Formosa Neijia

I read the following post by a guy named Alan over at KF Mag Forums and I thought it was a perfect post on guidelines about structure or just guidelines in general. So many students get hung up on something that their teacher tells them that they forget the forest in favor of the trees. [...]

[Read more →]

I saw this movie a few weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it. I found it haunting and stimulating at the same time. I know it got panned by critics but this is the type of movie that they always whine that Hollywood never makes. But when Hollywood does make a cerebral movie with [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve found a very interesting site that discusses taiji principles. An article from the site has something that I’ve been taught, but that I’ve rarely heard in taiji circles. Take a look at this:

Theory of Rootlessness
After finishing the structuring process, Luo moves to rootlessness. In a fighting situation, if we root ourselves and the opponent [...]

[Read more →]

So it looks like Martial Arts Planet is the place to be these days. Apparently, the Yang family isn’t happy about this clip being up on the Internet, so they decided to make a public statement. Here it is:
Yeung Family’s Tai Chi Chuan
The Yeung family’s style of Tai Chi Chuan is unique to the Yeung [...]

[Read more →]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWK9hyJwMEs
This is a compilation video of some forms training and fights from the last remaining tang shou dao (TSD) school in Taiwan. I had the distinct honor of training with these guys last year for about six months. They are a bunch of hard workers who take the fighting aspects of xingyi and bagua very [...]

[Read more →]

Now here’s something you don’t see everyday:
To be honest, most of the classes that I have visited where applications are meant to be practiced have never gone beyond the talking stage. Applications may have been alluded to or maybe even described, but no actual physical practice has taken place. Any physical activity has [...]

[Read more →]

I have been wanting to see the version of Yang style as practiced by Han Qing-tan for a long time. Han supposedly learned the Yang style from Yang Chen-fu when Yang briefly taught at the Nanjing Guoshu Academy. The form has been preserved by Han’s descenents here in Taiwan.
I can’t seem to embed [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve been on the lookout for years for more info on Tu Zong-ren (涂宗仁), one of only four disciples of famous Taiwan Chen master Du Yu-ze (杜毓澤). The other three disciples were Wang Jia-xiang (王嘉祥), Li Hou-cheng (李後成), and Cao De-lin (曹德鄰).
I just recently found more info on Tu because his [...]

[Read more →]

Continuing with the focus on Zhou laoshi, I have an intro here written by Casey on Zhou laoshi’s mantis system. The reason that I asked him to write this is that he has more experience with Zhou’s mantis than I do. Another reason is that I’ve come to see that Zhou’s mantis and his long [...]

[Read more →]