ovine king

it's not even watering down as things were more or less re-desgned from scratch. Using your lemonade analogy, it'd be like making 4 pints of lemonade with 3 and a half pints of water and half a pint of a solution made of lemon flavoured candy (with appropriate additives+preservatives) and telling people it's fresh home made lemonade.

don't forget that if it's a book published in the 70s, then there's a high chance that it's only depicting wushu/quo-shu routines which won't have reasoning beyond the aesthetic. the finger tends to be (but isn't always) straight and pointed along the blade because the chinese sword is techinically a thrusting weapon. The idea/theory is that the finger points the way. the sword fingers equates to training the free hand as it mimics the tensions in the hand that you get from holding a sword. When you read "proper" classical sword texts, you'll see this hand position relates to certain "energies" which rational people would see as refering to muscle tensions.

some things translate, some don't. you can do pretty much do all of the basic ward-offs as they don't really use the hands; them being more about elbow+balance. a class i know that also practices kickboxing under san shou rules teaches tai-chi as the "parent" class and they have no problems when it comes to the national (san shou) competitions.

to be honest, i'm not entirely sure how martial arts is taught in taiwan. I have only been there once and i only visited one school (in which they also happened to use the old sifu terms - but that's not important) and yes. if you're going to be picky, then really these days, sifu/todai terms shouldn't really be used as strictly speaking, teacher/student these days is nothing like how it is way back when but then again, it is still a teacher/student relationship, just on a different level so in a way it still is valid... after all, the guy who teaches you IS your sifu. hmm, then again, I've not seen a western school/sifu do anything that might be regarded as fulfilling his role as sifu in the traditional sense. its use is complicated and at the same time very simple; mostly dependent on the situation which you are in.

actually, people do still wear them. It's by no means the norm but that's not what's being discussed here. in the case of the guy in this topic, he is an instructor who has the chinese jacket/trousers as a sort of uniform in his school. This guy also wears that uniform outside of the class environment.

but that's mainly because of what happened with the cultural revolution and all that: most traditions were systematically removed and that includes the old use of the kung fu family terms. Traditionally, those terms were used in all chinese kung fu school "families". These days, in mainland china, the terms used depends entirely on the school. Recently, some "hidden" schools have been making themselves more known after 30-40 years and they still use the old family title system for reference. In a modern school (which in all likelyhood teaches modern wushu or a derivitive of it) you will find that they use lao-shi (teacher) or even just gao-lin(instructor), terms that have no romantic ideal attached to them, nor have any sense of loyalty or belonging. Bare in mind that this isn't because of regional variation; it is because what happened during the cultural revolution.

not as much as going for a jog or swim for 30 mins to an hour every day.

first of all, the chiese thing is NOT a gi. secondly, it is not a uniform. a proper one of those jackets is actually very warm because a proper one is actually (or at least should be) woven silk lined. Of course, i have a sneaking suspicion that the type of chinese jacket/outfit you're talking about is the generic western (cotton) version of the traditional chinese (black) jacket. what do i think of someone wearing one as normal every day wear? to be honest, not a lot. It can serve perfectly well as an everyday jacket. the real question is why he wears it.

no offence but the yin yang (symbol) has a definite history and reasoning behind it. As such, you shouldn't really be give something that you think as a reply because it is esentially not true. in the time it takes for you to type what you did, you could've instead typed "yin yang" into google and gotten proper information to reply with.

Si-Dai Jr. Student Si-Hing Sr. Student Si Suk Assistant Instructor Sifu Instructor SiBak Sr. Instructor (Jr. Master) Sigung/Master Instructor Si Tai Gung/Sr. Master Instructor Sijo Founder of the System. these are terms used to describe the "age" of the person with regards to their position in the school of martial arts in which they are a member of. si dai is ANY student (peer) who joined the school after you. si hing is ANY student (peer) who joined the school before you. si-fu is your teacher (father/teacher) si suk is a peer of your si-fu (uncle teacher) si bak is (also) a peer of your si-fu (can't think of the top of my head what the difference between si-suk and si-bak) si-gung is your si-fu's si-fu (literally grand father/teacher) si-tai gung is your sifu's sifu's sifu (literally great grand father/teacher) si-jo (sometimes jo-si) is the founder. this is the system that was traditionally used in the chinese systems irrespective of what part of the country they are from. they indicate your position in the kung fu family and this is not (strictly) a ranking system. however, recently, some western schools has taken this and made a ranking system out of it which shouldn't be confused with the original use of these terms.

do you mean faster in isolation or faster during the course of a match? best thing to speed up your throwing of knees is to continuously work them into each of your drills and routines. Stick a knee at the end of simple punch combinations when working with pads or the bag. Get someone to rush you and push you back and you work on staying balanced and able to knee. Work out some pressure drills to get you throwing knees as instintive responses. In short, just keep using them. More often than not, your knee; the movement itself and the time it takes you to react with one, are "slow" because your balance/base isn't quite right and you are not used to shifting from walking/punching stance to a kneeing one (it's all in the hip...). In a clinch, the speed of a knee isn't even that important but your stability is so work your clinch more and your kneeing in that situation will improve as well.

i'm assuming that the style that you're mainly teaching is the hung ga that you have listed under your name. One of the easiest ways to get some "recognition" within the chinese styles is, like it or not, lineage. it isn't that difficult to trace your lineage seeing as essentially, everything goes back to one/two men and even then it doesn't really go back that far in terms of years. generally, in the chinese styles, recogition by your peers (and superiors) as being able to teach is sign of your ability. with regards to the ranking issue. i'd think it better to stay away from colours and stick to something simpler like grades and numbers. In my mind, it has less association with the belt system. I'm not sure if you'd need it for the adult classes. Most people who end up in a chinese style is aware of the non-grade issue anyway and would even see it as a potential "warning sign" if you do have one for the main/proper class. just make sure that you have a proper structured way of teaching. I've been in a few classes of very competent men but who really aren't the best of teachers. It was worse for the non-chinese speaking members of the class who found the already hard to follow class, ever harder to understand. routine, order and organisation is paramount in teaching. back when i was helping to semi-run a small class, a lot of after-class time was spent trying to draw up a sensible training plan for the next class. one thing i do urge you to do is NOT forget what hung ga is about: don't lose sight of the fact that it is fighting. Going into poetic romantic mode for a moment: don't let the ten deadly hands be forgotten!

i have to say, it doesn't sound like snake type movement to me.

take two fighters of absolute equal ability. make one twice as heavy and twice as strong, all other attributes remain equal. who is more likely to win?

martial arts is on one level about being able to find advantages in any given situation. If you can't see that there is an advantage in carrying a weapon where possible, then something is amiss, especially in a world where criminals are more likely than ever to be carrying a weapon of one sort or another. in the uk, it is next impossible to justify legally the carrying of a weapon. However, I always have with me in my "work" bag a maglite. I occasionally need it for my work but 90% of the time, it is there just in case I run into in the property that im working in, anyone that shouldn't be. it is in my mind, a weapon above all else and i think it would also serve as a deterrent so that i don't have to only rely on just my hands.

i lose lots of fights. last month i was put in a match with a guy who is probably twice my weight and more than twice my ability, more or less in an attempt to get me more aggressive (reasoning being that the big guy can just suck whatever i chuck at him so i was pretty much free to chuck whatever i could at him). needless to say, i was completely out (kick)boxed. another session, i was the "big guy" for a kid who just started to go into the heavier contact sparring. I was just moving around to get him used to hitting someone and well, i guess i shoulda put up more of a fight cos i got tagged so many times.... My neck actually hurt down to the number of clean shots to my head i allowed in, not to mention an accidental kick to the groin. another time i was partnered with a guy who wanted to practice take downs at competition pace. I'm not a competition fighter but i'm also by no means completely useless. Well.... against the type of take downs he wanted to do I was. Again, totally outclassed and lots of pain. on average, i lost at least one match up a week but that's more or less down to how we are paired up for matches (so everyone gets a good workout) of course, these aren't the same things you're talking about. Then again, i don't call school scuffles when you're 13 proper fights.

so.. if it is incorporated into other styles, it's not illegal then.....

i really didn't want to get into a debate about what the original chinese characters translate to and what they mean and what they refer to, which if you read the second part of my previous post, you would've gathered. i don't think for this discussion, it matters whether you prefer it to mean "trained power" , which i don't think it does (with gung lik being closer to meaning trained power/energy), or energy, which admittedly it doesn't strictly mean either. for the record, the term is a shortened form of "fa jing lik" with the lik part being omitted because it is inferred by the usage of the term anyway, much like "change down" infers changing down of gears. now as far as i can think off the top of my head, jing lik is just a type of way of using energy. Other such ways would be san (dissipate), tse(borrow), lao(leak), jong(bash), dan(bounce), sze(guide-ish). In any case, energy and power are pretty much the same terms in the chinese anyway. Well, that is to say I can't think of one word that is used exclusively for one or the other.

you should realise that when you can only use a fictional film for reference, that says something.

wushu means in the original language martial art but because these days, wushu is also the name of a particular art (that being the display one described above), wushu isn't used, except when you are speaking in mandarin, to refer to martial arts. in cantonese especially, wushu (actually in cantonese it is closer to mo-shu) is hardly ever used, with kung fu (sounds closer to gung fu) being the prefered term. of course, that's ignoring the fact that most people will refer to their art by name instead of using a general term. kung fu/gung fu itself is more poetic in meaning. directly, it translates to "work". what it describes is both the work as well as the results of hard work. you can say that something needs a lot of kung fu and mean that it is a lot of hard work. you can also use it to say that someone's kung fu is good, meaning that he is skilled (saying that he has done the work needed to be good at what he does).

well..... kinda. the words used to refer to the discharge of energy does, strictly speaking, translate to explode/expell/expand energy but you've got to remember that grammatically, in the chinese it is a poetic term that describes the thing and isn't actually the thing itself. "fa-jing" describes the results gained from correctly using muscle tensions, body structures and timing; in general, it is about the ability to generate strong hits (ignoring terms like power or energy or force) from short bridge distances.

this line of thought isn't always applicable to all styles of martial arts. There are some styles that see things very clearly between fighting and not fighting. this is how i have always been taught. fight or don't fight. if i fight, i should be willing to do what is neccesary. These layers will only interfere with what is already a mess of a situation in terms of my martial art. The style itself already has various layers as you call them but they all just happen to work from the same range. To start, if i am confronted and attacked (ignoring any pre-emptive act on my part) the my first layer is to grapple/lock/push/clear or otherwise subdue. The locks that I have trained with leave me on my feet and them at least on a knee, giving me space. The second layer would be to actually strike (punch/kick/knee/elbow whatever) the third layer is basically the second but to the extreme and is esentially about the choice of targets. in short, if attacked i try to control, if i can't i hit, if hitting doesn't wotk, hit harder and at different places. This all tends to happen during the "scuffle". one moment, one exchange (albeit possibly a long one). the reason why the options that you pose do not work within my style is that it removes certain options: de-escalation (pull a weapon = fight) surprise (pull a weapon = show of intent) some styles work by being "instant" and act in the moment. Break that moment into different layers kinda removes you from the original intention: hit hard, hit first, finish it quickly. in a slightly different note though, i'd say that carrying a pepper spray would be a sensible choice but it is one that falls outside of this idea of barriers/layers. For a start it is a semi-ranged, offensive but non-deadly weapon that minor training can get you efficient in executing. if it is too late for that then martial arts training comes in and you should try to finish it quickly using whatever means.

i'm not entirely sure what to make of this thread. on the one hand, it is simply about asking the worth of the content of a book. on the other hand someone says it has helped him break a piece of wood. on the first point, i cannot comment because i do not have the book. on the second, i am rather worried that you are attempting to break bits of wood without supervision and using this book as your inspiration.

the problem with books is that they are inherently always going to be a few months behind the latest trends and in design terms, "out of date". as such, what you will find is that people who work in the design industry will look towards things like magazines (anything+everything since they often have an internal team of graphics+typo people who are all doing the same thing i.e looking at everything for new ideas), album covers, television commercials; generally everything and yes, that includes club flyers. (I personally have 500+flyers from around the world and everytime I go to somewhere new, I go to all of the little boutique clothes stores and pick up the free flyers). you'd be surprised at how a single idea can be taken and developed through every part of design from trainers to cars to buildings to a music video.... galleries are also a godsend and in london I am lucky to have so many free galleries (and having friends who can get me into shows for free also helps) from looking at what you posted, i would say that, if you haven't already, google a guy called dave mckean. incidentally, design is a very, very general term, especially if you are talking about it on a professional level. i'm in the uk and i'm not sure if yu have an equivilant association but here we have http://www.theaoi.com/. As the site says, the people listed there are all illustration graduates. Is this the kind of thing you are talking about? another personal favourite of mine, mainly because i seem to run into quite a few "works" of his is http://www.banksy.co.uk/. It's graffiti but not as you know it. Very distinctive and you'd probably recognise the blur think tank album cover as being one of his. going slightly left field, also have a google on these names: zaha hadid, daniel libeskind, shaun murray, and don't forget the oldies: luigi russulo, ludvig von zumbusch, klimt and of course, mucha

from an article "When Communist Party come to power, goverment called wushu masters to go out from underground. In 1953 since 8 till 12 of November First All-China Sport Games took place in Tianjing, 75% of it was wushu exhibitions. 139 styles were demonstrated, competitions in hand-to-hand combat (without any gears), weapon combat (on long and short weapon) and lifting of heavy weights (ancient chinese sport) were held. After seeing such a power goverment got frightened. Secret societies were dispersed. Simultaniously a Committee of wushu reforming was organized. Famous wushu master Cai Longyun on the base of huaquan (blossomed fist), zhaquan (fist of Zha), paoquan (cannon fist) hongquan (fist of stream), piguaquan (fist of chopping and hanging), shaolinquan (fist of Shaolin temple) and some others created a new sport competitional style changquan (long fist). On the base of five style of Guangdong province (styles of Hong, Cai, Li, Liu and Mo families) it was created new sport competitional style nanquan (southern fist). Names of movements were changed, as a result movements lost mental contents: realy, "crushing mountain strike" is different from "fist bang on a palm"." complete article here: http://wushu.gungfu.com/ more articles: http://www.zhenwei.org/History/HistoryMartialArts.htm#PhaseTwoTheCommunistParty http://panda.bg.univ.gda.pl/~kwachu/YMAA/MA_HISTORY.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wushu_%28sport%29 the thing that has been practiced for the past 50 odd years known as wushu is nothing like what wushu USED to be. Even though in the native tongue they are refered to using the same two characters, in reality, wushu CAN NOT really be used to refer to styles such as Hung Gar, Wing Chun, Chow Gar and all other proper chinese martial arts. going back to jet li and what he practiced. what he practiced was the different routines that were created (and hence sanctioned) by the wushu association (as mentioned in the above linked article). While they are different forms, they are not different styles of wushu. It was all part of training in the ONE style that is known as (international/modern) wushu.