Zhong Gau

you mean like, attracting food for old Zhong Jia? the food the old lady left was cold, stale and almost dry...but it was all she had, she begged it from somebody else... you see, her son saw a monk meditating and thought that his overall composure came from this meditation. like the monk he found a secluded spot in the woods near the fields he tended and began to meditate. some time passed and the mother became worried that a tiger may have sprung upon him as he was missing for several days. the old woman told the constable her son was missing and he set a posse to find him. a week later the old woman heard him come in and go to his room to sleep. relieved she slept also. the next day she went ot the constable again and said he had returned last night but could not be found in the morning and was wondering if anyone had seen him. the constable wrung his hands and explained to the woman that they had indeed found her son near his fields the day she complained of his disappearance. and that having been eaten by the local tiger could not have possibly returned home late at night. thinking there was an intruder in thier midst he went home with the woman to set up a stake out. he slept in the kitchen. sure enough that night both the woman and he woke to hear a man entering the house. both brought lanterns and saw a pale smoky image of her son looking them over with his neck torn open. the son said," sorry mother, i tried to meditate in the woods near my fields and this happened...i didn't want to disturb you and my aunt if she were here as she usually is this time of year so i went directly to my room instead of the kitchen. since you are up could you make me some dumplings and bean cake?" the mother agreed to satisfy the ghost knowing it could recurr often. as the woman was getting the food ready a smoky image of the tiger entered the house it had a spear through it longways behind it was the smoky image of the man who killed the tiger. the smoky man said to the woman," do not make that for you son as it's essence which you gave to it will only be eaten by this tiger again. the tiger is your husband whom you poisoned so you could bear your son by the butcher. if you had not of done these things i would not have died." upon hearing these things the constable arrested the old woman. the woman who left the drying food for Zhong Jia was the husband's sister, the son's aunt, who wanted to be free of the curse her sister in law brought upon thier family...

i can reccommend some methods and describe training for a fee. if you are near to some of my seasonal tourings i can visit you privately.

sounds like you have achieved WU WEI already. don't worry about learning somebody else's mistakes.

I have a tai chi/ bagua stylized version of the seven star form that includes hang gung. Liang and Tai yim have seen it on different occasions.

Liu He Ba Fa is an Emei Mountain form of slow Bagua. in reality it is a 'principle' and not a style as it has only two or three forms. the actual liu he ba fa form is slow and extreemly difficult, especially for men. this is because the eagle stance crosses in precarious ways for a man's comfort. the second form i know of in this principle is a snake version and is shorter in length. Helen Liang presents both in vids. soft systems like tai chi and bagua generate thier power from practicing at slow and ultra slow movements beacause the slower you move the more each individual muscle fiber gets exercised. eventually your practice takes fourty-five minutes per form to perform and your combined muscle power and speed is greater than your board breaking strength ever was! this is why such short movements from tai chi sifus can deliver knockdown pushes at the flick of a wrist.

our CLF has a personal side that is practiced by the practicioner only. each brother has meditations that kwong helps them develop as part of thier foundation. some foundation meditations are similar and are usually related to fighting qigong, toughening, iron hand, balance, quikness, flexibility. often they are moving meditations that may be pre-stylistic techniques from the temples used to augment a student's weaknesses into strengths. usually there is a lesson in yogic breathing techniques (two different styles) and encouragment to use one and not the other. but there is no meditation in class as a class unit.

I guess you are speaking from experience in a harder-side hard/soft system like Goju. in Chinese systems, if you want to combine soft elements into your hard system its easier to do at the beginning than after having studied for several years trying to correct everything you've learned in a short period of time.

AH! the "Sudden Enlightenment" School of Buddism.

indeed, there is a bit of showmanship involved in parlor tricks, isn't that how the parlor thing got started...? like the spear bending neck thing. blunt spears, flexible wood. however, the ten minute mule team strangulation trick either with ropes an inch thick or chains is a little beyond parlor stunts and simple physics. so is over comming the inertia and momentum of a moving locomotive to stop it immediately. i know a little about physics... and statistics...and the order of entropy required to do this is nothing short of a reversal of the natural order. yet someone manages to do it every couple of years in mainland china.

have you ever heard a story about rattle snakes striking? they usually lead some kind of purple lightning (those that have seen rs's strike have said this) as they strike. Joe Lewis is said to have led this kind of energy before he struck someone. another joe, from karate, also known as "fighting Joe" has had photos made where he led this energy from his hands in tournament bouts. for others it is blood control: which allows them to heal rapidly, or heal others, or not get injured at all. others still can force their bodies to do unusual things via mind over matter. the best example of external qi for fighting comes from a hung gar sifu who could bruise his students from across the room. he teaches a staff form in which this principle is developed. i have heard that an american was mugged and durring the mugging his brain was pulled from his skull with a claw hammer. the doctors were able to save his life and get the brain back into the skull, but he was completely paralysed. the doctors said he'd never move again. after a few months with a qiqong tui-na specialist he was walking, albeit in halted steps. about a year after starting with this qigong practicioner he had a driver's license. the healed paralytic lives near roanoke, va.

wow, i like that kind of differentiation. do y'all actually teach chinese fighting forms to kids or are you teaching primarily 'old school' karate/tkd (please forgive my ignorance in japanese and korean arts, but to me they look okay if you're wearing armour and using stick/sword weapons).

okay, "Buk Pai" is a wushu form. it is primarily a kicking form but has some crane techniques as well.

i thnk the 'qi' you are refferring to is known as "Monk's Fighting Qiqong" and is a result of qi breathing while practicing your forms. it is the basis for most neijia. including 'iron hand' and 'iron shirt' and 'emperor's golden bell' and 'fa tching'. the five elements method works well but tends to work better after the 100 days meditation and perpertual chi compression meditation. Wing tsit chan has several books on qiqong with exercises for a variety of health needs but not much for fighting. ther is also a 'five elements qiqong' and a 'five elements practice' in both hsing-i/xing-yi and hung gar. both follow the constructive cycle but a tantric variation utilizes the destructive as well.

lets examine these concepts: spirits, energy. assuming you believe in god or jesus and/or the devil and/or malicious and malevolent spirits then we're talking about various degrees of animism. Animistic beliefs throughout cultures with a predominantly oral tradition are founded on a belief in a universal energy which provides the protomatter from which all things are made in both neumenal and physical realities. this protomatter is used to form the spirit or soul of a person before it chooses whom its parents will be. the spirit then enters a pregnant woman and attaches itself to her and uses her body to form its own. the spirit goes through life make choices and enjoying or suffering the consequences of thier choices. after the body dies the spirit can return to the quiet essence from which it emoted or continue as an unsettled being, or even merely to continue with its' life and goals around others. this basic cultural foundation of belief in afterlife which is the precedent to the establishment of philosophy and religion exists in most cultures. 95% of the world's populations believe in some form of animisitic religion or religion with animistic elements. In terms of classical western philosophy the question is called "ontology" or being and reality. there are other aspects of the question that are referred to as "metaphysics" which entertain ideas along the 'spookie' end of the question. ontology and metaphysics are integregrated in every major philosophical system in the history of human existance and recorded experience. So, just because you haven't experienced anything in a laboratory; or seen it in a photograph that can be explained by a method that can't be reproduced with a computer; or haven't had any non drug induced experiences with alternate reality don't say that it doesn't exist. chances are your parents or grandparents or greatgrandparents swore by thier beliefs be they totally physically orientated or mixed. Most people who believe in other beings do so out of some economic need. wheather its filial reciprocity or because you or an ancestor made a deal with a spirit for protection...whatever... somewhere in your family there's probably someone alive who can refer and recount the tradition or event to you. from what i've heard, just like your grandparents asking why you need science and edjucation beyond a certain level of achievement, old ghosts probably feel the same way, "will it put bread on the table? how does this help you? do you feel better?". Labs probably remind the recently deceased of the morgue or the preparation chambers of the funeraries. You don't find many of us life loving folks there do you?

in the first third of the vid there is a guy doing the five elements qiqong in the 'fast' routine. there is a segment of a form that is Lau gar-like. the kwon do form near the end is different from what i know. the snake-like crane form the girl does is interesting....

karateforums homepage, ithink, is martial arts mart.com. or is that just a sponsored link?

i know there's a video for those things. try our bb host's videos.

for a right hook: fiegnt right, looking left. grab wrist with right hand lock elbow with left. force arm like short stick into torso, using right foot kick face.

the wushu kick i'm thinking of that's sort of like that lands laying down, stays for about three seconds, then vaults through another kick to land in a right sided/left horse stance. Same thing? the one parallel to the ground sounds like a horozontally challenged roundhouse kick. what's it used for?

Isn't it named "sibu" or "xibu" ? Hoinestly, i have no clue. as i've said elsewhere, we didn't bother much with the names of things so much as we did learning to do it right.

yeah, that's a better descrption.

thankyou, kind sir, for the clarification. perhaps i just brainfarted.

Lau gar videos available from superiormartialarts.com. two forms: lau gar form, lau gar staff form.