The ‘Taste’ Of Kung Fu…. We’re told that people learn auditory (hearing), visually (looking) and physically (doing), we always use all 3 methods but depending on character will lean more towards one method than the others, I’d like to also add a personal one – taste. Taste? I hear you ask, how can you learn by taste?  Do you have to lick your instructor? Thankfully you don’t, BUT everything has a ‘flavour’ if you can sense it and if you pick up the ‘taste’ of Yang Family Tai Chi, tiger, snake, leopard, dragon, Hung Gar or whatever, you start learning … Continue reading The ‘Taste’ Of Kung Fu

  Why Bowing Is Important When you walk into a Dojo or Kwoon, before and after a lesson and before and after any kata, form and pairs work in a traditional system you will bow as a sign of respect.  This simple sign of courtesy is a great reminder and marker of the varying types of mindset we have to engender and train at each stage of training. Entering the training hall it separates you from the outside world and reminds you to clear all external worries, anxieties and  distractions from your mind so that you can focus on the … Continue reading Why Bowing Is Important..

In the classics it says ‘suspend the head’, what most people don’t get is that it is an ‘active’ requirement, this means that you have to actively do this all of the time. This is an act of mindfulness. It lightens and aligns the body making it weightless and mobile, but the moment it becomes inactive – you become a clumsy zombie! The classics also say that power ‘comes from the feet, is manipulated by the waist and expressed through the hands’. Whatever we do, we always start from the feet, when I touch a student’s arm they resist in a … Continue reading Yang Tai Chi ‘Head & Feet’

“The end result of martial arts training is to fight” – is it? Mine isn’t.  Mine includes the emotional intelligence to deal with confrontation in all it’s guises, to be able have resolve, determination and courage when needed, along with the patience, kindness, tolerance and compassion and their associated requisite skills when needed. To keep the peace. The calligraphy for ‘Budo’ and ‘Wu Shu’ is ‘to stop the spear’. The ‘Wa’ in ‘Wado’ means harmony and balance, as does ‘Aiki’ in Aikido, ‘Goju’ in ‘Goju Ryu’ and ‘Tai Chi’ means ‘Grand Ultimate’ as in the harmony of an enlightened mind. … Continue reading Do You Train To Fight?

You have two eyes, two ears and one mouth for a reason First of all you don’t have to like your coach to learn from him (could be ‘he’ or she’ but I’ll use ‘he’ in this instance).  If he has the information you need, suck up your personal opinion of him and absorb yourself into the information. He’s not there to be liked, or entertain, if he’s serious, he’s there to make you a good martial artist and through the process you will probably love and hate him – often in the same session. A good coach will be … Continue reading The Magic Key

  “Sifu/Sensei, why don’t pressure points and locks work on you? Don’t you feel pain?” The fact is that they hurt me just as much as they hurt you. The difference is that I choose not to yield to the pain. Pain and your reaction to it tells me a lot about you. The world is full of mentally weak people. The moment they get any discomfort they want to give up, run to their Mummy and want it kissed better and have a Mickey Mouse plaster put on it – and Im talking adults of all ages here. There … Continue reading Pain In The Martial Arts

Use Your Head! In the Tai Chi classics it states: Suspend the headtop – like a rope is attached to the crown of the head and pulling upwards. This is consistently taught in Tai Chi classes but the teaching is rarely understood.  This idea has to be active – in other words applied all of the time, not just periodically applied. When I’m teaching I constantly find myself saying, “head, head……. head….. head…. you’ve dropped your head, you’re sticking your chin out, now you’re tucking it in, don’t drop the head to look down, don’t lean the head to the … Continue reading Use Your Head!

The Martial Arts And Violence A good explanation of the Kanji for the Japanese word ‘Budo’, which is ‘Wu Shu’ in Chinese…. “The character bu is constructed from the characters meaning “arms of war” or “violence,” and “to stop, prohibit, or bring to an end.”  Therefore, bu is more accurately translated as “to stop violence,” or perhaps “to bring about peace.”  Thus  budo,  bujutsu and  bugei might more appropriately be  known as the “arts of the peacemaker.”  The warriors of China and Japan saw their skills as tools for maintaining the peace rather than indulgences in a love of war.  … Continue reading The Martial Arts And Violence