ovine king

one thing i just want to add. even though ring fights have rules, it doesn't in anyway diminish the effectiveness of those ring fighters if they ever needed to defend themselves in a street fight. the greatest benefit that ALL ring fighters have against those who practice a style that does not participate thus, is that the ring fight has much more experience in heavy contact sparring/practice. it can almost be argued that this is in one way more important than the type of techniques you are allowed to use/practice.

...admittedly, there is also the point here that the tan tui forms really are taught and practised as sets of movements that you do in sequence. one of the things about them is that they assume a certain type of response to your particular movements, which was one of the things that i really didn't like as for a long time, all you and your partner do, is more or less dance the same dance until you've learnt the sequence/form. i think that it spends too much time training you (in an incorrect way) to perform the sequence instead of using the sequence as a library. the style tends to have you learn the forms and train you to be proficient in performing them before even going anywhere near discecting them into component parts which from what i gather, not many (old/traditional) schools even do. Newer schools and especially those in china have adopted a 'loose hands' method and worked them into small drills that can be used in a san shou context but this is not even close to proper resistive training of the movements in the forms. in short, a lot of schools of tan tui really just have you doing forms and then 'sparring' consists of you and a partner doing a little routine to show how the form can be used but in a pre-determined way. in general, "tan tui" believes that within the forms as a whole, are movements that you can use against any type of move/countermove but the method of teaching doesn't lend itself very well to actual resistive practice. perhaps this is a reflection of it's age, it being one of the oldest forms of chinese martial arts. If you look at how tan tui (forms) tend(s) to be practiced and compare it to something like white crane, then hung gar or wing chun, you'd get what i mean. of course, the last time i was part of a school that taught tan tui must've been about 12-13 years ago. back then there wasn't so much attantion to live training and open competition formats.

biiig typo.... it should have read "i'm not entirely convinced...."

i'm NOT (edited: left out this word previously) entirely convinced that the guys who carried out work typically carried by people now known as ninja were considered totally dishonorable. put it this way, if an enemy of your shogun was dispatched in a way that kept his name 'clean', isn't that an honorable job? isn't using all means possible to escape/evade so that you can serve your shogun another day honorable? if you want to talk about honour in the context of japan in that era and within the samurai classes, first, you have to actually explore just what that honor concerned. in this case, honor itself is just as complicated as the whole ninja/samurai/shinobi thing.

you're a nidan in brazilian jiujitsu?

things you see in movies are taught widely around the US. it's aclled wushu, or extreme martial arts.

well, that's just it; chin-na is implied but not completed. in most cases, you'd apply a technique anywhere you can apply a punch, palm and even in some cases a kick. that's why i say it shouldn't be singled out as something special or more special than a punch or a kick. granted that to practice chin-na requires more effort and an almost different environment and that they aren't inherently present in the forms but isn't that the same with punches and kicks? you practice and train them as individual elements outside of forms, sparring and drills and then re-introduce them to all three. the same is true of kicks and chin-na. with a punch, you take the basic punch out of the form and apply it with footwork, with resistance, with speed. you do the same with a kick. with chin-na you tend to take a situation and then see what type of chin-na you can apply. the usual one is one that starts off very much like a 'normal' punch anyway as the chin-na itself needs to be set up somehow anyway (unless you are very good). in a lot of cases, you don't actually need chin-na in wing chun. I only practiced ot because of my tai-chi training and my wing chun training in HK with the police (through contact with a family friend). back to the original poster, i see what you're talking about now. if you have someone who can teach you details of chin-na then great. it shouldn't be hard to see how to integrate it into your normal training. As i sorta said, wing chun teaches you how to deal with attacks and how to enter. what you do after you've gotten far is almost secondary and if you can apply a punch, kick elbow or knee, you can most probably apply a lock, a throw or a control move. or all of them. i have a personal favourite that receives with tan on the outside, punches on the outside, elbows with the receiving hand while initial punch hand threads under the guys arm. this puts me in a postion where i have both his head and arm to play with. or i could've just kept it short and lock on the elbow when i first receive with tan. as for 7* mantis. i wouldn't say that you'd learn more chin-na from that as mantis is just a much a striking art as wing chun is. i'd still say tai chi is better as they deal with it in more depth (think wing chun and trapping and that's what you kinda have with tai chi and chin-na) i'd also be more tempted to say find a school of chinese white crane but alas, they're not that easy to come by. on the other hand, if all you are after is a frame of reference then by all means go to a school that teaches chin-na as a stand alone thing. Just don't neglect normal training and applying ALL training realistically.

well, that's what i was trying to point out. the previous poster stated that he has some "official" titles whoch suggests that these were given to him on an official basis by a club/organisation that uses the titles in relation to a "graded" rank. just wanted to point out that not all schools/associations does this (title as rank) and also wanted to point out the original meanings of the titles to further illustrate the point. as for the use of names used by chinese teachers. to be honest, i have no idea of how it is anywhere else in the world other than in the UK and in HK and to an extent, some parts of china. in the UK, i have only ever heard a chinese teacher called grandmaster in english (as in si-gung isn't used) and only ever in reference to, as there isn't usually much direct contact between those generations of students unless it's a seminar or special visit. in my own case, I haven't even met one of my si-gungs, of which I have four. in the cases where I have seen three generations of teacher/students together, si-gung was used and not the english version; grand-master, which if you remember my posts I think is incorrect anyway. In anycase, the classes that I have been part of were usually conducted in cantonese anyway and sifu is all that was needed. I know of one school, where all teachers are called sifu no matter the generation, with the sifus themselves differentiating within themselves (using sihing,sidai, sifu etc).

wait a minute, eggs, flour and milk are in pancakes as well as sponges. i guess that makes them both cupcakes. read this again.

just want to point something out in case your post get's mis-read. i gather that you have been part of a school/organisation where certain titles are used a a rank. For those who are reading this, those titles aren't official ranking titles that equate to those used in other styles. traditionally, the titles in chinese styles aren't really supposed to be used as titles of "rank"; they are supposed to be more of an indication of your position in the family/hierachy of the school. the sifu of my sifu is my si-gung. the kung fu brother of my sifu is my si-bak. y'know, the whole teacher/father/uncle/brother/sister thing.

more importantly, if you don't put in the effort, it doesn't matter how good the style you train in is.

i'm not sure i like the idea of a stand alone chin-na class outside of the main kung fu (style's) class. it should be taught as a thing that exists within the style that you do. it really shouldn't be singled out as something extra as it is in some ways, just another tool and almost equates to a punch or a kick. back in day when i was temporarily training in hk, we occasionally had specific classes that worked on non-striking control (i.e chin-na + other methods of take downs/throws/locks) but even then its context was wing chun. In other words, we were just doing wing chun but not punching or kicking after the interception and using the chin-na (and extras) instead. The same but not the same. As said before, wing chun has within it the means to use chin-na techniques and in a modern class espcially, you should be doing non-striking methods. I'd be very wary of a class that has it singled out as something extra or special, much more so than the school that doesn't deal with it.

it shouldn't matter. you train to do your thing, let them do theirs. what they do does dictate what you do but what you do doesn't rely on them doing something you know. at least that's what's supposed to happen.

very interested. if i'm not in hong kong at that time, i'd be there. will let you know closer to the date.

it's not about being calm. it's more about not having to rely on having to actively think when/if something happens. i've only ever been jumped twice and both times wasn't anything serious and both times. By the time i had full control over my thoughs again, i had already made space and at no time inbetween did i ever actively think "what am i supposed to do". i.e being calm wasn't an issue. but that's the nature of training: to do things to the point that being calm or not doesn't have an effect on how/why you move. i.e you just move. on the other hand, if you arae in a situation in which you know that you're going to fight, be it in the ring or anywhere else, there is pretty much not a lot you can do to remain calm. Pro fighters turn this into anger/aggression/hatred/love or whatever keeps them focused. Me? I just remind myself that there's not a lot I can do and just see what happens. The absolute worse thing you can do is think too much.

it might be better if some people were to request recipes rather than posting random ones. That way, the recipes would serve more of a purpose, as yours did when superfoot asked for a kimchi recipe. for example, i've always been after a good american style thick pancake recipe as opposed to the european crepes. ahem.....

in the uk, you're more likely to find the daikon listed as mooli.

step one: don't try anything fancy. unless of course all you want to do is perform flashy stuff without any reference to anything that might be resistance.

i sincerely hope that you don't hold any notion that the stuff is going to help you attain harder skin. it is and always was just something you rub into bruises to help them fade faster or to relieve pain from sprains and the like.

what worries me is when people palce too much romantic notions onto a thing such as lineage. In the chinese styles, you could say that it is very quickly turing into their equivilant to belt worship. All too often have I seen random claims of si-fu X being the student of si-fu y who blah blah blah. while in some cases and indeed most cases, a lineage is a good way to see what/where the thing you are training in comes from, it is especially in these days, no guarantee of the quality. Granted that lineage can and does indeed mean a certain level of quality, it is no guarantee. That's why there is a clear divide between those who see value in it and those who don't. for every Wong Shun Leung, Yip Chun, Eddie Chong, Ip Chee Keung, Dong Mu Yau there are a tens of other nameless students who can claim the same lineage but don't have the skills. There is also the point that a good fighter doesn't always make a good teacher.

actually, I said the things i did because that is the first step in learning "drunken" style.

let's put some context into this discussion. i have for the most part, trained in cantonese classes. The person who lead/ran the class was called Si-Fu during the class and often outside of the class by the guys who were training. In this class, none of the terms used to call anyone meant "master". In the uk, for a brief period, I was asked to run a small class by some people who had trained and still trained in other styles who wished to see how the things that I knew was trained and practiced. During these informal classes, I was simply called by my name as these people were for all intent purposes, peers despite them being under my instruction. If pushed further into making the class a formal thing and even though the class would've been conducted largely in english, the title I would've used would be Si-Fu which I'll point out again, does not mean "master". Going further, what I would actually prefer to do is to defer the hierachy to involve my teacher and say that he is the actual Si-Fu and I am just another Si-Hing. I've gone off on a bit of a tangent now but the point is, the chinese titles are based on family structure and have no relevance to the skill of the individual. Technically a Si-Fu is anyone who teaches a class on a formal basis and accapets students in an apprentice fashion. You can be absolutly rubbish and still take students and hence be a Si-Fu. Whilst this is not an ideal situation, there is actually nothing technically wrong with it.

you won't find drunken kung fu as a stand alone style and if you do, chances are it'll just be a modern wushu school teaching the performance form. if you want my advice and even if you don't , you'll get it anyway, i'd say stick to your shotokan and start to look deeper to see why and how the things work. the more you look, the more you'll see how to make movements smaller and smaller. soon, you'll be doing things that isn't shotokan but still is. how does this relate to you asking about drunken kung fu styles? do a search on the forums for other people who have talked about drunken kung fu and you'd find the answer.

i speak and read chinese and have watched more than enough chinese programs and the only term for master i can think of is the strict term that translates directly into "owner". all terms related to the teaching of something has a subject related term that denotes teacher, or trainer, depending on the thing being taught.

just want to add that traditionally, the hitting of hard objects in chinese martial arts was mainly to do with training your arms, especially your forearms, to the feel of impacting against a surface that would a, compact b, cause damage to your skin of course there are stories of mega hardcore people who battered their hands up into not much more than clubs but alas, dead hands aren't that useful. working up a thick layer of callouses and dead skin on your knuckles isn't going to make your punch harder. working up the muscles behind the punch, whihc the exercises does, will.