New Book Coming: Taolu Practice for Kungfu

It has been a while since I have sat down to write any book. You may have noticed that I even neglect my blogging nowadays... 

I have, however, had enough time to think about what to write about next. I have chosen to write about form practice in Kungfu.

In our general language we use the term "forms" to refer to those sequences of movements that are performed without an opponent.

Kungfu people, however, call these sequences "sets". The word "forms" are usually used by Karate people when they refer to kata.

In Karate the Japanese term kata is used while the Chinese term taolu is used by Kungfu practitioners.

Kungfu forms are generally longer than Karate forms, though.

In Karate we find that the traditional styles follow a very conservative approach to teaching and practicing forms. 

 

During the 80's some more progressive styles of Karate have appeared with acrobatic forms- performed to music, no less...

Long before this had happened to Karate the forms of Kungfu have also changed in their design to be more suited for entertainment than for practicing fighting techniques.

A lot of people say that the purpose of these forms is to preserve and memorise fighting techniques used by past masters. That is not wrong. 

We see, however, that while some forms have fast, explosive movements- others have slow, flowing movements.

Some traditional forms have movements that cannot be linked to fighting at all!

Why is this?

This is one of the topics that we are going to explore in my new book:

TAOLU PRACTICE FOR KUNGFU

Having trained in both Karate and Kungfu before I have developed Wenhsiuquan, I have some interesting insights that I will share in my book.

That is all I can tell you for now.

Watch this space! :)