Wen Hsiu Quan

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to this week's post. If you have read the book you would have come across this sequence of movements in the Form.  I have practiced these movements enough times by now to know what they are and what they do. If you have read the words that go with the pictures you would also know. But still- photos of a movement don't really tell show us what we need to see, right? Well... you know by now that I have something to help with that... If only the animation moved a bit slower... right? :D What is actually happening in the gif is this: 1. I lead with a horizontal back fist strike to the side of the opponent's head. He blocks that. 2. In response to the block I take my striking hand around to the other side of the head while covering or trapping the opponent's blocking hand with my non-striking hand. From here I hit the opponent's neck artery or jawbone with an inward knife hand ...

Hello, everyone and welcome back! Today we are at this sequence in the form: The sequence started from drawing in the left leg from the last Horse Stance while shooting out the Phoenix Eye Fist. That high guard at the beginning is a dead giveaway that I am ducking a face punch while countering with that blow. Then of course- we see the last two blows following shortly afterward. For those of you who has not yet seen a Phoenix Eye Fist- this is what it looks like: As you can see, my index finger is curled up, but made to have the first joint from my knuckle portrude to give it a hard point with which to hit soft or sensitive targets. I have been practicing this particular kind of blow against a heavy bag for some time now, so you can see some callousing on the impact point. Now- blocking works and learning to block is a good way to develop defense, but it is not necessarily the most efficient way to take control of a fight. The thing that m...

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I have enjoyed Black Belt TV's Move of the Day inserts since the channel came to South Africa. The inserts show some martial arts movie legends demonstrating the most basic of moves. This is actually a nice way of interacting with the viewers to get them interested in martial arts. The back fist demonstration, however, was not on. I recognised the type of back fist as the one I used to perform when doing the Shotokan kata, Tekki Shodan. Let's just say that I have found no use for that technique in actual combat and when I began developing my own style- that technique was gone before even the first unwanted techniques got thrown out. If I could re-write that kata- I would have put a descending hammer fist there! In the video I demonstrate and discuss the proper technique when performing the back fist strike. I have left out some of my favorite methods to perform the strike and used only the most common and basic examples. If you want to know more about the versatility of...