Wen Hsiu Quan

So- I follow this Wing Chun group on Facebook and every now and then I get some really weird posts from them. By now I am used to the MMA type videos where people have added long range kicks and grappling to make Wing Chun more suitable for tournament fighting- or for fighting martial artists from other styles... This particular video you see above was particularly weird, though. This is not even Wing Chun. The person who posted the video says that this particular technique comes from a Chinese martial art called Wu Shan. Apparently, this strange footwork technique is called "Riding the Dragon" and it seems to have been meant to take you to your opponent over a space of 21 feet or 6.4 metres in our measuring standard. First thing that came to my mind when I saw the video was the stepping punch (oi zuki) of Japanese Karate's Tatsuya Naka. Not only was this punch used in demonstrations, but also been in 2 movies. Youtube has these two clips of him that I was able ...

Hi! You know by now that Wenhsiuquan is Kungfu that has a lot of Karate in it, right? Well- technically... Names are just names, but it helps to know that much of Wenhisuquan's technique comes from Karate while about equally as much comes from Kungfu. That is not where it stops, though. Wenhsiuquan is not made up of fighting techniques. Just like Kungfu- it has its own specialised training exercises too. I have found that no matter what style you like to study- you could do well to take Shaolin's exercises with you and try them out. The one exercise that I have found useful for not only making my legs more flexible, but also to give my kicks that extra snap is an exercise called "Lohan Kicks Oranges". Yes- it is weird that the name of a Kung Fu technique always has to be a sentence... The exercise works like this: Standing upright with your feet shoulder width apart with your arms spread out, palms down... you kick the left palm with the right foo...

Hi, everyone! This week's blog post is really late, isn't it?  The reason for that is quite good. For once I have spent a Saturday away from my computer with my best friend and the nicest kids I know. That was a Saturday well-spent.  Today's post might not make sense to a lot of modern day martial artists or martial arts fans as I see that training these days is all about plyomentrics, explosive power training, sparring and so forth. Well- I guess it gets the job done if the job is being a good athlete. To me, however, martial arts are about the improvement of the human condition. The fighting techniques we learn are not the only useful part there is to a martial art.  Shaolin Kungfu we know started at almost the same time as Zen Buddhism in China. Buddhist monks are known for staying away from violence. The monks of our favourite temple in the Songshan mountains in Northern China are no different. For them- the fighting and martial training that...

Weaponry is not the main focus of my training, but I do enough practice with weapons to know their limitations. Most weapons we know- like sticks, swords and those weapons related to them can be used to deliver straight thrusting attacks, but we are used to swinging these weapons to strike. That is all well when we have the room to do so. I sword for instance creates a lot of safety for the one holding the hilt while the ones facing the blade have much to worry about. Well- those who know their unarmed combat techniques will be quick to tell you that they love deling with attackers swinging weapons at them because they know a lot of responses that involve just stepping into the arc of the attack and then attack the user while he is virtually powerless at close range. This is where the pommel of the weapon comes into play. The pommel is that part at the bottom of the hilt. In the photo of my sai here it can be seen really clearly. If you don't want to puncture your opponent,...