ovine king

so do you agree that to a certain extent he IS qualified to teach his xma? let's put another perspective onto this. bruce lee never got anywhere near finishing his training in wing chun, yet when he first taught, he was teaching wing chun. how does that fit into all of this? add to it the fact that wing chun is a fighting art, not a performance art like xma is.

actually, it was a genuine question to those here who might know.... i seem to recall someone mentioning that their aikido school also taught some swordplay (it might've been iado) but i can't seem to find that post. i figured if i just throw out the question, someone might answer as well as prompting you in a direction in which you could look. y'know, two birds and all that.

no one said that sai were used as a rice flail.

i was being sacastic...... nevermind.

ok, let's remove the situation from this individual. let's say we have a 16 year old guy who has been doing xma for the past 8 years of his life. let's say he consistantly wins the forms competitions that he enters and is ranked as one of the best. why isn't he qualified to teach xma?

ox skin lantern? me? a little 'hard neck' maybe.....

i get ya..... so what is the extent to which this is taught? is it something that is stressed right away or something that you introduce later as the student gains familiarity with the things he is doing? i was taught first and foremost how to hit (being verrry simplistic here). the whole angles, structure, balance thing was shown as a way to improve the ways i can hit. whereas in my tai chi class, balance and the taking of was shown before striking was taught/shown.

i think the biggest difference between those who achieve and those who don't is the amount of effort they are willing to put in. granted there are those who are not best suited for this sort of thing but true examples of those people are few and far between. in most cases, we are all different grades of the same thing. for those who have ranked and achieved in their arts, i bow to your peserverance.... and secretly curse you all for the fact that my school never had gradings.....

do you address/affect balance at the point which you make contact or do you prefer to take balance from his centre? i mean, do you intercept arm in a way to take balance or lead arm away to help take his centre? dang... i'm confusing myself there. example time. let's say you have a simple straight punch coming in. do you prefer to intercept that arm with the intent to uproot him by using angles/structure against the arm or do you deal with arm in a way that exposes his centre for you to uproot? hmm, this is going to be pretty much depending on the situation and intent, isn't it....?

the chinese for 'dojo' is 'kwoon' (cantonese). in most cases, when speaking in english, it's either refered to as 'training hall' or not used at all. when to use it or when you don't use it is.... iffy.

...been thinking about this. i'm gonna change my vote for..... boxing!

because they don't know the correct grammer. like i said, the only cases i have seen where people get confused is when someone who doesn't know the language tries to use the language.

that last post doesn't make any sense to me. what is the question? why do people like to call their martial art by it's name instead of the 'umbrella' term?

what is google?

sigh..... (hehehe) i still like my answer more.... anyway. seeing as we were getting onto more serious discussion. where does the jutte come into all of this? it is used in a similar fashion right?

kung fu is an all imbracing term. wing chun is kung fu. hung kuen is kung fu. everything is kung fu. like i said, if you read my post carefully, people tend to refer to their style by name. most styles do things differently and so saying that kung fu does this is meaningless where-as saying wing chun does this isn't.

do i care if someone thinks i am a poor instructor? not really. if they think i am bad then they can go somewhere else. if anything, it would be one less person that i am responsible for and if i don't think they are worth teaching that thing i held back, then even better. one less person to worry about. not that i'm an instructor but you get what i mean....

going back to the sueing for medical costs. that's why in the uk, part of the contract you sign is a liabilty waiver AND medical insurance cover. point being, we don't want you to get hurt but if it happens, we wanna make sure you're covered. as someone pointed out, you don't have that in the US do you?

what proof do you want? he's done a list of the things he's won. you can do a google right?

budo? are you serious? if some drunken guy in a bar decides that i am wearing a blue t-shirt that looks like it might be a french football team t-shirt and england just lost to them so i'm going to have my face smashed in, do i have to follow budo? is budo relevant if i am not studying a japanese art? i like the way how people are so quick to jump to the conclusion that if you've ever been in a fight, it must've been your fault and so you must be a bad martial artist because you had to fight. does it make him less of a MA? no it makes him more because he has actually applied his skills and has real experience. does it make him less serious? no, it makes him more serious because he has faith in what he does and is willing to and is capable of applying what he practices. the responsiblity of martial arts is knowing when you have to strike. when you do strike, you do it with conviction. as the little green man says, do or do not. the best street fight is the one you survive.

but guys.... we're talking about performance arts here, not hard core self defence. if you're going to learn/practice performance arts, then who would you rather learn with/from, the guy who used to win 35 years ago or the guy who is winning now? you talk about age and experience being important factors but in his field, this guy has more experience than you. 'context' people.... 'context'....

this has been explained many many times before. in the mandarin, wushu can be taken as a reference to ALL (chinese) martial arts. BUT the chinese national art is also called wushu (used to be called quo shu). seeing as people never refer to their own style as 'wushu' anyway (unless they actually do wushu), instead using it's actual name (i.e hung kuen, yong choon etc), wushu is used to describe the national (sport) martial arts. a big part of the sport martial art is the forms performances. these forms are sometimes modified version of the original forms from which it is taken and this modified version is the standard version used for judging. there is a standardised wushu tai chi form, not to be confused with REAL tai chi. hence wushu is a style. kung fu is primarily a cantonese term meaning (loosely) results through hard work, or simply hard work. it is commonly used to describe any art/skill where time and experience is required to gain that skill. it is most often used to describe the martial arts although in general, any skill where there used to exist a teacher/apprentice relationship this term is used. tai chi is a style. it is a form of kung fu. wushu is a term that technically means 'martial art' but is used mainly to describe the sport martial art and is therefore also a style of kung fu. (whether or not modern wushu is a martial/fighting art is another matter) kung fu is a term commonly used to refer to martial arts. wushu is hardly ever used to refer to all martial arts. this makes more sense in chinese........ the only time people get confused is when someone who does not understand the languages involved and the cultural references attempts to understand the differences based purely on the 'english' terms. for example, in cantonese, people sometimes say they are learning 'mo' (the cantonese version of 'wu'). sometimes they say they know 'mo-shu' (the cantonese version of wu-shu' ut not the art....). however, cantonese not having the exact same meanings as mandarin, some people might mistakenly take that to mean that the guy knows wushu (the sport/art) as opposed to knowing martial arts. by the way, this isn't what i think. this is what i know.

don't a lot of aikido schools do work with swords as well?

martial arts are fighting arts. the thing you learn as martial art is a dead thing. it has no life. it has no anima (thanks grosse pointers...). the art is what you do with it and how you do it. any monkey can learn a form. any monkey can learn how to imitate movements. the art comes from your understanding and your own application of the things you have learnt. like a cooking recipe. there are certain standard recipes for things. the art of good cooking is knowing when and what parts of taht recipe to change. someone used writing as another example. we all know the basics of language, of grammar, rhythm, structures but that isn't the art of good writing. the art comes from knowing how to put it all together. ulitmately, all ('traditional') martial arts teach you to fight. if it doesn't do that, then something really is amiss. all martial arts are combat arts. unless of course you are trying to say that the art you practice is not one of them fancy non-combat things that call themselves martial arts and hence baji should be called 'combat art' instead of 'martial art'. or am i being too cynical again?

can't believe i'm replying in this thread..... anyway. i can throw normal playing cards and am accurate up to about 20-25 feet (12"groupings, to use the correct terminology...). beyond that, the spin makes the card's path curve too much to be reliable. by the way, i am a some-time card trickster, not some ninja wannabe..... ahem. i have thrown a card at a person (sorry mr graves...) and it did cause a cut on his brow. BUT, you have to remember that skin cuts quite easily when you throw brand new cards (with lovely crisp 'perfect' edges) and that said card is spinning at quite a pace. against plaster board, these throws at about 20 feet can leave a slight dent but this is more due to the materialistic properties of the plaster board and not the qualities of the thrown card. as for regular playing card into hard wood (we are talking hard wood like teak right?), i don't buy it. physics dictates what can cut what and the circumstances under which it can happen. i don't see anything happening except the card hitting the hard wood, bouncing off with a tear in it (this happens a lot....), or denting it's corner. now if you change the card thrown into a credit card, you still won't cut furniture because of the aforementioned physics required to 'cut'. you'd maybe put a dent into wood (depending on the wood of course) but that's about it. the extra weight of the card makes it harder to keep accurate over anything over that 15 feet. on the plus side, it is less affected by wind (which really knocks a normal playing card off line). against a person, a credit card hurts lots. i can imagine a well placed shot really dazing a person but then you're talking about hitting a small target (head) with an unreliable thrown object. of course, sharpening the edges of the playing card will change the possiblities of cutting but range and accuracy still come into play. in this case, a stone would get the same effect and retain the accuracy. as for normal cards against pine. i have to say that if you're really lucky and hit right in line with the grain, a normal playing card can dent weak pine...... for the record, fresh trading cards (i.e mtg) are better throwing cards than playing cards due to their smoother surface and cleaner edges. the best throwing playing card i've tried are the gold coloured edged cards you see the chinese guys use (tiger?) the plastic ones don't works so well because it flexes too much in the hand. you can't get a good enough grip to throw with any strength. but they are better for doing single finger flip/reveals to finish magic tricks.... damn. how'd this get so long? christ almighty i really am a spod.....