Whether you are the ancient hermit of the Dark Forest or a week-in week-out practitioner, martial training always rewards perseverance with increased skills you have gathered and accumulated like rain. Skills like these come mostly from just hanging in there and that’s the reason they stay in the shadows, unnoticed. The results of CHANG GONG, […]
Jul
2
2020
2
2020
Apr
28
2020
28
2020
Why I Like Bagua
Everything is spinning crazily. The fact that facts are scarce does not prevent them from flying at us, relentlessly. We spend our hours looping and diving, just to keep upright. In times like this, Bagua sounds just about right. It is no wonder that people recognize that Bagua is the truth-speaker of a relatively untruthful […]
Apr
24
2020
24
2020
Kung Fu Training: You Always Hurt The One You Love
Over my years of teaching martial arts, I’ve had quite a good time explaining some of the more obscure switches of Kung Fu’s winding pathway: the splits, front and side; gyrating and rolling children, long past their bedtimes; and the fine art of setting things on small altar stacks, then crushing them. And that is […]
Jan
9
2020
9
2020
Book Review: Adam Hsu’s “Life Is Too Short For Bad Kung Fu”
Traditional Chinese Kung Fu is dying. When it dies it won’t be a homicide but a suicide. Shifus are peddling tricks to kids. Shifus that are preserving Kung Fu can’t find students to undergo the hardship of practice. Students that are willing to undergo the traditional training can’t find a Shifu to train them. Kung […]
Jan
2
2020
2
2020
Oct
22
2019
22
2019
Life is Too Short For Bad Kung Fu
Yes, it’s true! A new book in English by Adam Hsu. If this were Hollywood, Sifu Adam Hsu’s new book, “Life Is Too Short For Bad Kung Fu,” would be the tell-all on everyone’s reading list; not because it is gossipy—he names no names—but because it fulfills its promise to reveal the good, the bad, […]
Mar
24
2019
24
2019
How to Make Friends With 60:40 Stance
We have been practicing and discussing how to make friends with 60:40 stance in our recent community classes. This is where 60% of the weight is on the back leg, and 40% is on the front leg. Often the most uncomfortable or difficult to understand stance, where many students are just bearing it until they […]
Mar
18
2019
18
2019
Teach Your Students Well
As we previously mentioned, we are working on the production of Sifu Adam Hsu’s newest book in English—we hope to have it out by mid-year. Since Hsu Shifu is in Taipei and we are in California, a lot of our communication over the fine details happens through email, so we were particularly happy to get […]
May
26
2018
26
2018
Nov
20
2015
20
2015
“If I could just interject one thought here…”
For the umpteenth time I am re-designing the basics practiced at my school. This may come as a surprise to people for a couple for reasons. I know that there are styles which have probably taught the same basics for decades, even centuries. I used to study at a school that taught two distinct and […]
Aug
26
2014
26
2014
Kung Fu’s Back and Forth Problem
There are two kinds of people, as Robert Benchley wrote, “Those who divide everyone into two kinds of people and those who don’t.” When we are talking about Kung Fu styles—good ones only, please—we often encounter another two-way path. Before I even go into this, let me tell you that this causes a lot of […]
Jun
5
2012
5
2012
What is jibengong? What would be a good DVD for some examples?
Dear Ted, Recently in the online community RumSoaked Fist, Dr. Kenneth Fish has expressed a lament in the lack of jibengong being taught to new students. Dr. Fish then goes on to elaborate that there needs to be more leg lifts, goblet and pistol squats, crescent kicks and so forth for any martial arts foundation. […]
Dec
31
2011
31
2011
Training: Arms like Banners
This may sound like I am a candidate for the Wrong Way Corrigan Award but I sort of like that about Kung Fu practice. It reinforces that very true statement that the direct route is always nice, if you can get it. But there is no guarantee.
Jul
19
2011
19
2011
What Makes a Kung Fu Style Good?
The crippled grammar aside, I changed it because I realized that with the right type of training the style doesn’t need to be a winner to start.
Jan
19
2010
19
2010
