Wen Hsiu Quan

It is not often when I see something from Jackie Bradbury on Martial Arts Forums, these days. Her latest blog post has struck a chord with me, though. The post titled "The State of Filipino Martial Arts Today" confirmed to me that martial arts all over the world face the same dillema. Or maybe not the arts themselves, but the people trying to keep others interested in them (and those who earn money from teaching them...) In her post Jackie invited the reader to comment and give his input. With Karate in this country- when it reaches this point- they don't ask the public what they want or what their views are. A Shihankai (Masters' Group) meets and then decides the fate of karate for all who study it. And a lot of changes were made this way- Shotokan had gone from full contact sparring to non-contact to semi contact to full contact with head gear to semi contact without headgear to full contact on the body with minimal contact to the face- wit...

I run my law practice from my father's study. It has become my office last year in August. As a result a lot of my father's things are still there.  I was actually searching for a textbook on the Law of Delict (some countries might know it as the Law of Torts) when I came across this firearms training manual. The pages I share from it are about mental conditioning. As a person who had never learnt any other way to fight besides Asian martial arts I was surprised at the relevancy and soundness of the advice in this manual and how closely it resembled what I have learnt from karate. I am not a fan of firearms and I do not practice with them. This textbook reminded me, however, that although there are a lot of people who fight out there with no training, but that when your life is at stake, you'd prefer to be trained and prepared. Take care, everyone! 'Til next time!

Hello again in 2017 and an awesome new year to all of you. My Chinese friends are just waiting for the end of this month before they pass out the New Year's wishes again- this time with a red envelope or two, but for us- this is a new year filled with glorious prospects (Quiet, you negative folk there in the back!) I am privileged enough to still have relatives who give me gifts on Christmas and this time around my martial arts gift came from my mother (she has actually given my martial arts training a lot of support in spite of the strain of tolerating a son that uses his spare time to kick and punch. :D  This year's gift was what you see in the first 3 photos below.  Ironically enough- this is what the WKF allows on their competition floors nowadays. The mitt you see in the last 3 photos is what they do not allow.  I remember when I saw these half-open mitts advertised in a Taekwondo magazine back in the 90's. I have since seeing the ...