Bajifan

Thanks ps1, I'd forgoten about pkc google's great as long as orgs put their stuff up online. So many don't do a good job of managing (or designing) their websites, unfortunately. Found all kinds of listings for upcoming tournaments... for 2003 I did find AKJU's website and shot them an email to get on their mailing list.

I don't belong to any kind of school, and it's been ages since I've competed. Any idea of how I can find local open style tournaments?

Apparently he confessed to being a fraud: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hydrick "In 1981, Hydrick's psychic powers were definitively exposed as being fraudulent by investigative journalist Dan Korem. Hydrick confessed his fraud to Korem and admitted that he had developed his unique talent while he was in prison, and did not learn it from a Chinese master as he had originally claimed."

It really depends a lot on the teacher. It can be effective, but you really have to train right. Do the learning forms, conditioning, hard contact sparring/san shou, etc. like any traditional martial art, and the vast majority of places that teach modern wushu don't teach that sort of stuff anymore. It has stance work, punches, elbows, kicks, sweeps, throws, joint locks, and so on. Also, you have to understand the difference between training forms and competition forms. Training forms are like traditional forms, or could even be traditional forms (like tan tui for example). While competition forms are designed to show off your best traits and entertain. You could study chang quan for quite awhile without touching a flashy competition form if you really wanted too, and your teacher knew it in depth enough, lol. A pretty big chunk of the technique, and the body work (frame of the style) is from Cha Quan (style of the "founding father" of modern chang quan, Wang Ziping). Many people stopped teaching the applications in public though after the cultural revolution. Wang Ziping himself was even put under house arrest during this time, and many top wushu masters and athletes were chased away, went into hiding, or sent to "re-education camps". Naturally, many weren't exactly too big on showing the martial side of things in public when the government legalized martial arts again. Another problem is now days there's a huge emphasis on incredibly difficult gymnastic maneuvers, often having little to no base in classical wushu technique. If you're serious about competition, so much time has to be spent perfecting these high risk, high scoring maneuvers, you really can't be an all around quality "martial" artist unless you're some kind of phenom who has just the right teacher At least I don't see how. It used to be there was a limit on how many acrobatic techniques you could have in your chang quan form (you could do one) and you had to have certain numbers of each type of chang quan technique, show each of the stances, and so on. Also, at least among some of the better Chinese chang quan people, you would have to study a traditional style in depth with a traditional master after perfecting your basic technique. Then they could incorporate what they knew into their individual competition forms. And even before then, when it was first created, chang quan was a long 8 section chang quan form used to "weed out" lower level competitors. Then in competition they'd use whatever traditional style they knew (this was pre-cultural revolution). I trained it hard for over 4 years until 2000 before tearing up my knee pretty bad on a jump kick. While landing a tornado kick into a horse stance wasn't too big a problem for me, I wasn't used to practicing on a springboard type stage topped off with puzzle mats (the setup being used at this NASKA tournament) Tore my ACL and Meniscus. Still learned a lot about longfist after that and did some traditional chang quan (mizong quan aka lost track boxing) but gave up on the competitive forms and switched mostly to taiji quan.

Mini version:

Yeah, I assume he's demonstrating his Iron Head skill

A pretty hardcore bench form :

Here's a rare traditional drunken form. "Drunken Luohan" according to the guy who posted this on KFM

Pan Nam Wing Chun form: This is a non-Yip Man descended version of Wing Chun. And to tell the truth, this is the first Wing Chun form I've seen on the net that I've really liked watching.

Chen style: Chen Zhaokui: Tian Xuchen, student of Chen Fake: Lei Muni, another Chen Fake student: Du Yu Ze, student of Chen Fake’s father, Chen Yanxi: Chen Bing, excellent demo of Lao Jia Yi Lu (Old frame first form): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2ps5Ond__c Same guy doing Cannon Fist (Lao Jia Er Lu (second form): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUwczrjNoa4&mode=related&search= Chen Xiaowang, generally considered the standard bearer for Chen taiji today:

Wu (Wu Yu Xiang, aka Hao style) Hao Shaoru, direct Hao family descendant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc8urlr8RM0 Au Yang Fang, not sure of his background, but it's a much clearer video:

Wu (Wu Jian Quan) Wu Yinghua, Wu Jian Quan's daughter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjiBFLobNt4 A version of the Wu taiji fast form that I liked (don't know who the performer is): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MueyvsRHcG4 Li Bingci (another nice looking form):

Sun Style: Sun Jianyun, Sun Lu Tang's daughter: Sun Peng, Sun Lu Tang’s grandson: Men Hui Feng, founder of the Sun 73 move short form (the form I practice), performing that form:

Some more Yang style: Fu Zhongwen, another one of Yang Chengfu’s top students: Nui Chnming, a student of Yang Jianhou who latter became one of Yang Chengfu’s disciples: Liu Gaoming, I thought this guy's form is really beautiful: Nui Chunming, a student of Yang Jianhou who latter became one of Yang Chengfu’s disciples:

I should say that I know of two places here in the U.S. On another board I mentioned Lau family was the only ones I knew of teaching a stand alone system in the U.S. and was corrected by someone on there (I think he was from Minnesota). Anyway, this guy was from a Mei Hua Quan school and they had a stand alone 8 drunken immortals system, though you still have to go through some of the Mei Hua stuff before they get to the drunken. Apparently it's still more difficult to learn (Mei Hua is pretty cool in it's own right anyway, so shouldn't be too big of a deal). http://www.Plumpub.com also sells some videos from something called 8 Shadows Drunken Boxing: http://www.plumpub.com/sales/dvd/dvdcoll_assorted.htm