Formosa Neijia

… is this performance by Paul Potts. I’m moved every time I watch this. This guy went from nothing to a really big something. From working in a warehouse to being a star. And it obviously wasn’t his looks that got him there like so many others.
So this past year, I’ve watched this any […]

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Rory at the Chiron blog and Steve Perry at Old Enough to Know Better are having a great debate. Any run down I give of the debate will just shortchange each of their positions, but the heart of the debate seems to be more traditional MA training vs. “training for real world violence” (I don’t […]

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Here is Chen Yun-ching showing some mixed movements from his father’s martial arts. I contiue to be impressed by these clips and I hope that James Sumarac continues to put more of them out.
Chen starts with a shaolin movement similar to taiji’s press (ji). Notice the blending of vertical with horizontal movement. This is […]

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I was saving these, but my guess is that most people have seen them already.

Wow. I never thought we’d actually see the man in action. Thanks to James Sumarac for making these available. Here’s Chen Pan-ling doing some single actions from his shaolin system. As you can see, his IMA training colored everything that […]

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I was going to training a few weeks ago, and I got on the subway. I looked for a seat because I was nursing a slight injury and I wanted to be rested up for training. I saw a seat next to a guy that was sort of sprawled over into the seat next to […]

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So on the night that I didn’t go because my camera sucks, this happens:

This was way beyond the pale. As you can see, the Taiwanese fighter Wu Dong-xing was a complete jerk. He punched the foreign guy and knocked him down. Then while his opponent was down, Wu soccer-kicked him in the mouth. To […]

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This is a style that I hear about every now and then, but it’s been a bit hard to find info on it until now. This page has a nice intro into this rare Taiwanese style. Here’s an excerpt:
The Golden Eagle style or, as it is known in Chinese, ‘Jin‑Ying Chuan’ 金鷹拳, was […]

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This is another look at Tu Zong-ren’s Chen style. This is the old frame first road. Tu laoshi was the second disciple of Du Yu-ze and I wrote more about him here and here. He was prevented from showing his taiji for many years due to a promise to his teacher to not show it […]

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The main thing that being fat and having a weak core does to your martial arts performance is that it prevents the smooth transfer of force from your legs to your arms. Consider the following picture from the excellent book Stronger Back and Abs.

Figure A shows what having a weak gut can do to your […]

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I went to cover the third annual SanDa Wang tournament last night, but none of my pics worked out. This is what I was left with:

As you can see, none of that is usable.
In order to cover Taiwan’s martial arts scene better, I’m needing to upgrade my skills and/or equipment. But I’m at a bit […]

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