Review: Video Waza and Master Wong’s Combat Taiji

There’s a new online video service that I’ve been checking out and I think you should, too. It’s called Video Waza and it’s a subscription service (US$15.00 per month) that allows you download and view as many martial arts videos as you want for each month of your membership. The selection is decently varied, with a preference given to the mixed martial arts community. They have hundreds of videos, though, covering dozens of different styles and areas of fitness. There’s more than enough to keep you busy for a long time. I’ve been a member now for a few weeks and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what they offer. You just can’t beat this price considering the great content. Check these guys out!

It works like this, you become a member, then you can download however many clips you want to watch. They average about 40 minutes. Your Windows Media Player then accesses the playing rights and you can watch it again and again. You have all the usual abilities to fast forward and skip around.

As for CMAs, the selection is heavily weighed in favor of wing chun, but the taiji section is not bad either. In particular, they feature all the videos of a Master Wong. In this review, I’ll specifically be looking at his “Taichi Combat Vol. 1” and will review his other vids later. Just a tease — his qinna vids are awesome!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UPg1tb6puc]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UPg1tb6puc

This has been one of my favorite clips since it popped up on youtube. I’m pleased to say that the instructional video that it comes from doesn’t disappoint. As you can see in the clip, Wong is stressing the yang side of taiji. Yes, all these apps come from taiji, and frankly it’s about time that someone showed something a bit more martial and aggressive that is still solidly taiji.

The videos are quite extensive. The first volume covers Yang apps, with the second the 24 Yang short form. The next four vids cover Chen style apps and forms. I chose the Yang style apps because that’s more rarely seen and something that I find more interesting, personally.

Wong gets right into it with a student attacking him. BTW, the student is wearing safety gear underneath his clothing. The attacks are realistic and applied with a fair amount of intent for a demo. Master Wong does the app from two different angles and then explains what he’s doing. Most of the time (but not always), he shows the form move that goes with it. When he explains what he’s doing, you’ll see that he really knows what he’s talking about. He’s not deep into theory, but he does understand angles and how taiji works to not counter force-on-force.

Looking at the clip above, some people have gotten the idea that Wong’s interpretation isn’t real taiji at all, but the wingchun that he does just re-packaged. Let me squash that right away. I’ve done wingchun and I didn’t see that style of movement here. Wingchun stances and techniques aren’t used in these apps. This is solid taiji, just more aggressive and done with more intent to hurt that most people have been exposed to.

But Wong has apparently heard this criticism before. In one application of “play the pipa” he shows that this move might look a bit like wingchun. But he then launches into a brief, but interesting lecture on how wingchun and Yang taiji different in theory and practice. He clearly shows that taiji prefers to move from the waist and absorb the opponent’s energy. He then displays a wingchun version of a similar technique in which he keeps his centerline constantly facing the opponent so he can chain-punch. He points out that taiji obviously doesn’t employ that strategy.

The apps cover most of the signature Yang moves, and Wong covers many variations but he mainly sticks to striking and throwing. Qinna is sometimes shown, but he mainly reserves that for his excellent qinna vids.

TAKE NOTE: Wong rarely pushes people away as you see in most taiji applications. He definitely prefers to strike or takedown the opponent!
My only criticism is that Wong doesn’t always clearly articulate what is happening in the vid. His physical demonstration skills, however, more than make up for that. And to be fair, he does get better on other vids.

In conclusion, I highly recommend that you check out VideoWaza and Master Wong’s Combat Taiji videos.

THIS POST IS FROM THE FORMOSA NEIJIA BLOG AND IF YOU’RE SEEING IT ANYWHERE ELSE, THEN THIS POST HAS BEEN SCRAPED FROM MY SITE. PLEASE REPORT ANY VIOLATIONS OF MY COPYRIGHT TO FORMOSANEIJIA.COM
THANK YOU!

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.