taiji fajin

haha, thanks, I love it. Aodhon was close, it's Space Ghost Coast to Coast, from 1999. The Chambraigne episode.

All injuries are - to differing degrees - debilitating. I would be very careful about breaking boards with your condition. Is it needed in your martial art to promote in rank? What does that mean to you? What does your health mean to you? While a single board, if held and broken correctly, probably won't cause you harm, I'm not about to speculate on what repeated breaks will do. I would also avoid breaking multiple boards/bricks/etc. Best piece of advice? Talk to your doctor about it, and be honest with him.

What do you mean by this?

Sorry to hear about your bad luck, but at least you still train with him some. It's always interesting to see the different mentalities for meditation. Some, like the icy stream incident you talked of or when Kuk Sa Nim brought the monk, seem more intent on meditating through unpleasant circumstances, they to me are about learning how to focus through distraction. Others are about building your internal energy. They disagree with the "no pain no gain" philosophy and instead seek to nurture the body and enhancing the mind-body connection. Just my take on it, one sec while I put on some body armor against the responses . As for the last post, I agree that trust and practice with a certain partner are needed before you can go at full speed without fear of hurting the other person. However, I don't think that people should be striking the air instead of the head/body/etc. Even if you do not know your partner, you should aim for the correct spot. Just be sure to not go all out and are able to pull back/stop if they do not get their defenses in place.

Training with KJN Simms would be awesome. While I am against the idea of people getting injured in a class as being ok or expected to happen occasionally, I dislike how easily training can become an "armchair" art, or worse, how paper tigers get produced. You've trained with KJN Simms? I'm curious, do you know what his views are on internal energy work / meditation / etc? Possibly even what type he does, if he does do it? Thanks.

Nice link , it saved me from having to put up a video of myself doing the form. I have two problems when I see most people do this form (no offense to anyone). The first is that the strikes are not at the other person, but at their staff. Many times in the form you will see an "attack" that would simply go by in the air if the defender had not put out his staff. Why bother blocking if it's not going to hit you? The other is that people put their staff out to block long before the attack comes. Not only does this look aesthetically displeasing, but it's impractical. If a person had the block waiting out there, I would just strike somewhere else. I love doing staff sparring with one particular JGN in my class, who is actually my roommate. We've been doing it together for long enough that when we do the form, we are actually trying to hit each other. Literally. We don't hold back our swings (which occasionally results in a broken staff), because we know the other person will be able to block it (or had better block it!) In our last demo, at one point my roommate did a side strike to my head, which I blocked, but it was a strong enough attack that his staff bent around mine and brushed my hair. Let me tell you, doing this form when the other person is actually aiming for you, not holding back, and not letting you get your defense in place before they swing keeps you on your toes!

It's all about how you bend your arms. Do you know Bohng Dae Ryuhn? You do a cartwheel holding a staff during it. It's the same thing picking one up . . . . you're just not holding it during the first half.

True, but forms aren't always (and in my opinion shouldn't usually be) a series of attacks that you use one right after the other. More often they teach body control / conditioning, and small chunks of moves you could do. I would probably never use more than two or three moves that are in a row in a form, usually less.

My understanding was that it was done to pick up a weapon (generally one with a decently sized non-sharp portion, such as a staff or spear). Of course, it is also done to give strength and yada yada, but the picking up of the weapon was the "application" as far as I knew.

This is the school taught by PSN Kellog, right? I'll vouch for him, great instructor, very knowledgable, and will make sure you actually improve, not just get a new belt every x months for paying dues.

hi aefibird, While I wasn't one of the people you are talking about, I'm very glad to hear that you met some nice KSW'ers. I think that they were polite and nice reflects better on them (and KSW) than any skill level they may or may not have had. Kuk Sool tries to be "Hard-Soft". I'm sure lots has been posted about it or on other internet sites so I won't go into detail about what KSW "is", but you are right, it is not "not as hard or linear as other Korean (TKD-esque) patterns." and purposely so. To answer your question, I have never heard it "officially" said that KSW has Chinese influences. It is officially said to be derived from three Korean sources: Buddhist, Family, and Royal Court martial arts. That being said, after practicing it and a Chinese martial art for some years now, I would say yes, it does have Chinese influences. I've even had a master in KSW talk to me about how some of our form movements come from Chinese martial arts. Is it deliberate? *shrug* If it is they aren't saying, at least not to me. Oh yeah, and congratulations on your non-auditory onomatopoeia

For internal martial arts? I wish I had better news, but if you want real internal martial arts training you need to be training with an instructor, not from a video or website.

in Kuk Sool it goes white->yellow->blue->red->brown->black

Where have all the Kuk Sool'ers gone? I never see a post about KS anymore.

Look at the official site, there's been some . . . . action. New 10th degree and some people left. Sims is gone and so are some of his students. I'm not basing "Sims left" off of just the website, just giving you a place to check it out.

You need an instructor. Internal training can be bad for you if you do it wrong. Make sure to find someone good and learn from them. If you insist on doing it on your own, please do not try to "move" the qi around your body while meditation. Just let it happen naturally.

A short while ago Master Sims left Kuk Sool Won and started his own group, "The United Martial Science Federation". Or at least, that's the rumor. The only thing that I know for sure is that Sims has left Kuk Sool Won. I'm having trouble finding anything about his new organization and was wondering if anyone else knew of a webpage or anything. The only one I can find is: http://martialartscenter.homestead.com/ It is run by a guy who trained under Sims (giving more credit to the rumor) and is said to be "A member of the United Martial Science Federation". Does anyone else have any more information?

To be honest, something like that is a hindrance. When doing purely qigong exercises (standing, sitting, etc), you should be going into quiet. Worrying about whether the breath should be loud or quiet will keep you from doing that. We must remember that even tools for getting into quiet (three going into one, counting the breath, mantras, etc) are *tools* for going *into* quiet, and when you are in quiet you are not doing them. Eventually we don't even want to use them, eventually we need to just sit.

Interesting, I hadn't heard people bothering with that. I've been taught to breathe naturally. Are you talking about during forms, two person drills, or meditation? If during meditation I would definitely say just breathe naturally.

Internal energy does not contradict (in my mind) any concept of a diety. Different people will tell you different things, though. Some may say it gets you closer to understanding the big Dao, some may say it's a sign you're letting the devil in, etc etc. You can believe / work with internal energy and still believe / worship a diety. You are not too old to start working with internal energy. Many people do not start until later in life (65, 75, even older), while some start very, very early. The trick is to find a good teacher. There are many, many imposters out there who can come up with all sorts of credintials that will lead you on a horrible path. That's another long, long topic, though.

Thank you to everyone for responding. I'm not assuming that, as only a first degree black belt, I should have an understanding of Kuk Sool. I'm just wondering how you can keep from being only superficial at most things until you've studied for years and years and years and years. Much, MUCH more importantly, I'm wondering what ties Kuk Sool together. This is the thing no one really commented on. As I said, in taiji, yin and yang pull everything together, and I can go back to them to help me with anything I'm practicing. Everything seems connected. In Kuk Sool, it doesn't yet. What connects everything in Kuk Sool, so it's not just a bunch of techniques, forms, etc, lumped under one art? That's what I need the most help with. aefibird, my old instructor and I do not talk much, though I do practice with his instructor some. I will see him in about a month and a half. Thank you for the suggestion, I will definitely ask him. Thank you all again.

And I'm sure you've seen every taiji master / grandmaster there is and so are basing this off of the highest ranking people in the art, and not McDojos . I guess TKD is a horrible, horrible fighting art because the people I have seen do it have no idea what they are really doing and end up hurting themselves all the time, and they must be the best because they are who I've seen.

Applications are good to practice, what I'm saying is that forms should not be seen as an application. Taiji forms shouldn't be taught as "this form teaches you how to throw" and "this form teaches you how to do this type of joint lock".

It's a show, not a movie, but. . . . . . . Walker Texas Ranger!!!! Oh god I love that show. It's so great. It's so, sooooo bad that it's so great. I love how he's part Native American and that gives him mystical powers, and how he always chooses to spin kick people instead of use the gun he's holding. I wish it was on right now.

Some styles train to learn lots and lots of techniques, forms, etc. From what I understand, the purpose of this is not that you have 4000 techniques to choose from in a fight. Instead, it’s showing you the many, many ways you can do the same general type of lock from different positions, Eventually, you will see that type of lock everywhere, even when the arm/wrist/shoulder/etc is bent only slightly the way it needs to go, you will “see” or feel the lock and can execute it in ways that you haven’t even directly practiced. Other styles tend to focus on a smaller set of techniques, forms, etc, but use them to focus on larger pictures or become very proficient at what they do. An example is someone who learns a relatively small set of techniques, but does them so much that the person becomes very good at that type of technique, and again will “see” or feel it, even if it is not the exact set-up they are use to. That is a relatively simplistic way to view it, and probably not 100% accurate nor worded well, but it is late and I’m sure most of you will know what I mean. I have tried both types (the multiple one with Kuk Sool and the smaller numbers with wrestling and taiji), and both lead to the same result. I would assume most people would agree, as the larger number group does not usually claim that they have a technique mastered for every scenario that they can pull out at will, and the smaller number group does not usually claim that they are good at only the small number of things they practice, and outside of those exact situations they cannot perform their techniques. What are the pros and cons of each type? Why do you agree or disagree that they both lead to the same path (if practiced correctly)? Do you think there is a middle ground that can be reached, and would that be better than either side? Why? Why do you think one way is, overall, better than another (if you do think that)? Please, please, please, PLEASE, I am begging you, do NOT just say “This way is better”, “I like this way”, “I train this way”, or “my instructor says this way is better”. PLEASE give REASONS behind your answers. Dear god please give reasons. If you don’t have time to write the reasons, wait until you do, if you don’t have reasons, please don’t bother. I am begging here.