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

Going by the name it sounds like some kind of hybrid, or something "inspired" by kungfu rather than actually being a Chinese style. Mixing the two languages like that is kind of odd, and Chuan Fa is just an old Chinese term for Chinese martial arts in general (of which there's hundreds). I think it's also the Chinese direct equivalent of "Kenpo", linguistically. I could be mistaken about that last part though, as I don't know any Japanese It's hard to say anything for sure though without actually seeing it.

Thought I'd start a thread showing my favorite videos of the different branches of taiji quan (youtube rocks!). Feel free to add any y'all like "Tung Hu Ling" performing the Yang Cheng Fu style barehand form: push hands training: His daddy (one of YCF's more famous students: More to come tomorrow (it'll take me a bit to track them all down).

A Wudang version of Da Baji Quan (Large frame eight extremes boxing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57W6L792yGY&mode=related&search= A couple Wudang sword videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5RSYRGhvWM&mode=related&search= And one more "straight forward": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP32brEuhCg&mode=related&search= And one of the versions of Wudang style taiji quan out there:

Here's a little documentary (or part of one at least) on Wudang. "Madame Li" is a very interesting story

Well, I figured you might be, but I wasn't sure... so I went ahead and answered anyway

Man, people need to come to Columbus, Ohio. I can name at least 4 teachers off the top of my head who would teach this There was also some Chen style guy (trained in Chen villiage) wondering around the parks at one point. You don't really think of Columbus or Ohio in general as being a hotbed of martial arts, but we've got Chen, Yang, Old Yang, Sun, Chen Man Ching, Chang (shui jiao taiji), and even non taiji internal arts like Bagua, Xingyi, Liu He Ba Fa, etc. If only the rest of the city weren't so boring, and the Ohio economy didn't suck so bad [/i]

I know of only one school teaching it publicly as a stand alone art. I've lost track of their website, but the style is called "Lau family Wudang 8 Immortals Drunken Boxing" and I they're out in California somewhere. You could probably find some info in an internet search. Other than that, you can find drunken boxing as part of a number of systems as a more advanced form (drunken monkey in Tai Sheng Pek Kwar, or Drunken forms in Choy Lay Fut for example). There's also at least one or two other stand alone systems out there, and I know of an old guy in Liaoyang (Well... I'm not 100% sure he's STILL there ), who knew a couple traditional types of drunken boxing. He had been a martial arts teacher before standing up to a dishonest government official, which pretty much cost him his career. I never got clarification on whether it was a complete drunken system, or part of something else though. He also had knowledge of Shaolin, Baji, and some other styles, though drunken was his specialty. He'd just started teaching a small group again though and doing public demonstrations when I'd last exchanged emails with him a few years ago, so we may see him ending up in the U.S. someday, which was his dream

I don't have any direct experience myself, but I do know enough about it to have a general idea through past classmates, friends, and articles, on some generalities. Though, really, it'd be better if someone with actual Wing Chun experience could come out and give advice once the details of this kid's situation are clearer. You usually can't throw a stick on a CMA message board with out hitting a Wing Chun guy, so I imagine there's someone lurking around here with experience

I partly studied it as a martial art, but unfortunately previous injuries from a competition accident prevented me from progressing too far. When I got to doing some more active push hands (getting knocked around abit) the pain in my knee was just too much and I couldn't continue. So I never got to the proper level. It would swell up, etc. so it's been about 3 years now since I've done any live application work and attended class. It's my own fault though, for not listening to my teacher. My main teacher and another teacher had been sharing a space, and sharing some of the teaching duties on occasion. My main teacher felt I need to concentrate on form work and qigong and wait about 1.5 to 2 more years until I was better healed. The other teacher (who owned the school) felt I was healthy enough to get into the rougher training right away, and be ready for full contact fighting within 6 months. Well, I listened to the wrong guy. I'll be going back to my teacher soon though, so I'll get a second chance I was around it long enough though to see how it should work. Basically, the training process would go something like this: 1.Qigong and jibengong (basic training): Standing and moving qigong/meditation, line drills of individual techniques and combinations (going back and forth across the floor). 2.Learning the main bare hand form 3.Fixed step push hands: A partner application "game" to help train the major types of techniques found in taijiquan done from a stationary position (pushing, deflecting, sticking, and so on). Starts off in pre-coreographed sequence of actions and counters, but you move to free style pretty quickly. 4.Moving step push hands: Same idea but more active. Sometimes it'll start resembling shui jiao or judo with guys getting tossed around. It's rushing through this and the previous step 3 where I aggravated my injurey. Chin Na (joint locking, cavity pressing, etc. can also be trained within push hands, though often isn't really legal, I don't think, in formal competitive push hands). 5.San Da or San Shou (whichever term you prefer): Basically, full/hard contact free fighting to bring all your skills together. And of course, it all builds on each other, so you never stop training any individual step. And other schools have their own unique training methods. For example, Chen taiji quan contains more forms for different purposes, long pole training for developing power. And Sun style was created from Xingyi Quan, Bagua Zhang, and Taiji Quan, so you'll see more of those guys cross training in those arts and possibly adopting some of that training into their taiji quan. So as you can see, there's lots of variations on what you could find Different taiji styles also have different weapons, though they're usually not trained for combat the way empty hand forms were. My teacher talked about weapons sparring when he was a teen (they created their own "safety" weapons), but hadn't really taught anyone that sort of thing beyond general theory and showing brief applications on how a weapon is used. Maybe if we get more interested though.

That sucks. If he really does know taiji quan as martial art though, you still might be able to develop some good basics through the form and qigong work. The basic training and qigong from taiji quan are what will really keep you healthy long term, and could maybe allow you last longer with your "hard" styles.