ovine king

the deadliest would be the one that is taught improperly.

well..... you have to remember that on a slr, the thing you see is pretty much what you are going to get on the print anyway and unlike on digital, you're not likely to get any sudden surprises from the ccd/processor suddenly deciding that it'll change the white balance after all..... hmm, perhaps i should explain. my slr is mostly for work and 70% of the time, it's used in a studio where everything is metered anyway so time isn't really an issue (apart from developing negs and prints). i guess i really do just want a better specced digital but me being me, I also want the best possible or else there's not much point in buying one, ergo, dslr. i guess on the plus side, I won't have to spend so much on lens if i stick to my old slr make (pentax). back to the lens. have you considered getting something like an 80-210 and then getting a 2x converter? you're not going to get the same results (the usual vignetting from the converter and slightly "wrong" focal length metering) but it'll be a hell of a lot cheaper. i also have to say that my first impulse was to buy myself a 500 lens but i hardly use it. The ones that see most action is a good ol' regular 50 and my macro (along with a fantastic set of close up filters). apart from these, i've only ever used a 70-200 regularly. my friend, you have chosen a very expensive hobby.

different stance and hip useage. wing chun=fixed hip structure. typical shaolin=more fluid/dynamic hip structure. if we are talking about about the same punch then you should realise, since you have more familiartiy with it than a wing chun punch, the movement for the punch in shaolin begins with a c*cked hip (in forms at least), usually in a open sei ping ma perpendicular to the direction you are facing. You then turn your hip which drives your rear foot into the ground, which turns the stance to bow/arrow, which drives the shoulder, which then drives the elbow and the fist follows. in wing chun, your stance/hip structure doesn't change, with the exception of some rotation depending on how good your stance is. they don't mix.

firstly, we are talking about (almost) two different things but there is some overlap. The first example of a backfist (does the term back fist actually even exist in chinese cos i can't think of it) is my example of a faat sau with a fist instead of an open hand (and different wrist position which again, i mentioned earlier). Again, the important thing isn't the technique itself but rather what it is doing. I have always been taught things by way of movements in relation to space and timing. The backfist you describe, in my mind would be something that crosses the centre from the "wrong" outside gate and whether or not it is a backfist no longer is important. Instead, what becomes important is the crossing/covering of the gate, the path along/across the centre (regaining the centre: a biu gee thing so yes, it can be considered a more advanced thing)and the timing of it and hence position of elbow i.e do i move elbow first to open, or retain elbow and just pop the faat sau movement and let the hand clear? as for your second example of a back fist, i'm not sure i agree with what (i think) you are describing. Is this a pure swinging type back hand or a turn then (again) faat sau with a closed fist? where does your hand end up? where does the arm movement begin. in any case, i also want to add that you're not exactly understanding (or perhaps you just haven't shown that you understand) what a jab in boxing is for. A jab is something you throw to test, to probe, to set up. Nothing in wing chun does that. Everything you do has to be commited and only changes if you need it to change. You don't throw something to test because that is considered wasted movement. the ironic thing this, while their use and intention is different, the average boxer's jab is performed in a very similar way to a standard chung chui, albeit with a different hip position/stance.

I know. I am just pointing out the not so obvious for the others who read these things. A lot of people will see something like tui sau, chi sau, the roda, tapi tapi etc. and think that is fighting training or sparring. one thing though and please excuse me for i know that it really is just picking on particular words but non-the-less, something i feel is important; it isn't that you can use tai chi as a fighting art, tai chi IS a fighting art.

no.

actually, my backfist isn't that different to my normal punch (and by punch, i don't mean that chain punching malarky) the thing that makes it a backfist is how it travels regarding to the the bridge and the centreline; the driving mechanism is pretty much the same. even then, what i said before still holds true; it is only a backfist because i choose to hold a fist. it could just as easily be a biu sau to jut or faat sau to step-in elbow. the arm movement is still the same. on the other hand, a lap could just easily be a downwards backfist on their bridge with pretty much the same effect. with regards to punching, a rising palm could just as easily be a rising punch. my point is, it's never easy to label things in wing chun because anything can be everything else. Its the nature of the style and its methods and to label something as a backfist and something as being more advanced in terms of a technique (instead of what it is trying to achieve) is slightly flawed.

that is something that i am also uncomfortable with. if you aren't doing the whole aspect of something, are you actually doing the thing properly? doing the movements as they are, without outside interference is good and all that but the next level comes from actually doing them in a stressed environment with resisting partners. That would be the test and eventually, the training ground for how good your control/form really is and if you re in in for health benefits, then missing out on an actual physical work out that also happens to test/work your "chi" (you know what i mean so no flaming please) seems a bit daft. i believe that if you don't go to that step, you are always, without fail, going to be lacking when compared to someone who does do the full range of training. incidentally, push hands is a drill/exercise/test. it isn't and shouldn't be taken as a fighting drill. when i was in a tai chi class, fighting drills involved actually getting hit if i messed up a movement or it involved me getting thrown to the ground via lock gone wrong on my part.

saki saki five dollar?

personal experience. when buying a lens, it's always better to buy the best you can because sooner or later, you will eventually end up buying that one and the compromise choice ends up being redundant and thus a wasted purchase. the 200-500 is a hefty chunk of cash but ultimately worth it. by the way, isn't the tamron di lens rated/graded to digital figures? how's it going with dslr? i'm an old school guy and if i'm being honest, i have a slight addiction to the smell of developing fluids..... but digital is always tempting, especially as it means at least four extra hours in a day when i'm working.

...depends on your angle..... i've never been keen on labeling things in wing chun as ever being a fixed thing thus a punch in wing chun is never, in my mind, called a wing chun punch. In class, i never say "you can punch" instead choosing to say "you can hit". that leaves it up to other people watching to fill in the gaps themselves and get them visualising things for themselves. if you look at everything involving the arms, you will see that fundementally, there are only three types of arm movments when extending: wrist vertical, wrist flat facing floor and wrist flat facing the sky (all three being dependent on your elbow postion and where your hand is to begin with as well) the only thing that changes is how you have your hand. as i alluded to at the start of this post, a punch in wing chun can be a back fist, depending on your angle..... and how you are closing the gap.

it's a translation thing. in chinese, hand-work and foot-work are often considered separate things, as is other aspects of fighting and as such, have their own terms i.e chin-na, chuan-fa, tui-fa. boxing is merely the closest english term for chuan-fa. remember kids, don't use an english dictionary to try to find the meaning of something that is chinese; you'd often get it wrong. the same goes for films. unless you are listening and understand the film in it's original language, you are probably not getting the proper meanings/understanding.

if i remember correctly (here's me admitting that i'm too lazy to verify) his dad was proficient in a form of tai chi and his brother was a big time fencing practicioner. this is my opinion but i think he probably read more about other styles than he actually trying the other styles. Judging by the quality of the books typical of the 60s/70s, i'm not surprised that he had a low opinion of them.

again i'm not sure i agree with this. please bear in mind that your particular wing chun has much closer ties to shaolin style (by way of gee shim, according to legend if i recall correctly). if anything, traditional shaolin is typical of the flowery fist, embroided kicks that most wing chun is opposed to. of course, there are similar types of movements (becasue they use similar terminology/theory in chinese) but their base use of their respective hip structures means that at the end of the day, they are executed both differently and for different effect. the best examples i guess would have to be the massive shift of hip+stance to drive a basic "longfist" punch or how a shoilin style prefers to cross over a bridge and how a wing chun guy would cross a bridge. Come to think of it, how they treat bridges is almost opposite of each other, them being examples of short bridge/long bridge styles.

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=7533

there's nothing wrong with the glove; just use them as normal and make people work a little harder not to get hit.

i recently bought a fresh pair of open hand/grappling gloves cos my old pair are way too worn and the wrist elastic no longer does it's job of keeping its hold on my puny wrists. a nice new hook+loop glove does the trick. also a fresh pair of inner gloves because there's only so much sweat+dried blood i can handle on the old pair, not to mention that even a pair of small glvoes is still a bit big for me so the inner glove makes it fit better. a new pair of wing chun knives cos the old aluminium pair had an bad meeting with a bokken and the floor.

if it were me, i'd go for the goju if for no other reason that it is the one that is potentially closest to the original source.

that, ladies and gentlemen, is an example of a straw man argument and not a very good one at that. when you are in hospital with a head trauma, they're not going to call in a heart surgeon to check the injury, now are they?

but you have to admit, compared to pro-boxing, amateur boxing rules are a bit, well, pansy.....

again, partially valid but not totally acceptable. like it or not, tai chi is a fighting art; it's inception and history of development is based around its applications in fights. whether or not you fight with it isn't the point. The point is, it should be taught as a fighting method and not as a health/mentality exercise. some say that the fighting aspect is a side-effect of the method of health training; i say that the health/mentality is a side effect of the fight training. you are however, right in that if you are wanting to train for a particular fight format, the obvious way to train is to do what the other competitors do because that is the quickest way to get yourself to a competitive level. i'm not sure if this happens in the states much, but here, most places that teach tai chi are also registered with the BCMAA who regularly hold free form/san shou rules "kick-boxing" tournements. I know people who train mostly in tai chi (at least a form of...) and take it apart in terms of ward-offs, follow throughs, step throughs etc etc andgenerally other things that can be used in a kick-boxing format. If these guys can do this for kick-boxing, why not do it for a mma rules fight?

something that has been repeated by a great many people; there is a world of difference between learning to perform something, learning to do something and learning to use something.

one thing that has been alluded to in the past in other threads is the way in which a technique is counted. In some schools, a simple move is counted for multiple time depending on it's height, stance position. left/right etc etc. Now while I can see that this will help people see the single movement beyond the fixed version in a form, I also see it as a reason for people to stop thinking for themselves. How often have you heard someone in your class say "that's not how it is in the form"?

why are you asking this? did you think that forms/katas wre only pretty movements and without use?

I really don't get what it is you re asking. I train mainly in wing chun and have done many others in the past, including some time on shaolin style(s). When I spar free-style (i.e san shou rules), I do whatever I want and the question of "is this wing chun?" or "is this shaolin?" just doesn't come up.