The Way of Least Resistance

I recently came across the video below on the Traditional Fighting Arts Forums : The first segment of Penn and Teller's episode on martial arts In this episode of their "Bullshit" series, Messrs Penn and Teller examine martial arts and conclude that they are all "bullshit". I must confess that the show angered me: not because I felt personally insulted - but because I felt that my intelligence (and every other viewer's) was insulted. First: why assume that everyone who does martial arts does it for "fighting"? Most people I know in the martial arts do it as a form of exercise and/or as an artform or means of physical expression. What's wrong with that? Penn and Teller start their show by arguing that giving money to criminals is cheaper than taking karate lessons. Sure. But I and many others don't do karate expecting to "save money". We pay money for lessons because we enjoy the activity, not because we expect to "get our mon...

Further to my article: "The naming of sanchin" ... I have heard it said in crane circles that there is a different sanchin for every student, or words to that effect. I don't know if that is true, but every variant of crane seems to have a sanjan/sanzhan/saamchien. Ngo cho kun (5 ancestor fist) is based on 5 shaolin styles of which crane is one, hence they have sanchin. While Kanbun Uechi's art seems to have been a compilation of his all his various studies, I think it was most heavily influenced by white crane. Uechi certainly looks a lot like Fujian white crane (in my view much more than goju). For downloadable videos check out my friend Martin Watt's site: http://www.fujianbaihe.com/ . He does Yong Chun white crane. His site has links to his Chinese school's site (which has more videos). Also have a look at Eric Ling's sanjin on http://www.goju-ryu.info/ (Fuzhou Ancestral Crane - said to be the crane form that lead to all the crane variants - calling c...

I get the impression that Daoist thought and xingyiquan-like internal arts developed largely in tandem about 600 years ago without any Shaolin/Ch’an Buddhist influence at all (ie. they are truly “indigenous” arts, much like the original Okinawa te). The Shaolin school of external arts was a later development via India, bringing with it a “second wave” of thought and a second wave of martial tradition influenced by yogic exercise and health concepts. These spread/developed in tandem, but were not strictly related. The fact that monasteries became training grounds for various warlords may have strengthened the link between Ch’an Buddhism and the external arts. I get the feeling that initially the monasteries would have taught an “indigenous” xingyi-like arts, but that over time the Ch’an Buddhist/yogic influence conspired to evolve these arts into what we now call the “external” or Shaolin tradition. Their emphasis on pragmatic, effective exercise (cf. the somewhat theoretical and philo...

Cross referring the internal arts and goju has helped me discern not only a possible historical and technical relationship, but more importantly it has helped me understand the function of "formal" training, such as kata. I think that seeing how someone else does the same thing can give you a great deal of insight into what it is you are doing and why. Ultimately we all want to effect a natural, "no-nonsense" technique. However it seems to me that many “modern” stylists have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by abandoning the "formal" aspects of traditional martial arts, not realising that these have a training purpose (not unlike the speedball might have a particular training purpose for a boxer, even though no boxer ever "hits someone like that"). I have found the Chen Pan Ling taijiquan movements generally correspond the most with minimalist, natural way of moving. Bagua and xingyi tend to have progressively greater elements of "form...

Some of you might be familiar with Freud's theory that humans are subject to the competing instincts of Thanatos (death) and Eros (life). The former makes you want to lie down and do nothing, the latter to get up and achieve something. I have often found this paradigm a useful analysis of the human condition. Rarely a day passes where I don't experience conflict between these instincts. The relevance of this paradigm to martial arts training is fundamental, since training is the embodiment of the Eros instinct. If you have ever paused to consider why you participate in an activity which is physically and mentally demanding (when you could instead be at home relaxing) you might have come to the conclusion that it is simply because your physical and mental being demands it. Instinct, it seems, is not susceptible to any deeper analysis. Simultaneously, staying at home and doing nothing is the embodiment of the Thanatos instinct because it is more akin to death. Just like a pul...

It was as a youngster in the mid-70s that I first considered the feasibility of the “holy grail” of the martial arts: a synthetic form that would combine all the best elements of the disparate styles into one cohesive, all-encompassing and succinct system: in other words the ultimate martial art . I pored over the various books listing various styles. I pondered the encyclopaedic, sophisticated variations of jujutsu locks and holds, the smooth flow of the myriad Shaolin styles, the brutal efficiency and directness of karate, the effortless efficiency of the internal arts. I wondered about the exotic arts I’d never seen such as pencak silat and bando or legendary arts such as Mongolian “go ti”. Then there were the popular and impressive schools of taekwondo, the no-nonsense effectiveness of Muay Thai, the ubiquitous shadow of the late Bruce Lee and his Jeet Kune Do, the bewildering Filipino arts of kali/escrima/arnis, the elegance and philosophical beauty of aikido, the “sweet scienc...

What do I mean by “internal” and “external”? When I refer to the "internal" arts, I mean a specific set of techniques and methods of movement, the details I cannot go into in a short article. These methods are found (in varying but compatible forms) in the "big 3" internal arts of xingyi, bagua and taiji (liu he ba fa being a combination of the 3 to some extent). These techniques are very specific to these arts: I feel very strongly that they do not appear in the Fujian/Hakka schools (except some modified xingyi in bak mei/mantis). They certainly do not appear in karate (either Naha te or the shorin school). For example there is nothing like a xingyi's "pi quan" or "beng quan" (splitting fist and pounding fist) in karate - there are only "external" equivalents indicating some partial influence. The differences are subtle but substantial. This is not a "bad" or "good" thing: they are just different. The “big 3” I...

A colleague on the Traditional Fighting Arts Forum recently asked us to list the 10 most important things to consider in opening a martial arts school. Here was my answer: 1. You should be passionate and committed to your martial art and your own progress within that art. 2. You should be qualified to teach at least up to an intermediate (what we call green belt) level. This means you should be thoroughly conversant with technical material to be taught for the first 3-4 years of your students' training. You can be qualified to teach even higher grades - the higher the better. But you have no business opening a dojo unless you have a deep knowledge of the material up to at least an intermediate level. It goes without saying that you should have attained a much higher level than that. But there is a difference in my view between passing a dan grade and being able to teach the material you've just passed. I am also assuming that you will progress further so that you ...

When I first began studying xingyiquan it seemed somewhat strange to me that it should have 5 core defence/counter movements and that these should be described (albeit metaphorically) by reference to the traditional 5 element theory , namely:* Wood (Crushing) 崩 Bēng Fire (Pounding) 炮 Pào Earth (Crossing) 橫 Héng Metal (Splitting) 劈 Pī Water (Drilling) 鑽 Zuān Even more perplexing was the description of these elements as functioning in 2 different cycles, a constructive cycle (生 or shēng) and a destructive cylce (克/剋 or kè). The constructive cycle can be described as follows:* * Wood feeds Fire; * Fire creates Earth (ash); * Earth bears Metal; * Metal carries Water (as in a bucket or tap); * Water nourishes Wood. On the other hand the destructive cycle can be described in this way:* * Wood parts Earth; * Earth absorbs Water; * Water quenches Fire; * Fire melts Metal; * Metal chops Wood. I remember coming back to Perth after a visit to my internal arts teacher Chen Yun Chin...

The issue of "martial arts and character" seems to be a fairly hot topic on the web: certain sites can show you any number of examples of so-called top instructors who don't have any semblance of ethics, morals etc. It is described as one of the big "myths" of martial arts and there are no shortage of people wanted to fulfil the role of "myth buster" in this regard. However is there even an argument? Traditional martial arts might be associated with a particular ethos or philosophy - via Chan/Zen Buddhism and Daoism in particular (see "Buddhism, Daoism and the martial arts" ). However this is not, has never been and cannot be the same as saying that the practice of these arts will somehow make the practitioner adhere to or reflect that ethos or philosophy. Clearly some instructors feel that training with an instructor who adheres to a given ethos/philosophy can have an impact on a student. There is also the feeling that prolonged, strenuous, ...

Introduction Readers of my blog will be familiar with my view that "it is the man, not the art". However it has recently been said to me on an internet forum that this is nothing but a myth. Rather, it is contended, some arts are plainly better than others when it comes to applicability for civilian defence (something I shall label "practicality" for the purposes of this article). Principally this view has been expounded to me by "modern" combat sports practitioners who deride traditional martial arts (with their forms/kata) as "impractical". At the centre of their argument is the observation that traditional arts are typically not practised or tested in "live" or "resistant" conditions. Why? "Because they don't work", is the inevitable retort. So are some fighting systems (in particular traditional ones) less "practical" than others (in particular the modern combat sports)? Is "the man not...