When to fight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.