Drunken Monkey

well, wanting to learn how to "kick ass" is not neccessarily a bad thing though is it. after all, only by learning how to do serious damage can you learn how NOT to do serious damage. but that's kinds the thing i was after. a lot of people would say for health and fitness or for self defence because of the stigma attached to violence (understandably of course). but as you learn, has your art really changed you? i was always under the belief that proper training can instill discipline in people but too many times i have seen aggressive students who see it as learning how to fight. is this just a bad student or is the teacher also to blame? to be honest i'm not sure what i'm really trying to ask.

the thing with animal movements in kung fu is that it isn't physically representative of the animal itself but it represents the animals essence. when they say move like a snake they don't mean slither about. what they mean is be flexible, quick, direct, supple, like a snake.

y'know, i think those who thinks they should be registered should be kept on a list of some sort...

we don't have a uniform and just turn up in appropiate clothing i.e loose

it all depends on the form

i think if you able to help and i mean, genuinely help then do so. if it is a real situation that requires immediate attention then i think if you walk on by, you are disgracing yourself as a human being.

it isn't the belt system that is the problem but rather the people who are giving out the belts. belts are symbolic and are a way of showing your achievements but instead it has been made to be like a award system. instead of trying to get your black (or whatever) belt, it should be awarded to you by your sensei when he feels you have earnt it. like i said, it is the people that are the problem. and money has an evil grip over too many people.

this really depends on your views on martial arts training. at the end of the day, this is all for yourself. i mean, if the seven year old kid really deserves his black belt then good for him and well done on all that hard work. i don't see why he shouldn't get the belt, after all, the belt is a symbol of his learning and achievement. what you should be addressing is not the students but instead looking at the ones giving out the belts.

whoa people hold on a minute no martial art i know is or even attempts to be a religion. it is, like the name inplies an art. as it is NOT religion, all things based on or related to are not items relating to religion. the mat in a dojo is not a religious item. you bow to it because it is tradition and a sign of respect for the art which YOU have chosen to learn. you are not worshipping the mat/ring. pictures of past masters are not idols. they are just that, pictures of people who have learnt the art before you and have added to it's development. if you bow to it like we do in a chinese school of arts, you are not worshipping it. you are recognising that this man created the art that you have chosen to learn. in a round about way , you are bowing to your real sifu witout whom your art would not exist.

one of the things that people forget that the whole idea of chi was invented/created during a period when superstition and magic was believed and indeed, revered in china. you can still see the remnants of this strong belief. if those people, however many hundreds/thouds of years ago understood the human body like how we do today, do you think that ideas like chi would have survived? and then there's the much dispised chinese habit of holding things back from people (which you and i know as closed door policy). i always regarded chi as something that they couldn't explain so they made it a mystery to perplex those students who had gotten as good they were. in this case, they needed an edge over them so they use this thing... i really don't meant to offend and i apologise deeply if i have but this is just my opinion, feel free to express yours.

i like the way how my normal looking sifu is so calm and harmless looking... ...until he rolss up his sleeves, his eyes light up and he begins to smile...

i think you'll find the system designed to defeat shaolin styles is wing chun sorry but i guess we're all a little biased at heart

it isn't a case of "liking" finger strikes. the biu gee form is about how to get out of bad situations (crossed arms, lost centre-line, overcooked movements...) which may or not involve using biu gee sau. up until you train in the biu gee form you are told not to cross your arms but in biu gee, a lot of the movements involve crossing your arms and these aim to train you in how to perform moves to escape from the bad situation. also, the many biu movements in the form are not neccessarily strikes. in most cases, they can be read as being interception movements (in fact, biu gee sau is the mun sau of the third form). what is important is not what we do with our hands but where they work from (.e under bridge, over bridge, cross arms) as for ACTUALLY using a biu gee sau to attack, that is a different story....

i think i'm going to have to support the chopsticks on this one. obviously you have to look at how you eat with chopticks. i mean, you won't use a knife and fork with a bowl so don't think about using chopsticks with a dinner plate. both ends of chopsticks can be used to pick up food to maintain a certain leverl of hygiene, and with a bowl, well, have you seen a chinese scoop rice into his mouth? a bowl can go from full to empty in a matter of secondes. and then there's the point of if you can't use chopsticks like how they're meant to, you can still spear the food with a single chopstick.

there's also the fact that you have to realise that like in all chinese arts, there is a lot of training involved in this technique. knowing and being able to execute a one inch inch punch is almost useless with the proper training and conditioning that goes with it. right from the start of proper training (by which i mean, you have a good grasp of the basics i.e sil lim tao) the wall bag was a constant feature in our daily routine. remember, if your hands bleed, your punch is wrong. think back to how long it took before your knuckles stopped bleeding. and that was just to get the basic punch correct. now imaging how long it would take to strengthen the muscles and joints involved with the one inch punch until it is absolutely correct.

one thing that happened to me. i was joking around with a friend who decided that she would slap me around the head as punishment. my instinctive reaction was to receive it with tan sau. however, a few seconds later, after seeing that i stopped her first attempt easily, she tried again. this time, i was completely aware of what she was going to do but my brain was completely blank. so in this case, it wasn't fear that made me freeze, but being too aware of an incoming attack. maybe i should've just let her hit me.

generally, we use the feet when the hands are tied. normally, if our hands are tied into position (locked or what-ever) we only need to shift stance to release our hands. how-ever, there will be times when it is advantageous to kick instead of shifting stance. either way is an example of using our feet.

ahhh, i'm gonna be a real pain and say that there are in fact no blocks in wing chun and that there are instead, a series of movements that change their form to suit the need. in most cases, the need is to intercept (or receive if you prefere) an oncoming strike. tan sau is only tan sau for the duration of it GOING OUT to receive. once contact is made it is no longer tan sau. that's one of the things that a lot of people miss. when you ask a new kid to do a tan sau, they often just put their hand out into position, whereas a more experienced person would perform the tan sau MOVEMENT.

y'know, when i train, i find that that most used block is the one that we most recently did s big session on. try it, spend an hour every day for a week just on bong sau exercises (lop sau etc). then at the end of the week, have a little sparring session. see what block is the most instinctive. i guess this is why we have to train everything so bloody hard. to make sure we don't develop habits.

yip chun, eldest son of yip man, comes to england quite regularly

there are many reasons for training in martial arts, be it for health and fitness, learning how to fight or building confidence. this has always been one of the things that interests me. so please, feel free to ramble about your passion here.

hmmm, about the direct successor thing, that is a very complicated subject. for one thing, yip man himself never claimed to be anything like a grandmaster. it is widely known that yip man taught people based on their individual differences and even whilst he was teaching, he was making adjustments to movements. so, no two students of yip man ever learnt the same thing. there's also the point that because wing chun is so simple, how good you get in it depends on how much you train and how many different people you train with. as for leung ting, that man is at the centre of many contoversial discussions, one of which is regarding his training. but like i said, this doesn't really have much bearing on how good the man is. yip man, was good because he went out to train with other kung fu masters of his time and he was in correspondance with other wing chun masters to discuss techniques. the man lived and breathed wing chun. as for successor, i would say that in the chinese tradition, the eldest son is often left in charge of the school...

if you're looking for wing chun in hk, why not seek out the sons of grandmaster yip man himself?

the best martial artist is the one that can teach you how to be better sorry about the cheese

hmmm, i think i'd have to go for jackie chan. that guy trains like a monster and he has actually taken the time to train in hapkido after his early career in the opera troup in which he learnt his acrobatics. but then, maybe yuen woo ping should be on that list too...