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 again! This is acutally one of the simplest of movements that appear in every Taiji form that I have seen. I was planning to do a post on its application as a simultaneous lower parry and push and show how other similar techniques get used in the Wudang arts, but must admit that Sifu Iain has a much cooler application for this movement- as is shown in the Youtube videos that I have linked below... In Shaolin Kungfu we have a move called the "Green Dragon" and to put it very simply it is a downward block that is accompanied by a tiger palm strike. The value of attacking while defending cannot be overemphasised since a lot of seasoned fighters only provide you with an opening when they are actually attacking. Fighters who are too focused on evading or blocking at the cost of their own counterattack miss that opportunity to attack. The ability to defend and attack at the same time of course also stops your opponent from letting his attack escalate into somet...