ChangWuJi

http://www.bilang.net/videos/_small/KoreanTigers/

"Brazillian jujitsu isn't a military art, it is a self-defense art for the average citizen. But I do know that they teach aspects of BJJ along with other systems in the military. SCARS is taught only to BUDS personel, after that, the SEAL teams each have their own different people they contract out their hand-hand combat training to." If you say so. "I think your arguement is a huge fallacy. The MMA sport is a duel, yes, but to think that these people cannot do well in combat situations doesn't follow any logic." Only the fact that there are referees to stop fights once they progress too far. "Except that the Brazillians have improved much upon the concepts, techniques and leverage systems." Seems to me as if they took a small part of the art, groundwork, and totally ignored stand-up grappling, good kicking skills, good striking skills. So the improvement to which you refer must be with the groundwork, and certainly not with the whole system. "Well, if you believe the Hsing I people will only embarrass themselves, I guess I can't argue." The embarrassment to which I alluded is that which must be felt by the BJJ practitioner each time he has to to question the efficacy of his chosen discipline by engaging in sport fighting. We know our art is effective. "It's harder to make a person submit than to kill them. I guess the Hsing I people just can't do anything but kill people." Which of those two skills would you rather have when your family is threatened, submission or lethal?. While you waste your time in ground position securing an armbar. The other guys buddy could be raping your wife! Look, grappling has it's place in a controlled environment, such as a ring or "rasslin" with a friend one to one. But I wouldn't want to tie myself up with one guy to the exclusion of dealing with his buddy/ies. Not to mention how easy it is for a young kid to walk up to you wearing boots, and while you're on the ground "submitting" someone, he stomps on your head. See Ya! "The same throws are in BJJ, everything in Judo is also in Brazillian Jujitsu, it's just that they concentrate more on the ground fighting." That's simply not true. BJJ has taken aspects from Jujitsu and Judo, and it is true that all of BJJ techniques are contained within these 2 arts, however one cannot say the inverse is true. "It may not be practical" If you say it's not practical, then you concede the point I have been trying to make all along. People on here asked "Why study Chinese Boxing?". Quite simply because it works. It is practical, and it doesnt require a certain environment or other factors to make it so. "but sometimes it is unavoidable." Thats true, my teacher addresses that possibility, however we will not approach it from a BJJ perspective. Our principles will remain intact in dealing with ground survival, because our goal is to get to our feet as quickly as possible, not stay down there. "The goal of a BJJ is not to win on the ground, it's to win however they can. Of course, they specialize on the ground" Let's be honest and say that they are seriously deficient in their striking techniques. An exception would be some of the Vale Tudo guys like Marco Ruas etc... Some of those guys can punch! "that's why many MMA fighters are cross-training in Muay Thai, Boxing and other arts." If I have to study one art for punching, another art for kicking, and still another for grappling, when am I ever going to have time to master one? I just happen to love economy and simplicity, and I find all I need to be combat effective within Hsing I. "The smart ones are also training in weapons and firearms." Absolutely! [ This Message was edited by: ChangWuJi on 2002-01-22 19:05 ]

(This post is a bit off topic and is also kind of a reply to the other ground fighting thread) If there were no rules , then somebody should have died. I dont believe that Hsing I people feel they have anything to prove. It is only self-doubt, or foolish ego ( see Machismo) which drives someone to embarrass themseves in such a way. It's like saying, "I think my style works, but it never having been used successfully in battle, and it being such a new style, I just dont know. What you have to realize sir is that the Japanese brought JuJitsu to Brazil. They took a piece of it, and ignored the rest of the system. The JuJitsu system has everything that BBJ has and a lot more. the SEAL's currently train their folks with a system called SCARS- this stands for Scientific Combat Aggressive Reactionary System. But ya know , it looks a whole hell of alot like Hsing I . The priciples of rooting, whole body movement etc.. are the same in both systems. I saw the special on TLC on Martial Arts, and the section detailing some H2H training the Rangers received at Fort Benning, GA. The ability to be effective while on the ground is a neccessary part of any combat system. However, the BJJ style is an adaption of traditional Jui Jitsu and has focused on the one on one confrontation. Any style that seeks to go to the ground will not be effective against anyone other than the person going to the ground with you. It is one thing to find yourself in a disadvantageous position ie -on the ground, but it is an entirely different proposition to seek and desire this from the onset. Let's face it, the Gracies have demonstrated very poor punching and kicking skills. Their goal is to shoot in, take a strike to the head, and tackle the man, going to the ground with him. No soldier would ever knowingly put himself in this position so that he is vulnerable to having his head stomped in by an unskilled child, much less a soldier armed with a bayoneted rifle. If you will recall the segment from ther TLC special, the entry used was not from BJJ, but was one from a TRADITIONAL art ; Judo. It is a throw known as a sacrifice throw in which you attach yourself to your opponent, roll backwards with your bent leg in his chest and flip on top of him. So I hope you see that my position isnt that groundfighting isnt viable in a refereed situation or an "honorable street contest" where onlookers are restrained from becoming involved. This just isnt practical for the jungles on foreign or domestic urban soil.

The goals are not the same. In MMA tournaments, the participants are practicing a sport, albeit a violent one for money, belts and material re-ward. It is essentially a mixture of Western boxing, greco-roman wrestling, kickboxing, and joint locks. doesn't sound as impressive once ya break it down huh?Unhappylesslly, kung-fu is a lie. Because kung-fu does not exist, kung-fu is a nickname invented by westrens to denominate to hability for chinese people in fighting with or without weapons which only means skill attained in anything through hard work. Chinese boxing is the closest term we have to describe what we do. The goal of Chinese boxing in general and Hsing I in particular is to attack an opponent, or defend against one, in as expedient a manner possible to take him out. Eye gouging, windpipe destruction and breaking of joints and bones are the most common techniques. Obviously, these have no place in a sporting event. In the beginning of the MMA scene, there were a few representatives from Chinese styles who performed poorly. But you have to realize, they used completely inappropriate techniques such as opening with kicking. How stupid is this with a grappler! In Hsing I , all we have is 5 strikes. Does that sound too complicated to bring to instinctual level? A real streetfight has guns, knives, sticks, tables, chairs, parked cars, brick walls etc... involved. it is nothing like 2 guys with tights running around in a little caged boxing ring. oh not to mention multiple attackers, methinks Chinese boxing addresses this. hmmm..... It seems to me as if you owe it to yourself to do a little more research into Traditional Chinese boxing before dismissing it. If Hsing I didnt work, the Peoples Republic of China would not currently employ it as their main CQB system, now would they! Why is it that some practitioners of arts specializing in grappling arts always make the erroneous assumption that the rest of us will be completely unprepared, taken to the ground, and either pummelled into submission or have something broken? We are ready for them, we have surprises waiting for them so that the first strike takes them completely out of the offensive mindset. Keep in mind a UFC bout not too long ago when a ground-n-pounder by the name of Mark Coleman got his ass handed to him by a much smaller man named Maurice Smith. Smith was primarily a striker but survived on the ground long enough to get back on his feet and open a jumbo-sized can of whoopass on Coleman. The tradition you refer to is the ability to kill a man with or without weapons. Chinese boxing is not a dance(at least not the traditional variety). These arts were used for at least 300 years in life and death battlefield situations to survive. When compared to the more recently developed sports(notice the term sports) such as mixed martial arts , one only has to research a little history to see that styles such as Hsing I has proven itself as combat effective over a far longer time span than the previously mentioned style. Out of curiosity, what style do you advocate for combat effectiveness and why?

This "ring" issue is one of the things I worry about most at the moment. The idea with chest protectors (HARD ones, no softies please, you can perfectly strike through them) is a good one, though you still have to limit your power of "squeezing" the body. To get used to unlimited force and power usages, you HAVE to use a dummy or something you can strike without worrying for the effects, because if you reach a point of power output after many years of forming the body, you get the ability to destroy what you target, and this is not changed by any protector you can use. You can strike into or through the body, it will be a low-effort thing in the beginning, but I think you learn to get strong in your effects, so some day the effect will be bigger. If you want to see how somebody will look like if you strike his head full-force, see a video of the end of Dave Dedge in a russian ultimate-fight tournament. And then go back to practice and say you like that. You can practice all the timing and technique issues with partner exercises, where you do all the things you can do free-style with _low_ effort, but I wouldn't call that sparring, as the one you hit has to act like he has been hit and not like he could still ignore that if it would have been executed with force. I mean, if you do all the timing stuff and never really smash something in the body of your partner, he could very well continue with his attacks, and you get a wrong impression how that would work in reality. Someone I hit full-force into the lung or lower, or through his head would not leave the place on his own feet. In some cases, the best defense against a slow attack into your head is to hit faster into his. In reality, he would not hit you after that, in sparring, he would. If someone tries to kick you into your mid section without previously opening you for that, you can always kick, knee or elbow through his knee. In reality, he would go to the clinic and not walk within the next three months, in sparring, he would end up near enough to envolve you in infighting. The problem with striking styles vs. taiji-like styles is that you can do the same qinna with your partner with some less twisting, not loosing the effort of the manouvre - he ends up locked, but with his eyes not popping out of the sockets. A strike that would normally end the day of the attacker will probably not even irritate a robust fighter if not driven into a range where you cannot be sure if it will be damaging or not. The attacks that I call "true" internal affecting are not breaking bones, they squeeze the blood flow, causing a shock to the blood valves. This is something you cannot do in sparring, for the long-time effects of that, while in a fight, I wouldn't care for that. So, use a dummy for the fighting effort, use sparring (ring fighting) for the timing thing without knocking out each other, and do never mix that. Your mind will not let you explore things that can kill when you try that in sparring, it probably lets you when doing it onto the plastic man, flexible wall, etc.

If you practice continuosly, every day, sunshine and rain, wether indoor or outdoor, you can practice much less accentuated and thus much smarter, but gain a power you would not believe in the beginning, over some months, for the full picture over years. To have something to start with, try the following: Use a medium-low horse stance, arms hanging relaxed to the side. Lean alternating very strongly forward, as much as possible, and the other turn only enough to not tumble backwards when doing the moves, and stretch from the low horse stance to a high one (nearly but not completely streched) with the whole body. Do this stretching / "raising" EXTREMELY slow, so you take a three minutes run for getting from the low position into high. Your legs will be trembling, but not ake, this is how it should be. If I am cramped emotionally, I get aching muscles, but this is not a "good" sign for having done HARRRD work, but a sign for not being enough emotionally relaxed. It should not be pushed away, as you need emotions to grow, while it usually vanishes from the mild meditational aspects of this moving. For upper body strength, you also could combine this moving with raising the hands from the side in front of the body to a position in shoulder height, like lifting a log, palms up in the end. Do this every day for between 10 minutes and half an hour. Lets see how this works for two weeks. with the "jerk" that it also will begin to happen when you do NOT concentrate on it, as the body, that old fool, will realize of the work it could do that and will start to NATURALLY and COMPLETELY incorporate it into its habits of using differing methods by some clever fuzzy logic evaluation scheme. It has to analyze a lot of things, as for example a full jerk from a specific source could easily break your own joints, if they are not aligned perfectly and meet some conditions. So, there has to happen a lot of learning work for the intuitive body feelings, that cannot be speeded up and not replaced by conscious attempts to initiate that jerk. Just do the other thing, do that exercise for some weeks, and continue jumping or acting as normal. For me it happened suddenly that I first used it in a practical context, and it was full-force immediately. Both me and the other guy where astonished from it happening. There is just one exception, a rather simple one, and that is you can use this power SLIGHTLY in doing stomping exercises, for example like that when you stomp and hit the open palm with the other fist simultaneously. For me this is more of a conscious "try", but not without a context. Important for the learning is the intent in the moment you do the tries, which have to stay natural. For example, you do not place your hands on a wardrobe and say your arms "jerk", but place your arms on it and want to rock it away. Such ways, you develop internal abilities along with timelessly repeated and developed natural goals. Some day you will develop the feeling for running with that powerful mode, or do many other features. Just the beginning is, do it with as less reflective considerations as possible, it teaches itself to you. If you do this for enough time, but not overworking through for example doing it for half an hour where you are already exhausted after a quarter of an hour, this aking will vanish. The streaming you might experienced will not vanish. The trembling might take a little longer than the aking, but it is not a problem. Of course you should NOT concentrate on having a special feeling in the legs, or feel "into" the streaming for "controlling" it, as you only invent some things that are not necessary for the body doing its duty. If it comes from alone, you are one stage further, if you create it consciously, you don't know. The big problem of our semi-educated time is, people concentrate, provoke, evoke and "visualize" a thousand things, without the body having learned anything from it or even doing the thing which is CONCRETELY the process that is ACCOMPANIED by that feelings. It is the difference, if you have a shower and feel wet, or "induce" and "visualize" the wet feeling without having the shower. For feelings it is no difference if you provoke them or if they make themself, but at least in case of the shower, your friends will smell the difference. Same way is the streaming a byproduct of the muscle trying a specific movement, creating the feeling because there IS something slowly streaming below the skin. If you create that feeling, the muscle movement does NOT happen in the same way automatically, as this is somewhat a naive reversal of cause and outcome, if a cause has a effect, having the effect does not induce the cause. Only some bodies are somewhat more generous and try to do what apparently was your intention, if you do a raindance for it or simply do the thing you should do. The precondition for a body being able to guess what you like it to do is, it must at least one time have experienced itself was doing it and you remembered it as a picture what you like to happen. As a body is a LITTLE bit smarter, you should simply continue doing the exercise, and it creates over the time a strong feeling of experiencing a better moving quality, and thus the body chooses from itself the better quality for the right application. Now, if your legs are trembling, you only have to rest afterwards, sit down and enjoy the nature. If they ake, massage the legs afterwards, jump around a little bit, and stretch them a LITTLE bit. Do not overstretch them passively, if they cramp from the process, let it happen, and wait until the muscle decramps from alone the next day.

The effects of Qigong on the body, as well as the strength of people of the Taiji realm CAN and HAS BEEN very well measured. The strength of Chen Xiao Wang exceeded the limit of the machine to measure stability of standing (resistance against a force to destabilize), and was at the limit of the machine already twice as large as the next lesser proband. Without lifting around weights. The effects on the body of Qigong also have been measured and consisted of changes to various general parameters, to the better. Otherwise, health insurance companies wouldn't have PAID for people visiting such courses. The sponsoring has been closed, because a lot of CHARLATANS went on the market, ripping people off, and because people just went there as leisure activity without doing the stuff they learned, so the effect was on a wide level too low. You try to stick the discussion to YOUR idea "Qi" must be a single, secretive magic energy instead of a name for a bunch of factors influencing the health and power management of the sheer biological and not so much "esoterifcal" body, don't you ? Perhaps, you should realize that it's YOU who makes up this belief, we, who do the exercises, feel a result you could also attribute to "magic" forces, but in the most cases, the practitioners, also me, DON'T attribute it magically to a single "force". This is you, not us. By the way, I can, without a device SEE that my hands get thicker when "Qi" is coming better into activity and makes my fingers tickle. They get a lot thicker and heavier, and white marks sprankling the skin indicating there are phyiscal actions going on, putting the blood on the skin aside to make the skin get white only at a precise, small mark, instead of flesh-coloured. If rubbing away the mark, it reoccurs in seconds at the same position. Not measurable, ha ? Fantasy, of course. It's perhaps up to you to shut up, and begin to think a little bit on what is driving you to "question" things obviously with no role in your life. Now, why bother ?

Would it help if I tell you I have done at least a part of the "light body curriculum", and had quite interesting abilities ? I only have some reserved attitude speaking of it because I don't have them currently, and may never have them in the amount I had earlier (I did not jump up roofs, but could reach the basket rim. As I have a capsule damage in the foot, I always feel that when the high jumping ability kicks in, it cracks and gets more damaged, simply because one part of the "famous" ability is not being teleported in the air by a graviton force field, but simply a liquid filling the capsule with a certain pressure giving it more stability, so the muscles can fire larger amounts of simple mechanical power with enough control to not destroy the joint. The brain has automatic steering receptors to shut down firing the muscles if the torque on the joint is too high, so even if your muscles could do a stronger jerk, it gets cut at the amount the joint says "no" to the pressure. The other half is the usual body jerk, same as in using jing. So, the primary goal for this internal light-body ability is to first have a relaxed and connected body, allowing the liquid (lymph/joint liquid) to shoot whereever it is needed. This is the same ability as the "bone marrow washing ability" for iron-body usage coming hopefully from that sort of qigong. As this is a very common goal for internal styles, you don't need extremely "special" sorts of qigong or neigong exercises, the usual ones done in a right way do that. I have not tried the excersise described in the book but there are other excersises which develope this same ability. That means, simple leg work, standing work, slow moving work, and simple qigongs (no "qi-moving", but stretching, relaxing and breathing). Walking in circles around a basket rim with rocks, than taking more out as you progress is another good method. The other part is created by extremely slow moving forms for stretching the legs and leaning forward. The exercise I did was the Senkong exercise, consisting of 16 simple movements combining rasing the sceletton, shrinking, turning and leaning. The bad news is I did this consecutively for 7 years, always in the same manner of simply doing, no "try-this-try-that-more-that-angle-perhaps-turn-more-that-finger", I just did the f_____ exercise with no thinking but letting the feelings do what they use to. And I did it SLOW. I did not discuss this with 10,000 people trying to change the exercise from their intelligent comments, and did not read 10,000 books explaining the exercise without doing it. And this is the only reason why I developed that abilities and other people seemingly did not. Which does not prevent them from discussing it. You can bet your families treasure that all of the top internal masters have light-body abilities, in the sense they can do what is humanly possible. Perhaps they don't call it like that, perhaps they don't show off and do not discuss this. Just the fast running, high jumping, untouchability is a light-body capability. If you do the proper work as described, the body automatically learns this flooding of joints, and proper distribution of that liquids over the body in the direction it needs it, that means, make the limbs heavy where needed by flooding it and closing the valves, or making it "weightless" with emptying it, and opening the valves that prevent it from flooding frictionless away. It is from one point of view simple (for the body to do it), from the number of interacting cells impossible to do it (with concentration). You learn the conscious flooding for practicing strengthening it like using an expander, but you don't have to and simply cannot learn to do the steering apart from the body. It's like jumping because you want to vs. jumping by concentrating on the legs and letting them "jerk". Perhaps I put these exercises here, if the trash-talking ceizes. But don't expect them making you fly within three weeks.

Here I will put write some interesting parts on the section "Author's Comments" in the book "The Secrets of Eagle Claw Kung Fu". "In the more than fifty years that I have practised kung fu, nothing has impressed me as much as events from a very early recollections, none of which I have seen repeated since. I saw many street demonstrations in China, so I don't know exactly when it was, but I must have been very young. Many kung fu practitioners were also tid dar (herbal doctors). It was common for them to sound loud gongs to attract customers, then demonstrate their kung fu and medical skills. Once, I saw a performance by a man about forty years old. At one point during the demonstration he introduced an ordinary red brick. First he showed it around, then threw it on the ground to test its toughness. He picked up the brick and placed the tip of one of its fingers against the face of it, then, with about ten twists of his finger, drilled a whole right through it! Perhaps I was ten, and since I have never seen anyone do anything like that. But I saw stranger things. One night, in an open field in China. I witnessed a Sun Da ceremony. Sun Da is a Chinese religion that requires absolute dedication to and faith in the gods. When called upon, the gods sopposevly come down and inhabit the body of the practitioner, rendering him invulnerable to edged weapons and techniques. (I myself do not follow any religion or sect - I only believe in myself.) Well, in this field a crowd gathered to see the inhabitation of a Sun Da practitioner. He lit and placed three joss sticks before him, then kneeled and prayed in a muffled voice. After about ten minutes, his whole body started quivering rapidly. This grew in intensity until he was shaking all over. He reached out with one finger and, in the dirt, drew the character for the Monkey King. He crouched in a deep squat, then suddenly sprang up about twenty feet in the air, somersaulted, and landed in a horse stance. I didn't believe a human being could jump that high, but I saw him do it. Immediately he began fast monkey boxing movements, then collapsed. Through the ages, many sifus have held back some of their most precious knowledge, so certain secrets are lost forever. Some I saw when I was young, but see no more. As I grew older, I saw fewer and fewer of the incredible things that were at one time common. Even the great Lau Fat Mon kept some things secret. He never actually taught jui Lok Tong (Eagle Claw Drunken Form). He once improvised a drunken form that I was lucky enough to witness. It was filled with beutiful falling, rolling, and tumbling. At one point he landed in a pushup position, then popped up seven feet in the air. Feats such as that are extremly difficult, requiring a lifetime of training to accomplish. Fortunetly, when Ng Wai Nung was a student of Lau Fat Mon he observed Jui Lok Tong closely, made careful notes and questioned Sifu Lau in detail. This is how I came to learn this form. The old sifus hoarded their secrets and took them to the grave. I want to teach everything I know, but it's hard to keep students long enough. Just when they're starting to become good, they have to leave for one reason or another - usually the job, money, or personal reasons. But even in Hong Kong this is true, so it will be very hard to keep Eagle Claw alive. If I don't teach everything I know, I think it it will go to hell. So I teach. In our modern times, people don't have to work so hard physically, and the virtue of doing so is dissapearing, so reall high-caliber kung fu is now rare. Also, the need for kung fu has been cut sharply by the popularity of the gun. It takes time to learn good kung fu, but you can use a gun almost immediately. When there were no guns it was important to practise hard for many years in the art of the fist. Now it is mainly a sport, because no one can wait so long to be able to defend himself."

I have not practised this style but on another forum there were some interesting posts. Here is the link: http://www.dragonslist.com/discussion/showthread.php?s=&threadid=887 [ This Message was edited by: ChangWuJi on 2002-01-06 20:32 ]

"I asked the seventy year old Wang what special skill Huang had given him. He awnsered that he had learned mutch. According to him, Huang's greatest skill was to jump twenty feet high without bending the knees. Wang had been successful in this skill but never to the same degree. In the section on "Light Work" in his book "Wu shu Nei wai kung", Wan Lai sheng mentiones this method. One person practises the Swan: using only the flex of the body, one attempts to jump without bending the knees. With this restriction, a one inch jump was the equivalent of one foot. By dint of daily practise, one gradually could soar over obstacles twenty feet high. Coupled with the vertical jump was the Swallow, in which the flex of the knees is added to that of the body, and the boxer is able to long jump over twenty feet from a standing posture. Finally, weighted clothes and shoes are used, and after ten years the long jump can be extended to thirty feet, even with the added weights. Such feats are clearly beyond our ken, defying as they do the longest recorded Olympic jumps taken at full gallop. They certainly smack of exaggeration, but if reduced by half still represent skill unavailable currently." Chinese Boxing by Robert W. Smith

I posted the story I read from the book on some other forums.

Here is some more from the same chapter... "One practisioner, the daughter of a former Chinese ambassador to the United States, came a few times to observe the practise. I was there the day she told Cheng of Li Huang Tze, her Tai Chi master in Shanghai. Cheng nodded that he knew the man. The woman than said that he had special powers. Cheng asked her to explain. She told how she had tired of pushing hands and asked him what he would do against a real attack. He urged her to attack. She approcahed, attacked him; as she newared him a force propelled her back, and she bounced up and down. When her feet began to hurt she implored him to let her stop. With a pass of his hand, he permitted her to stop bouncing. She also said that when he touched a student his hands generated sparks. Cheng laughed at all this. "I knew Li" he said. "His Tai Chi was not too good. He could do the things you mentoned but only because you are a student. The trick will not work against an equal or a superior." Cheng later told me that Li had learned Tai Chi Chuan from Tung Yin chien (another senior student of Yang Cheng Fu) and subquently had gained special skill depended on student awe, however, would not work against a good boxer. Cheng's teacher Yang Cheng Fu, was said to be friendly- compared with his older brother Yang Shou hou. Several boxers on Taiwan told me that they had friends killed by the latter. These stories were hardly credible, but certain is that Yang Shou was a harsh teacher. However, according to Cheng, Yang Cheng Fu was not all that nice either. A big man from the North, he had an illustrious name. During training he practised the Single Whip for expansive power and play the Guitar for contractive power, holding each statically for lenghy periods. He also moved repeadetly through Step Back and Repulse the Monkey and Step Forward, Deflect Downward, Parry and Punch. But mostly he sat and seldom spoke. The students were afraid to ask him questions. Their fear may have resulted from seeing what happened to Cheng when he approached Yang for some pushing hands practise. Yang used two fingers and threw him twenty feet, knocking him out. When the memory of this faded, Cheng approached him again. This time Yang put a hand (Cheng remembers that it was as soft as cotton) on his jaw, threw him and knocked him out. These were the only times Cheng faced Yang."

"Diligent practise brings the skill of interpreting strengh. From this the ultimate goal is complete mastery of detecting the opponent's strengh...Coordinating the solid and empty is the key here. If that is achieved, then you can interpret strengh. After this, by studying vigorously and remembering, one can reach the stage on total reliance on mind. From this, Liang argued persuasively that Tai Chi embraces within all the conditions of Taoist meditation. I heard that Yang Lu ch'an was once ambushed by one hundred ,and not wanting to kill any of the miscreants, he wrapped his cloak about him, submitted to the beatings, and was left for dead. The next day Yang worked as usual, but many of his attackers took to their beds as a result of injuries from beating the cloaked Yang. I scoffed at this example of the summit, but Cheng urged me not to; even he with but a part of Yang's energy had once permitted a famed Shaolin boxer to strike his relaxed arm. The boxer struck once and withdrew. When asked why, he told his friends that his entire side had been paralized on contact with Cheng's arm. Indeed, Wan Lai-sheng writes that when the arms and legs are no longer needed, when the chi holds sway, one is invulnerable to even knives and spears. This is called "Golden Bell Cover" (chin chung chao)." Back in circulation in Taiwan, Cheng soon had a large group of students. And again he was vulnerable to challenges. Once such occured when a well known praying mantis style boxer, Liang Tzu p'eng, came from Hong Kong to Taiwan to try conclusions with the locals. He traded punches (the accepted challenge method) with a leading Pakua/Hsing i teacher, and his free punch put the local man to his knees. In turn, the local boxer did not hurt Liang with his punch, so the affair had to be adjudged in Liang's favor. Strutting out of the park where this occured, Liang asked if Taiwan had any other boxers. Someone mentioned Cheng's name, so Liang accosted Cheng at a party. Cheng resisted the challenge, saying that the place and time where inappropriate. Liang persisted until Cheng invited him to his house a day or so later. Liang came and watched Cheng's demonstration of Tai Chi dynamics. But he was not satisfied. "This is interesting", Liang said, "but what would you do if I attacked you?" Cheng replied that he would attempt to push him away. Liang, by this time convinced that the small man before him was afraid to fight, resorted that it would be well to get ready for he was about to attack. At this point Cheng said, "Very well but if you even see my hands move I'll never call myself Cheng again" (to give up one's name is so serious that many Chinese would rather commit suacide rather than do it). Liang attacked from fifteen feet with a combined foot-fist action. Those watching did not see what happened, only the result. Liang first was on top of Cheng striking, next he was propelled backwards by an unseen force and bounced off the wall unconscious. Those who were there will never forget it. Liang himself took it in good grace, stayed on and studied Tai Chi for a time. But before he went back to Hong Kong he returned to the park to see the man he defeated earlier. That one casually told Liang that he was getting ready to challenge Cheng Man ch'ing. Liang said, "Don't bother I already been there". Once Cheng invited me to attack him in any way I wished. From long years of judo and boxing I thought I knew how to maintain balance. I thought. I faked high with my hands and went in low to push his midriff. But he was not there when I arrived. Holding his hands lightly on mine he avoided my attack and in the same movement I bounced off the wall. I tried repreadetly, but never once did I penetrate his posture. his feet moved very little, but the acute sensivity of his body to my touch permitted him to neutralize me and push and lead me at will. Often he drew me forward so sharply that my ear nearly gazed the ground, and then, at the last moment, he would catch me, saving me some nasty consequences. His art goes beyond technique; I have never experienced anything so relaxed and yet so frightengly efficient in my life. Another time he invited me to attack him. I did. He dodged in, deflected, struck me lightly. He had done this before. But this time he did not stop the attack. Both hands were in my eyes, on my throatm all over my midriff and at the same time his feet peppered my legs. It was so beutifully orchestrated that I could not turn from it. I backed fanatically until I came to the wall, where, after taking his finger from my throat, he desisted. Informal and friendly it should have been, but frightening it was. Against that there is no defense. I am certain that no one has ever been struck more quickly and often in such a short span of time. Fortunetly, he put little energy into the strikes." -"Chinese Boxing" written by Robert W. Smith

Mas Oyama was amazing. That guy killed Bulls with a single punch, he was in Thailand fighting thai fighters at one point, after fighting a guy known as Black Cobra he went to Hong Kong and fought an old Taiji master. That's the only fight he admits to losing. Saying he just couldn't touch the Tai Chi guy.

http://www.shawstudios.com/liuchialianginfrenchtext.html "Here's an extensive, exhaustive interview conducted with the old-master by the high brow french movie magazine LES CAHIERS DU CINEMA covering everything from the old WONG FEI-HUNG serial to Lau kar Leung and Jet Lee doing a movie together in the mid-eighties. It's actually a sixteen years old piece, (1984) old then but still pertinent, informative and highly enjoyable. Well contrary to some rumors, he is not death. In a newspaper interview conducted last December he says he's beaten the cancer that afflicted him. He's retired from the movie now and stay at home taking care of his two young daughters while his thirty years his junior wife, is busy studying law either in a english university. Here it goes. Interview with Lau Kar-leung:The Last Shaolin. Family apprenticeship Cahiers: You were born in a family whose living was in traditional martial arts. Your father was a great kung fu master himself. Was it inevitable that your life would be dedicated to martial arts or were there any others choices? Lau Kar-leung: I began to learn martial arts at seven. My father was then a martial art master in Canton where I was born myself. Later, we came to live in Hong Kong. My father was not especially.... shall we say a cultured man, apart from his knowledge in martial art. Once in Hong Kong, he hadn't any other possibility than to go on again with the teaching of kung fu. I was learning with my father, without ever dreaming at that time to do movies. I thought later I would be teaching kung fu alongside him. Quite by accident many of my father's friends, who were Cantonese opera singers, proposed him to do movies. I rather like movies, but I didn't know how it was like making them. Let on by curiosity I participated in the shooting of one. One day, two days, it was fun but I was annoyed too because of the long wait between the takes. When my father ask me if I wanted to do movies, I told him: no ,too boring. I was impatient and wanted to do something else. Cahiers: How old were you when you did your first movie? Which one was it ? Lau K-l:Fifteen. Oh that's so old. What movie? With this actor who was still a child at that time. He's still alive. What was his name again? Yu Jie (Yu Tai in Cantonese, Yu Jia in mandarin), Give me a piece of paper I write you down his name. Cahiers: And the director. Lau K-l: Ku Long Zhong, No, Ku Wen Zhong. I don't know how to write down his name. He died such a long time ago. At that time, there was a most peculiar practice in the studios. Us the actors and the bit parts of the "martial" category to which I belonged, we weren't paid if we weren't called that day. We would be receiving a call, we came on the set and we waited. Cahiers:When did you began to receive more important parts? In the mandarin speaking cinema? Lau K-l:No, in the WONG FEI HUNG serial. Cahiers:At the time, to play in a kung fu movie, was it necessary to know about it or were there at the movie studios some sort of school? Lau-K: No there wasn't any kung fu school for actors such as the one the Shaw built later. At that time, those who were doing fighting scenes in the movies belong to what was called the "Wu Heng" (discipline of the "martial"), like those who make somersaults at opera and who are not necessarily kung fu adepts like us. Cahiers:: Did kung fu masters disapproved of their colleagues, who first agreed to do movies ? Lau K-l:No, there wasn't any reprobation from them. The only problem, was that movies at that time were not quite made for kung fu peoples like us. In those movies, the fights were quite bogus; there was no contact!. While for us, who were doing real kung fu, we had to hit a opponent and fast! The main actors could hardly withstand our blows. Once I was called for a week but by the end of the first day, the actors didn't wanted me anymore, they were too scared of me. The actress Yu Su Qiu for example, never gave one single true punch in any of her movies. In the movie world, they said Guoshu but not Gongfu (kung fu). It was only with the WONG FEI HUNG serial that true kung fu appeared first on screen. Martial art masters had told themselves; why not show in the movies true kung fu, like we're doing it? Thus, several kung fu schools associated one another, each doing it's part in the budget to produce the WONG FEI HUNG serial. All the main parts were given to kung fu adepts, no amateurs. After the beginning of this series, directors didn't want any artists who didn't know about martial arts. Cahiers: It's southern kung fu which we see in WONG FEI HUNG? Lau K-l: Yes southern. Wong Fei Hung, who was the patriarch of the school I belong to, was himself a southerner. Many schools have been founded by his disciples of the third generation: my father and his fellow-students for example. I was too young to be taught by those old masters like Lu Acai, Lam Sai Wing, Wong Fei Hung. Cahiers:: At the time of the WONG FEI HUNG serial, the audience were dismissing the Cantonese movies and favored instead the mandarin ones with bigger budget? Laur K-l: Yes. When we were doing WONG FEI HUNG, we were a separate team. Others producers or directors didn't wanted any of us in their movies. They thought we only knew kung fu, and were unable to do comedies or anything else. There was a very strict division. Drama were produce by Yonghua, opera movies by Cantonese singers. A part from that, mandarin speaking studios like Shaw or Cathey were quite contemptuous toward us. They considered their level of quality quite superior. They had actors and actresses like Li Lihua or Yan Jon who would never lowered themselves to do a Cantonese movie Cahiers: When did you began to put yourself behind the camera as fight choreographer? Laur K-l:It was around 23 years ago. It's a Cantonese movie whose title was NANLONG BIFENG (SOUTH DRAGON, NORTH PHOENIX). Cahiers:Your first famous movie was produce by Great Wall?. Laur K-l: Yes, with main parts played by Fu Qi and Chen Sissi.The director was the same who directed later SHAOLIN SI (SHAOLIN TEMPLE). But I don't remember the title. Ah yes,JADE BOW. Cahiers:It was a mandarin speaking movie? Laur K-l:Yes, my first. Produce by Great Wall, a pro-mainland, pro- communist company. This movie was a great success at the box office because the fights were so original. After seeing this movie, Shaw peoples told themselves: how did they make a such successful swordplay movie (wu xia) and not us? They searched, learned that I was the fight choreographer and hired me on the spot Cahiers: You were hired by the Shaw in the sixties? Laur K-l: Yes to work with Chang Cheh. Cahiers:Shaw's swordplay movies were using mainly special effects but no true kung fu were they? Lau K-l:With JADE BOW I mixed it up. I adapted kung fu to special effects. Before Bruce Lee, Shaw, seeing the great success of samurai movies with the Hong Kong audience, ask Chang Cheh to put many elements of those action movies in his own -the nickname kung fu movies didn't existed yet- while in the same time exalting Chinese heroism. Thus, there was this hero, who while he was holding his guts in one hand, was still fighting anyway! The audience loved these heroes who didn't die! The mood was very Japanese. Cahiers:Do you think it's possible to mixed the two kind of martial arts, the Japanese and the Chinese? Lau K-l:Chang Che succeeded. For my part -I was fight choreographer-I had to set up the fight scenes according to the director instructions. I hadn't anything to say. Before my estrangement from Chang Cheh, he told me that he hero must never fall dead from a wound, but had always to rise and go on with the fight and that was this kind of heroes which the audience admired. And as he was pointing out to me why such vitality was perfectly justified, I asked him to demonstrate it to me. He answered: "A disemboweled man, even with his guts out, can still move can he! Then he added: "Anyway the bloodier it gets the better! Cahiers: How the coming of Bruce Lee change all that. Lau K-l: When Bruce Lee came to Hong Kong, he first contacted Shaw, but they dismissed him because he asked for a condition that was unacceptable: that they leave him the rights of his movies to be in the USA. Later, Lo Wei, who very well saw Bruce Lee value, went to find him. From then on, there was a distinction between the kung fu movies (those of Bruce Lee) and the sword-plays (those of Chang Cheh). Later, Chang Cheh departed from Shaw to go to work to Taiwan, because at that time true sword-plays were dwindling. Cahiers:But he was always closely associated with Shaw ? Lau K-l:Yes, because the Taiwanese studio for which he worked was only a branch of Shaw. Shaw had earned a tremendous amount of money in Taiwan, but was forbidden to get it out of the country. So they send Chang Cheh to spend it by making movies. Cahiers: Is it true that Chang Cheh came to make more authentic kung fu movie throughout your collaboration? Laur K-l: At that time Chang Cheh had two fight choreographers, Tang Chia and me. Tang Chia didn't wanted to go to Taiwan so Chang Cheh came to see me asking me to give him a hand. He told me "Without you, I won't be able to go through with it. He asked me what to do to rescue martial arts movies. I answered: fight scenes must be truer like those in Bruce Lee movies. "But how?" did he answered back. I told him that we must portrayed heroes who really did exist and revive the kung fu such as they practiced it. Cahiers: Chang Cheh is from Shanghai? Laur K-l:Yes, he's not Cantonese and he's unacquainted with things from there. Chang Cheh ask me what kind of story could be most suitable to be put on screen. I then suggested him the stories of the Shaolin temple. His first reaction was to say: "Actors like David Chiang and Ti Lung will never agree to shave their head." Cahiers:What do you think of Bruce Lee' s kung fu. Laur K-l: When we were kids we knew each other very well. Bruce Lee was passionate about kung fu. It was his life. His contribution was recognize by us who were doing kung fu. He introduced it to the whole wide world. But he was missing something; That is the "Wude " (martial arts philosophy) and the "Xiu yang " (self-control). He only knew how to fight. He hit to hurt, for the pleasure of the strikes. He was too much a westerner. The traditional Chinese courtesy was alien to him. When you watch his movies, the violence and the power of his blows can't be mist's. For us the principle is Dian dao ji zhi (to stop when we hit the opponent, to know how to retrain yourself and slow down the strike at the very moment of the hit). Someone is really strong in kung fu only if he's able to do that. Bruce Lee was limited in his knowledge of martial arts; his kicks and his boxing that was it. Likewise his "zhaoshu" (gestures) were also quite limited. Cahiers:Bruce Lee's kung fu was a blending of many techniques. Laur K-l:Yes. There is elements diverted from A?do, Taekwondo, Karate, western boxing, all that with a little of Chinese kung fu. But Bruce Lee was very smart. He learned with much applications and when he practiced kung fu, he put it all. He was a superb actor. He began to do movies very young. Cahiers: In the movies you made about Shaolin, you strongly stress on the description of the masters/students relationship. Laur K-l: Yes in China we hold dearly to politeness, to "Lijiao" (confusian ethics). Between the master and his disciples and between senior and junior, the distinction is very clear and sharp. As master, we must remain respectable and as disciple we must respect the master. Chang Cheh is a non-Cantonese. That why he was never able to show well the link between master and disciples in his kung fu movies. He could write a script, but he didn't understand kung fu very well. Besides, at the time when I departed from Chang Cheh, kung- fu movies began to tired themselves out. When I returned to Shaw, I intended to terminate my contract with them. Because, despite our best efforts as much in the film-making as in the fights, our movies didn't sell. I told Mona Fong (Shaw's executive president) that I didn't wanted to do movies for Shaw anymore and that from now on I would dedicate myself to the teaching of kung-fu in the USA. Mona Fong who didn't want to let me go, proposed instead that I direct myself my own movies. She ask me if I felt able to give new breath to kung fu movies, which didn't draw much of a audience at the time. The fact is that kung fu is basically not very variable, with always the same gestures and moves. An audience get tired of it very fast. I accepted the proposal telling myself that I would try to change completely the style of fights. To me, a action movie must have funny parts. Until then, kung fu movies always ended with a killing, a big slaughter. Me, I said, I won't do that. In my opinion, it is not indispensable to destroy the villain to make the audience happy. A dedicated scoundrel who repented and found the righteous way can be as much satisfactory. I then promised Mona Fong to make a movie: SPIRITUAL BOXER. It's a "kung fu comedy": the movie was a great box office success and from then on many filmmakers followed that path. Jackie Chan to begin with. Cahiers:We have seen and loved EXECUTIONER FROM SHAOLIN The description of the conjugal live was amazing. Lau K-l:Yes. The relationship between husband and wife, mother and son. To me it was like telling the story of my own family. My mother was also doing martial arts but not of the same school as my father. Every day she would tell me: "Your father is badly teaching you, " I " shall teach you!" And she went on " Your father's kung fu is obsolete". Cahiers:What we see on the screen, is it your mother's kung fu or your father's. Laur K-l: Both. My mother was doing wing chun's kung fu and my father hung gar's. When they were doing pushing hand exercises together, one against the other, it was impossible to separate them. Cahiers: You'r going to shoot in mainland China with Li Lin-jie. (Jet Li true name) Laur K-l: That's true. I'm going in China the third of May for the shooting. In fact there is two movies. The first is called SOUTH AND NORTH SHAOLIN and the second: THE BURNING OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE. The writers are from Mainland. But all of the shooting team will be of Hong Kong and they will be working with Chinese actors. Cahiers:What do you think of Li Lin-jie?. Laur K-l:He's still a kid! Very nice. He begins to know how to act but in his very first movie SHAOLIN TEMPLE , he did absolutely not know how to play comedy. His kung fu can be said to be not bad. When he learned that it was me who would direct, he became scared stiff because he had already seen one of my movie. Cahiers: Shooting a movie in Mainland China. Isn't that going to put you in trouble with Taiwan? Laur K-l:I'm in trouble already with Taiwan. I can't go there anymore. Cahiers:How long will be the shooting? Laur K-l:Around 125 days for each movie. Almost five months in all.. Cahiers:And where are you going to shoot? Laur K-l:A little everywhere. Bejing, Zhengzhou, Hengzhou, Guilin, Dun-huang, in Henan province. Horses will be shoot in Mongolia. Cahiers:Are you also going to shoot in the authentic Shaolin Temple of Henan Province? Lau K-l:Yes of course. I've seen it, the old temple of Shaolin. Nothing special. It's less handsome that I imagined it. Moreover, a great deal of the temple is already in ruins and we don't see much. There is a lot of pilgrims and tourists and nothing extraordinary to visit. Cahiers:Your actors-student like Lau Kai-fai, Wong Yu, Siu Hou, are they going with you for these two movies? Lau K-l: Siu Hou yes but not Wong Yu or Laur Kar-fai. They don't want any troubles with Taiwan. As for me, as a kung fu film-maker, I consider that martial arts from Taiwan or Mainland are Chinese martial arts and that everything I do is to put value on Chinese martial arts. Taiwan has no reason to be petty with me. It's no betrayal from me, I'm only dedicating myself to promote martial arts from my country. If Taiwan doesn't let me come-back I considered it like a proof of their narrow mindedness. Cinema is only an art form, and furthermore I don't do politics. Many of my movies are in ancient China without any relationship with present day events. But so what I love movie and I go on to do as I please."

Application of Taiji by Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit "Many people, especially in the West, will be quite surprised that Taijiquan can be effectively used for fighting. In fact the term "Taijiquan" means "cosmos martial art". All great Taijiquan masters since classical times have practised Taijiquan as a martial art and all Taijiquan classics have described it as a martial art, although the older texts often paid more attention to its function in spiritual cultivation than in combat efficiency. If you do not know the martial dimension of Taijiquan, you would have missed the essence of this wonderful art, and would probably have practised it as a dance. Even if your main intention of practising Taijiquan is for health reasons, you would have missed the best health benefits of Taijiquan if you do not practise it as a martial art. This is because if you practise Taijiquan as a dance, the most you can get are the benefits a dance can give such as flexibility, elegance, loosening muscles and blood circulation. The proverbial good health of a Taijiquan master, including his internal power, remarkable stamina and mental freshness, is obtainable only if you practise it as a martial art, i.e. if you train yourself to become a formidable fighter whereby these health features are essential. Amongst the various dimensions of Taijiquan, those of internal force cultivation and combat application are necessary if you train Taijiquan as a martial art. Without internal force a Taijiquan exponent would have no stamina to last a fight and no striking power to subdue an opponent; without knowing how to apply Taijiquan techniques to combat he would be helpless when attacked. Manifesting the yin-yang principle of the Taiji unity, internal force and combat application compliment each other. If a Taijiquan exponent has only internal force but no combat application, he may be able to give impressive demonstration of his power, such as taking punches without sustaining injury or sending a demonstration partner flying backward, but he would be unable to defend himself in a real fight. If he has only combat application but no internal force, he may be able to discuss the wonderful combative techniques of Taijiquan intellectually or perform some pre-arranged sparring elegantly, yet when involved in a real fight he may be easily defeated by a clumsy but mechanically stronger opponent. Internal force cultivation will be explained in another webpage; this webpage explain some combat applications of Taijiquan. All styles of Taijiquan are effective for combat; the examples illustrated here are taken from the Yang style. The Flowing Movement of Taijiquan Some students may have heard that It is recorded in Taijiquan literature that when the great master Yang Lu Chan completed his training under Chen Chang Xin, he traveled all over China to have friendly sparring with many kung fu masters to test his fighting skills. Yang Lu Chan won all matches, earning the nickname "Yang, the Ever Victorious/Yang the invincible. He was the First Patriarch of Yang Style Taijiquan, Yang Lu Chan, defeated all his challengers and he used only one Taijiquan pattern known as "Grasping Sparrow's Tail". Although many people may find it hard to believe, it is true that if you have sufficient internal force and are skillful in combat application, you can successfully employ just this one pattern, "Grasping Sparrow's Tail", to overcome virtually any forms of attack, irrespective of whether the attacks are punches, kicks, throws or holds! Even a brief study of its combat application as expounded here demonstrates not only the efficiency but also the elegance and profundity of Taijiquan as a martial art. Its combative movements are graceful and poetic, without the staccato action, muscular exertion and emotional tension characteristic of some other martial systems. Its combative principles are profound, exploiting the opponent's weakness to the full without giving away any advantages. It is significant to remember that combat application of techniques and tactics is only one aspect of its martial function. The Taijiquan exponent must also develop internal force to back up the effective techniques and tactics in combat. Moreover, combat efficiency is only one of the many benefits of Taijiquan training. Masters have generalized the attainment in Taijiquan into three major levels. At the first level Taijiquan promotes good health; at the intermediate level it is very effective for self defence, and at the highest level it leads to spiritual fulfilment."

The Deadly and Deceptive Hands of T'ai Chi Ch'uan by Master Erle Montaigue "Chang San-feng was an acupuncturist who also had a penchant for the Chinese fighting arts. He was well versed in the Shaolin arts but wished to find out the most deadly of all ways to protect one's self. Being an acupuncturist, he knew that certain points which when needled or struck a little more than for the healing art would have certain effects upon the body. So in experimenting, he and two others worked out through trial and error and many bodies later, which of these acupuncture points worked the best and which were the most deadly. He also worked out which points actually worked with other points to set up these deadly points and which were the best combinations of points to use. He worked out which direction of strikes worked the best, either with the flow of Qi or against it or twisted or straight in. When Chang San-feng was finished, about ten years later, he knew that he had founded the most deadly fighting art of all and became a little paranoid that someone would see him practising and so learn this deadly art and use it back on him. So, had to have some way to teach his family and students and at the same time hide the meaning of the movements from those who would want to harm him. So he hid the movements in a dance of slow, sometimes fa-jing (explosive), movements. This he called "Loose Boxing" or Hao Ch'uan. This art was then handed down form generation to generation with only those in the inside circle ever learning the real meaning of these deadly moves. The name was later changed to T'ai Chi Ch'uan or supreme ultimate boxing, because it was simply that. So nowadays we have this slow dance like form or kata, one that not many know the real meaning of. Many still insist upon each posture being used for a basic application, leaving aside the inner meaning or point striking meaning. We have people insisting that push hands is the crux of the fighting art and that if we are able to uproot someone, then we are able to defend ourselves. So what if we are able to uproot! He comes back with a blade and cuts us! The push hands was only ever meant as means of learning balance and timing and not for self-defence or tournament. There is push hands and then there is advanced push hands. This is where we learn about the dim-mak strikes and how to use them at close range, this is the real reason for push hands, not for pushing but for striking. Here, we learn about the deadly strikes and how to use them at very close quarters over very small distances. We learn about fa-jing and how to put in the adverse Qi and how to knock someone out over one inch. We learn how to "shake" the body to bring out this explosive energy and then to put it into one of the hundreds of points on the body either to cause an energy drainage, an energy build up or a neurological shut down. Applications Ordinary applications? Not the ones that we are all told about. The ones that we are shown when we ask how T'ai chi is used for self defence, "you should take this posture and train in it for 3 years" or " he does this and so I should do this to counter" etc. But rather the whole unique way that T'ai chi treats self-defence and fighting. This unique way of fighting is so simple and so easy to use that people usually ask, "why weren't we told this before, its so simple". One very good reason for the old master's reticence in this area is because back in those days, we had to use our fighting system as an integrated self defence system and those who did not have such a system usually perished. But nowadays it is illegal to kill people or even maim and injure slightly so these deadly techniques become a curiosity and an interesting thing to learn. My main teacher, Chang Yiu-chun (1899-1986) was a student of the "other side" of the Yang family, the Yang Shao-hou lineage or the Old Yang style before it was changed by Yang Cheng-fu to the softer version we have come to know as T'ai chi. I once asked Chang, while learning the dim-mak of Taiji, what about edged weapons and the defence against such. He laughed and said, "you want to know about knife fighting, ask the older Chinese martial artists, we had to defend ourselves against such weapons as that was all there was then. Then the gun was invented and we somehow lost some of the real meaning. Now, these techniques are coming back because criminals are again using edged weapons in attack because the gun seems to be more criminal than a knife, these arts were invented to defend against edged weapons". Chang always carried a knife and could have it out and into your vital points in seconds. This is the real Taiji, a totally integrated fighting system. The Twelve Deadly Palms Here we have probably the most deadly of all the palm techniques as each "technique" attacks to very deadly points, the premise being that if you are able to touch your opponent then make it stick! And if so, then keep on striking until it is over. In days of old, these palms were given one per year and the advanced student had to train in that one palm method for the whole year, so it took 12 years to learn the whole system. No.1 Here we must learn a dinky little punch that is only (as far as I know) inherent in the T'ai chi system. To train in this punch we use the hard mitts as follows. You move your right palm in a flowing manner past the mitt, turning the waist to your left bringing your palm to your left. Now, you should shake your waist, which has the effect of whipping your right fist out at great speed and power to make contact as using only the last three knuckles as the contact point. Now for the next punch inherent in the T'ai chi system and used by Bruce lee to great effect. Here we hold a loose palm, and only close the fist upon impact. We again shake the waist with the fist beginning only a short distance from the mitt. The palm must whip right over onto its back so that upon impact the fist is turned over, striking with the last three knuckles. This should not be a push but rather a wack giving of that sound, a bit like a tennis ball rebounding off a wall. Now to put this first palm technique together. You firstly combine the second strike with the first strike onto two mitts, striking the first mitt held in your partner's right hand with the upward turning fist and then rebound straight back into the left mitt with the first punch. This should only take a split second to execute as we are using the rebound from the first strike for the second strike and then we will also use the rebound from the second strike for the third. To train with a partner, your partner throws a left straight. You should know when this is coming by the movement of your partner's body. You don't bother to block this attack but rather use your body movement to avoid it as you attack to his jaw at a point called "the mind point" with your first punch. This doesn't even have to strike this point as the punch alone will take his chin and put it onto his shoulder! Immediately, your same fist will come back and rebound onto his neck to a point called "stomach 9" this is the classic knock out point and is very dangerous. The last attack is performed with the palm of the right hand. Using the rebound from the last attack, your right palm now attacks to a point called "small intestine 16" using the knife edge as you step in with your right foot. This series is one of the most economical movements as you have simply done an "S" shape with your right palm. You practise this on both sides of course. The other eleven techniques become deadlier and more complicated. Just like the great fighting systems of old, T'ai chi is also one of the greatest."

Behind every good non-classical martial artist... by Master Erle Montaigue "So many masters and sifus, nowadays trying to cut corners and gets there the easy way. Their excuse "I do non-classical martial arts". Usually, it's an excuse for pure laziness and not wanting to do the hard work necessary to turn a martial art into a survival art. But take a look at the really good so-called 'non-classical' martial artists, those who have seemed to have found the way and have long since given up their classical part. Their background is usually steeped in the classical martial arts. Bruce Lee is the prime example of this. No one, of his students has ever risen to his level of proficiency and inventiveness. It is my opinion that only Danny Inosanto has ever come close, and he has a classical arnis background, and you can't get any more classical than arnis! Larry Hartsell has a classical wrestling background. I have seen some of the first Bruce Lee students who are now into their fifties, but who also do not look very well, over weight, poor skin tone etc. They look like old men. They write articles saying they can still take on the best of them with one punch etc, but they look so sick! Whereas Danny Inosanto still looks very fit and healthy. Who gives one hair off of one rat's bum if they can still punch at 55 years old! What really matters is if their martial art has kept them healthy with a good life and whether they are able to help others to a good long healthy life. A martial art is supposed to be an integrated system of self-defence and healing. And I guess we have to look back to the days when our martial art was really our family's and our survival art. When we would not only have to fight one person in a pub fight or do 'battle' against someone in the ring with rules and regulations, that's not fighting, we would have to fight wars! The head of the family, usually the male, would not know if his family would even be there when he returned while his family would not know if he was coming back that evening. Such is the way of the beginning of the Yang Family Taiji in China, known as the most feared fighters in all of China and yet, people nowadays call Taiji a dance! Of course, now, we do not have life threatening situations every day of our lives, but the art remains the same and there is no difference between the internal systems for health as for the fighting art, it's the same energy. In fact, when I give seminars, some people like to break it up into one day for healing and the other day for fighting. However, those who only attend for one day depending upon their preference, really miss out for not attending the other day, because the healing and martial arts cannot be broken apart. This is how it used to be, and this is how it should be now. And isn't self healing the most important! A proper martial art causes one to be able to simply beat one's opponents by out living them! And a style of only punches and kicks is unable to do this, whereas classical styles are. No style? Of course Bruce Lee had a style, a number classical style in fact. Taiji was one of these. These are his basics. It is my opinion that Bruce Lee, if he lived, would have taken his students back to his beginnings and taught how he knew and not what he knew. And this is what I think about the classical martial arts, whether they be Karate, Taiji, Kung-fu, T.K.D. etc, the basics are all contained in the classical forms and katas of these martial arts. This is where we learn the 'body management', so important in turning a basic classical style into a street survival system. You cannot take the classical movements from a form or kata and make up physical reasons for their being; they are not there for that. Try and use technique from a form or kata in a real survival situation and you lose. A good martial art does not teach technique, but rather teaches the mind through movement and the body. The so called 'non-classical' stylists who have never done a classical style, always say the same things like not wishing to waste time in doing so many movements that seem to have no meaning. They also say that rather than do kata, why not do the actual techniques from the forms with a partner. Here, the non-classical person has lost the whole idea of kata and stems from he or her simply not knowing the real meaning of kata. We don't do it to learn techniques! We do it to learn internal body/mind movement. It has nothing to do with learning techniques. If your internal mind does not have it then you do not have it, and we do not learn 'internal work' from doing attack/defence situations with a partner. The survival skills come much later when we learn all about 'the no mind state, eagle vision, reptile brain, and fa-jing'. Here, we make use of our own natural movements, different in every body/mind. For instance, someone's most natural movement to a simple attack from the front may be to throw up his or her hands in front of the face. So here we turn this movement into a more devastating fa-jing/dim-mak strike, and eventually, this movement, which was always this person's most natural movement, becomes the sub-conscious movement to any type of frontal attack by hand. If you don't have basics, then you've got nothing! And the classic forms and katas are your basics, they teach you how to move. It's not the fact that we learn really low stances and exaggerated movements so that we can then use them to fight. It's far from that; we do these katas which involve much discipline, so that we are able not to use them when some real trouble is coming our way. If you see a classical martial artist in a serious scrap, who simply knocks someone's head off and leaves, then this is a martial artist who has done the basics. However, if you see a martial artist who goes into some sort of stance and on guard position, low stances etc, and who gets his head knocked off, then this is the classical martial artist who has never taken his basics beyond basics. As we become more and more advanced in our survival skills, we tend to use less and less techniques, rather preferring to stick with the tried and proven one or two in order to survive. But it's the years of classical work that gives us this ability. In a real situation, and I don't mean the odd drunk at a pub, a half of an inch step, balanced, here or there can mean the difference in life or death. So, doing the katas or forms day in, day out, does not teach us how to fight, using those forms or katas, but rather, it teaches us how to survive, using much simpler techniques while always keeping the upper position of hands and feet, balance wise. On the other hand you'll get people who go to a few or many lessons at their local Karate or kung fu club and then brag that they know the martial arts. This is the other side of the coin, these people, some who have been studying for 30 years even, do not know the martial arts, because they have not learned to take their martial art into a survival realm. A martial artist will always make a better street fighter, provided he has taken his art to a higher level of survival and is aware that all the forms and katas in the world, only, will not cause him to be able to fight. He has to learn how to fight, as well as learning his martial art. On the other hand, someone who has only learnt from a few books or who has taken a few lessons from a number of different teachers and watched a few Bruce Lee movies will also never learn about survival. It's the classical martial arts that teach us the psychology of the fight. The difference between winning and losing is 50% mind and 50% body. If you do not have complete control over your own body and mind then you have not got it. And you can't get this control watching a few Van Dam movies or learning a few high kicks and fast punches. You have to do the work pertinent to the survival skills you are trying to hone. Look at what happens in a fight or an attack. If you could slow down the action, you would see footwork and handwork. If you take a look at any good kata or form, you will see this exact foot and handwork, only exaggerated and slowed down. This is to teach the mind how to tell the body how to move. When you are into a real fighting situation, this will naturally speed up and you will naturally use those same postures, footwork and handwork that you so painstakingly worked upon for the best part of ten or twenty years. You don't think about it of course, it's all there. Just like learning to shoot a bow, at first you are all hands, but slowly, the bow becomes a part of you and your body and mind merge as a whole unit, and you finally are able to hit the target many feet away sub-consciously. It's the same with the katas and forms; we do not learn them to learn technique, but rather sub-conscious mind and body movement." One does not have to practice the forms and katas for evermore, only until those movements have become subconscious do you have to practice your katas. In this way, when you are involved in a fight, does your art become so called non-classical? I am one of the most non-classical martial artists or survival artists ever when it comes to fighting. But my whole background is in the classical, it is the arduous, hours of practice in my early years that holds me in good stead nowadays when I perhaps do not have time to practice three of four forms every day. Now, I prefer to spend that time with my children, playing music, painting, writing, teaching them about what I have learnt, along with their normal schooling as we teach our own anyway. But isn't it the irony, we spend all of this time becoming good at survival and just when we are getting there, we no longer wish to do it! We grow up and our minds mature, we want to keep out of the way of trouble and avoid like the plague, fighting, so perhaps we do the martial arts, to not do the martial arts!" http://www.dragonlist.com/artices/index.php?articleid=33&groupid=0

I came across an old written text describing the basic theory behind ching/qing gong. "The secret of ching gong gong fu" written by Pai Yen Sheng. The theory is very sound and does not contradict to the modern science. It refers to the mastery of inner being ability beyond the normal limitations. In some way, I am looking very silly in trying to explain the idea that text attempt. But keep an open mind before you read on. Ching/qing gong basically consists of two main skills according to this old text. One is being the ability to jump vertically as many fold of the body length. The second is the ability to flit through the wheat field or tree or water as if flying. The second ability of flit through wheat field is being the highest level in mastery this skill. There are theory and constraint in this ability as I later describe. The text stated that the body weight is not reduced when performing ching/qing gong. It is not magic in any length of imaginary. It is just a trick of mastering a different way of walking or running that allowing the lightness illusively displayed. Simplily put it, the ability of this is just the ability of transition body weight between two feet such that the body weight never get a chance or time long enough to accumulate and rest its fullness on to any of the legs in any giving of time. In the normal way of walking, the weight is transition from one to the other with its fullness at each time. For the body weight of this kind of walking is to complete its transition in normal way to its fullness, it require a giving time. If we measure the amount of weight accumulated in one leg during this normal walking transition, we probably observe the manigtude of weight being increase from 0 to body weight as max. For this increase to take place there is a time factor. Just to illustrate, here is the time interval with its related weight transition accumulation progress: Time inverval/weight in fraction of second : Time : 0 1 2 3 ... N weight : w1 w1+w2 w1+w2+w3 w1+w2+w3+w4 ... w1+w2+...+wN The ability of ching/qing gong of second category is the ability/skill that enable one individual to immediate transit the partially accumulative weight from one leg to the other before the full body weight has a chance to accumulate/rest totally on one leg. The normal walking/running time cycle could be 0,1,2,3 ... N. In a ching/qing gong way of walking, the duration of weight transition interruption could happen in a cycle of 0,1,2 ... 0,1,2 ...0,1,2 .. This means that the two legs/feet is constantly manupulate the weight transition with a very high speed that causing forward mometum to carry the weight in the air. At any giving of time only a small fraction of the weight is used for body displacement or leg displacement. You are probably imagine how fast the two legs operating. Not to mention how the body,hands,head work together in special manner that the forward momentum not lose. The text mentioned of one constraint is that one body weight can not over a certain weight. It seems to imply that there is a certain barrier on speed of two legs can operate. The other constraint is the age to start this training. It said a required very young age with persistence. Apparently, the result is special kind of body,legs,tandons. Gong Bao Tian was said to be quite small comparing to the average person at the time. He was probably heavy than his son. That may be why his son were able to do the flitting on the trees but he was not. From the look at the theory, it does not seem contradict with science but further than that it use the so called science now to achieve the goal. Martial art is always about explore, discovery, develop the natural ability of human to its fullness of capacity. I am not surprise if Ching/qing gong is just one of the achievment of lost past.

"Piguazhang (chop-hanging palm) can also be called piguaquan (chop-hanging fist), but due to its emphasis on the use of the palm techniques it is more commonly called piguazhang. The ancient name of this style was "drape-hanging fist" (also pronounced piguaquan), and was already famous more than six hundred years ago in the middle period of the Ming dynasty. It was generally acknowledged to been spread from the LuoTong area in the southeastern villages of Cang County, in the HeBei Province of China. According to Grandmaster Liu, bajiquan and piguazhang were both taught by Wu Zhong and belonged to one integrated training system. After Wu Rong (daughter of Wu Zhong) was married into LuoTong, LuoTong and the surrounding area began to specialize in the practice of piguazhang. So bajiquan and piguazhang gradually became two separate systems. However, both styles are obviously complimentary to each other. Bajiquan is visibly hard in its appearance, its jings are short and crispy, and its combat strategy primarily employs short-range fighting in body-to-body contact distance. On the other hand, piguazhang is soft in its appearance, its jings are continuous and long, and its combat strategy is that of long-range fighting. Therefore, there have always been these proverbs about the two systems: "When pigua is added to Baji, gods and demons will all be terrified" and "When baji is added to pigua, heros will sigh knowing they are no match against it." In the practice of Piguazhang, the waist and the kua are employed as the centre of motion, and the torso, arms, and palm become an integrated moving body. Therefore, piguazhang usually appears to contain large opening and closing movements, and the attacks are generally from a longer distance than bajiquan. In piguazhang, striking with the front of the palm is called Pi, or hacking, splitting; striking with the back of the palm is called Gua, or hanging. These two types of palm strikes are used in an alternating and continuous manner like the turning of a wheel. In this motion, the dantien area is used as the "controlling centre" for the store and the release of jings. Thus although the power generated in piguazhang appears to be soft and round, a tremendous explosive force is actually hidden within it."

Actually Jiu Jitsu and almost every other Japanese/Okinawan martial art has these blocks as well as KIA's! It is part of the training curriculum and martial culture. Do you have the gall to say that they are all ineffective? There have been plenty of Japanese/Okinawan famous fighters of these arts that proved fighting ability, but maybe your friend was stuck with a bad teacher?

I never stated that ground fighting is ineffective I just claimed that 99% of trained martial art fights do not end on ground unless the person is beaten to a pulp there, or finished there. Also there is no superior system because, it is the fighter that proves capable.

I agree but you underestimate shadow boxing. If you do it long enough, and practise like you're really fighting and also know the application behind form it will become second nature. You will hit before you think; The ability to receive and neutralize force below the level of conscious thought will be achieved. Shadow boxing also helps form, flexibility, endurance, and internal/physological factors.

when I was 3 years into Tai-chi, I met a friend who was 3 years into Taikwondo, a 1st-dan black belt, I dont remember which school, and we trained together. It was my first attempt at sparring - until then I had only trained form, techniques from the form, and various types of Pushing-hands - and I have not trained against kicks at all; his school, on the other hand, emphasysed sparring a great deal. The first time we sparred, I was unprepared for the speed of his kicks, and had to retreat alot, but he was unprepared for the fact I never retreated backwards but allways sideways - he kept having to stop his attacks (which hit nothing) and look for me. The second time I had learned to get in close, and he was lost at that range. After that, he was mine. The point is not "Tai-chi is better than Taikwondo" - the point is that the sensitivity learned in Pushing-Hands, if practiced over a long time, is much more helpfull to a realistic fight than one might think after only sampling it; and the movement skills perfected in form training are just as effective as those learned any other way, if not more so. "People with little or no real knowledge or skill try some of these arts for awhile and conclude that they need to add something to make it work." I have seen this happening all over - people training a year or two in Aikido going to learn also Taikwondo, "because there are no kicks in Aikido", and people training in Tai-chi for a year or two going to learn Ninjitsu "because Tai-chi is not for self-deffence", and so on... Instead of sticking to one art and learning all it has to offer, systematicaly, they cross-train to learn everything at once. Tai-chi can be for self-deffence, and there are kicks in Aikido, if you stay long enough to learn it.