Join me for World Tai Chi Day!

If you're in Perth on 30 April 2016, feel free to join me in celebrating World Tai Chi Day.  The details are below!


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Karate punches vs. boxing punches

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Introduction In my article “ Kime: the soul of the karate punch ” I described the essential feature of the karate punch as being “focus” – ie. a combination of minimal deceleration before impact and optimum distancing – usually performed in karate with a straight thrust . Many have, and will continue to, argue that this straight thrust is less powerful than a boxer’s follow-through punches. This is true. But to understand why this does not necessarily mean that the former is less effective we’ll have to examine punching methods – what someone I know calls “delivery systems” – in greater detail. To the extent that karate punching is “less powerful”, I will then go on to examine why this is a tactical choice rather than a necessary failing. Categorising punches In a very general sense karate punches can be divided into 2 kinds: straight line and curved. In boxing, punches can be divided into 2 different categories that overlap with the karate ones, namely: 1. jabs (ie. punches which
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Zhan zhuang: grounding, structure, intention and qi

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Introduction There is a tendency in the Chinese, and increasingly in the Japanese, martial arts to venerate “standing post” training - what is known as zhan zhuang (站樁 - literally “standing like a post”).  In particular the internal arts of China are known for this practise.  Even more particularly, the art of yiquan (意拳 - literally “concept fist”) focuses almost entirely on this as a martial training method. Yiquan, which is also called “da cheng quan” (大成拳 - literally “great achievement boxing”), was developed by xingyiquan master Wang Xiangzhai (26 November 1885 - 12 July 1963).  One of his students was the Taiwan-based martial artist Wang Shujin (a master of xingyiquan, baguazhang and taijiquan who happens to have also been one of my grandmaster Chen Pan Ling's main students). In Japan the yiquan tradition was continued by Kenichi Sawai, founder of the school of taikiken (体気拳 - literally “mind and spirit fist”). So what is the point of “standing post training”?  Can
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Punching: alignment and conditioning

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Choson Ninja and the question of "conditioned" knuckles The other day one of my colleagues at the Traditional Fighting Arts Forums alerted me to a fellow who calls himself Choson Ninja. He has a series of videos on Youtube and in this particular one he tells you about the dangers of getting "ugly" knuckles from hand conditioning. The general thrust of his argument is correct: conditioning can lead to deformed and ugly knuckles - especially so if you are doing it incorrectly. Certainly, even moderate makiwara practice will cause you to develop callouses. How "unsightly" these are will depend on how much and how "hard" you do your conditioning. However I disagree with Mr Choson about much of what he says in his video. To begin with, his knuckles are not really that conditioned . Rather, they appear to be damaged from breaks. Mr Choson certainly doesn't have anywhere near the kind of callousing one gets from regular conditioning such as st
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