ovine king

they traded via the silk road although to what extent, i do not know.

problem with jokes like that is that someone somewhere might take it seriously and begin to spread it as 'truth'.....

no brain, no gain......

one ended dumb-bells as well.... same exercises as done with the pair of knives.

"China is a relatively new comer to such forms and its long been believed that Gladiator empty hand combat techniques were introduced to China when the Romans made their way to China in the 1st and 2nd Century BC. It is believed that the Romans taught the Chinese such forms and combat techniques" doesn't quite make sense when you also consider that china already had organised army/fighting as early as 1000BC. (earliest stone chinese weapons being around 6-7000 years old, earliest metal weapons 1000-2000 years old) i don't think anyone really spread anything anywhere. i'm pretty sure that ALL cultures had fighting systems of their own. any contact with other cultures would only have shown people what others so; whether or not anything was 'passed on', as it were, is anyone's guess.

...can't let this thread go without mentioning "rikki-o: story of rikki"

again, most of what i know comes from stories. there's an interview floating around the internet in which some of yip man's senior students were asked about the young bruce lee and they gave simple answers that fit in with what i know life was like in hk at the time. here's where i point out that the story of his lucky win was his first try at one of the rooftop fights. as far as i'm aware, there are no other references to fights that have been confirmed by a 'non-bruce lee fan' source. don't get me wrong, i'm not saying he wasn't any good, just that he's not the god that too many people who only read john little books think.

i never knew opium was hallucinogenic. by the way, forms were recorded way before the opium trade.

hey, how long have you been in chow gar mantis?

a few more questions to add to the fire.... (the opening was deliberately left ambiguous) the question of self defence. what if the school teaches something has been known to be effective in self defence situations but the teaching in this case of is not exactly up to scratch? i mean, if the material is there and they are doing it just with lack of conviction in delivery. what if the extra x% needed to make the training realistic would make the class not fun? is it worth doing something you don't enjoy because it means better self defence?

"In the old day, when there were no guns, cannon, tank, and jet. The war were fought by close combat, so do you think those people who put their life in the front line will be lesser than MMA who probably only encounter life and death situation few times in his life, or never" in the past, the 'martial arts' taught to soldiers were vastly different to what we learn as martial arts today for the simple fact that the skills involved are very different. old close combat warfare worked on fighting as a unit and not as an individual, which todays arts emphasise. what they trained was not exactly sophisticated and not anywhere as technical as the modern MMA fighter does. in most cases, soldiers were trained in basic techniques with basic weapons. the pure and simple need for quick and effective training, not to mention the fact that more people die than come back from a battlefield meant that it made no sense to train them in anything with much 'depth'. (certain samurai families are possibly the only exception but that's more of a class/social thing rather than a war thing) stick one of these soldiers in a no rules match up with a modern fighter and the soldier will get pummelled.

quite simply, does it matter what it is you are doing/training in, if you're enjoying it?

not you, the tai chi guy who started this thread.

insurance. for you against any possible injuries. most personal health insurances that you may have, do not cover against activities with extra risk i.e mountain climbing, firemen, martial arts... etc. as such, clubs should offer insurance for it's members in case of injuries that may occur during training. this insurance is also because of the aforementioned legal disclaimers about the club not being liable for any injuries you may sustain during your training there. y'know, they can't be held responsible but will help provide you with insurance for such possiblities. this is for your own benefit. this is the backbone of most 'contracts' in a martial arts school. of course, if you have extra covered already then you should tell them that you are covered. they protect themselves from any lawsuit happy fool and at the same time make sure if you are injured you are covered. as i said, if a club doesn't offer this, i'd be worried. saying that having a contract makes the school suspect is just plain stupid and shortsighted.

why do you refer to the guy who teaches you as sensei?

no. 'contracts' normally consist of the legal requirements (disclaimers and what-not) and insurance details. insurance is paid either in one big lump sum, or in installments. that isn't up to the club. if you're not paying insurance, i'd be worried. contracts tend to be a rather poor methods of getting money as it is finite and presents cost clearly. even if you get sued for breaking contract, i don't see a case where the club can claim more than what is owed by the contract. contracts don't mean a thing. what is used to milk money are excessive testings, grades, costs for equipment and the like. these are things that don't tend to feature in any of their literature because that is how they remain 'hidden costs'. websites are advertising. no school is going to knowingly put up bad information. do you really think they're not aware of the mcdojo image? do you really think that real mcdojos don't try to not present that image to potential customers and anyone else who may be looking at the website? mcdojos tend to be part of a big organisation. for the most part, this means that they will have more people to refer to than the small time schools. i.e their website can potentially look much better. you can't tell anything from a website.

okinawan jujitsu? never heard of that one before.....

i say, you don't need them. if you don't have the stamina/will to do it without a machine, why would having one make you go the extra distance? my biggest concerns with them is that i'm not sure that 'dead' stretching is actually good for you. isn't it better for stretching to occur during/because of actual use?

having a contract has no bearing on the legitimacy of the school. you can't tell anything from a website.

....not sure about that. sometimes[/] some things deserve to be bashed. i.e the outright frauds. in most cases, people confuse bad teaching/school with bad style. as it has been alluded to here, all styles have good and bad students. some styles have more, some have less but that's not to do with the style.

er..... we do use the year system in the uk. i.e lower sixth is year 12, upper sixth is year 13. hmm, or maybe it was just because i was in a poncy grammar school back in the day......

same goes for chinese. just saying "mee mei" is useless. give me the characters and i can tell you what it is. incidentally, in chinese when we 'read' japanese names we use the chinese versions of the kanji. so for the name given above we would use: "go kiu sin san" ('go'=high, 'kiu'=bridge, 'sin san'=Mr)

enjo kogai?

here's a thought. did bruce lee find weaknesses in chinese martial arts in general, or did he find weaknesses in his own martial arts (skill)? i mean, there were plenty of people at his wing chun school that he wasn't able to beat, even after his JKD. so if chinese martial arts had weaknesses and his JKD sought to remove them weaknesses, why did he still lose to his seniors? just so you know, chuck norris was a black belt winning competitions before bruce lee trained with him. dan inosanto was proficient in many styles way before bruce lee trained with him. bruce lee did not always get into brawls on the street (he spent most of the time running away after not being able to keep his big mouth shut). there is only one story of him in a rooftop fight and he only 'won' by a lucky shot. he did not do wushu.

or just strike over his incoming hit. no need to move or block/parry. hmm, you could move into him as you do the strike. depending on how you punch, there should be some trapping occuring as your elbow moves into place. of course this is just words, in practice nothing is ever so simple. i mean, how many people only throw ONE punch for you to respond to?