to fighting and non-cooperative/competitive training like chisao. Trying to "win" and getting all stiff doesn't lead to getting better. What you are really doing is isolating yourself from experiencing the activity. When I started doing chisao, I wanted to be better than everyone, or at least everyone at my school. I "tried" like a banshee. I did ok, because most of the other students were trying too. Then something happened.

I would love to say that I figured something out or that I had a revelation, but actually I just got hurt. I jammed my fingers really badly twice in one night. I couldn't really move them and they hurt like hell for about a month. I still wanted to train, but I really didn't want to screw them up any worse than they were. My ego kind of went on vacation. My thinking was, "well, I am hurt so I will just kind of pretend chisao...of course I can't win while I am so hurt."

I would ask people to chisao and tell them to take it easy because of my useless sausage fingers and would just let them do what they wanted and while I went along and "watched". That was really the first time I really paid attention to my opponent. Before I was focused on beating them and not getting hit. For about a week, I just chisaoed really passively. Then I started to "feel" what the opponent was doing. Not in any mystical way, the information was always there, but I was trying too hard to pay attention to it. In a couple of weeks I was moving forward without trying to win and winning easily. In a month, I went through everyone at the school. It was pretty shocking to me at the time. I didn't really understand what was happening. I understand now.

If you are having a problem improving, let what you don't want to happen happen. If you have writer's block, write something horrible (it's harder than you think). Lose spectacularly in a tennis match. Go hit on a woman and say the most ridiculous thing imaginable. Play horrible music with as much passion as you can muster. And, if you haven't walked into a super fancy pants place-to-be-seen nightclub and hoisted up your pants and danced in the most ridiculous fashion you can muster alone in the middle of the dance floor, you are missing out on some serious fun.

Learning skills is really very simple. At first, you suck. Do the skill anyway and enjoy sucking. Stay relaxed and don't bother trying. Just smile and pretend you are awesome no matter what the evidence to the contrary. I promise you will never stop improving as long as you do this and don't "try".

I work out with a lot of different kinds of people doing boxing, wing chun, bjj, taichi....whatever. I still make it a point to "lose" to almost anyone a few times. Keeps my ego in check and really helps me see how and why they do what they do. Mostly it's just fun.

Why your martial arts class sucks

2009-09-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

If there is anything the Internet has taught me, it's that people love lists....Here you go...10 reasons martial arts classes suck:

No understanding of what a martial art is. Martial arts is learning and training the skill of fighting a fully resisting and attacking opponent. It isn’t easy to train this and there are a few different strategies….all flawed to some degree. If we just lay into each other 100% with no protection a la “fight club”, we will spend most of our time injured. Pads and protection change things, rules change things, tuishou is not fighting, chisao is not fighting, wrestling is not fighting, judo is not fighting, boxing is not fighting. All of these activities have pros and cons. The important thing is that there is some understanding and discussion of why you use a training method and how it relates to actual fighting and why you are doing it that way. Learning to fight requires actually doing the activity of fighting at least occasionally or at least trying to replicate actual fighting as closely as possible with modifications for safety reasons. Most martial arts that work, train from 0% to 80% and then occasionally go 100% or have reasons for not doing so. My classes don’t go 100% and I have to consider and reconsider those reasons often(some people dispute my reasons and I understand that) but I would be the first person to say you gotta fight to learn to fight. Chisao alone won’t do it. It’s a training method. Also, a martial art should use techniques, principles and/or strategy to overcome an opponent’s potentially greater speed, size and or strength. All this can be ignored if the stated purpose of the class is to do something other than fight.
Series of movements are trained on an unresisting and or defensive opponent. This is the type of training where someone throws a punch and the receiving party then does 2 to 20 unanswered moves with the intent of “chaining together” moves. This kind of training ritual is pretty common in Youtube videos. Also in this category is training to attack based on how the opponent will react defensively…”You feint to his eyes and when he squints you grab his left arm and pull, when he pulls back you grab his neck, etc.” If you use this method, get ready to freak out when the person you are fighting attacks rather than reacts to you. You see a lot of this kind of thing in useless self-defense classes. Most training should be spent in non-cooperative exercises.
No appreciation for size, strength, speed and fitness. It IS possible to overcome these things, but it isn’t easy. You have to use superior strategy and then optimize these factors as much as possible. If you are getting simple answers for dealing with these issues, watch out.
Guru or lineage worship. Here’s a secret…nobody is that awesome. Ok, maybe they are, maybe they are a genius, but you know what. If they are that much of a genius, they are probably a shitty teacher. There are very few things that you can only learn if you are taught it by someone who was taught it by someone else. Anyone can discover anything or improve on anything. Sure it's great to have a great teacher and a great training environment improves learning a lot, but anyone who tells you they are the only way has something to sell. They want your money or your attention. Good places to train create environments where people can learn, create and share. The group learns faster than one person.
Lack of concern for safety, manners and training efficiency. If lots of people are getting hurt regularly and no one cares, what the hell? Martial arts is about violence and to train that isn’t easy so we have to figure out ways to be safe. Don’t get me wrong, people will get hurt when you are pushing the envelope, but that is the way anything competitive works. That is why there has to be concern about safety. As for manners, people should be communicating about manners and the way to act, hygiene and that kind of thing. It shouldn’t be “cool” to hurt someone intentionally, to bully someone or to work out on filthy mats. As for training efficiency, people should be communicating about the best way to train that doesn’t just involve repeating movements.
Higher level people don't move more gracefully and more relaxed or don't get better results. Oh man, this one gets me. If you want to learn something like martial arts from someone, the people who are good at it should move well. They should have some relaxed mojo and confidence. If they don’t, why study the art.
Non-stop political infighting and status battles. People who can’t fight have more status. This crap can infect any group doing an activity. The focus should be on the skill. Of course there will always be people who don’t get along, but when the whole class or gym is all cliquey and this group hate that group and won’t train together or people are worried about who is senior to whom, what the hell kind of tea party is that? Also, if status (who the hell cares about your status in some martial arts group?) depends on how long you have been training rather than skill, that is a bit odd.
Emphasis on techniques over principle. When you go to class and someone teaches a technique without explaining how it works, and then teaches another technique next week and another after that, you are on the teat. How do you get off the teat if you don’t understand the thinking involved in why you would do a technique this way. Why pay money to have techniques parceled out to you when you could be hooked on sweet heroin?
More discussion than training. Long lectures and talking about everything under the sun where the teacher is the “expert” on everything rather than working out. I will give you another secret. Martial arts teachers know about as much about life in general as Spanish teachers. Only doing the skill gives you the skill.
Culture worship over reality. Wing chun uses Cantonese to name techniques and Judo uses Japanese…hey, fair dinkum. But if people are all worried about the language issues and the history of it over how it works, maybe they should join an anime club. If you want to wear a sash and argue about the true meaning of a Chinese phrase or the tea ceremony, please remember that while you are worried about that, Chinese people are eating hamburgers and playing World of Warcraft. Also, if you quote the Tao Te Ching...well...yikes.

Ok, ten isn’t quite enough…here is one more.

Not fun. No socializing. Dudes who do stuff together have fun and joke around and get together to drink and talk about girls or have dinner or bowl or whatever. If that isn’t occurring, why not? If it's not ever fun, go join a yoga class and meet some chicks.

This list probably came off a little judgmental, but the truth is my own class has been or is often guilty of many of these things. Hopefully, writing it will help me figure out how to improve my own classes. Damn! I want my classes to be totally awesome without all this “effort”.

Martial arts is basketball

2009-09-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

The world of martial arts has more bullshit, con men, gurus, spiritualists, and misconception than you can shake a stick at.

When people ask me weird questions about martial arts, I often use the "basketball" response. If it doesn't make sense for basketball, it probably doesn't make sense for martial arts.

Don't get me wrong, the metaphor isn't perfect. Since basketball is a sport, it is a bit different than fighting which has hundreds of different approaches and permutations. Also, the metaphor would probably work better if it was an individual sport like tennis. But, bear with me. Here is how it applies.

Question: Can you learn to fight through forms?
My answer: Can you learn to play basketball through basketball forms?
Analysis: Sure you can learn to play better through going through the motions of free throws and jump shots, but the guys who play everyday will most probably win.

Q: Is size important in fighting? Does the bigger guy always win?
A: Is it important in basketball? Does the bigger guy always win?

Q:How does strong qi affect martial arts?
A: How does mojo affect basketball?

Q:What is the best style of martial arts?
A: What is the best style of basketball?

Ok, I think you get the idea. The idea being that if a concept doesn't make sense in something that is familiar to you, why would you believe it for something that is foreign to you? That is not to say that different cultures don't focus on different things or have different strengths and weaknesses, but every culture has fighting so why are people so willing to believe that one culture has the ultimate technique.

I like wing chun because it is a form of stand-up wrestling with punching. That is pretty cool, but the concepts are there in wrestling, or judo or cooperative dance for that matter. People often want easy answers to difficult questions or they want to find the cheat sheet for a skill. There are better strategies and training methods, but no easy way. If you happen to find an easy or superior way, someone will notice and react to it and figure out a way to beat it. That is the way of things.

The secret of martial arts

2009-09-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

Intent/Attitude, Attention, Relaxation, Pressure, Leverage, Direction

Everything I can think of that is important is in fighting is encompassed in these words...maybe for any skill. The most important underlying thing that makes you good is your intent/attitude/state of mind. If you have that, you can learn the others. The most important word for the nitty gritty of what the study of martial arts entails is leverage. I may change my mind later though.

There you go... go whoop some ass.

Ok, you are paying attention, but to where?

2009-09-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

One thing that comes up again and again or at least it should in wing chun, fighting, dancing, music, and most any skill is the question of where your attention is.

When you drive, you have to watch the road. Even when you look away for a second, you have to keep your attention forward while your eyes quickly look somewhere else. Doesn't matter if you have driven for 10 years or it's your first time, you have to do it to drive or you will crash.

If you dance, you have to feel the music. (Well, you don't have to but then I hope I don't have to watch you dance if you don't). If you are feeling the music, you can't really dance incorrectly. If you do some complicated move that you pay attention to doing rather than the music, it won't "work" or be "right".

When you play music with other people, as long as you are focused primarily on listening to the rhythm and the other members, I promise you will improve. God help your shitty band if you put your attention on that shitty lick you downloaded off Ultimate Guitar rather than the rhythm and your bandmates.

I often encounter the problem of misdirected attention or intent with beginners in wing chun. Your attention should be on what is around you which includes the opponent (I will get into why I don't just say your opponent in another entry). Whatever else you do, be it be punch, walk forward, move your arms, or make a funny face, you have to keep your attention directed outward, which primarily means your opponent and surroundings and not on you and what you are doing. You can't try to "do" all of this complicated bullshit like kuansao, and lapsao and whatever-sao if you have to put your attention on the act of doing it.

You may want to put your attention on a certain move in order to pull it off and try to convince yourself that you will learn to do it "correctly" in the moment later. Bullshit. YOU WILL NEVER GET IT THAT WAY. All the myriad of techniques only have any meaning if done based on your feeling while your attention is on the opponent. The attention can NEVER goes anywhere else. The whole point of chisao is to have your focus on the opponent while you interact with him. Focus on the move while you are alone.

Boxers are usually much better at getting this idea because if they start thinking about a combination, their hands drop and they get punched in the nose. During chisao, your opponent may punch you or take your balance or "win" in some way, but often the person believes it happened because they did the wrong technique. No, you stopped watching and attacking your opponent.

I also have to add, this problem is directly connected with not moving forward. If you are moving forward, you will look forward, like when you move forward in a car. Hit the brakes and your intent is focused inward. Move forward, attention outward.

Update on Secret Fighting Arts of the World by John F. Gilbey

2009-09-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

God I miss the days before the Internet when all we had was the library stacks and the bookstore. If you think wikipedia is bullshit because anyone can write anything, that has nothing on the way things used to be. Not only did we have wacky science fiction and porn fairies that left porn mags under bridges, we also had fake non-fiction books with no way to tell they were full of crap. It's nice to be able to find out if something is bullshit with the click of a hyperlink (I am looking at you Zeitgeist), but sometimes I miss how easily a young lad could believe just about anything was real.

Books about magic, meditation, ninjas and martial arts (I always accidentally write "marital arts" for martial arts for some Freudian reason) were awesome if you were too young or stupid to know better. I was firmly in both categories when I was a kid. We had all that Stephen Hayes ninja crap, The Peaceful Warrior, and best of all Secret Fighting Arts of the World by John F. Gilbey. Secret Fighting Arts was the shit!

It was about this super rich martial arts dude who traveled the world finding the most awesome secret martial arts. Along with such staples as Savate and the dim mak, it also featured tales of meeting masters of the Newcastle Nutter (guy who headed people in the face), the Macedonian Buttock, and the Ganges Groin Gouge (my personal favorite, a martial art where you just try to punch a guy in the nuts). Later, it came out that the book was a joke written by martial arts writer Robert Smith. Damn!

Anyway, when I came to Taiwan years ago, I saw that book sitting on my friends shelf. I said, "whoa! you got this book, it's hilarious!" He agreed, and we laughed about it sometimes.

Recently, he called me and told me he had met a foreigner that lived in Taiwan in the 50s and 60s. He asked him if there were any foreigners coming to Taiwan to study martial arts at that time (he asked because in the book the supposed author mentions being in Taiwan in some chapter). The guy said, "Hell no! At that time, it was such a small world for foreigners to be here, we knew of anyone from anywhere doing whatever they were doing here. No foreigners were doing martial arts period at that time." My friend was happy to have finally disproven the book.

Didn't have the heart to tell him the back story about Robert Smith. Damn, growing up sucks sometimes. Well, at least I am sure Morihei Ueshiba and Socrates from The Peaceful Warrior could really teleport.

Relax into the movement

2009-09-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

One of the most difficult and important issues in wing chun or any kind of movement is relaxing as much as possible during each movement. When people start any new kind of movement, they tend to clench their bodies up as their mind tries to do the movement "perfectly".

Unfortunately, its impossible, you can't do new movements or activities perfectly the first time. This "trying" causes all kinds of problems. I think most people attempt to get a new movement down "correctly" and then the relaxation comes later. It doesn't.

The relaxation part is a core part of skilled movement. It needs priority over other aspects of the movement.

What that means is that when doing something new whether it be plucking a guitar string or throwing a punch, it should be done as relaxed as possible from the very beginning. In order to do this, the movement itself will probably be somewhat "incorrect" (it's debatable that there are any incorrect relaxed movements) or sloppy.

Sloppy is great. Be sloppy until you personally feel reasons to move differently. You can't copy someones movement over your own movement. You can only copy the mental state and principles they are using.

One way to speed up this process is to breathe out and let go as you do any new movement. Don't breathe out and relax and then start, do it at the same time as the motion. Breathe out AS you punch. Breathe out and let go as you start chisao. Do it as you jump to dunk the basketball (ok, that's a joke, I can't dunk no matter how much I breathe out.)

Fight with the eyes

2009-09-14T02:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry, for the long delay since I last posted, I am currently reworking the site.

I have seen a lot of chisao, sparring and push hands over the years and one thing that I am constantly surprised about is the number of people that look down when they practice fighting. Actually the same thing happens in salsa as well.

I can understand that a beginner is so concerned with what he or she is doing that they will look down at whatever body part they are moving, but this should be strongly discouraged.

In a fight you have to fight the man, not the moves. Your attention must be firmly on the source of moves. It is possible to do this while looking somewhere else, but it is much easier to just look the direction that your attention is focused.

The body will unconsciously follow where you direct your attention. This means that the body follows the direction of attention. Your eyes usually reveal where your attention is. If you look down, you will go down. Your stance will most likely be unstable.

If you focus on the opponent, then your body will be directed in all movements to pull toward that direction. This is ideal.

It is not enough to have the eyes open in the direction of the opponent, actual intent has to be there. By "intent" I mean you have to actually be looking. You focus on the other party rather than what you are doing. This creates interaction.

One way to look at it is socially. If I approach someone and tell a canned joke or story without focusing any attention on them, it will probably not get much attention or laughs, regardless of how funny the material is. On the other hand, if I relax and actively listen to someone while I make the jokes that naturally occur to me in the moment, I will get a better reaction most of the time. I will also get better at it the more I do it.

Another way I like to look at it is by thinking there is no such thing as preparing or practice. Each time you spar, fight, chisao, wrestle, dance or whatever, its the real thing and should be interactive. Your partner or opponent deserves your full attention. In the doing of the actual activity, you get better. Your eyes are the best indication of where your attention is in the beginning.

Oh, and one last point because I am feeling snarky. Occassionally in wing chun, people like to wear blindfolds to show how awesome their "sensitivity" is. DON'T DO THIS! It misses the point and is extremely undignified. If you want to try closing your eyes sometimes, do so, and do it with them open as well, but leave the blindfolds to the kids.

Vulnerability

2009-08-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

I have to work on some computer issues I am having so I am posting from an Internet cafe. Here is something I wrote a little while ago about the subject of "vulnerability". Thanks to Dan for sending this my way.

Why being vulnerable is important

If you want to think about it simply, two people are in a struggle. If you struggle to win everything, the stronger person wins. If you are the weaker party you have to negotiate. Wing chun is about that negotiation. If you are the stronger party, you don't need it. You need it when you are outgunned. When you are outgunned a good negotiator tries to identify exactly what he or she wants and is willing to sacrifice anything to keep the important parts. In wing chun, we don't want to get hit or give up the control of our balance.

In order to get what I want, I will give up ground (you can push me), I will let you win any struggles that don't result in my getting hit or losing control of my balance. As a matter of fact, I will go ahead and allow you to do as much as you want to do and edit out the parts that result in my getting hit or losing my balance as delicately as possible so as not to cause you any discomfort. That is the cooperation part. The more I allow the other party to be free and do what they want, the smoother it will go and the freer I am to move. So only interrupt their movement for important reasons like if you are going to get hit otherwise.

All this leads to the vulnerability issue. Vulnerabiltiy is just a fact, you are imperfect, weak and can be hurt. Hiding that or locking up or pushing so as not to seem vulnerable will keep you from doing the above. You hide the reality of the interaction from yourself so you can't really feel what is going on and get what is in your interest. It is sort of how socially awkward people often try to hide their weakness and emotions because of their incorrect belief that allowing the flaws to be obvious will result in their being rejected.

This is why I often suggest that people chisao, or hit on girls or dance with the assumption that what you do is wrong, terrible, inadequate...just accept it and yet continue to "play" and be fully in the moment. How do you do things when you aren't worried about the outcome? When you are free to feel and react as you want? Most things are beyond controlling so you have to let go.

To me, this relaxing and letting go is what "kungfu" or being in the zone or effortless mastery or whatever is all about. You let go of fear and expectation and yet fully participate and then the real "you" starts to emerge. It's pretty cool.

I also see you can see this same fear play out in many different venues. People don't take risks because they could die. They don't follow the career they would like because they might not make money. They lock up rather than fight because they could get hurt. They don't talk to the girl because they could get rejected.

All the things that lead to people not putting themselves out there tend to happen anyway in my experience. Run everyday and you will still die, don't fight back and you will still get hit, people who get their colons cleansed die too. The real problem is that if you don't let go and let yourself express itself, who are you and what is the point of your life?

What wing chun is and what it ain't

2009-08-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has taken my class knows that I would really prefer to call what we do something other than wing chun. The reason I do call it wing chun is that otherwise people may think I am one of those guys that did a little karate, a little jujitsu and a little wing chun and just combine it in some willy nilly way and call it Will-fu or something. Yuck.

Wing chun is a fighting and training system created by one or more people (I will leave the details of that statement to all those budding kungfu scribes). Most versions involve 6 forms, two weapons and chisao. Chisao is a training method that essentially helps you train fighting in a non-cooperative manner without constantly getting punched in the face.

From studying wing chun, you may discover better ways to move your body, you may learn better ways to generate power, how to relax so that your speed and reactions increase. You may learn better ways to interact, lead, follow, use your opponents energy. I think it is important to remember that all of these things are not wing chun, they are simple physics. For me I try to follow the physics as closely as I can. As you observe the physics you will see simple principles emerge and you will begin to notice the principles at work in other activities such as social dances like tango or in wrestling. I think it is important to do things the "wing chun way" only as far as it corresponds with reality. If it doesn't, dump it. I am sure that many will say that using whatever works IS the wing chun way.

Sticky hands

2009-08-28T23:21:00.000-07:00

When people talk about Wing Chun, they ofter refer to being "sticky". It seems to me that a lot of people use this word but don't seem to know what it means. If two people are moving their hands together in some kind of cooperative or coordinated movement. That is not being sticky. If two people who have studied Wing Chun for many years do chisao so they move in kind of Wing Chun style patterns, that is not being sticky.

Sticky is when you are moving toward a person with your hand, arm or other body part, and they want to stop you so they resist, they now have no choice but to move with you in another direction since they resisted getting touched or hit, they are "sticking" to you. Another way to think about it is you put the person in the position of having a choice, they can get hit or stick to you. Either way, you "win".

If you continue to keep your pressure aimed at them, they will continue to stick to you. Constant forward force or perhaps I should say steady forward force is required to be sticky. If the person pulls their hands back or moves backward, this forward force will result in you walking forward. I am not trying to be critical, but I don't understand how chisao is performed or how people can stick if neither person is generating forward force.

Chisao can be performed without this forward force, but it becomes a reaction time drill rather than a truly interactive drill. Without the forward force, whoever moves fastest will win. With the forward force (generated at the feet), better wing chun skill will prevail (ha!, what a silly word).

Walking

2009-08-26T23:25:00.000-07:00

After you get comfortable standing with as little effort and tension as possible it is time to move around. Walking may seem easy and something we can all do, but many people do it in an unnatural or inefficient way.

Gravity pulls your body down so there is no need to push down when you walk. If you push down against the ground, your body will pop up which is inefficient. The "trick" is to push your foot in the opposite direction in which you wish to travel...back to go forward, right to go left and so on. Also keep your body relaxed but straight and try to push your pelvis rather than upper body. The last most important thing is to pay attention to what is around you rather than your legs or your body and breathe naturally.

Exercise 3 - Skating
Stand on one leg and relax. Don't try to keep your balance. If you fall just trade legs. Now, push your pelvis and trade legs. Keep the upper body relaxed and perpendicular to the ground. Make sure you don't bounce and that your head stays at the same height. Keep your attention outward and stay relaxed and move in all directions at varying speeds and rhythms.

Guide to the martial arts

2009-08-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

About twelve years ago, my friends and I had a weird informative/humor website called Expo Extra and I wrote an article making fun of Kungfu around Taiwan. It was just for fun and was kind of an inside joke so I didn't expect many people to read it. Well, this being the internet, it seems that stuff never goes away. I made a couple of jokes at the expense of various kungfu teachers which I would never do now. I have nothing but respect for any of the people I named in the article so I hope no one took offense. Just a little folly of youth. I took out all the direct comments about particular teachers and left in the jokes. Here it is. I apologize if anyone takes offense because at the time, I thought martial arts were often pretty ridiculous....I still do, but could probably make better jokes.

Kung Fu is Kung Fu, It's Not Child's Play
by Will Mounger

The reasons why Western folks come to Asia are myriad (well, there's at least three or four, does that count as myriad?), but one of the most interesting and pathetic reasons is to study martial arts. Unfortunately, inscrutable Asians rarely reveal their secrets to outsiders, and finding the right art and teacher can be as difficult as finding a clean shirt on laundry day. So to expedite you on your quest, Expo Extra offers the following as an introduction to the world of martial arts. Aikido

Aikido is the art of semi-circular dwarf tossing, except that regular sized people are used instead of dwarves. The art was created by Morihei Ueshiba after he became such a proficient martial artist that he declared, "I'm such a badass, I don't even have to hit people anymore. I'll create a martial art just to rub it in everyone's faces." Aikido became popular worldwide after Steven Segal hit the silver screen and threw more people than have been thrown since BA Barracus' stint on the A-team.

Boxing

Boxing is a man's sport and a great way to get in shape. It's also a lot of fun until you get hit. We here at Expo Extra had big plans in the past to have some boxing matches. The problem was that we are a bunch of wusses and should have chosen a different combat art more suitable for wusses such as Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, or archery. After we forget how bad it hurts to get hit, we may start boxing yet again, so give us a call if you are interested, tiny and frail.

Capoeira

In response to arts like Aikido and Judo, where you flip your opponents, Capoeira is content to say, "I can flip my own damn ass, thank you very much." You don't really learn to fight from Copoeira as much as jump around and boogie. If you do it for a long time, however, your muscles get bigger and people will probably not mess with you quite as much, unless of course you are short.

Drunken Fist

Insert your own drunken bar brawl joke here. Gracie Jujitsu

Damn, those Gracies are baaaaad. Not only that, they're good looking too, especially Hickson and Hoyce. This family is almost single-handedly responsible for turning the exciting and wholesome pastime of fighting into two guys just rolling around on the floor for an hour.

Jeet Kune Do

The style of no styles was created by the one and only, Bruce Lee. What a great idea! If you want to create a martial art, just make up a name and say it combines all the different martial arts. Nothing can defeat Jeet Kune Do! It's invincible! Why didn't we think of that?

Judo

Don't bitch-slap your woman, bitch-ippon sonagi her ass. See how long it takes her to get you a damn beer after that. What I'm saying is, if you want to flip people, Judo's the way to go. If you don't want to flip people, perhaps you should broaden your mind, you punch-happy fool. We haven't seen too many places to study Judo around Taiwan. That seems odd given all the Tae Kwon Do places. I mean, where the hell was Korea while Japan was occupying Taiwan. I tell you, some people have no sense of history.

Karate

Known as Krotty to its practitioners, this martial art involves a lot of standing around in uniforms, bowing and performing useless rituals called "forms". After you waste enough time and money, you get a different belt color. Whoopee-freakin-do! Luckily, this martial art also teaches discipline and focus to hyperactive little kids. Hasn't anyone ever heard of a little something called Ridilin for gosh sakes! How come every little Karate gi wearing little kid in Taiwan has a black belt? Do they even have reds, blue, and yellow belts? If I studied karate, I wouldn't let my sensei promote me. I would become a badass yellow belt and kick all those black belts' asses. Think you're so cool in your black belt. Bam! Don't mess with the yellow belts, baby. They rule!

Kendo

You remember when you were a kid around Christmas time, and you would take those wrapping paper cardboard tubes and fence with your brother or friend until you actually hit him and were left with this useless floppy dick thing. Well, in primitive places like Taiwan, they don't have those tubes (or Christmas!) and so are forced to use bamboo. Bamboo hurts so they have to wear all this expensive armor that looks pretty cool. They can sit there for hours just whacking each other in the head, back and forth, back and forth. Damn we're glad we were born in a developed country!

Muay Thai

Oh those silly, primitive Thais. They are so backward as to think that learning to fight is merely a matter of training hard and hitting hard. Where are the pressure points, the forms, the grandmasters, we ask. It is fun to laugh at their childlike understanding, but not if there is an actual Thai boxer present. If you are interested in this sport, you should rent Kickboxer or Kickboxer II to watch Jean-Claude Van Damme and that guy from that Suzanne Summers sitcom (Step by Step?) to show you how it's done.

Ninjutsu

Little is known about this secretive art and we certainly wouldn't want to spoil that. It is a well-known fact, however, that only a ninja can kill a ninja.

No Holds Barred Wrestling

The UFC, vale tudo and other no holds barred events have proven that if two big wrestlers who can punch and kick go at it in the ring, one will surely win.

Savate

We're not quite sure how to make fun of a French martial art, but we'll try. It's sissified…uhhh…brie…we saved your asses in WWII…rude, kickin bastards…aw crap, I can't do it. I love the French and I always will.

Sumo

Sumo is the most useful of all martial arts in that it teaches you how to get people out of your way. This is a skill that comes in handy every day, especially in a city like Taipei. The principles on which the sport is based are also irrefutably logical: if you want to get people out of your way, get fat, wear a diaper and push real hard. Expo Extra will continue to sponsor beach sumo matches whenever we are at the beach, drunk and bored.

Tae Kwon-Do

This is the retarded neighbor kid of martial arts. People feel sorry for it, but are not above giving it a slap or two on the head if it gets in their way. Tae Kwon Do originated in Korea and spread all over the world because, heck, people love to kick! We were going to imply that only homosexuals studied Tae Kwon Do, but a lot those gay fellas fight pretty good, and they certainly couldn't have learned that from Tae Kwon Do. If you want to study this martial art, extend your finger and ram it in your eye until the urge goes away.

Tai Chi

Even though Tai Chi is slow and practiced mostly by old people, it's a really effective martial art. No, really, you just don't understand the principles, man. You should try push hands with some of those old masters, dude, they will kick your ass. They would kick some ass in that UFC thing, but they're above that, man. You just don't get it, you use your opponent's energy against him, man. I don't even know why I talk about this stuff with you Neanderthals-you just don't get it.

Tiger, Crane, Snake, Dragon, Monkey, Eagle, Mantis, etc. (Kung Fu)

Didn't you ever hear that expression, "Fight like a man, dammit?" Maybe, you should take it to heart. Seriously though, don't you think it's a bit much when one of those monkey fu guys does a form and pretends to pull a bug out of his hair and eat it? Do we really need that? I mean, you get the idea that it is supposed to be a monkey from all that jumping and rolling around. Do we really need the little "grooming" move.

Wing Chun

Wing Chun is the style that Bruce Lee studied before he became a squealing martial arts legend. It can best be described as an advanced form of slap boxing or perhaps patty cake. According to legend, it was invented by a girl. According to reality, it is practiced by girls.

Wushu

Wushu is the "Lord of the Dance" of kung fu. Its practitioners are on a never-ending quest to find the perfect pair of aqua and/or magenta pajamas.

Getting started with relaxation

2009-08-26T05:14:00.001-07:00

The first step to doing wing chun, or really anything, and moving naturally is to first just “be”. What that involves is relaxation. We need to engage the body as little as possible. Most people are unaware of the tension they carry around all day that affects all their movements and interactions.

Relaxation is one of the most important concepts for learning wing chun or any other skill. Everything must be as effortless as possible from the beginning. If not, later when movement is involved it will be jerky and less effective and smooth. Basically you will reach a point where you stop improving. So first we need relax as much as possible while doing nothing.

Exercise 1- Let go

Lie down on the floor or a bed and relax all your muscles. Now tighten up your all your muscles and let them go again. Pay particular attention to tightening and relaxing the face, jaw, neck, shoulders and upper back. Now wake up your mind as much as possible and pay attention to what’s around you…the smells, sounds and what you see. The point is to take the body as close as possible to zero effort or maximum relaxation while the mind concentrates on the environment as much as possible. This may sound simple, but it is very important to actually do it a few times (or for the rest of your life). Next try doing the same thing while sitting or in other positions.

Exercise 2.- Standing

For this exercise, I just want you to stand. Standing requires muscles to hold you up and to keep you balanced. What we want to do is figure out how to use as little effort as possible while remaining standing. Stand and start relaxing until you start to slump. Now, imagine that there is a string holding the top of your head up for you. Let go of as many muscles as possible until you start to slump. Think of your body as a Jenga set that is precariously balanced and delicately move your bottom over your feet and your chest over your bottom and your neck over your chest and your head over your neck. The more all these areas are in alignment, the more balanced you will be so you can relax more. Later, I will talk about the wing chun stance and how that can help you relax even more and why it is the way it is.

Class information

2009-08-25T02:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all for the class inquiries.

Maybe the best way to tell you what we do in my classes is to tell you why I started teaching or what led me to do so. I studied all kinds of martial arts when I lived in the US like Taekwondo, karate, aikido, judo, and thai boxing. I always felt like I was pretty good, but there were plenty of people better and I kind of leveled off and stopped improving somewhat. When I came to Taiwan, I studied wing chun under a famous teacher. I went there 6 times a week for about 3 years slowly improving. I liked wing chun but I just didn't think many of the wing chun people I met had ever actually fought or could even really defend themselves. I then totally changed my approach when i got injured and changed my way of thinking about wing chun and fighting and the basic way we control our bodies. This changed everything. Suddenly, I got better very quickly and everything was easy and relaxing. I spent the next 3 years trying to teach the other people I trained with how to do it but I met with a lot of resistance. I got bored and began studying jujitsu and going around to other martial arts schools and trying to find people that were skilled. I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for and a couple of people asked me to teach them.

I started teaching them about 8 years ago and I wasn't a very good teacher. I just tried to tell people what I was doing. Then I tried a different way and experimented while I tried to improve my understanding of everything related to movement, interaction, and fighting. Now, my classes are going very well and the students are seeing a lot of improvements.

So what the heck are we doing? The best way I can say it is that to do any athletic endeavor from basketball to marital arts to dancing well, there is a "natural" or athletic way to control your body. 99% people use an inefficient or "unnatural" way. What we do in my classes is first learn how to move this way. Then, we learn how to have physical interactions and the basic principles that work in interactions from wrestling to dancing. Then we learn to fight. Here we start with chisao from traditional wing chun because it is a great exercise when done properly. Then we move on to the whole spectrum of fighting but in such a way that it gets into the body and becomes instinctive.

For those interested in the classes, I can guarantee that you will learn some very interesting or amazing things about how the body and interaction works. I can't guarantee that you will get in great shape very quickly. The beginning stuff has to be done slowly so that you don't revert to old habits. After a couple of months the pace will pick up greatly and it will become better exercise in the traditional sense. The stuff you learn will apply to the way you walk, the way you play music and dance and many other areas. While we will talk about this stuff occassionally, we concentrate on fighting.

Also, as far as learning to fight or practical skills, that will be fairly slow as well, the easiest way to get up to speed quickly if you want to defend yourself is take about 6 months of thai boxing or wrestling. What we do will take a little more time, but will totally change the way you move and/or fight. I am not trying to make people fighters, I am trying to make them incredibly talented fighters. That isn't easy so, depending on the person, it can take some time.

As for other stuff, I have around 12 students right now. Two-thirds have studied many forms of martial arts for many years and most of the others have no experience and sometimes little interest in fighting in general (they like the movement stuff). We are all very laid back and joke around a lot and all get along well. We all love martial arts and talking about stupid stuff but really can't stand hippie dippie qi talk and arguments about which style can kick ass or lineage or any other kungfu nerd type stuff. We are just regular guys and girls.

2009-05-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

Wing Chun classes are taught at Sun Yat-sen Park

Tuesday morning 10:00am-12:00am under the performance hall overhang

Tuesday and Thursday evenings near the fish pond from 8:00-10:00pm

Call Will at 0930632213 or look here for more information.