Formosa Neijia

It’s rare that I experience racism or dangerous situations that could lead to violence here in Taipei. I saw a bit more of that when I lived across the river in another part of the county, but my life in central Taipei had been fairly calm until today.
Reality hit me twice today.
I was walking my [...]

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This is footage of Huang Yu-cheng laoshi (黃裕盛), the president of the largest Chen Pan-ling association in Taiwan, doing his version of the 99, as the CPL taiji is commonly referred to. As you can see, it is done in flash, so I can’t put it on youtube. But it’s from his recently recorded VCDs. [...]

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This is one of the paintings done by Han Qing-tang. I had no idea he was an artist. His brushwork is beaultiful.
The following is a story about a demo that Han did in which he showed that a samurai sword couldn’t cut him. Make of it what you will, the story is still entertaining. [...]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY_cq0D9Ld0
I wasn’t going to write about this, but I’m just too excited to hold back. Haha.
I went and visited Tu Zong-ren laoshi last night about learning Chen style taiji from him. It was quite an experience. Tu laoshi and his students had just come back from a local competition in which one student won first [...]

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This topic is interesting because it shows a weakness in the focus of most Chen styles. The majority of the time, Chen people focus on body movement at the jing level. (In the qi paradigm there are three levels: shen, qi, jing.) This emphasis can go on for too long, with the qi and shen [...]

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This is a great article on a new theory that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere about the development of taijiquan. It describes how Chen Wanting may have collaborated with the Li brothers in formulating the taiji. Meaning that Chen style may not have come from the Chens alone, but that their origin story is true. [...]

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We had a lively discussion about this over at EF. I need to archive this post here because it took me over two hours to research and write it. I looked at about 8-9 Chinese books I have on sword to write this. The research can be a bit exhausting, but it’s very interesting. [...]

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The following is from a guy with the screen name of “smell the glove.” Haha. These are his memories of studying with Gao and some pics of the school that he took. Many thanks to him for letting me post these. As you can tell, Gao was serious about his weapons practice:
Gao Dao-sheng (高道生). [...]

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The following are the key graphs in a great article in Scientific American. If what I quote below sparks your interest, then I suggest you read the whole thing. It’s basically about how skill is acquired. I was hooked by the first sentence of the quote below. It blew my socks off. Haha. I’ve bolded [...]

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I’d like to anounce the arrival of the newest member of the Formosa Neijia family. Little Rachel Ann was born yesterday at 3:05 local time. The delivery went smoothly and both she and mom are resting comfortably at the hospital. I’m spending lots of time taking care of my little boy and shuttling back and [...]

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