Wen Hsiu Quan

Who of you has seen Game of Death? I think Bruce Lee's fight scene with basket ball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar is one of the most memorable fight scenes in all of his movies. (An all-time favourite of mine is the fight with Chuck Norris in Way of the Dragon). Kareem's obvious advantage in the fight was the length of his limbs. We saw Bruce Lee getting kicked this way and that until he figured out a way to beat his tall adversary. In training we find that our basics and forms involve techniques that are meant for someone the same height as ours and whose limbs are the same length as ours. Under these circumstances one can block and counter without having to move at all- except for the instance where kicks are involved, because either the defense and counterattack or only the counterattack shall always require some body movement.  When your partner or opponent becomes taller than you, you realise that avoiding his attacks come a...

Hi, Everyone Last night I got a group of four kids to teach for the very first time. Ages were 13, 11, 10 and 5. Because it was a self defense class I did not intend to give too much attention to strict karate basics. As the students struggled to make their techniques work, however, we realised that a good grasp of the basics is necessary- especially with regard to stances. What never gets old with teaching kids throws is when they start with "But he's too big!" and later on end up with that excited look when they realise they have just done that throw. Those are the bigger kids. As for the 5 year old boy we started with basic stances and blocks. A fun thing to do with kungfu is to teach them the different animals found in the movements. I prefer not to teach fighting to kids at such a young age, but the basic movements do wonders for their development. You all know Mahiro, right? I wonder what she and those other kids get taught...     ...

Hi,everyone. I have had a really nice vacation during the festive season and am getting set to start work next week. I am especially grateful for all the spare time I have had in which to train. :) In my mission to get Wenhsiuquan uploaded to the collective consciousness of the communities to which I belong I have begun by including to pages from the first book I have written. In time more pages will follow. This new year promises to be very exciting to me. I wish all of you out there a year in which you will reap good results from your continued training. THE WENHSIUQUAN BOOK OF PULLING AND PUSHING By Wenhsiu TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION...............................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: The Basics....................................................................2 CHAPTER 2: A position of weakness................................................5 CHAPTER 3: Basic Techniques- The ...

How many friends do you know that you can walk up to and say "I have developed my own style of martial art that I want to document. Will you help me?"? When I had first asked my friends for help they did not bat an eyelid. They did not share my love for martial arts, but understood how much this project means to me. Documenting and teaching Wenhsiuquan is the next step in my journey on this path. While my other friends Chen Feng and Chris have decided to leave this country for the safety and economic stability of their homeland- Shirley is still around. She already owns copies of the first two books and has shown it to quite a number of people. Oh! One more thing! I see my blog got more than 5 000 views! Thank you all for showing interest. Although I do not have any full time students yet I have received lots of positive feedback on the advice and information I have provided. It means a lot to me. In my next post I will tell you about two people who have provided m...

I was going to write an entire post on the yoi stance in karate when I saw this video here on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MorningGloryMartialArts?fref=nf I think many of us remember scenarios where the self defence moves we learnt got shot to pieces in a real situation. In my case I did not even have to leave the dojo! Our sensei used to make us practice blocking a swinging stick blow to the legs using gedan barai! I got bruises on my back for my trouble!  Believe me- when I got around to developing my own self defence moves that gedan barai response was the first to go!   Sure- we can argue that the responses taught do not always take into account how an actual opponent- who is not from your dojo- is going to move. But then again- if you think that you will become invincible by training and rehearsing as many responses as you can in a lifetime- let me be the first to tell you that you are likely to get your arse kicked all the way to the afterli...

After a long wait it is finally here! The Wenhsiuquan Book on Defense focusses on responses to attacks. It shows how I have simplified blocking to make it suit a real-life situation and shows how I have formulated my responses to common attacks so that the reader can know how to formulate his/ her own. I am really glad to have received my friends' help to get this together. The A5 size version- my favourite- is R 350.00. A cheaper A4 version can be bought for R 150.00. I have not really thought about overseas customers, but I think they'll understand if there is shipping to be paid as well...  For now- I'll take a break before getting to the next one. I am three books away from having my style documented to at least an extent which is worth carrying over. :) Train well, everyone! 

I am really excited as I am getting to the last chapter of this book. Soon- this one will be printed and ready for circulation. Although I know that there are many people feeling okay without it I do not think the world should ever be without the knowledge of martial arts. In my opinion it is one of the highest achievements humanity has ever reached. No matter how stressful our lives are, what difficulties we shall face or what harm awaits us- we shall be able to meet the challenge if we have the martial arts to strengthen our bodies and spirit! In other news- My dear friend, Lindie Delassus' son Jean-Michael has won two gold medals in a recent karate tournament! Why two? One is for kata- and the other for kumite of course! :) He has started karate last year and looks like he is going to make his mark. Well- to Jean Michael I want to say what I say to you: Train well and have a good week!

When I first took up karate I started with Shukokai. Despite the fact that Shotokan was a long established style and much older I was taught that the Shukokai method was the best of the two. Later on we moved to a place with no Shukokai school and I got the chance to study Shotokan for 2 years. Where Shukokai virtually discarded hip rotation at the time and chose a head-on shomen facing kamae I got a chance to learn to fight from the sideways, hanmi position. With my study of Jeet Kune Do I took a big liking in the hanmi position and did my best to copy the fighting stance in Brue Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do. When Taijiquan and Hsingyiquan came into my life I replaced the springy on-the-balls-of-the-feet fighting stance with a more grounded and stable base from which I could launch more powerful attacks. This new base also enabled me to utilise my grappling techniques much easier. Shaolin Kung Fu taught me the value of the old ways and my kickboxing manner that I wo...

 I am actually busy nursing an injured leg back to health and now find myself at that stage where it is feeling a bit better and I am itching to get back to training. I will, however, stick to light Taijiquan practice for this next week and take up the heavy stuff the week after. Meanwhile- I am working on the second Wenhsiuquan book. This one is about defense. Instead of Chen Feng and Chris I got help from another couple. Vic- who you will not be seeing in any photos, because he operated the camera- and Shairley Yang- volunteered to help out with some of the photos. By some- I don't mean just a few, mind you... Shairley is well known here for her cheerful- and playful nature and we got a lot of it during the shoot. She actually made this a lot more fun than what I thought it would be. I hope you all train well. I'll be sure to let everyone know when this book is finally ready. Have a great week!

Welcome back! Hope you have an awesome New Year! While I was away from this blog to fully celebrate the holidays I have used the off-time to step up my training. As an added bonus- I got this weighted vest as a gift from my parents! This is a really awesome Christmas gift. :) I definitely recommend training with it! I am entering 2015 with stronger legs and harder kicks because of this. :D Something else that is on its way is the Wenhsiuquan Book on Defense.  Train hard! 

A big thank you to my blog readers and to the ones who have purchased my first book. Having got some long awaited time off work I am going to enjoy my holiday workouts for the 2 weeks ahead. If you have time to train as well in this festive season- I hope you take full advantage thereof.  Best wishes to you all and lots of fun training!

The first sample of my first book on Wenhsiuquan came fresh from the printers yesterday.  Although I am very excited to see an actual printed copy I have to make sure that the book that goes out to the public looks like the type of thing I want to release into the world. This is about my martial art after all... In due time I'll post the link to a separate page on which the book can be ordered. At the moment I am certain that it will be available in South Africa. Because I have no PayPal account- or know of any other way to receive money from overseas yet- availability overseas is going to be very limited. Instead of writing about the entire style in one go I have decided to first write a separate book on each aspect that I feel deserves specific attention.This first book is about pulling and pushing techniques. That means it will explain the mechanics of throws and joint locks amongst other things. Other books to follow are going to be about kicking and...

I like having my legs as available as weapons as much as my upper limbs are. In another post I will show some defences against weapons that rely on quick feet or light legs. This warm-up exercise is a great way to get the legs ready to deliver some powerful explosive kicks,  Start in a horse stance and step into a cross-stance. The leg with which you have stepped forward is now the supporting leg. Now from whichever side of your supporting leg the other leg's foot is resting, swing it over in a wide arc through an imaginary target at head height. The supporting leg is firm and the swinging leg is relaxed. The kicking foot should now come to rest at the other side of the supporting foot- to shoot of in another high, wide arc to the other side. Repeat about 10 times each side and switch legs. Real kicking would require you to tighten the kicking leg's muscles at the moment of impact. This exercise has none of that as it is meant to loosen the limbs before tr...

Hello, everyone. While I am training like mad at the moment- and loving it- I thought of those guys my age who do not kick so high anymore. While a lot of people (like the Thai boxer below) can take a split, tilt the hips a bit and then have a high roundhouse kick a lot of us cannot split that far. Is all lost then? Short answer- nope!  I know Shukokai people will not accept this and Shotokan people can act as if they knew this secret for a long time (because they did!), but here is my tip for that jodan mawashi   geri: See the sketch? You notice the front stance? Yes- that is not a Shotokan front stance, but it will do (you guys can't hog the spotlight here). Notice how far your back leg can stretch just because the front leg is bent? Now- bending the supporting leg and aiming your kicking hip as high as it goes (yes- we aim with the hips and NOT the knees!) let that kick shoot out.  Pretty cool, huh?  This means that as long as you...

Thank you for waiting. The first book in my series on Wenhsiuquan Techniques is ready! It was a lot of fun getting it together and I really appreciate my friends helping me with the photos. Soon I will give you the info on how to get hold of your copy.  Off to the printers I go!

Hello to all who read this blog. I am currently working on an e-book which is to be the first of many that I will market here. This means that I will not be posting here for a while. The posts on this blog were never meant to explain my techniques in detail. I have decided to make the full details available- at a price. Stay well. 

Judo is not the only grappling art, neither is Taekwondo the only art that uses kicking.  It would also help to know that the developers of most of these arts we see today had something to work from. Now kung fu fanatics would be quick to tell us that "all martial arts under the sun come from Shaolin", but that statement ignores the fact that the Thai and Indonesian people have been kicking and punching long before Shaolin even existed. So did a lot of people in Asia, actually... Karateka would actually also have to admit that their styles are a lot younger than jujitsu and Chinese martial arts (in other words- kung fu). This knowledge has been lying around in my mind gathering dust, but may be new and useful to some who are considering which martial art to take up. I'll give a list below of some of the most well known main styles and their most obvious attributes- along with the arts that had developed from them: Japan (Tradition: Buj...

Where other people would read about a thing such as "mind over matter" and continue doubting whether they could ever attain something like that we as martial artists are in a position to practice and train with it and experience it first hand. We already know the value of conditioning. Some of us will know about skills such as Shaolin's "Iron Shirt" and "Golden Bell Cover" and may still not know how to develop the ability. Well- I reserve that kind of knowledge for my students. Something I will leave for my fellow martial artists to contemplate however is this: When is a body part a target and when is it a weapon? Short answer- It depends on how qi is focussed. A more understandable explanation would be more like this: If you accidentally bump your hand against a table while rushing off somewhere in a hurry- it hurts. When, however, that hand is used to break a board or a tile- it does not hurt (or at least not that much...) What was differ...

The Founder at his happiest- training! Introduction: This blog was probably supposed to start with a post about the history of what is my very own fighting style. Fact is, though- I actually thought about doing it now. I have only realised now that the process of learning, training and modifying which felt up to this point to have been so recent and so fast actually happened over more than a decade now... It is also because I realised that I have not yet really had the chance to teach this art to anyone yet. Right now I am actually worried that this art- this system of techniques, tactics and beliefs will follow me to the grave. On the one hand I can leave as much as I can on this blog, but what I'd really appreciate is the opportunity to see the art itself blossom and grow within someone right here with me. One of the main reasons why Wen Hsiu Quan got developed is simply that it suited me- as a person. In karate students are known to have their " tokuiwa...