Protection doesn't help

While exiting the ring and stepping down to ground level. I felt a tightness in my right shin. I was still able to walk of course, but keep in mind that adrenaline does wonders to hide the pain. I just stopped sparring and it already hurt. What is going on?

Learning To Spar

I opened my eyes this morning recalling the events of last evening. I flexed my quads to tighten my knees. I rotated my ankles. They did not hurt as bad as the night before. Sparring....the act of you and your kung fu brothers hitting each other. It can be rough, but you learn quite a lot.

In the mirror I saw a long rectilinear marking on the side of my ribs. My knees, pink and my shins purple.

Why Train with Traditional Weapons?

Traditional Weapons Training

Very often people are attracted to Chinese Martial Arts because of the absolute array of weapons present in the system. No other ethnic combat system can boast such a plethora of sharp and shiney, blunt and edged, long and stout tools of defense and war. However, aside from being a “marketing” ploy, many others ask, "what is the use of training in such archaic tools for combat?" I will introduce a classification of weapons called the Four Great Weapons. I will then explain why I believe it important to continue training in these weapons despite the fact that the carrying of such items would either be considered illegal or simply a societal oddity.

Part 2 Gung Fu v Techniques [A]

This is the second part of my three part series which began, in the previous post, with a discussion of the Gung Fu Form and its purpose in the art, despite criticisms of its uselessness.

Our second pairing will be that of Gung Fu and Technique. First and foremost, these two are NOT the same. Let me repeat that by saying that they are NOT THE SAME. They are not synonymous save by the most extreme and tenuous stretch of the imagination. The character “Gung” literally translates to “merits and achievements” with the implied undertone of [through hard work]. The character “Fu” literally refers to a male person/figure. So literally the phrase would translate to “A man who has achieved merits through hard work”. More colloquially, Gung Fu would simply be “a hard working man”. The phrase is appropriately used for all skills which require a level of diligence and ability to become adept i.e. cooking, cleaning, building/fixing things, gardening, writing, fighting etc. Thus a person who does Gung Fu does not train in techniques, but simply the skills required to make their techniques viable.

My Kung Fu beginnings

By Derrick Ho

Part 1 Meeting Sifu Meng

Red! Blue! Green! Black!

Pink and Yellow,

they’ve come back!

Is Kung Fu Out Dated?

By Derrick Ho

I used to describe, Kung Fu as a practical means of self-defense. I thought that if you trained long and hard, you would be able to use this Martial Art to defeat many foes. I used to think that Kung Fu would promote you to God of Fighting.

The truth is hard to accept, but Martial arts like Karate and Muay Thai have a better chance at winning. The evidence is online. Just search for Kung Fu VS whatever and you will see three types of videos. The three types are:

Why Forms?

By Brian Wang

Why forms?

I am very happy that my teachers hardly teach me forms. At first I was upset, impatient. I was tired of doing the individual motions again and again and again, doing drills and always talking talking talking about theory. When the time came though, teach me forms they did, and now I see why.

The Way of Tai Chi

Author: Charles Zhang

Why did I choose Tai Chi as my first martial arts to play around with? First of all, the movies, kung fu fictions like the series written by Louis Cha (Jin Yong) and Tai Chi Master (1993) played by Jet Li, form an idea in my head that Tai Chi soars above the common techniques, and even kung fu itself to assert its ideas into even a spiritual way. It’s mysterious and alive.

When I was little, I lived in a city with great accessibility to parks. Take a walk in the break of the day especially with the mist; makes everything more refreshing. At the same time, I’m not a lone stroller, there are lot things going on in the morning. One of them is people practicing Tai Chi. They gather at the same place by the main route I took every morning so it’s hard to miss. Just look at them. When they move, they move like falling waters and waving silk. At times I get lucky because they will have group practices preparing for city competitions. Almost every year in our city newspaper, just in a small section, it says “Congratulations Again to Qiao Kou Tai Chi Team.” I feel proud, because I feel like part of them, seeing them do their warm ups, push hands, and sometimes even chit chat with them. However, there’s something greater than being part of them and that’s when seeing them during their competition days. I see the most amazing art in the break of dawn.

They wore their white silk cloth with the leading person in red, and when they move, boy, they look amazing! Soft like wisps of clouds with steadiness like the sitting rocks on a thousand-year mountain. Smooth like the early morning dews running down the green leafs, leaving the soothing sounds with rhythm; springy like the ripple in the mirroring lake, letting the drizzling fall with movement. There are no more sounds of bird chirping nor the fresh breeze lying around, nor the aura of light embracing around you; it’s only a sense; the sense of Tai Chi, mysterious, and alive…

The Purpose of Wushu

All martial arts exist for one purpose and that is to preserve life. That may be your life, or your families life or the life of your loved ones. This brings into question, of how is killing a preservation of life? This isn’t the main topic of this article so I will explain briefly: People fight to survive.

Wushu is chinese for Martial arts. However, for simplicity I will use two terms to describe two very different disciplines. Wushu is an umbrella turn for all chinese martial arts, but I will use it to describe a modernized practice that has been refined for performance, grace and looking good. Kung fu translates to great skill, but in this article I will use the term to mean the type of martial arts that is applied.

Wushu is for show; Kung fu is for fighting.

In this article I will explain my views on Wushu and describe why one would ever consider spending time on this.

The Gung Fu Form

By Vincent Yu

At the very heart of Gung Fu are the forms, the intricate movements and postures and patterns and shapes which make Gung Fu such a character within the classification of fighting arts. Though most of the classical arts have forms or patterns or katas (the terminology shifts with the system but they point to a general notion), the reasoning behind the actual practicing of forms takes on different meanings for different people. A study of the Gung Fu form might seem a bit redundant to the ardent practitioner. But to NOT at least briefly analyze this integral part of the system would do the art form as a whole an extreme injustice. Many of the criticisms leveled at TCMA (substitute any classical art for TCMA) seems to revolve around the extreme focus on learning forms. They even have a derogatory label for individuals who seem primarily keen on learning forms:Forms Collector. It sounds exactly like what it denotes; an individual who never actually studies the forms, but simply learns enough to copy the general shape, leaving at that, then quickly moving onto the next one to copy. There is no rhyme or reason to this want, save a pathological need to know as many as possible and perhaps inflate their self-worth with shallow demonstrations. But more on that later. Now allow me to progress into the analysis of the Gung Fu forms.