siufeifei

well, anyone really. I ask because we see people break the usual red clay bricks but no one ever tries to do it with something that really is compact and solid.

Would you try to break a british engineering brick?

I've seen the UFC gloves and I have to say that I'm a big fan. I don't think you need big padded gloves. I train a lot with a verifiable Wing Chun nut and he's not keen on too much padding. What we used to do is have one of us gear up completely and basically be a punch bag. That is head gear, the 12 oz gloves, body armour, forearm+shin+knee protection and generally anything we can find that is cheap. The kitted up guy would be a dummy and just throw punches and kicks in an almost random, although in my case it'd be in a kick-boxing, fashion and the other guy would just do whatever he likes to them. He doesn't wear anything except maybe a pair of gloves similar to the UFC gloves and gum shield. What he says is good about this is that I can still clobber him around the head and he'd get the full effect and he can still throw everything he has at me without fear of hurting me. The added effect of me being able to take full on elbows and knees means that I am also more resiliant than an un-protected partner. In short he has to work extra hard against the fully padded sparring partner. Aside from this we tend to just wear the headgear + gum-shield and gloves for our heavy sparring. Yes we do hit each other a lot and it does hurt but I think if you protect yourself from getting hit too much, you're missing out on a big part of what it's really like in a fight. When feel like some extra punishment, we ditch the headgear as well and just use gloves and gumshields. We tried out some of the padded karate gear on our forearms as well which was quite good but they don't really offer much protection so they were ditched after a while.

Why do I need to give my name? To earn trust? Trust with regards to what? You haven't given us your name so does that mean we can't trust you? Does that mean that because you haven't given us your name we can't believe the things you say? Anonymity is the gift of the internet. If i wanted my personal information to be know, I would've signed on here using my real name and listed my personal information in my details. Isn't it clever of you to ask for something that you know full well that I would not disclose in order to not have to give the name of the person that you supposed to have beat. Like i said, normally when people don't give the name, it's because they can't. I think I'll just take what you said to be the usual internet *.

I just noticed you said this and a question naturally came to mind. Isn't the Bruce Lee Foundation doing the excluding of all other forms of JKD by only allowing the original version to be taught using the JKD name and by having the power to prevent the use of the name JKD used for any school that they don't like?

It isn't that Hung Gar is ONLY tiger/crane but the Tiger/Crane is the backbone and emphasis of the school and it's training. The Five Animals form you mentioned is just a form that they have that was introduced into the school from it's early Shaolin origins. The most accurate way of describing the school is as Tiger/Crane beacue the Four Pillars are based on Tiger and Crane. The Five Animals, or Ten Forms fist sets that they have are just another training form that features animal elements. Hung Gar does not have separate Animal forms in the way that Shaolin does. So really, the answer to the question of how many Animal forms are there in Hung Gar is that there are no Animal forms in Hung gar. There are however, forms that have animal elements in them. Also, in reference to Shaolin and Choy Li Fut that also have a Five Animals Form, the Hung Gar form is nothing like them. Something that a friend of mine said after showing me a slightly funny video of hung gar forms. "everyone looks stupid doing hung gar forms"

Both I think. He did exist but most of the stories about him are legend.

There is an almost legendary video of Wong Shun Leung. The one I've seen is black and white and I think it was taken from a series of videos that was filmed but never fully edited for publication. The first form as done the majority of the Yip Man Wing Chun praticioners do, is actually his version that was altered and approved by Yip Man after one of Wong Shun Leung's famous fights. Augustine Fong also has a series of Wing Chun videos out that are worth looking into. His way of doing things is interesting because he is a larger man and I think, more suited to the average Western person looking to practice Wing Chun.

Personally, I am not a big fan of the travelling shaolin show. I know it's good entertainment but too many people see it and take it as reality and truth. No offence to the mod who started this. here's a link to an article by someone well respected for his honest words. http://www.martialarts.co.uk/sifu.htm

The ginga is the basic stepping. The esquiva is the normal or simple or basic way of dodging by moving your body and head sideways that you do whilst doing the ginga. I wouldn't recommend trying to learn capeoria from videos without an instructor because part of the basic training involves doing some fixed routines against a partner. There's also the fact that the instructor in a capoeria class isn't there just to teach, he's also there to make sure that you don't fall and if you do, you don't hurt yourself. Finally, if you do decide to find and join a class, be prepared for the workout of your life. Capoeria isn't an easy thing to learn and will work muscles in places you never knew had muscles.

The point I so badly made is that a lot of people judge wushu on what they see and 90% of the time, all they see is the performance. As you mentioned, in modern wushu training, fighting is done in the form of sanshou kick-boxing. For them, fighting and performing are two separate things so in this case, they do not fight like how they perform. That's what I tried to say.

No point in naming names and yet you have no qualms about mention Bill Wallace as being someone you trained with? You say he is a certifed Sifu but certifed by whom under which organisation? I'm going to be totally honest here and say that in the majority of cases, when people refuse to name names, it's because they can't. Let us know who the sifu is that you beat or I'll just take it to be more internet forum *.

Are we talking about the set up demonstraion break that involves specially prepared bricks? Or are we talking about picking up a random brick from a building supplies shop and breaking it?

So who was this instructor?

That doesn't work. The oft quoted numbers for amount of force needed to break a bone are based on static events. In reality, nothing is ever static.

Where-as anything that adds extra bulk to a blokes crotch is plus in any man's books.

What are the gloves for, training or sparring or fighting? At my kickboxing class we train with 12-14 oz gloves and fight with 10 oz gloves. If you're after weight then you can get shadow boxing gloves that are like normal gloves but have weights stictched into the back of them. If they're for training resistance in punching then I'd say get hold of some resistance stretch bands as weights on your hands doesn't fully simulate punching resistance. Of course, that doesn't mean punching with heavy gloves isn't a good thing. I think though that I would say you might be better off getting a normal pair of padded gloves that allows for free open hand movement and get hold of some decent head-gear with cage face guard instead. That way, you can still do all of your Wing Chun without fear of actual damage. i also can't stress the importance of getting a decent gum shield as well.

I don't think he needs to control all four limbs. All he needs once you're on the ground is one to assert his control. Of course, you can still hit him with your free limbs but each time you attack and repeat your attack with them, you are presenting him with more chances to get control of one limb. That is not even mentioning the strengths of their guard positions. Don't forget that just because theirs is a grappling style that they don't know how to hit or get hit. Even both of you play a stand up game, you can't hit him without engaging his grappling distance. To hit him, you have to offer him a chance. This does not mean that he will not be hitting back. I think that is a part that is always neglected in these discussion. The grappler will almost always know how to strike but the striker doesn't always know how to grapple. In most cases, the grappler is the more rounded fighter due to the way his working and training methods are practiced. What i mean is, it is not always about striking vs grappling but more about who is more rounded and more experienced and sometimes who is more lucky.

Here's a nice ethical question. We tend to agree that in most instances, use of deadly force against another human being is uncalled for. Does this still stand against animals?

The typical chinese restuarant is an odd environment. Typically, the owner will be the guy who handles the money. He in turn hires a known to him chef. Whilst the owner does in theory have ultimate power, when working, the Chef has command as it were. In practice, both members are in charge. That's what I meant by control of the restuarant being from the kitchen. It's an odd relationship and one that you need to have worked in to understand fully, especially when you equate into this mix, the Chinese culture. i noticed a mistake in my last post, i meant to say that I think in mainland china there is some wushu training as part of their school sports activities.

First of all, I did not make any mention of Bill Wallace in my post. I point to where you show a lack of understanding and your retort is to point out something that I did not even mention? Let's leave it at that. I don't like the talk of what would work against a good wing chun practioner or whatever. Talk about what you know from what you have done. In this manner, I don't want to hear about who did, what, when with regards to well known professional fighters. In most cases, they, being professionals, train much harder than you or I. They are exceptional people and using them as a guide to the average martial artist doesn't, in my opinion, work. It also presents an incredibly biased perspective as taking the epitome of a style as example naturally does. After all, we're not all Bill Wallaces, Royce Gracies or the ever popular Mike Tyson. I've seen one example of a supposed Wing Chun praticioner in a UFC match and I also agree that what he presented did not look much like Wing Chun. However, the UFC is a very special environment. A lot of professionals have said taht the rules in the UFC and the enviroment forces the fight to go to the ground. This an area that traditionally, Wing Chun is weak. The logical extension to this is that the person who took part had prepared himself for the fight, whereby he modified his expression of Wing Chun, hence it not looking like it. He did lose but does this mean that Wing Chun is bad or does it simply mean that he was not fully prepared for it? Don't forget that historically speaking, Wing Chun is a very narrowminded and very focused style. The UFC environment is almost the exact opposite of its intended arena of use. So Wing Chun might not work in the UFC, does that mean it isn't any good? On the other hand, if you've seen the clip of Emin Boztepe's "attack" on William Cheung, it's hard to say that there's recognisable Wing Chun there either. Don't forget that we are talking about one of the leading authorities of Yip Man Wing Chun against one of the leading members of Leung Ting's organisation. You would've thought that during the scuffle, at least one discernable Wing Chun technique would be performed. There are Wing Chun tournaments but it only tests the sticky hands. It's not very good and in my opinion, dilutes the intention of sticky hands and really does turn it into a pointless game. I don't believe that the styles we hae today can be graded good or bad. What I do see is the vast differenced between how various styles train. The majority of practicioners of so called traditional styles don't, in my opinion, train hard enough or realistically enough. There seems to be too much emphasis on technique overcoming brute strength but for some reason, many have taken this to mean that you don't need to train strength at all. Look back at the various drawings of Shaolin Martial arts. Look at the old reference books of chinese martial arts. In there you will find lots of descriptions and images of equipment that has the sole purpose of training strength. How did I get onto this topic again?

easy to say but showing you can do it is a different matter

As far i recall, Bruce Lee did not teach much at the schools and classes. If you read the interviews with his closest students, they all talk about their real training with him being in his back yard. I don't see anything in the letter that says anything about real or fake or whether anyone is better than someone else. The only points I see being made in the letter is the legitimacy of some people's claim to have been students of Bruce Lee as well as some points about how Dan Inosanto has done things. You are the one who is reading into it too much. You are the one who is saying that they changed it to make it better. You really don't seem to grasp the idea of evolving. Evolving is to make something more appropriate to the time. As such whether or not it is better depends on the current environment. They evolved JKD because, JKD being a process of learning, it is natural progression, not to mention evolution being a key concept in JKD's philosophy. Is it better? I don't know. IS the original JKD better? No idea. How-ever, you seem to be saying that the original IS best, which I don't think can be said. I believe, if i recall correctly, Dan Inosanto disagreed with the idea of any one person owning the name of JKD and i can see why he would feel this way. As for your final three lines, that is pure conjecture with no base on anything. I could say that Linda Lee Cadwell supports the Bruce Lee Foundation's actions because she can see how she can get money from it. Don't forget that the Bruce Lee foundation was founded by her so well, she's not likely to go against her own organisation, is she? I should say though, that I do see a legitimate reason to own the name and that is so that you have a fixed name to go along with the preservation of a fixed version of JKD. This way, when people go into JKD place they know they are learning the UNFINISHED JKD that Bruce Lee was developing. Like i said before, it serves as part of a preservation method BUT like i said, that turns it into something that Bruce Lee would've hated which leads us back in a nice circle. You still haven't really addressed the points i have mentioned in my previous posts. You have been saying the same thing over and over again and that is Dan Inosanto shouldn't be using the JKD name, his JKD isn't better, which I should point out, he never claims this and that the only real JKD is the original. I'm probably going to get an ear bashing for this but you are begining to sound like a brainwashed fan. I think I've said enough and this discussion doesn't seem to be progressing.

But where have you seen anyone present their JKD as being better than Bruce Lee's original versions? Again, the overwhelming sense I get here is that you agree with the strict control of what is taught as JKD purely because of your own sentimentality towards Bruce Lee. Another thing that I can't get over is the simple fact that JKD was never meant to be a style. This level of control does nothing except fix something that was never meant to be fixed/still/set. You mentioned going back to the source which sounds good in theory but you have to remember that JKD is about training what you know honestly. Bruce Lee's source was wing chun. I say if you want to learn Bruce Lee's JKD as close as possible then start by going to learn wing chun, not the JKD that he left. To insist on teaching/learning JKD as it was is going against everything Bruce Lee has ever said about JKD. Is that a good thing? Evolved doesn't mean better or worse, it just means that it has evolved. In terms of styles that is part of JKD, if Bruce Lee hadn't passed when he did, he would surely have taken into more consideration such things like Muay Thai and BJJ. You implied that you can, if there is a genuine original version of JKD present, learn that and adapt it afterwards with reference to BJJ and Muay Thai. The thing is, if bruce Lee were alive, his JKD would be vastly different because it would have, as an integral part, reference to those two styles. Unless of course, you re saying that you're version of original JKD added to later training of BJJ is going to better than Dan Inosanto and others' versions. Your whole argument seems to based on a point about proving what is genuine or what is not. Many styles out there do not have a trademarked name and yet they still function perfectly well in the world of training. Why does the Bruce Lee Foundation have to have control of the names? You don't need it. To prevent abuse of the names? To prove legitimacy? This goes back to what others have said, to prove legitimacy, ask who they trained under. The way that I and many see things is that the control over the intellectual rights of property has always been about making money, something that the Bruce Lee foundation seem to be very good at. Personally, I haven't seen the Bruce Lee foundation do anything for JKD apart from sell the image of Bruce Lee and his training methods. As such they don't seem to be doing much except advertise and find ways of making money, both things feeding each other nicely.

But why do you think it is a good thing? My main disagreement with the whole thing is it turns JKD into the very thing that Bruce Lee was trying to fight against. i can see a point in preserving it as it was but I can't see anything really beneficial beyond the historical and sentimental issues. I just can't see why one organisation must have control over the name and use of the name. You say that all follow Bruce Lee's principles and that all are valid, then aren't all JKD?